Free Republic

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WICS/WRSP) — There is a new bill working its way through the Statehouse to allow people to use food stamps to buy fast food. Right now, you can only use that money to buy groceries at a store or farmer’s market but if this bill is signed into law, you could order a burger at the nearest fast food joint. House Bill 3343 would establish a Restaurant Meals Program to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. If passed, recipients can use their monthly allotment to buy meals from restaurants. Only certain recipients qualify: the elderly, disabled, homeless...

Former Democratic gubernatorial candidates Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum this week questioned the outcomes of their 2018 gubernatorial races -- suggesting that they, rather than their Republican opponents, should be in the governor seats. Gillum, the former mayor of Tallahassee who lost to now-Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the state’s gubernatorial race in November, hinted on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” that both he and Abrams got enough votes to win their races, and that Abrams' may have been influenced by her opponent already being in office. “Stacey juiced as many Dems as she could out of the state...

The notion of “intelligent design” arose after opponents of evolution repeatedly failed on First Amendment grounds to get Bible-based creationism taught in the public schools. Their solution: Take God out of the mix and replace him with an unspecified “intelligent designer.” They added some irrelevant mathematics and fancy biochemical jargon, and lo: intelligent design, which scientists have dubbed “creationism in a cheap tuxedo.” But the tuxedo is fraying, for intelligent design has been rejected not just by biologists but also by judges who recognize it as poorly disguised religion. Nevertheless, its advocates persist. Among the most vocal is Michael J....

A former Fox News employee plans to tell Congress about allegations that the outlet tried to stop her from reporting on the Stormy Daniels controversy during the 2016 election, citing an exception to a nondisclosure agreement she signed. On Thursday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings formally requested that the reporter, Diana Falzone, talk with committee investigators and provide documents related to her attempts to report on Daniels’ allegations that Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former longtime lawyer, paid her hush money after an alleged affair with Trump in 2006. Falzone’s lawyer, Nancy Erika Smith, told MSNBC on Thursday night...

Fire burns at ExxonMobil refinery in Baytown Ad Duration00:15 - visit sponsor's site PlayPlay Current time00:00 Seek 00:00 Duration01:06 Toggle Mute Volume SettingsToggle Fullscreen EMBED <>MORE VIDEOS Fire at Exxon refinery Thursday, April 7th, 2016 BAYTOWN, TX -- Fire at a Baytown ExxonMobil facility Thursday sent a massive plume of smoke into the air. At this point, it's not clear what started the fire. The good news is all employees have been accounted for

The White House has posted, and its Press Secretary Sarah Sanders has retweeted, video to support President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the U.S. Southern Border. The White House tweet titled, “This is a national emergency,” provides U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) video showing a mass of 247 illegal aliens overwhelming a short border fence in Antelope Wells, New Mexico on January 16, 2019.

THE WEEK(s) THAT WERE THE GOOD, THE BAD THE UGLY GOOD ~ Vietnam Summit VERY GOOD ~CPAC CURIOUS ~ WHERE'S RUTH ?? – still MIA UGLY GOP RINOS vote against the national emergency~ FRUSTRATING ~ We STILLkeep waiting for the BOOMS! EYE ROLL ~ BETO is officially a candidate Welcome all you Deplorables to this week's edition of the Dose! This is EVERYTHING TRUMP. Administration, family, frustrations, joys, winning! We welcome your research, your commentary, your personal OT sharing and your presence. Even if you do not share a lot, just check in and say hi. Lurkers are welcome...

How They Use Tragedy to Crack Down on Gun Rights & Free Speech5 minute video, Colion Noir on Tucker Carlson's show.

Last week, a man named Dion Cini was refused service at a bar in New York City. He claims he had done nothing wrong and was discriminated against. A video of the incident confirms that Cini doesn’t appear overly inebriated or obviously violating any other rules of decorum at Jake’s Dilemma; instead he was kicked out for what he was wearing: a Maga hat. The owners of the bar have since apologized and said all are welcome there, and that the bartender in question has been disciplined, but the entire situation might have been avoided had a new app called...

