Free Republic

Donning orange T-shirts reading "Faith in Action," a coalition of religious groups flooded the state capitol in Springfield, singing hymns, shouting "Hallelujah," and praying for higher taxes on the rich. Their goal: replacing the state's long-standing flat income tax with a new, progressive "Fair Tax." Snip When asked whether additional tax revenue would really be used to help the poor, supporters like Rev. Hawking and Rev. Coulter tend to change the subject. When asked whether a progressive tax might backfire by driving wealth and jobs out of Illinois, both doubted anyone would leave. Besides, Rev. Hawking told me, "minimum wage...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says Democrats passed their health insurance law, not to insure the uninsured, but to give people “quality” health care and “affordable” health care. “Madam Leader, isn’t the real measure of success, not the raw number who signed up, but how many of those who signed up were not insured before?” a reporter asked Pelosi at a news conference on Tuesday. “No, that’s not — the measure is twofold,” Pelosi responded. “The message is how many people have access to health care — quality, affordable health care and insurance.”

THINK YOU DON'T like IPAs? Too bitter, too intense? Many are. Tongue-numbingly resinous and paint-thinner strong, today's double and triple India Pale Ales have a few devoted, if masochistic, fans. But to those of us more interested in grace than grandeur, IPAs can be hard beers to love. Or even swallow. No longer. Showcasing new and experimental breeds of hops, the latest pale ales offer a welcome change of pace: nuanced flavor.So get them while you can: a fleeting, flickering burst of tropical sun in a northern winter. 1. Great Lakes Chillwave Double IPA (9.4% ABV): Hop-of-the-moment Mosaic bursts through...

Updated (Jan 19, 2014 at 01:45 am) The pattern is not completely clear, and there are pieces missing from the puzzle, but I have found enough bits of evidence to convince me that it is more likely than not that someone purposely initiated the Three Mile Island (TMI) accident. This is a difficult story to tell; it’s not easy to revise history. It’s even harder to it successfully when there is sure to be disbelief, dismissal, and efforts to discredit. I prefer being respected and strive to avoid the potential of being marginalized as a crackpot. However, I feel a...

What the net-neut obsessives refuse to recognize is that anticompetitive intent isn't worth worrying about if an anticompetitive result isn't possible. If AT&T were "double-dipping," or charging sender and recipient for the same data, as some allege, its rivals would quickly copy its innovation and compete away any excess revenues. If AT&T were to degrade websites that don't pay up, its rivals would pounce and steal AT&T's dissatisfied customers.

Mustafa al-Gharib, a 22-year-old Canadian-born Muslim convert who left Calgary for Syria in November 2012, has been killed by Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces during rebel infighting, CBC News has confirmed. According to sources in Syria and Canada, al-Gharib was injured in battle, and subsequently captured and killed by an unknown faction of the FSA in the city of Aleppo. Born in Nova Scotia as Damian Clairmont, al-Gharib was reportedly fighting with Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda-affiliated rebel group consisting of largely foreign extremists. snipAl-Gharib converted to Islam following a two-year period of personal anguish in his teens that included him...

Gov. Chris Christie today urged the children of immigrants who came to this country illegally to "make the most of the opportunity" to pay in-state tuition at New Jersey’s colleges and universities under the Dream Act.

I realize that delving into the world of assassination research and a belief in a conspiracy will lead some to brand me as an extremist or a nut, but the facts I have uncovered are so compelling that I must make the case that Lyndon Baines Johnson had John Fitzgerald Kennedy murdered in Dallas to become president himself and to avert the precipitous political and legal fall that was about to beset him. Snip When Lodge was in his eighties, he served vigorously as the chairman of Ronald Reagan’s campaign for President in Connecticut, a post I had recruited him...

Jefferson County commissioners on Wednesday were informed the sales tax in the county will be going up 0.25 percent on Sept. 1. The state Legislature voted to increase the state sales tax to 5.75 percent. Coupled with the county's 1.5 percent sales tax, purchases made in Jefferson County will have a 7.25 percent sales tax. County Commissioner Tom Gentile expressed some displeasure with the announcement. Gentile said the state's budget surplus has grown to $1.5 billion, the state has taken money away from local governments and then is raising the state sales tax. The Ohio Department of Taxation is mailing...

