Free Republic

Washington (CNN) – Support for the country's new health care law has dropped to a record low, according to a new national poll. And a CNN/ORC International survey released Monday also indicates that most Americans predict that the Affordable Care Act will actually result in higher prices for their own medical care. Only 35% of those questioned in the poll say they support the health care law, a 5-point drop in less than a month. Sixty-two percent say they oppose the law, up four points from November.

An Obama appointee to the federal bench ruled Friday that the right to same-sex marriage is “deeply rooted in the nation’s history and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” and as such is a fundamental right. Judge Robert J. Shelby was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Central Division of Utah in 2012 by President Obama, then confirmed by a Senate voice vote on Sept. 21, 2012, with neither debate nor objection, according to CNS News. A federal district court is a court of original jurisdiction, but if its opinions are left unchallenged, they become the law...

Israel’s intelligence community has determined that Turkey has replaced Iran as the leading financial backer of Hamas since 2012, reports the World Tribune, citing unspecified “israeli sources.” The sources said the government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has overseen the transfer of up to $250 million a year to Hamas, and particularly to its governing apparatus in Gaza. “The money is channeled mostly through private sources, but with full coordination with Erdogan and his aides,” a source said. Turkey has coordinated the cash transfers with Qatar, which has been hosting the Hamas leadership since its expulsion from Syria in...

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who is heading the Israeli team for peace talks with the Palestinian Authority, said Sunday that Israel should ignore the terrorists who carried out the bus bombing in Bat Yam and continue with the peace process. Livni, who spoke at a special conference marking Quality Government Day, said that the Palestinian Authority with whom she is negotiating is not behind the terror attack. "Those who tried to harm us today are not those with whom we are conducting or will conduct negotiations," she insisted. “We will not allow criminal terrorists to determine Israel's future. Israel continues...

KAMPALA, UGANDA – South Sudan's central government lost control of the capital of a key oil-producing state Sunday, the military said, as renegade forces loyal to a former deputy president seized more territory in fighting that has raised fears of full-blown civil war in the world's newest country. Bentiu, the capital of oil-rich Unity state, is now controlled by a military commander loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar, said Col. Philip Aguer, the South Sudanese military spokesman. "Bentiu is in the hands of a commander who has declared support for Machar," he said. "Bentiu is not in our hands."...

Professor Yisrael (Robert) Aumann reacted Saturday night to the news that Haifa University’s Executive Committee has decided not to award him an honorary doctorate due to his right-wing political views. Aumann is a Nobel Prize winner in the field of economics. Speaking to Channel 1’s program Roim Olam, Aumann joked : “I’ve prayed and aspired to getting an honorary doctorate from Haifa University for my whole life.” “I’m very disappointed,” he added, sarcastically. Aumann linked the issue to academic boycotts against Israeli schools. “I have to say that we create this issue of boycotts ourselves,” he said. Former Member of...

President Shimon Peres on Sunday evening phoned and thanked bus driver Michael Yoger and passenger David Papo, whose actions saved lives in the explosion on the 240 bus in Bat Yam earlier in the day. Peres asked to hear the details of the event and thanked Yoger and Papo for their actions in discovering the device and clearing the passengers from the bus, saving lives in the process. The explosion took place shortly after passengers noticed a suspicious object and reported it to the driver, who quickly removed all passengers from the bus. .....

Brooklyn, NY - A woman walking along a Brooklyn street Saturday became the latest apparent victim of the sick “knockout game.” The 33-year-old was walking down the block with her 7-year-old daughter when she was ambushed in front of 1212 Elm Street in Midwood by a Black male in his thirties. The victim was taken to Maimonides Medical Center by EMS where she was treated for minor injuries and later released. the NYPD’s 70th precinct hate crime task force is investigating, no arrests have been made in the assault. police gave the description of the perpetrator as a Male, Black,...

Amid reports that the United States is planning to present a framework agreement for peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) within a month, the PA’s chief negotiator said on Sunday that the sides have not even had any direct talks for weeks. NRG/Maariv quoted Saeb Erekat as having said that the only talks in recent weeks have been taking place between the PA and the Americans and the Americans and the Israelis. Israeli and PA representatives have not been meeting recently, he stressed. "There have not been talks for some time," said Erekat. “The meetings currently taking place...

Our Troops Rock!  Thank you for all you do!   For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces.   Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today!     ~ Hall of Heroes ~ Part 4:  The LegacyAll info and photos from this website. Link to Part One Link to Part Two Link to Part Three             THE AIRLIFT'S LEGACY   The most obvious result of this confrontation was the 40-year Cold War with the Soviet Union, which ebbed with the construction of...

