Free Republic

As I’ve said, this stimulus package is a TRAP! It’s filled with pork and ever increasing government controls. The cognitively challenged voted for this Stalinist so we all have to suffer, but we don’t have to take it. Government controlled socialized medicine is in this bill. It creates a new government bureaucracy: the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology which will be entrusted with ALL of our medical records. Eventually bureaucrats will adopt Tom Daschle’s “Meaningful user” designation to separate out those who will no longer receive health care because, by government standards, their terminal illness makes them unworthy of...

Okay folks, sorry for the vanity, but I need some advice here. My children (daughter 9 son 7) go to a Parochial School, and this morning my daughter mentioned that they pray every morning for Obama. I asked her if they used to pray for W and she said, “no, never.” Then I said, well, maybe it’s because he’s just starting, to which she responded that they’ve been praying for “The One” since November. Now, of course, instinctively, I have a problem with this, because it’s naked partisanship, but what’s the remedy? Asking that he not be prayed for anymore...

Levi Johnston, the boyfriend of Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol, has quit his North Slope oil field job over questions about his eligibility to work in an electrical apprenticeship program, Johnston's father said Monday. Johnston, 18, began working this fall in the Milne Point oil field with ASRC Energy Services Inc., a major Slope contractor. In a Sunday newspaper column, Anchorage radio talk show host Dan Fagan questioned how Johnston could take part in ASRC's apprenticeship program without a high school diploma. Fagan said he understood federal regulations require all members of apprenticeship programs to have a diploma. He also...

The Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory and President Ronald Reagan enjoyed a deep relationship for many years. National Day of Reflection By the President of the United States of America Amid the distractions and concerns of our daily existence, it is appropriate that Americans pause to reflect upon the ancient ethical principles and moral values which are the foundation of our character as a nation. We seek, and steadfastly pursue, the benefits of education. But education must be more than factual enlightenment-it must enrich the character as well as the mind. One shining example for people of...

Governor Gilmore phased out 70 percent of the car tax during his term as Governor. The 4th and final car tax cut of the remaining 30 percent was supposed to happen under Mark Warner but he blocked it, claiming the state could not afford to finish the car tax cut -- just as he claimed the state had a budget mess when he raised taxes by $1.4 billion. After cutting the car tax by 70 percent so working families would have more of their money, Governor Gilmore left Mark Warner a balanced budget as required by law and more than...

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Forget about passing notes in study hall; some teens are now using their cell phones to flirt and send nude pictures of themselves. The instant text, picture and video messages have become part of some teens' courtship behavior, police and school officials said. The messages often spread quickly and sometimes find their way to public Web sites. "I've seen everything from your basic striptease to sexual acts being performed," said Reynoldsburg police Detective Brian Marvin, a member of the FBI Cyber Crime Task Force of Central Ohio. "You name it, they will do it at their home...

The bottom line is clear, says Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl: The Catholic Church can no longer afford to run a full complement of inner-city parochial schools serving a population that is, by an overwhelming majority, non-Catholic. So, facing a deficit of about $50 million over the next five years, the church is moving to convert at least seven D.C. elementary schools into secular, taxpayer-funded charter schools. "We simply don't have the resources to keep all those schools open," Wuerl said in an interview with Washington Post reporters and editors the other day. "We have exhausted the resources available to us."...

America has a growing enemy within. This enemy is referred to by experts as America’s Fifth Column. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the term Fifth Column refers to “A clandestine group or faction of subversive agents who attempt to undermine a nation’s solidarity [unity] by any means at their disposal.” As Britannica notes, the term is credited to Emilio Mola Vidal, a Nationalist general during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). As four of his army columns moved on Madrid, the general referred to his militant supporters within the capital as his “fifth column,” intent on undermining the loyalist government from within....

BY Tyesha Tazwell's count, there were a dozen of them - six girls, six boys - hanging around together. One of the girls tried to get Tazwell's attention by uttering a polite-sounding "Excuse me." Then they pounced. Tazwell, 24, said it took only a few seconds for the teens to knock her to the ground. They pounded her face with a barrage of kicks and punches, stole her purse and chanted "Watch your mouth! Watch your mouth!" when she finally got to her feet and tried to get help. It might sound like Tazwell received this brutal beating in some...

My old Catholic elementary school has been struggling, and that's not good for anybody. St. Germaine School in Pittsburgh, Pa. will merge with another Catholic school because of declining enrollment at both schools. St. Germaine's enrollment dropped from 172 students just six years ago to 86 this year. Sister Dale McDonald, Director of Public Policy and Education Research at the National Catholic Educational Association, told me that declining enrollment is a national trend. Though there is some growth in the South and the West, Catholic schools are shutting down at the rate of more than 100 per year. Why? Catholic...

