Free Republic

A series of sickouts orchestrated by Detroit Public School teachers that has closed 83 schools since Dec. 10 is jeopardizing the chances of a bailout being approved by the Legislature, according to some Republican lawmakers. The sickouts, which have impacted more than 34,000 students, come as the Legislature is being asked to approve Gov. Rick Snyder’s plan for a $715 million bailout of Detroit Public Schools. Snyder’s proposal needs legislative approval. “The timeliness of it (sickouts) is rather unfortunate, because we are right in the middle of addressing the governor’s proposal,” said Sen. Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake. “It is going to...

Saying the people of Flint deserve the truth about the city's water, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has released more than 250 pages of his emails that relate to the crisis. But the document dump Wednesday did little to ease the predicament he finds himself in. With each passing day, the chorus for him to step down has grown louder because the water debacle unfolded under his watch. "So far, all roads lead to Lansing when it comes to accountability," Democratic U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, who represents the Flint area, said Wednesday. The emails help show, at least in part, how...

ABOUT CAGED NO MORE CAGED NO MORE is an entertaining feature film that will raise awareness of human trafficking, aid in connecting anti-trafficking organizations, equip parents, schools and churches to aid in prevention, and assist in eradicating trafficking. Starring Kevin Sorbo, Emmy-Award winner Loretta Devine, Alan Powell, and Cassidy Gifford with appearances by Kathie Lee Gifford, Gov. Bobby Jindal and Natalie Grant. Inspired by real events, CAGED NO MORE is the story of Aggie Prejean, a grandmother on a desperate search to find her two granddaughters, Skye and Elle, who have been kidnapped by their sinister father. As the details...

Lyon, France, Jan 20, 2016 / 03:06 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After sustaining a damaged leg tendon in 1982, 34-year old international footballer Jean-Pierre Adams thought that a routine knee surgery at a hospital in Lyon, France would relieve some of his discomfort. By the end of the day, the surgery had left Adams in a comatose state, unable to perform normal bodily functions like walking or talking. That was over thirty years ago. Today, his devoted wife Bernadette personally cares for Jean-Pierre in their home near Nimes, France, where the beloved footballer remains bedridden and comatose. "I think he feels...

Republican primary front-runner Donald Trump late Wednesday pinned blame for his scriptural gaffe - saying "Two Corinthians" instead of "Second Corinthians" - on evangelical activist Tony Perkins. "Tony Perkins wrote that out for me - he actually wrote out the 2, he wrote out the number 2 Corinthians," Trump said on "CNN Tonight with Don Lemon." "I took exactly what Tony said, and I said, 'Well, Tony has to know better than anybody.'" The slip-up drew laughs from the crowd at evangelical Liberty University and has called into question the religiosity of the billionaire businessman. But Trump said he has...

In one week during January 1973, President Richard M. Nixon was inaugurated to his second term, former President Lyndon B. Johnson died, the United States and North Vietnam entered into the Paris Peace Accords, and the Supreme Court legalized abortion. Only the last of these events continues to affect and haunt the moral and constitutional order every minute of every day. The Court's decision in Roe vs. Wade is arguably its most controversial in the post-World War II era. Its effect has been as pernicious to human life as was its 19th century intellectual progenitor, Dred Scott vs. Sanford, in...

Fighting off the temptation to fall asleep during the most recent Democratic -- and Donald Trump-less -- debate, I wrote these thoughts, observations and questions I hoped would be asked but were not. I end with my opinion about who won the debate -- and who lost. No fair cheating and going right to the end. It's a falsehood that although the U.S. spends more on health, we don't get more -- we do. Survival rates for many cancers, for example, are higher in the U.S. than in comparable developed countries. Not asked: Sec. Clinton, if women earn less for...

I've never been a fan of the term "establishment." I know what it means only to me, just as you only know what it means only to you. That's not because the word has no meaning - it was quite clear not that long ago. It's because the term has lost all meaning through overuse. Words don't simply lose meaning by themselves; the meaning is stripped from them through abuse. To be called a racist was once a serious charge, as was to claim racism. Unfortunately for real victims of racism, every utterance today is subject to accusations of racism,...

