Free Republic

Amid shouts of "What about free speech?" from the audience, the Allegan Police Department ordered the event shut-down. School officials notified police that they had received a letter complaining about the event from Dawud Walid, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI). The letter asked the school to disallow the event despite an existing contract. CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism funding trial in U. S. history, U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation. As a result, the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, announced...

Deciding what to name your newborn baby is no petty task. For years parents everywhere have made sure their child’s name holds a special meaning; whether it’s after a grandparent, important figure, or something of symbolic meaning, naming a child is usually a drawn out process. But Tuesday’s birth of Jessica Simpson’s daughter, Maxwell Drew Johnson, reminds us of all the celebrities who have come up with some pretty interesting names. Unorthodox at times, the rich and famous do have a formula for deeming what name fits their child best. Here are a few assumptions and one true story. •...

Forward is the preezy's code word for socialism. That's where we're headed." "How can the economy grow when $5 trillion is removed from it, or a portion of it? How can the economy grow when over two million jobs have been destroyed?" "Obama's going in the exact opposite direction from fiscal responsibility. The guy 'who has spent more in his 3-1/2 year first term than all previous presidents combined through deficit creation,' and 'fiscal responsibility,' just don't go together no matter how you massage it." "I don't think we've ever had anybody this delusional, either in Afghanistan or sitting in...

It’s been five weeks since the Obama administration granted Egypt its full $1.3 billion in annual military aid despite its government’s failure to meet conditions set by Congress for advancing democracy. In granting a waiver on national security grounds, administration officials argued that continuing the funding was more likely to encourage cooperation with the United States and progress on human rights than a cutoff would. As it turns out, the administration was wrong. In a number of tangible ways, U.S.-Egyptian relations and the military’s treatment of civil society have deteriorated since the waiver was issued March 23. The threat to...

Let the art market roar. Norwegian painter Edvard Munch became the most expensive artist at auction Wednesday when his 1895 pastel of a terrified man clutching his cheeks along an Oslo fjord, "The Scream," sold for $119.9 million at Sotheby's—the most ever paid for a work of art at auction. The purchase surpasses the $106.5 million spent two years ago for Pablo Picasso's 1932 portrait of his mistress, "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust," as well as Alberto Giacometti's earlier record of $104.3 million for his 1960 spindly bronze sculpture, "Walking Man I." In a dogged contest at the auction house's...

The supervolcano that lies beneath Yellowstone National Park might have erupted less powerfully but more frequently than previously thought... In the ancient past, the supervolcano at Yellowstone led to some of the largest-known continental eruptions in Earth's history. Each of the world's roughly one dozen supervolcanoes is capable of spewing up to thousands of times more magma and ash than any eruption ever recorded in human history. Scientists now find that the biggest Yellowstone eruption — the fourth-largest known to science, which created the 2-million-year-old Huckleberry Ridge deposit — was actually at least two different eruptions that occurred about 6,000...

William McGurn of the Wall Street Journal and George Weigel, my colleague at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, have intelligent columns (here and here) about Representative Paul Ryan's address at Georgetown University last week. There are two elements to the speech worth drawing attention to. The first is a commendable modesty in Ryan's remarks. While Ryan, a committed Catholic, provided a robust defense of his budget, he readily admits there is plenty of room for differences over the prudential application of Christian principles to matters of public policy. Too often people on both the left and the right insist the New Testament and...

The same GPS technology that gets drivers from Point A to Point B could someday provide authorities with a faster way to react to devastating earthquakes or tsunamis. That's the idea behind a new research network that can pinpoint the exact location and magnitude of strong earthquakes in a matter of seconds. The Real-Time Earthquake Analysis for Disaster Mitigation Network uses GPS measurements from nearly 500 stations throughout California, Oregon and Washington in order to generate instant calculations on the size and strength of an earthquake. "This is about gathering information of the event while it's happening, it's not about...

The Obama re-election campaign has moved on from the 2008 campaign slogan, "Change we can believe in." Yesterday Team Obama introduced the 2012 version – "Forward" – complete with a seven minute video.  But, it immediately raised some eyebrows among the politically astute. Victor Morton at the Washington Times recognized that Forward is "a word with a long and rich association with European Marxism."  Gee, I wonder why anybody closely connected to Barack Obama would come up with that idea? The following is an excerpt and a link to Morton's article: Many Communist and radical publications and entities throughout the...

CASTAIC (CBS) — A Newhall woman will be arraigned Wednesday on charges of piecing together shredded checks police say she and her boyfriend found in a trash bin to counterfeit checks and steal more than $16,000 from 20 victims, including a church. Detectives searched the Newhall home of Grant Lind, 49, and his girlfriend Tammy Combe, 47, where they found hundreds of bank account numbers, fictitious and stolen IDs, check manufacturing equipment, identity profiles and counterfeit checks, according to officials. The couple’s alleged scheme first came to light when a Castaic church reported its bank account information was stolen and...