TAMPA -- Before a Davidsen Middle School teacher started a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old student, she told the boy she could help him overcome his shyness, according to a new court filing. When teacher Stephanie Ragusa, 28, left, broke her foot and was confined to a wheel chair, the boy was assigned to escort her around the school, detectives wrote in their request for a search warrant filed in Hillsborough Circuit Court. Ragusa told the boy when they got into the elevator that she noticed he was "shy and she could break him of that," the warrant states. Then,...

Today's Washington Post details a nice example of where feminist sexual harassment hysteria (combined with a litigious society) leads: "In his seven years, Randy Castro has been an aspiring soccer player, an accomplished Lego architect and a Royal Ranger at his Pentecostal church. He also, according to his elementary school record, sexually harassed a first-grade classmate. "During recess at his Woodbridge school one day in November, when he was 6, he said, he smacked the classmate's bottom. The girl told the teacher. The teacher took Randy to the principal, who told him such behavior was inappropriate. School officials wrote an...

BAYTOWN, Texas -- A 14-year-old gave birth to a baby in a junior high school bathroom and tried to flush the newborn down the toilet, killing the infant, police told Houston television station KPRC. Grief counselors helped students and staff on Thursday deal with the incident. Baytown police said the eighth-grade student delivered the near full-term baby at Cedar Bayou Junior High School on Wednesday morning while she was alone. The baby was born alive, investigators said. "We understand that the baby was alive when it was born and that the girl attempted to flush the child down the toilet....

Growing up, as I did, in the home of Russian Jewish immigrants, it figures that I’d start out thinking that, by all rights, FDR belonged on Mount Rushmore. But, all these years later, I have concluded that most of America’s woes can be traced back to his presidency, and that the best reason for his being up there along with Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington and Teddy Roosevelt, is that his head was already made of stone. Although FDR is often, mistakenly, credited with bringing the Great Depression to an end, as Amity Shlaes made clear in her book, “The Forgotten Man,”...

When I read that Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern had "outraged gay activists," I knew that she had told an important truth. And, sure 'nuf, she had. She said: "The homosexual agenda is destroying this nation. Studies show no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted, you know, more than a few decades." She said she thinks the homosexual agenda is "the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat." Kern's office has received more than 23,000 emails, mostly condemning her views, many of the emails said to...

Sheryl Sueppel and her four children suffered blunt-force trauma, and husband and father Steven Sueppel is probably their killer, officials said Tuesday at a press conference. Iowa City Police Chief Sam Hargadine said authorities' investigation "suggests Steven Sueppel was the perpetrator of the homicide." He was identified as the person who called to report the family's deaths around 6:30 a.m. March 24. Officials also said two baseball bats may have been involved. Still, authorities do not have a cause of death for any of the Sueppels, pending autopsies being performed Tuesday. Steven Sueppel tried to kill himself at least twice...

The incident occurred at about 2:35 p.m. before the turnstiles on the Market-Frankford Line concourse at 13th and Market streets, police said. One adult male was taken to Jefferson University Hospital but was later pronounced dead. Police said homicide investigators have been summoned to the scene. A transit police sergeant was on patrol on the eastbound platform at the time of the incident. "While on patrol, he notices across the way, on the westbound concourse, a white male adult, about 30-years-old, and he's being confronted by four, young black males. A disturbance is obvious to him. He goes to investigate,"...

LifeNews.com Note: Laura Echevarria is a LifeNews.com opinion columnist. She is the former Director of Media Relations and a spokesperson for the National Right to Life Committee and has been a radio announcer, freelance writer active in local politics. *One in four teens has a sexually transmitted disease.*Pro-abortion members of Congress have requested that funding for abstinence education be cut off. *The National Education Association allowed the Feminist Majority Foundation to host its leadership conference for young women at the NEA facilities. The speaker? Infamous late-term abortionist George Tiller. *The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is developing a...

Why Don't Kids Walk To School Anymore?No sidewalk and no green buffer makes walking feel unsafe. A wide treed buffer between a sidewalk and the street encourages walking. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Michigan) ScienceDaily (Mar. 28, 2008) — Maybe when we were their age, we walked five miles to school, rain or shine. So why don't most children today walk or bike to school? It's not necessarily because they're spoiled, lazy or over scheduled. According to a University of Michigan researcher, concerns about safety are the main reason that less than 13 percent of U.S. children walked or...

OXNARD, Calif. - Larry King was a gay eighth-grader who used to come to school in makeup, high heels and earrings. And when the other boys made fun of him, he would boldly tease them right back by flirting with them. That may have been what got him killed. On Feb. 12, another student, Brandon McInerney, 14, shot him twice in the head at the back of the computer lab at their junior high school, police say. The slaying of the 15-year-old boy has alarmed gay rights activists and led to demands that middle schools do more to educate youngsters...