Free Republic

Four Occupy Cal protesters were arraigned today on misdemeanor charges for their involvement in a demonstration at Sproul Plaza at the University of California at Berkeley campus on Nov. 9. At the request of the Alameda County District Attorney's Office, Superior Court Judge Paul Seeman issued orders which require that the protesters stay away 100 yards from all UC property, except for when they go to and from class and work. Attorney Ronald Cruz, who represents three Occupy Cal protesters but not the four people who were arraigned today, attended today's hearing and said Seeman made it clear that the...

A core component of Marxism is to destroy organized religion. So, Obama’s new attack on the Catholic Church should be no surprise. First, it was the unprecedented effort to destroy the church’s rights of religious conscience through a contraception benefit mandate. Now, Obama is abusing the power of the Executive Branch by using the banks to control the Catholic Church. Following up on his directive to put the Vatican on the Money Laundering List, Obama is, now, meting out his punishment. Via The Blaze,(Excerpt) JPMorgan Chase is shutting down the Vatican’s bank account with its Milan branch due to a...

Individuals and member organizations of the American media were threatened with FTC and FCC investigation if information gathered by Sheriff Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse concerning the forgery of Barack Obama’s long form birth certificate were passed on to the American public. It was Posse lead investigator Mike Zullo who made this stunning revelation, stating “During our investigation, we actually were told [that media] had been threatened with FTC investigations. Commentators [had been] threatened with their jobs.” And Jerome Corsi, author of “Where’s the birth certificate,” the book whose imminent publication was responsible for forcing Barack Obama to quickly create and...

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), which mandated a steep rise in domestic ethanol production, is causing unforeseen negative consequences for food prices while failing to live up to the desired gasoline results and other expectations, concludes a Texas A&M University research team headed by an economics professor who studies energy issues.James Griffin James M. Griffin, director of the Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics & Public Policy, which is part of Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service, and Mauricio Cifuentes Soto, a graduate student assisting him, say in their report that the goal of...

Obama's main man will do whatever it takes to fell Republicans and conservatives. Where does his ruthlessness and drive come from? Getting Barack Obama elected president would be "something you could really be proud of for the rest of your life," said David Axelrod in January 2007, a month before the young Illinois senator proclaimed his candidacy. "It would really change politics in a positive way." Axelrod, already an established political consultant, had in front of him a potential huge star, a game changer—a political advent. He saw in Obama a boy wonder, at once compelling, winsome, engaging, historic, spiritual,...

Correspondent R.T. is a retired accountant who has resided in Arizona since 2001. Prior to 2001, he resided in California. On March 14, he received a letter from the California Franchise Tax Board (the agency that collects income taxes) claiming that he owed $1,343 for the tax year 2006. This was the first notification he'd ever received of this claim. This was an interesting claim given that R.T.: -- Did not reside in California in 2006 -- Did not file a State income tax return in California in 2006 -- Did not have any outstanding tax issues with California in...

Plan on purchasing, owning, transporting and/or operating a firearm in your lifetime? Do not relocate to the state of Illinois. The state has one of the worst gun laws in the country and the Illinois Police and the Illinois Attorney General really need to stop pursuing innocent gun owners, sellers, and users, and pursue those who actually commit crimes that injure or harm others. Stemming from a public safety initiative, Illinois implemented a law in 1968 that says a Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) card must be issued by the Illinois State Police before a resident can possess or purchase firearms...

Energy Secretary Steven Chu told a House panel Tuesday that he’d give himself top marks when asked to grade his policies’ effects on energy prices. Rep. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House committee on Oversight and Government Reform, asked President Obama’s top energy official if he’d grade himself with an “A minus” on “controlling the cost of gasoline at the pump.” Chu responded by saying he’d give himself a better grade than that. “The tools we have at our disposal are limited, but I would I say I would give myself a little higher in that since I became...

President Barack Obama says he wants to buy a Chevy Volt when he’s out of office in five years. If getting into a General Motors electric automobile means so much to him, he’d better hope he loses in November. What the president dubbed the “car of the future” in a visit to a Volt plant may not make it to January 2017. The partially government-owned General Motors has suspended production of its government-approved miracle car and temporarily laid off 1,300 workers at a Detroit plant. The halt is the result of a piddling detail lost in the gushers of praise...

