Free Republic

America’s Catholic Bishops Made Back All $3 Billion in Sex Abuse Settlements by Trafficking Illegal Immigrants at Taxpayer ExpenseDoes this explain their open borders fanaticism?One of the creepy ironies of abortion is that the U.S. has imported, in sheer numbers, virtually one immigrant for every American child aborted since 1973. (That is, around 1 million per year.) It’s almost as if our country and its economy needed those people, and after it shipped them to medical waste dumpsters, it had to go find them in foreign countries — stripping entire cities and their families of fathers. Likewise, as Gateway Pundit...

When the Congressional Black Caucus wanted to pay off the mortgage on its foundation’s stately 1930s redbrick headquarters on Embassy Row, it turned to a familiar roster of friends: corporate backers like Wal-Mart, AT&T, General Motors, Coca-Cola and Altria, the nation’s largest tobacco company. ...Most political groups in Washington would have been barred by law from accepting that kind of direct aid from corporations. But by taking advantage of political finance laws, the caucus has built a fund-raising juggernaut unlike anything else in town. ...From 2004 to 2008, the Congressional Black Caucus’s political and charitable wings took in at least...

Brooding discontent, fanned by the nation’s economic woes, is emerging as a driving force in the 2010 elections as voters put incumbents and establishment politicians on notice that they will no longer tolerate business as usual. Republican Scott Brown’s election last week to the Massachusetts Senate seat that Democrat Ted Kennedy held for 46 years underscored the rebellious mood gripping voters. The same undercurrents are roiling the political waters in Texas ahead of the state’s Republican and Democratic primaries March 2. Opinion surveys and anecdotal evidence point to a deep distrust of government and growing doubts about the future. In...

No one disputes that the Woodall Rodgers Deck Park under construction in downtown Dallas is innovative. The 5-acre park is being built on top of an eyesore freeway. Soon, the concrete canyon of a roadway will be covered by an elevated green space where people can walk, ride bikes or play checkers.

Israel should immediately lay down its arms and march back to the border. It need not even wait for the United Nations to pass a resolution. The result will be the same, only faster, if Israel's forces withdraw unilaterally, in one night, as we did in May 2000. Why wait an extra day, to be sitting ducks in enemy territory, to lose soldiers, for nothing? As they did then, Hezbollah may shoot at us as we run away, or claim the vehicles, weapons, equipment, and tefilin bags our soldiers leave behind in their haste to flee back behind the border....

A Thurles man who suffered the wrath of unwanted night time visitors recently has taken to mounting a surveillance of his locality in a bid to catch the perpetrators of crime - the scene of which he feels certain they will return to. The man who does not wish to be identified is now patrolling the area at night time in the hope that the thieves return - they got away empty handed on the night, but may get more than they bargained for if they return. He awoke to find two thieves climbing through the window of his house...

OAKLAND, Calif. — Revelli Tire ( search) has been a family-owned business in Oakland, Calif., for 56 years. But if action by the city council remains on course, the tire store will have to find a new home or go the way of the dinosaur. In July, using the power of eminent domain, the Oakland City Council evicted John Revelli from his store and locked the doors. The council's argument: One landowner should not impede the progress of a city on the move. "I am being forced to give up and give away all I have worked for all these...

As polls show he is at a real risk to lose the election, South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle has issued an urgent call for American Indians in the state to vote for him, stressing the fact that early voting laws mean anyone can file a ballot between now and election day. "Voters in Indian Country will once again have the chance to help determine who controls the White House and the United States Senate," Daschle said. "The new early voting offices make participating in this important election easier than ever before." New early voting offices are now open in Pine...

RICHMOND -- An antismoking lawsuit in Illinois threatens to shut off millions of dollars that now flow to Virginia, Maryland and dozens of other states that have come to depend on money from a national settlement they reached with cigarette makers in 1998. An Illinois judge ruled last month that Philip Morris USA must post a $12 billion bond if it wants to appeal a verdict in a class-action case involving claims that it falsely advertised its light tar cigarettes. The company has said that it wants to appeal the $10.1 billion judgment but that it cannot post the bond...