Free Republic

A girls' high school basketball team from Illinois had their plans to attend an Arizona tournament cut short when school administrators decided the team shouldn't play in the state because of its new immigration law -- and the decision doesn't sit well with former high school basketball star Sarah Palin. The former Alaska governor took to her Facebook page to call the decision "ridiculous and totally unfair to the girls who just want to play ball." The Highland Park High School Giants girls basketball team was slated to play in the tournament after winning its first conference championship in 26...

According to the link, the non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Georgia in January 2010 is 10.6. However if you go to the county map, there are counties with up 23% unemployment and only a handful under 10%. Can someone tell me if I am looking at this incorrectly? It seems as if this unemployment rate of 10.6 for Jan is not correct. Both maps are using non-seasonally adjusted information. Here is the map by state; http://data.bls.gov/map/servlet/map.servlet.MapToolServlet?survey=la&map=state&seasonal=u Here is the map by county; http://data.bls.gov/map/servlet/map.servlet.MapToolServlet?state=13&datatype=unemployment&year=2010&period=M01&survey=la&map=county&seasonal=u When you go to the link, be sure to change the month and year to reflect the...

Chaz Bono is now a man ... legally and otherwise. Cher's newly-minted son showed up to court today in Santa Monica, where a judge granted Chaz' petition for a gender and name change. According to documents filed in March, Chaz underwent an "irreversible surgery" on September 23, 2009 to change his "sex characteristics from female to male." In the docs, Chaz's doctor said, "Chaz Bono has completed his gender reassignment surgery." It's like a transgender Bar Mitzvah!

The United States, which already has tied Israel’s agreeing to Palestinian Authority demands with solving the Iranian nuclear threat, now cites Israel’s nuclear arsenal as the key. Ellen Tauscher, U.S. Undersecretary of State for arms control, was quoted by the London Guardian as saying last week, "The best chance we have to achieve a WMD-free zone in the Middle East is to reach an agreement on a lasting and just peace in the Middle East." A proposal for a ban on mass destruction weapons in the Middle East is being circulated by the Obama administration and Russia. Egypt also is...

Yid With Lid: He was giving the key note speech at a Washington Institute For Near East Policy and started it out with a "joke" that borders on anti-Semitic, teaching the crowd that Jews are just greedy merchants in the same vein as Shakespeare's Shylock...

Bret Michaels's health has taken a turn for the worse, PEOPLE has learned: After an excruciating headache late Thursday night, the star was rushed to an undisclosed hospital where doctors discovered he suffered a massive subarachnoid hemorrhage (bleeding at the base of his brain stem), according to a source close to the situation. Michaels, 47, is currently in critical condition. "After several CAT scans, MRIs and an angiogram, [doctors] decided to keep Michaels in the ICU and are running several tests to determine the cause. [It] will be touch and go for the next few days while he is under...

Are you prepared to go from the supermarket to the black market for your bacon? The Food and Drug Administration is preparing to lower the boom on sodium content in American food. And companies are scrambling to lower the salt levels in their products in advance of the new rules. The target is not really your BLT, but instead the huge piles of sodium that are used to make otherwise inedible processed food pass for something good to eat. It is cheaper for the food industry to fool your palate with flavor additives than use good ingredients. So, for example,...

Air passengers could face further delays after warnings that a "new ash cloud" is spreading towards the UK. Air traffic control company Nats said the "situation was worsening" in some areas. But it said Scottish airports should be available from 7am and other airspace over England from 1pm, although not including the main London airports. "The volcano eruption in Iceland has strengthened and a new ash cloud is spreading south and east towards the UK," Nats said in a statement. "This demonstrates the dynamic and rapidly changing conditions in which we are working. "Latest information from the Met Office shows...

Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation that sets forth a clear, comprehensive policy for the detention, interrogation and trial of enemy belligerents who are suspected of engaging in hostilities against the United States. This legislation seeks to ensure that the mistakes made during the apprehension of the Christmas Day bomber, such as reading him a Miranda warning, will never happen again and put Americans’ security at risk. Specifically, this bill would require unprivileged enemy belligerents suspected of engaging in hostilities against the U.S. to be held in military custody and interrogated for their intelligence value by a “high value...

A massive volcanic plume covering most of Europe forced President Obama to cancel a Sunday trip to Poland to attend the funeral of the nation's president. But the last-minute change left an opening in his schedule, so the president headed to the links for a round of golf instead. On a cool but sun-drenched Sunday, the president and three golfing companions went to Andrews Air Force Base to play 18 holes. It is the 32nd time Mr. Obama has played golf since taking office Jan. 20, 2009, according to CBS Radio's Mark Knoller. After canceling the Poland trip on Saturday,...