Both the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups welcomed Sunday’s attack on a bus in the central Israeli city of Bat Yam. Neither group, however, claimed responsibility for the bombing, in which one officer was lightly wounded. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said in a statement quoted by the Palestinian Authority-based Ma’an news agency that the organization welcomed the attack, which he said was a "response to the crimes of the occupation." A source with the Islamic Jihad group told Ma’an he hoped the attack "could usher the resumption of suicide attacks." He added that the attack was "a sign that...

With the closure of the recent Atlantic Club Casino Hotel, rumors of the bankrupt Revel being sold to Hard Rock, Las Vegas real estate prices remaining depressed, casinos opening up all around the country and online gambling legislation underway in various states, it seems as if the reasons for the very existence of Atlantic City and Las Vegas are in serious jeopardy. Beginning in the late 1940s, Las Vegas became known as the 'adult playground of the world.' Celebrities knew they made the big time when their names graced the billboards of ‘Sin City.’ Gamblers hoping to make money would...

The family fighting to keep a brain-dead 13-year-old girl on medical support through Christmas blasted administrators at Children's Hospital Oakland on Thursday evening, saying that hospital officials told them in a private meeting that the girl had to be taken off her ventilator "quickly." "They said, 'What don't you understand?' She is dead, dead, dead,'" said Omari Sealey, the uncle of Jahi McMath, the Oakland teen who has been kept alive by machines since complications from a tonsil surgery last week in a case that has brought national attention and prayers from social media users around the world. "They just...

There was a time in America when retail brawls only broke out around Thanksgiving dinner time (and increasingly earlier with every passing year). It appears that's no longer the case as the recent release of the Air Jordan 11s reveals. USA Today reports that following the release of Jordan 11 Retro Gamma Blue sneakers on Saturday, "the nation just about fell apart." One week ago, a crowd tore down a mall door just to get an advance ticket to buy the $185 Jordans. With the shoes now officially on sale, the world appears to be ending. And it goes on:...

MK Orit Struk of the Jewish Home (Bayit Yehudi) party called on the Israeli government to stop releasing Arab terrorist murderers from jail, following the terror attack Sunday on a bus in Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv. The release of the murderers has been presented to the public as a “gesture” accompanying “peace talks” with the Palestinian Authority (PA). "The release of terrorists is the fuel on the fire of the terrorism that is returning to our streets,” MK Struk said. “I call on the government to stop the release of terrorists and bring back sanity, responsibility and security...

What people don’t know is that the Christmas special almost didn’t happen, because some not-so-smart television executives almost didn’t let it air. You see, Charles Schulz had some ideas that challenged the way of thinking of those executives 46 years ago, and one of them had to do with the inclusion in his Christmas cartoon of a reading from the King James Bible’s version of the Gospel of Luke. The more things change, the more things stay the same. There was a standoff of sorts, but Schulz did not back down, and because of the tight production schedule and CBS’s...

In the fallout over Wednesday’s suspension of “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson by A&E for anti-gay and racist remarks, GLAAD is experiencing record levels of backlash. “In the five-and-a-half years I’ve worked at GLAAD, I’ve never received so many violently angry phone calls and social media posts attacking GLAAD for us speaking out against these comments,” the media watchdog organization’s vice president of communications Rich Ferraro told TheWrap. He said those reactions range from those who simply believe as Robertson believes to those who feel that GLAAD and A&E’s actions limit the reality star’s free speech. Also read: ‘Duck Dynasty’:...

The battle over military retirement benefits in the budget deal was the first skirmish in a larger compensation war, and next year's outcome could determine the fate of long-protected military compensation programs. Budget experts and veterans groups say the retirement benefits fight will serve as a test case to see what appetite there is on Capitol Hill to actually cut military compensation costs — and how much blowback will come from those efforts. “There’s no doubt that this is a little bit of a weather vane, a litmus test as to what the veterans and military communities’ tolerance is going...

This graphic from Woods Hole in Massachusetts – one of the world’s top ocean science institutions – shows how much more cesium was dumped into the sea off Japan from Fukushima as compared to nuclear testing and Chernobyl [above]: The Canadian government has confirmed in October that Fukushima radiation will exceed “levels higher than maximum fallout” from the nuclear tests. The party line from the Japanese, Canadian and American governments are that these are safe levels of radiation. Given that those countries have tried to ban investigative journalism and have tried to cover up the scope of the Fukushima...

Passengers on a bus in Bat Yam where a bomb exploded Sunday afternoon attributed the fact that no one was killed to a miracle. Police said that based on their initial investigation, the explosion on the number 240 bus from Bnai Brak to Bat Yam was due to a bomb placed by Arab terrorists. One person – a police bomb squad officer – was injured as he approached a suspicious package on the bus. A spokesperson for the Dan Bus Company said that there twelve passengers on the bus when a passenger alerted the driver that there was a suspicious...