Free Republic

The number and rate of U.S. abortions increased from 2017 to 2020 after a long decline, according to figures released Wednesday. The report from the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights, counted more than 930,000 abortions in the U.S. in 2020. That’s up from about 862,000 abortions in 2017, when national abortion figures reached their lowest point since the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized the procedure nationwide. About one in five pregnancies ended in abortion in 2020, according to the report, which comes as the Supreme Court appears ready to overturn that decision.

How did John Rutledge know Reaganomics would be such a smashing success? In December 1981 the Journal ran a contrarian op-ed by Mr. Rutledge, then president of Claremont Economics Institute. It was the most prescient prediction by an economist I have ever read. Mr. Rutledge predicted that inflation would decline faster than expected; that interest rates would fall, not rise, despite the growing deficit; and the economy and financial markets wouldn’t slump, but soar. It all happened.

Thank God for truth, divine law and our inherited common sense. A nation built upon lies, fraud and ulterior motives has never lasted. People who betray their sworn oaths to honestly serve their fellow man do great harm to their fellow man. And unfortunately, citizens who are innocent, naive, self-indulgent, distracted and disengaged from the process of self-governance will suffer greatly as wayward governments run by narcissistic politicians collapse under decades of compounded corruption. We become enslaved by our lack of knowledge, until such time we find the courage to escape our captors. The controlling minority of politicians in our...

HONOLULU (KITV4) -- An Oahu school teacher is behind bars accused of distributing child pornography in incidents going back to 2019. According to the criminal complaint document, 34-year-old Alden Bunag committed the alleged crimes from November 2019 through at least October 2021. Federal investigators caught wind of the crimes in July 2021 after a cybertip led them to a private school teacher in Philadelphia who had allegedly uploaded child pornography. RELATED Federal authorities seize nearly 100 crocodile leather handbags in Honolulu Federal authorities seize nearly 100 crocodile leather handbags in Honolulu FBI agents executed a search warrant at the Philadelphia...

A Florida synagogue has cited religious freedoms in its lawsuit over the state's new abortion law. The act signed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on April 14 bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, without exemptions for cases of rape, incest and human trafficking. Previously, Florida allowed abortions until 24 weeks. The new law is slated to take effect on July 1. DeSantis signed the law at a church in Kissimmee, Florida. Although 74 percent of white evangelical Protestants say that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, six in 10 Americans believe it should be legal, according...

As a bombshell update to our previous story on the arrests made on Capitol Hill last night, we were right on both of our predictions. First, we said they would release the news just before close-of-business on Friday when stories are intended to get buried for the weekend. Second, we said the withholding of details from the arrest meant they were almost certainly radical leftists. It turns out the seven arrested for unlawful entry were employees of radical leftist show host Stephen Colbert. They were doing a skit about January 6, banging on doors of Republicans. What we did not...

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 16, 2022 / 12:42 pm U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday again invoked her Catholic faith while asserting her pro-abortion stance, but she remained silent on mounting attacks targeting Catholic churches and pro-life pregnancy centers. “I’m a very Catholic person and I believe in every woman’s right to make her own decisions,” the Democrat from California said during her weekly press conference on Capitol Hill. The Catholic Church considers abortion — the destruction of a human person — a grave evil. At the same press conference, Pelosi declined to say whether she agreed with Pope...

‘To the best of my knowledge ... no American bishop has ever taken this step before,’ said Catholic Culture director Phil Lawler.WORCESTER, Massachusetts (LifeSiteNews) – The Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Worcester has removed the “Catholic” status from a Jesuit-run school after it refused to heed his orders not to fly the LGBT rainbow flag and the Black Lives Matter flag. In a decree issued June 16, Bishop Robert J. McManus rebuked the Jesuit-run Nativity School in Worcester, Massachusetts, for ignoring his previous directives about the flying of the “pride” and Black Lives Matter (BLM) flags. “Despite my insistence...

WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah (KUTV) — The accused killer of her father has been arrested, but she believes the parolee suspect should have already been in prison. “He was a great guy, very quiet, very soft spoken,” said Kim Dixon of her beloved father, 82-year-old Farrell Bartschi. “Just a sweet guy.” This Father’s Day weekend, she is missing her dad, but after eight months since his death, the accused killer—Noel Munoz Lopez—is finally in custody. On a morning last October, Farrell Bartschi was on his daily walk in the neighborhood of 4200 West 3800 South in West Valley.

Lawmakers approve two bills that would allow same-sex marriages and two others that would permit civil partnerships Thailand has taken a step toward marriage equality as lawmakers gave initial approval to legalizing same-sex unions, prompting celebrations outside the parliament building. It is a significant landmark in a Buddhist-majority country with a highly visible LGBTQ community but whose members still face major barriers and discrimination. The legislation approved on June 15 must clear several more hurdles before becoming law. If it succeeds, Thailand would be the first country in Southeast Asia to recognize same sex unions. The lower house approved two...