Losing their representative in Congress may have cost the city of Corning more than $2 million. City Manager Mark Ryckman said he was recently informed the city will not receive the more than $2 million in federal funds it hoped to use for sewer and water main repairs. “I think not having a local congressman really hurts local municipalities’ chances of getting federal funding,” Ryckman said. “We don’t have an area congressman to make the needed calls to help get these funds, and those are needed calls.” The 29th Congressional District seat was left vacant when Eric Massa, D-Corning, resigned...

<p>Members of the U.S. Navy were denied access Friday to Fox News' Web site, a Navy spokesman confirmed to FoxNews.com.said, referring to the Navy Marine Corps Internet. Cole said he was checking with the IT department in control of NMCI.</p>

“There aren't a lot of African-American men at these events,” NBC News reporter Kelly O'Donnell, a white woman, told Darryl Postell, a black man at a Tea Party rally held Thursday in Washington, DC, pressing him, in an exchange she chose to include in her NBC Nightly News story, to address her prejudiced assumptions: “Have you ever felt uncomfortable?” Postell rejected her loaded premise that race must divide Americans: “No, no, these are my people, Americans.” O'Donnell's story noted “skepticism over how the Tea Party is judged and labeled,” letting an attendee assert: “We're not racists, we're not any of...

Authorities in several Midwestern states were flooded Wednesday night with reports of a gigantic fireball lighting up the sky, the National Weather Service said. The fireball was visible for about 15 minutes beginning about 10 p.m., said the National Weather Service in Sullivan, Wisconsin, just west of Milwaukee. "The fireball was seen over the northern sky, moving from west to east," said the NWS in the Quad Cities area, which includes parts of Iowa and Illinois. "Well before it reached the horizon, it broke up into smaller pieces and was lost from sight," the service said. "Several reports of a...

The Russian government prevented the Polish president's plane from landing four times to divert him from a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, according to an MP. Artur Gorski said the Russians 'came up with some dubious reasons' that the aircraft couldn't land because they feared President Leck Kaczynski's presence would overshadow a similar event hosted by the Russian prime minister a few days before. And their alleged plan ended in disaster when the Polish pilots made one final and disastrous attempt to land, killing Mr Kaczynski, his wife, and 94 others on board the plane.

China said Tuesday sanctions were not the answer to the Iranian atomic standoff, denting US President Barack Obama's hopes of sealing a deal to punish Tehran as he hosted a summit on nuclear arms. Obama was expected to urge world leaders to harden their resolve to lock down nuclear material on the second day of a 47-nation summit in Washington aimed at keeping atomic weapons out of terrorist hands. However the conference threatened to be overshadowed by growing tension on Iran, which the United States and its allies accuse of covertly working on a nuclear weapon. Iran says it is...

The Bush White House knew that hundreds of early Gitmo detainees were innocent, but refused to release them because the admission would weaken support for the war in Iraq, according to a new document obtained by the Times of London. The charge, by Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, was made in a declaration in support of a lawsuit for a Gitmo detainee. Wilkerson claims that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld knew that the majority of the initial 742 detainees had been picked up, not by the US military, but by Afghans and Pakistanis for...

In an unprecedented move, the U.S. has been conducting negotiations with Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, according to a senior PA negotiator and sources in the Israeli government. The U.S. has been calling for the resumption of indirect talks, with Obama administration officials publicly proposing to serve as a go-between to facilitate dialogue between Israel and the PA. Sources in both the PA and Israeli government told WND talks are underway on a number of issues, including future borders and security controls for a Palestinian state. A senior PA negotiator, speaking on condition of anonymity, said rather than...

WASHINGTON — Two weeks after President Barack Obama signed the big health care overhaul into law, Americans are struggling to understand how — and when — the sweeping measure will affect them. Questions reflecting confusion have flooded insurance companies, doctors' offices, human resources departments and business groups. "They're saying, 'Where do we get the free Obama care, and how do I sign up for that?' " said Carrie McLean, a licensed agent for eHealthInsurance.com. The California-based company sells coverage from 185 health insurance carriers in 50 states. McLean said the call center had been inundated by uninsured consumers who were...

In an unwelcome bit of news for the GOP, New York governor David Paterson has announced that he would not call a special election to fill the House seat left vacant by former Democratic Rep. Eric Massa. Massa resigned last month amid in ethics investigation into accusations that he sexually harassed male members of his staff and subsequently acknowledged groping a staffer non-sexually. Paterson had initially vowed to call a special election to replace Massa before the midterm elections in November. But his spokeswoman said that the embattled Democratic governor would not do so, citing the cost to taxpayers in...