SALEM-Governor Kate Brown on Wednesday had harsh words for the federal government's handling of a 19-day occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge--calling the response too slow and saying it's left neighbors in Harney County lacking as tensions worsen. Brown, speaking at a news conference where she also laid out her 2016 policy agenda, also said Oregon officials should "scrub" the state's budget next month to help offset the costs of the standoff. She put those ongoing expenses at $100,000 a week, with even more money spent during the first week of the standoff. "This situation is absolutely intolerable and...

Follow the hearing on the murder of Litvinenko

<p>ANSONIA, Conn. - A Connecticut high school student has been pulled out of classes and reported to police for substituting "ISIS" for the "United States of America" during the Pledge of Allegiance.</p> <p>"ISIS" is a term commonly used for the Islamic State group.</p>

<p>Hillary Clinton recently said she would go after offshore tax "schemes" in the Caribbean. That is a worthy endeavor, given the loss of billions of dollars in U.S. tax revenue.</p> <p>Yet her husband, Bill Clinton, reportedly made $10 million as an advisor and an occasional partner in the Yucaipa Global Partnership, a fund registered in the Cayman Islands.</p>

With Jeb struggling, supporters, staff and donors start pointing the finger at the super PAC's chief, Mike Murphy. They think he wasted money on everything from an iPad-sized video mailer to direct mail for donors in states that don't yet matter. They think his attacks on Marco Rubio are doing more harm than good. And they worry that, at the end, all he will have accomplished is the destruction of the Bush family brand. The big-money supporters fueling Jeb Bush's super PAC have found their boogey man: Mike Murphy, a sharp-witted, Twitter-obsessed veteran GOP ad man who runs Right to...

Islam tells men to beat women from whom they fear disobedience (Quran 4:34). It allows for polygamy. It allows for child marriage, since Muhammad married Aisha when she was six years old and consummated the marriage when she was nine. All those evils come together in the tragic story of Reza Gul. "Afghan Woman's Nose Is Cut Off by Her Husband, Officials Say," by David Jolly and Ahmad Shakib, Kemsat.com, January 19, 2016: KABUL, Afghanistan -- A young woman has been hospitalized in northern Afghanistan and is hoping to travel to Turkey for reconstructive surgery after her husband cut off...

Meet Jamie "Canhead" Keeton. He's also known as the "human suction cup." Keeton, 47, has a "mysterious" medical condition in which his skin can act like the suction cups on an octopus' tentacles, according to Dr. Win Myint, Keeton's doctor in Oak Lawn, Illinois. Myint told ABC News that Keeton's skin can "suck up things." He can stick cans, bottles and other inanimate objects to his head and other body parts without them falling off. "I'm not quite sure why his skin is like that, but he is definitely not sick and in fairly good shape," Myint said. "It's a...

From almost the first day he entered the 2016 race, Jeb Bush has cast himself as the cerebral, wonky adult in a room full of colorful, bombastic Republican candidates. After the rise of Donald J. Trump, and the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., Mr. Bush doubled down on that strategy, using Mr. Trump as a foil to try to show that he was a serious candidate for serious times. On Tuesday, Mr. Bush will take his message of national security and somber foreign policy to New York and the Council on Foreign Relations, where he will give...

The overall ranking of Best Countries measures global performance on a variety of metrics.

Hollywood screenwriter Craig Mazin, who shared a dorm room with Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz during their freshman year at Princeton University, spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday trashing the Texas senator on Twitter. The storm of tweets, which started Monday evening, seemed to be sparked my Mazin's influx of Twitter followers, which he attributes to people learning that he was Cruz's roommate for a short time. "I have 30k followers now, and all I had to do was be stuck in a room with Ted Cruz for a year. I'm sure you're all nice, but SO NOT WORTH IT,"...

Wednesday on CNN’s “The Situation Room ,” while discussing a new CNN poll that shows him tied for third in New Hampshire, Republican presidential candidate former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) said it’s a “tragedy” if his opponent Donald Trump becomes the GOP nominee because Hillary Clinton will beat him in a general election.

MSNBC’s “Hardball” host Chris Matthews said that “I do believe in reparations, if he could figure out what it would be” in a discussion on Democratic presidential candidate Senator Sen. Bernie Sanders ’ (I-VT) position on the issues on Wednesday.