Free Republic

When we talk about "pro-life" in our national discussion about abortion, "life" is understood to be about the unborn child in the mother's womb. But it would serve us well to expand our understanding about what "pro-life" means. We should understand that respecting the sanctity of life is key to the values and behaviors in general that sustain and nourish all our lives today and create the necessary conditions for our future. A just-released report from the National Center for Health Statistics, a unit of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reports that the total number of births in...

As the cast of characters vying for the Democratic presidential nomination seeks to distance themselves from the rest of the herd by embracing an even more irresponsible platform, California Sen. Kamala Harris recently upped the ante to new levels.Speaking to an audience of labor members and organizers at The Enclave in Las Vegas, Harris called for a federal ban on right-to-work laws, declaring, “I’d use my executive authority to make sure barriers are not in place to do the advocacy (unions) need to do.” At least she’s consistent. Harris’s latest foray into Constitutional contempt, in fact, came just days after her...

From now on, the Trump-Russia affair -- the investigation that dominated the first years of Donald Trump's presidency -- will be divided into two parts: before and after the release of Robert Mueller's report. Before the special counsel's findings were made public last month, the president's adversaries were on the offensive. Now, they are playing defense. The change is due to one simple fact: Mueller could not establish that there was a conspiracy or coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign to fix the 2016 election. The special counsel's office interviewed 500 witnesses, issued 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search-and-seizure...

Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale is disputing media reports that claim the campaign’s internal polling shows the president trailing Joe Biden in key battleground states. Politico reported Monday that that the campaign recently conducted polls in 17 states that ultimately showed President Donald Trump losing to former Vice President Joe Biden in three major Rust Belt states: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Look at the dollar bills in your wallet. They say they are "legal tender for all debts."But are they? What makes them valuable? What makes them worth anything?Each bill says, "In God We Trust." But God won't guarantee their value.The $20 bill depicts the White House. Congress is on $50s. But neither guarantees the value of our dollars.I wouldn't trust them if they did. I don't trust politicians, generally, but I especially don't trust them with money. Since President Richard Nixon took the U.S. off the gold standard, the dollar has lost 80 percent of its value.So what makes money...

We no longer live in a constitutional republic. We live in an idiocracy. Only in modern-day America, under the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, is the basic proposition that federally subsidized public housing should benefit American citizens and legal residents slammed as "despicable" and "damaging." Those are the hysterical words used by Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York City to condemn the proposal discussed by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson on Tuesday to ban government aid to residents of HUD who shelter illegal immigrants. The rule change would end a Clinton-era regulation that allowed immigrants to obtain...

Presidential contenders are in a battle to out give one another. Senator Elizabeth Warren proposes a whopping $50,000 per student college loan forgiveness. Senator Bernie Sanders proposes free health care for all Americans plus illegal aliens. Most Democratic presidential candidates promise free stuff that includes free college, universal income, "Medicare for All" and debt forgiveness. Their socialist predecessors made promises too. "Freedom and Bread" was the slogan used by Adolf Hitler during the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi) campaign against president Paul von Hindenburg. Hitler even promised, "In the Third Reich every German girl will find a husband." Stalin...

The United States State Department is "seeing signs" of chemical weapons use by Syrian government forces in northwestern Syria. The State Department promising Tuesday that the US and allied nations will respond "quickly and appropriately" if the use of chemical weapons is proven.... Top US officials including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Joseph Dunford briefed members of Congress Tuesday about Iran.... The United Nations representative for Libya says steps need to be taken to cut off arms supplies to Libya where a government ostensibly backed by the UN is...

On Monday night, President Trump held a rally in Montoursville, Pennsylvania to ramp up support in the all-important battleground state. Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016, but according to a newly released Quinnipiac pollOpens a New Window. , Joe Biden leads the President 53 to 42 percent there. With recent polls showing Biden in the lead over the other 23 declared Democrat candidates, many officials within the Trump campaign are looking at the former VP as their main opponent going into the election. Chris Wilson, former pollster for the Ted Cruz Campaign, and CEO of WPA Intelligence warned that polling is...

