Free Republic

Could this be what the LORD may use to really rebuke our nation? This is happening as our nation gets further away from the Constitution, and Biblical principles.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is creating a $2 million research center to study how the government can “nudge” Americans toward making healthier eating habits.The agency is currently accepting grant applications to establish a “Center for Behavioral Economics and Healthy Food Choice Research,” which will facilitate studies such as how breaking up combo meals at fast food restaurants would influence customers.“The USDA Center will facilitate new and innovative research on the application of behavioral economics theory to healthy food choice behaviors that would contribute to enhancing the nutrition, food security, and health of American consumers,” the USDA’s grant announcement...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- Cigarette smuggling costs states an estimated $5.5 billion annually. Much of that traffic takes place on the East Coast along Interstate 95, as cigarettes from lower-tax states are being smuggled to states with higher taxes in the Northeast. A new website, sponsored by RAI Services Co., a subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc., calls the I-95 corridor "The New Tobacco Road."The website draws attention to the problem to encourage states to pass stiffer penalties for smuggling and devote more resources to enforcement.The website, www.thenewtobaccoroad.com, shows how I-95 has become a key transit route for cigarette smuggling from southern...

School time for 4th-graders is usually packed with question-and-answer sessions, but a teacher in New York City has been fired for taking her questions a little too far. Cassendre Fiering, a 45-year-old substitute instructor at Public School 189 in Bronx, New York, was canned by the Department of Education in December for actually seeking dating advice from her young students. Investigators say the woman, who is also a part-time actress, asked her 9-year-old pupils to help her choose between two men she was dating. She reportedly had the students engage in role-play conversations with her about how she should talk...

Drivers traveling into or through Baltimore on Interstate 95 are going to encounter a construction project that will replace the highway’s concrete deck along the 4.4 miles between the Fort McHenry Tunnel and Exit 50 at Caton Avenue. Nothing like this has happened since the tunnel opened in 1985. If your summer vacation drives take you through Baltimore, if you plan to see the Orioles or Ravens, or will be visiting the Inner Harbor, Fells Point or Fort McHenry, you will want to be aware of this work, which is scheduled to end in 2016. The Maryland Transportation Authority project...

When it comes to safe sex, one AIDS organization believes that size matters. In what might be considered a sign of the times, a hard-to-miss, extra-large condom is visible to anyone traveling south on Interstate 95 in Fort Lauderdale between Oakland Park and Sunrise boulevards. The billboard, sponsored by the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, went up May 17. The advertising campaign is expected to wrap up in mid-July. At the bottom of the prophylactic image is a web address, useacondom.com, which directs people to the foundation's website, where information about free condoms and HIV testing are available. The group...

Today, the National Potato Council praised the House for considering a bill to include the potato in its WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) food nutrition ("food stamp") program. The Council also debunked First Lady Michelle Obama's claims that including the potato would "override science" and that Americans are already eating enough of them.The Potato Council notes that the First Lady's science is based on old data - not the latest government reports:"Opponents of adding fresh potatoes to the WIC package are picking and choosing the science. Instead of relying on a 2005 report that looks at data from the mid-1990s,...

You gotta hear this - in context, he was advocating for "slow speed" rail in California (the biggest boondoggle I have ever seen in my life). But then he stumbled into what liberals want us all to do, always, so that we can fit into their communist scheme. LISTEN:

Just a day after House Republicans introduced legislation to roll back some Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations on school meal programs, the USDA announced some flexibility would be granted to some schools for the coming school year when implementing the new policies:

If the government wants to make progress in lowering obesity rates, it needs to start regulating fatty foods much the way it does tobacco. That's the recommendation from a pair of international health organizations pushing policies it says would answer the obesity epidemic. Specifically, the groups recommend that the government control the way the food and beverage industry advertises, to ensure companies aren't implying unhealthy food is good for children and adults. Additionally, they advise governments to require statements on food packaging about how high or low the content of salt, saturated fat, and sugar is in relation to dietary...