This week’s White House Report Card finds President Trump under fire from some in his own party over his national emergency declaration to build the wall but a step ahead of the crowd of Democrats hoping to unseat him in the 2020 election. Democratic pollster John Zogby, who weekly grades the president along with conservative analyst Jed Babbin, said that while Trump continues to struggle in the polls, the Democrats aren’t offering a credible alternative. “Trump will be hard to beat,” he said in his grade comments. He noted that the president isn’t polling well in the states he shocked...

When UC Santa Barbara geology professor emeritus James Kennett and colleagues set out years ago to examine signs of a major cosmic impact that occurred toward the end of the Pleistocene epoch, little did they know just how far-reaching the projected climatic effect would be... the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis, which postulates that a fragmented comet slammed into the Earth close to 12,800 years ago, causing rapid climatic changes, megafaunal extinctions, sudden human population decrease and cultural shifts and widespread wildfires (biomass burning)... suggests a possible triggering mechanism for the abrupt changes in climate at that time, in particular a...

Beto O’Rourke apologized Friday night for writings the former Texas representative made as a teenager describing fantasies about running over children with a vehicle. “I’m mortified to read it now, incredibly embarrassed, but I have to take ownership of my words,” the Democratic presidential candidate said during a taping of the “Political Party Live” podcast in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “Whatever my intention was as a teenager doesn’t matter, I have to look long and hard at my actions, at the language I have used, and I have to constantly try to do better.” His comments come after a report Friday...

New Zealand’s government is responding to the Christchurch attacks by pledging to ban all semiautomatic rifles. The Newstalk ZB reports that Attorney General David Parker announced the pending ban on semiautomatic rifles during a vigil in Auckland. He couched the announcement in comments about “a dimming of enlightenment” in various places around the world. The Guardian reports that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also plans to “focus on the ease with which legal weapons can be modified to become military-style assault rifles, which are more strictly controlled.”

Q. about Pookie & The Toons.

90 people who have recently come down with pertussis — the official name for whooping cough — in Los Angeles County this year had been immunized against it, according to county officials. It turns out that four years after someone receives the booster shot in about the seventh grade, the vaccine’s protection nearly vanishes, endangering high schoolers such as those at Harvard-Westlake, said Dr. James Cherry, a UCLA expert on pediatric infectious diseases. “It is not surprising at all,” Cherry said of the recent cases.

I have a friend who has been abused and is finally about to make a great move to security and professional advancement. Initials are JC (do not want to share her name for security reasons). Please pray for her.

In July 2018, Christian was among the 28 students and four chaperones who traveled from Parkland, Florida, to the University of Canterbury in Christchurch — a visit that was intended to help the students cope with the aftermath of the mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Chelsea Clinton tried to attend a vigil at New York University on Friday Students berated her and said her words had inspired attack in New Zealand White nationalist shooter killed 49 people at two mosques in Christchurch NYU students said that Clinton had inspired 'Islamophobic mob' with her words Was referring to Clinton's criticism of Muslim Rep. Ilhan Omar Clinton accused Omar of using 'anti-Semitic tropes' in her language about Israel Muslim students have berated Chelsea Clinton at a vigil for the victims of the New Zealand mosques massacre, saying she is to blame for the attack. Clinton, who is...

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — Former FBI Director James Comey on Friday said that he did not know if Democrats could obtain an unredacted copy of the Mueller report with a subpoena if the Department of Justice declined to release it. "I'm sure they can subpoena. They definitely can issue subpoenas for anything they want to the Department of Justice. Whether the department will compel, will abide an order to compel, if they resist that, I don't know where that ends up," he said. But Comey said he hoped that a subpoena would not be necessary. "There is a lot of transparency...

Every element of the college admissions scandal, aka "Operation Varsity Blues," is fascinating. There are the players: the Yale dad who, implicated in a securities fraud case, tipped the feds off to the caper; a shady high school counselor turned admissions consultant; the 36-year-old Harvard grad who sold his talents for standardized testing to the highest bidder; the comely actresses from Full House and Desperate Housewives; the fashion designer; the casino magnate. Who would have thought that one of the major headlines of 2019 would be "Lori Loughlin released on bond"? There are the children: the social media influencer (yes...