In the past several weeks, a bevy of states have passed extensive new restrictions on abortion. Alabama has effectively banned abortion from point of conception. Georgia has banned abortion from the time a heartbeat is detected, as have Ohio, Kentucky and Mississippi. Missouri has banned abortion after eight weeks. Other states are on the move as well. This has prompted paroxysms of rage from the media and the political left -- the same folks who celebrated when New York passed a law effectively allowing abortion up until point of birth and who defended Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam's perverse statements about...

WASHINGTON — The United States said Tuesday it suspected that Syrian government forces have carried out a fresh chemical attack and threatened reprisals. The State Department said it was assessing indications that the regime used chemical weapons on Sunday during its offensive in Idlib, the most significant remaining holdout in Syria of jihadist rebels.

The Environmental Protection Agency is pursuing new rules for regulatory cost-benefit analysis that critics fear could undermine the agency's regulation of climate pollution by saying it costs too much. ... "This action supports the Trump Administration’s efforts to identify regulations that impose costs that exceed benefits, providing clarity, transparency and consistency in how regulations are written," EPA said in releasing the memo. ... Environmentalists decried the memo as a threat to efforts to curb climate change on the grounds that it would undermine the need for new regulations.

After reporting LA's most notorious trash pile to the city's 311 services hotline, the I-Team was told it could take up to 90 days before it's cleaned up. An expert says there's no time to waste. Rat-infested piles of rotting garbage left uncollected by the city of Los Angeles, even after promises to clean it up, are fueling concerns about a new epidemic after last year's record number of flea-borne typhus cases. Even the city's most notorious trash pile, located between downtown LA's busy Fashion and Produce districts, continues to be a magnet for rats after it was cleaned up...

Pennsylvania was Trump country in 2016. The question in 2019 is, will Pennsylvania deliver the votes for a Trump victory in 2020? In the match-up between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016, Trump won the state by more than 44,000 votes. The contest turned out to be 48.2% to 47.5% in favor of Trump. With the additions of Wisconsin and Michigan, Trump broke through the blue wall previously responsible for Democrat wins in presidential elections in recent years. The combined margin of votes in favor of Trump in all three states totaled 77,000. So, it was tight in these...

In order to have a rational discussion about abortion, it is best to begin with areas of agreement. The simple truths presented here are not intended to solve all disagreements about abortion, but to provide the foundation for a rational discussion.

Attorney General William Barr on Tuesday said he has noticed a troubling trend of nationwide injunctions issued by lower courts that have taken their toll on President Trump’s agenda and threaten the political process for future administrations. Barr, who has been accused by Democrats of protecting Trump after the release of the Mueller report, told the American Law Institute that there is a new trend of judicial "willingness" to review executive action, which injects courts into the political process... ...Vice President Mike Pence recently said the administration will ask the Supreme Court to bar them.... ...Barr said nationwide injunctions violate...

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ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey’s defense minister said it was preparing for potential U.S. sanctions over its purchase of Russian S-400 missile defense systems, even while he said there was some improvement in talks with the United States over buying F-35 fighter jets.... ...Akar said linking the S-400s purchase with that of the F-35s is “another hurdle” and noted that nine NATO partners have a stake. “There is no clause anywhere in the F-35 agreement saying one will be excluded from the partnership for buying S-400s,” he said. “Turkey has paid $1.2 billion. We also produced the parts ordered from us...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Reality has set in during the three weeks since President Donald Trump and Democratic congressional leaders agreed to work together on a $2 trillion package to invest in roads, bridges and broadband. Republican leaders in Congress have shown little enthusiasm for the price tag, and even less for the idea of raising the federal fuel tax to help pay for upgrading the nation's infrastructure. Trump himself has suggested that Democrats are somehow setting a trap to get him to go along with a tax increase. Trump and Democratic lawmakers will meet at the White House on Wednesday...

May 21 (UPI) -- A U.S. House subcommittee wants to approve only half of the Pentagon's spare parts purchases for F-35 jets in reviewing 2020 budgetary plans. Last week, the Democrat-led House Appropriations Committee released a draft of the fiscal year 2020 defense funding bill, which includes $690.2 billion in discretionary spending. The legislation includes 90 F-35 aircraft, 12 more than requested, and eight F-15EX aircraft, meant to recapitalize the F-15C/D fleet in the U.S. military. … The panel plans to approve half of the $728.7 million request for spare parts for Navy and Air Force F-35s until the Pentagon...