After a tradition of some 40 years of subsidizing local taxes, Gov. John Kasich and Republicans in the Ohio House and Senate applied the brakes. Local governments and schools heading for the ballot in November to ask voters to support new or replacement levies will have to tell them that the price tags attached will be higher than they were previously told. The taxpayer will pay the entire tab for any new taxes approved.snipUnder the rollback program, the state pays the first 10 percent of the tax bill for all property owners plus 2.5 percent for owner-occupied homes. The state...

My wife wants to sign up my grandson for the ABC Disney website. Does anyone have any experience with this toddler Learning website? The website says it was developed by “Learning Professionals and Teachers” Such claims do not necessary inspire my confidence.

X-rays may not heal broken bones, but low doses of ionizing radiation may spark other health benefits, a new study of mice suggests. Radiation in high doses has well-known harmful effects. Scientists had thought low doses would do less extensive damage but could add up to big problems later. But radiation acts differently at low doses, producing health benefits for mice with an unusual genetic makeup, Randy Jirtle of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and colleagues report online November 1 in the FASEB Journal. Antioxidant vitamins, such as vitamins C and E, erased those health gains. “What goes on at high...

Another Islamist terror attack, another round of assurances that it had nothing to do with the religion of peace.I've seen this before. A Muslim terrorist slays a non-Muslim citizen in the West, and representatives of the Muslim community rush to dissociate themselves and their faith from the horror. After British soldier Lee Rigby was hacked to death last week in Woolwich in south London, Julie Siddiqi, representing the Islamic Society of Britain, quickly stepped before the microphones to attest that all good Muslims were "sickened" by the attack, "just like everyone else."SnipMemo to the BBC: The killers were shouting "Allahu...

.. Record low temperatures set at Toledo OH... A record low temperature was set at the Toledo Express Airport on Sunday may 12 2013. The temperature dropped to 30 degrees at 1140 PM EST breaking the old record of 34 degrees last recorded on may 12 1969.The temperature at the Toledo Express Airport remained seasonably cold overnight and registered 30 degrees at 145 am EST this morning. This equals and sets a new record low of 30 degrees which was last recorded on may 13 1946.... Frost advisory in effect from midnight tonight to 9 am EDT Tuesday...The National Weather...

The dire implications of these numbers is evident in a Children's Defense Fund report that included a chilling historical perspective: The 44,038 black children killed by guns since 1979 (when national data on the age of gun violence victims was first collected) is "nearly 13 times more" than all the black people killed by lynching in the 86-year period of 1882 to 1968.Almost 50 years ago, when the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed, the national out-of-wedlock birthrate was 7%. Today it is over 40%. According to the CDC, the out-of-wedlock birthrate for white children was just 2% in the...

I have been thinking again of Clint Eastwood’s speech at the Republic Convention and it has occurred to me how his apt his metaphor of the empty chair was in describing Barak Obama was for the Obama Presidency. During Obama’s tenure as President of the United States the chair that by all rights should have been occupied by Barak H. Obama has been left vacant. Consider the chair at the President’s daily intelligence briefing which was left vacant 57% of the days of Barak Obama’s first term. Consider the chair that was vacant at meetings with Prime Minister of Israel...

In a complaint filed Wednesday and settled the same day, Justice claimed that California-based Luther Burbank Savings violated the 1968 Fair Housing Act and 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act by setting a policy that had a "disparate impact" on minorities. Between 2006 and mid-2011, 5.2% of Luther's single-family residential mortgage loans went to African-Americans and Hispanics, compared to an average of 41.7% for other lenders in the area. The complaint doesn't cite evidence of intentional discrimination because there wasn't any.

If you've downloaded even one movie, song or TV show using the BitTorrent file-sharing system, chances are, it didn't go unnoticed. A U.K. study has found that pretty much all files shared with the help of popular torrent sites like The Pirate Bay are monitored — mostly by large internet service companies likely acting on behalf of copyright enforcers or private corporations.

It may take explosives to dislodge the frozen carcasses of a small herd of cows found in an old ranger's cabin high in the Rocky Mountains.

An American Indian tribe sued some of the world's largest beer makers Thursday, claiming they knowingly contributed to alcohol-related problems on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota said it is demanding $500 million in damages for the cost of health care, social services and child rehabilitation caused by chronic alcoholism on the reservation.