I would like to address the constituents of the 6th Congressional district of Michigan regarding the 2012 election. As the former legislative director for Concerned Women for America of Michigan, it is my pleasure to enthusiastically endorse Jack Hoogendyk for Congress. I had the honor of working with Hoogendyk when he was a representative for the Michigan Legislature. As the chief of staff for the former chair of the Family and Children Services Committee, I witnessed Hoogendyk’s dedication and passion for protecting women, children and families. There are many important issues affecting families in the Michigan that often go unreported...

That being said, I ask you to strongly consider voting for Scott Keadle for the 8th District Seat. Before you do this, I would ask you to not take my words completely for this, but take the time to Google each of the five candidates names, check Facebook posts, and research. When you do this look objectively at what you find, and don’t find. I think that you will find; 1. No record at all in some cases. 2. A record with too may past and present campaign questions along with Large Fast money. 3. Many, many Washington DC ties....

The Virginian-Pilot newspaper of Norfolk, Va., waited two weeks before reporting that two white reporters were beaten by a group of young black men. And since the story came out, the city’s police department has defended its handling of the case. Columnist Michelle Washington broke the news of the April 14 attack on reporters Dave Forster and Marjon Rostami in the May 1 edition of the newspaper. “Wave after wave of young men surged forward to take turns punching and kicking their victim,” Washington wrote. Washington and a police report obtained by NBC station WAVY indicate the reporters were driving...

Israel, only 'free' country in the region, ranks 65th in the world for press freedoms Freedom House Report: Israel maintains 'free' status, though just barely By Hillary Zaken and AP May 1, 2012, 12:07Global media freedom showed no overall decline for the first time in eight years, according to Freedom House's annual survey of freedom of the press, released Tuesday. Israel was ranked the only Free country in the Middle East and North Africa, with a rating of 30.The rating ties it with Greece and makes it the 65th most free country in the world for press freedoms.As decades-old authoritarian...

Phoenix, AZ -- Transparency in the Obama Administration has a price. The U.S. Forest Service wants $78,935.80 before it will share public records the Goldwater Institute has requested under the Freedom of Information Act. Not only is the U.S. Forest Service blocking emergency repairs to the City of Tombstone’s Huachuca Mountain water supply, it is now hiding the documents that might explain its outrageous conduct.  In a showdown with the “town too tough to die,” the U.S. Forest Service blocked Tombstone from repairing its mountain spring aqueduct after it was destroyed in the 2011 Monument Fire. The Forest Service is...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: It's Gutsy Call Day. Isn't that what they're calling this? Gutsy Call Day! It was Obama's "gutsy call" to go out there and get Osama. How long is this Gutsy Call Day gonna last? You know, we joked last week that it would probably become a national holiday. But it's bigger than just a one-day celebration. You realize it's been going on for a week now? They started this stuff last week, the big buildup. Yesterday was the big day, and they're still talking about it today. But I vowed at the top of this program not...

. Democrats are struggling to raise money for the party's national convention this summer in Charlotte, N.C., in part because they've barred corporations and lobbyists from contributing. Now, one set of donors the party was banking on—organized labor—says it won't help pay for the event or will scale back contributions, partly because it is upset that the convention will be in a state considered unfriendly to unions. Labor unions chipped in $8.6 million of the $60.5 million the party spent in 2008 in Denver. This year, a number of construction unions, as well as the labor organization Unite Here, plan...

On Wednesday's NBC Today, panelist and attorney Star Jones fretted over a recent campaign ad mocking President Obama's celebrity status and implied racial overtones in the criticism: "...what worries me is that it's another attempt to paint Obama as an 'other.' You know, they tried that with 'Oh, he ate dog meat when he was a boy.'" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] Even fellow liberal panelist, advertising executive Donny Deutsch, called out Jones for her suggestion: "I hope this is not a black/white issue....Star, you're misreading." Jones stood by her accusation: "When you're pointing...

The Department of Homeland Security, continuing its crackdown on employers who hire illegal immigrants, has ordered hundreds of companies in recent weeks to submit their hiring records for inspection. This year's first "silent raids" haven't been publicly announced by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the DHS agency that conducts them. But an ICE spokeswoman confirmed on Tuesday that as of March 29, the agency had notified 500 businesses "of all sizes and types" to turn over I-9 employment-eligibility forms and other documents for audits. "These inspections will determine whether or not the businesses are complying with their employment-eligibility verification requirements," said...

Dan Rather, former "CBS Evening News" host and current star of Mark Cuban's HDNet, has been out promoting his new book, "Rather Outspoken." In an interview with Piers Morgan on Tuesday, Rather recalled the last conversation he had with George W. Bush after his controversial 2004 CBS News report on the former president's Air National Guard service record. "I was at the White House for a briefing for reporters, and I asked him a couple of questions and he answered the questions," Rather said. "And then afterward he said to me, 'I hope you'll be happy retired in Austin.' That's...