In a lesson for the ages about political grandstanding, Rep. John Garamendi said, "Nine multinational ocean shipping companies formed three consortiums to raise prices on American businesses and consumers by over 1,000% on goods coming from Asia," as he and other members of the Swamp proudly passed the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022, which former NIT-League president Ed Emmett has rightly called "a cure that's worse than the disease." Never mind that the containership lines have actually operated these alliances, known as Vessel Sharing Agreements, for over a generation, strictly for the benefit of the consumer. The accusatory term...

George Washington University officials have decided to remove the school’s “Colonial” mascot following years of woke activists demanding the university ban it for not being “inclusive.” Students then suggested the university change its mascot to a “hippo” or a “riverhorse” instead. “After a thoughtful and deliberate process that engaged the university community for feedback, the George Washington University’s Board of Trustees has accepted the recommendation of a Special Committee to discontinue the use of the Colonials moniker,” GW announced in a statement. “The decision to change the Colonials moniker was not taken lightly,” the university added, before stressing that “a...

Geoff Shepard, former deputy White House counsel for Nixon, has written three fabulous books that should forever change Americans’ views about Watergate — The Secret Plot to Make Ted Kennedy President (2008), The Real Watergate Scandal (2015), and The Nixon Conspiracy (2021). ... Shepard has also written a series of important articles on Watergate for The American Spectator. Shepard’s work has solidly built on the foundations laid by James Hougan’s Secret Agenda (1984) and Len Colodny’s and Robert Gettlin’s Silent Coup: The Removal of a President (1991). Shepard’s work shatters the conventional Woodward–Bernstein “history” of Watergate peddled by the mainstream...

Ultrasonic sound waves have been used to levitate objects in crowded rooms to make hologram-like displays. Such acoustic levitation was previously only practical in empty spaces, but a new algorithm can quickly readjust the sound waves when they encounter an obstacle to keep the object in the air. Sound waves are comprised of air particles moving together. If manipulated in the right way, they can pick up and move objects. However, if the sound waves run into some other object that reflects or scatters them, the levitating object can come tumbling down. Ryuji Hirayama at University College London and his...

Rep. Markwayne Mullen (R-OK) said the Biden administration is deliberately harming the U.S. economy to create pretexts for further governmental seizures of power and control over society. Inflation of gas prices due to government decrees and policies is part of a broader undermining of U.S. prosperity driven by the Democrat Party to create citizens’ dependency on the state, Mullen stated. “There are three things that a socialist takeover has to control,” Mullen said. “They have to control the education system, the healthcare system, and the energy sector. The energy sector, because the energy sector is the backbone of every economy....

The Russian president is delivering his speech at the annual SPIEF business forum in St. Petersburg. His address is dedicated to the future of Russia and the rest of the world in the wake of renewed pressure from western sanctions against Moscow. Addressing the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that the unipolar world has come to an end despite all of its beneficiaries' attempts to preserve it at any cost. The president added that following the end of the Cold War, the US declared its national interests to be "sacred" and not to be...

Good news guys! Climate change is now solved because The Audubon society made this creepy video of drag queen Pattie Gonia dancing around like a bird.

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Chris Jansing Reports,” Senior Adviser to President Joe Biden Gene Sperling responded to a survey showing that a majority of CEOs expect a recession in the next 18 months by stating that “we think that too many people are not looking at the more reassuring elements of resilience in this economy right now and they’re not realizing that the American Rescue Plan put a historic number of people back to work.” Host Chris Jansing asked, “So, look, because of fuel prices, it’s fueling inflation, there are concrete fears of a recession. There was one survey...

A document, titled “1776 Returns,” which federal prosecutors said was used by the leader of the Proud Boys, lays out a plan to occupy Capitol buildings on Jan. 6, 2021, using covert operators to let "patriots" inside government offices in an apparent effort to force a new election. Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, and four other members were indicted on seditious conspiracy charges this month. Tarrio has twice been ordered detained until trial. The nine-page document, filed in federal court Wednesday, lays out a plan to fill buildings “with patriots and communicate our demands." Its stated...

A 240-meter-long (787 feet) glass bridge with a "diamond-shaped" bar suspended in the center was unveiled at Dashbashi Canyon, located around two hours drive from capital city Tbilisi, in Southern Georgia earlier this week. Constructed by investment group Kass Group, which operates in Israel and Georgia, the huge transparent structure, which rises to 280 meters (around 919 feet,) stretches across the natural monument, offering panoramic views of its stunning waterfalls and caves. Made from steel and glass, it took around three years to construct..The transparent bridge stretches across the canyon, providing stunning views of the natural monument. Irakli Gedenidze/Reuters