Infrastructure is in the news as policymakers face a deadline to pass a new highway bill. President Obama visited the Tappan Zee Bridge yesterday and said that “rebuilding America … shouldn’t be a partisan issue,” and then cast blame on the Republicans.The president is right that America ought to have better infrastructure. But the leaders of both parties are overlooking the most straightforward and powerful way to do it: slashing taxes on business investment.Most of America’s infrastructure is provided by the private sector, not governments. In fact, private infrastructure spending—on factories, freight rail, cell phone towers, pipelines, refineries, and many...

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today regarding the federal role in highway and transit funding.Federal policymakers are considering ways to close the large funding gap in the Highway Trust Fund. One option would be to reduce spending and downsize the federal role in transportation. That approach would encourage state governments to pursue their own innovative solutions for highways and transit, such as new types of user charges, public-private partnerships, and privatization.Federal aid programs for highways and transit have many shortcomings. Aid redistributes transportation funds between the states in ways that are...

President Obama’s visit this week to the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York is intended to push Congress to approve billions of dollars in infrastructure spending increases. But throwing more money at transit just puts more cash into the hands of government contractors, while doing little for commuters. The federal Highway Trust Fund is expected to run out of money in a few months, and unless Congress replenishes it, state highway projects will supposedly grind to a halt. Special interest groups are working overtime to create a crisis atmosphere about the so-called “transportation cliff.” In fact, this is more of...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said asking whether a politician has ever tried marijuana is a "worthless question" in American politics.Rubio, a potential 2016 candidate for president, has consistently dodged the question about if he experimented with the drug as a younger man. In an interview that aired Monday from ABC News-Yahoo News, Rubio reiterated that answering the question honestly is a lose-lose."Here is the problem with that question in American politics," he said. "If you say that you did, suddenly there are people out there saying it is not a big deal, look at all these successful people who did...

President Obama will bring athletes, coaches, academics and parents to the White House later this month for a summit on youth sports safety and the dangers of concussions, an administration official said Thursday. "As both a parent and an avid sports fan, the president loves and appreciates the role that sports play in the lives of young people, and his administration is committed to helping ensure that children continue to be active and play sports safely," the official said in a statement. At the forum, the president will argue for a "team approach" to preventing and treating concussions, the White...

<p>A ban on chocolate milk may be too much for the governor of Connecticut to stomach.</p> <p>The state General Assembly earlier this week approved nutrition legislation that threatened to remove chocolate milk from public schools. But, drawing a line in the sand in the nanny-state debate, Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy announced Friday that on the matter of lactose legislation -- he is intolerant.</p>

In California, it may soon be legal for gay men to list themselves as “mother” on birth certificates, and similarly, for lesbians to cite themselves as “father.” Or, the gay parent could simply opt for the more generic label of “parent,” The Associated Press reported. That’s because lawmakers on Thursday passed through the state Assembly with a 51-13 vote a measure to “modernize” the definition of the family to reflect same-sex unions.

(CNN) -- Vermont's governor on Thursday signed a bill into law that will require the labeling of genetically modified foods -- hailing it as the first such law in the nation. Under the new law, food offered for retail sale that is entirely or partially produced with genetic engineering must be labeled as such by July 2016. "Vermonters take our food and how it is produced seriously, and we believe we have a right to know what's in the food we buy," said Gov. Peter Shumlin. "More than 60 countries have already restricted or labeled these foods, and now one...

The white-marble Rayburn House Office Building, in Washington DC, looks like a giant courts building or a central bank, fully intimidating and imposing in its hulking stony blockiness. And the US Congress, of course, is an institution best known for its tedium, albeit a tedium that is regularly punctuated by fiery partisan combat. On a typical day, the Rayburn building--acronymed as RHOB--is a place where politicos and bureaucrats struggle for and against some special interest, yea or nay, on regulation or appropriation. And the biggest single activity in RHOB, or in any of the other five office edifices on Capitol...

Researchers for the first time created microbes containing artificial DNA, expanding the universal genetic code that guides life. The advance one day could lead to new antibiotics, vaccines and other medical products not possible with today's bioscience. In a report published Wednesday in Nature, the scientists said they created two additions to the normal genetic code, and then prompted bacteria to incorporate these pieces of man-made DNA with few ill effects. "The cells recognized it as natural," said chemical biologist Floyd Romesberg at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., who led the research group.