Today the Chiaroscuro Foundation released an interactive map illustrating the abortion ratio by zip code in New York City from 2000 to 2009. This is a continuation of our effort to raise awareness of the extremely high rate of abortion in New York City.Much could be said about these data. While the total number of abortions, as well as the abortion ratio, is down over the period citywide, both the number of abortions and the abortion ratio increased in the majority of zip codes, indicating uneven progress. The number of live births also increased in the majority of zip codes....

Allen Hulton *snip* A retired U.S. Postal Service carrier who delivered mail to Tom and Mary Ayers in a Chicago suburb in the late 1980s and early 1990s and claims to have met Obama in front of the Ayers home emphatically says yes to all three questions. Allen Hulton, who was commended for 39 years of honorable service with the USPS, has given a sworn affidavit to investigators commissioned by Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio to determine whether Obama is eligible for Arizona’s 2012 election ballot. Hulton has recorded about three hours of video interviews with WND. Hulton...

USA --(Ammoland.com)- “We need to do this every day of the week and just really brainwash people into thinking about guns in a vastly different way,” then-U.S. Attorney Eric Holder advocated in a 1995 C-SPAN video that surfaced over the weekend on Breitbart.com and has since gone viral in the gun activist community. Comparing it to the way government helped create a stigma for smoking, Holder bragged “Now we have people who cower outside of buildings and kind of smoke in private and don’t want to admit it.” This was consistent with the administration talking points message being promulgated through...

Why on earth did President Obama offer algae as a solution to America's energy problems? I suspect that if he could, he would press the rewind button and erase the comment, as it has exposed him to widespread ridicule from heavyweights like Charles Krauthammer.  But the question remains: why bring it up at all?An answer may lie in his addiction to crony capitalism. Andrew Stiles of the Washington Free Beacon reports: Solazyme, a San Francisco-based firm that specializes in the plant matter, has received more than $25 million in federal grants and contracts as part of Obama administration's controversial...

In one heck of an analogy, then U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. – Eric Holder – likened guns to cigarettes, saying that perceptions about guns needed to become more stigmatized. He said this during a speech in 1995 and suggested an aggressive advertising campaign to convince the public that this was true. At one point, he literally said that he wanted the advertising to be so pervasive that it would “brainwash” people...

A plumpish girl making pizzas behind a counter methodically spreads red sauce on a circle of dough as she vents loudly to the cashier: “Do you drink soda pop? No? Well, I do. They say that pop makes you gain weight. I always gain weight from stress and I’m so stressed out. I don’t have enough money. I need a car for college and I can’t afford one. And gas is outrageous. It’s like $5! I mean, I could buy a bike for $5!” A few minutes later, the girl hands me my oven-ready pizza without looking up. She...

Among the many growing problems Barack Obama is facing as he tries to fool enough people into voting for him is the one coming from that weird place on the left side of the country called California. Once a beautiful state filled with sunshine and the promise of a better life, California has been turned into a socialist gulag by Democrats who have infected her state government from top to bottom. Now it's the model for Obama’s socialist dream for all of America. Because Democrats do what Democrats will always do when handed full control of a state, California is...

Fresh off an all-day Friday fundraising swing that landed close to $5 million for the 2012 campaign, President Obama and the first lady are kicking off the week with another round of money events expected to raise at least $1.2 million more. The president this afternoon will host a private, roundtable discussion with 20 of his wealthiest supporters at the W Hotel in Washington, D.C. Tickets to the event – Obama’s 109th of the election – were $35,800 apiece, a campaign official said. Meanwhile, Michelle Obama will travel to New York City to host a colorful duo of fundraisers that...

It's one thing to send out fundraising letters trying to score cash off the John Doe investigation into various activities during Gov. Scott Walker's tenure as county executive. That's business as usual for political types. It's another thing altogether to suggest that individuals can help underwrite the long-running probe of the Republican governor by giving money to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. But that's what is happening at the party's slick website devoted to publicizing the John Doe investigation. "Help fund the investigation," says a virtual walkerinvestigation.com Post-it Note at the top of the site, walkerinvestigation.com. "Donate today." Click on...

Sessions says Reid dodging budget debate to avoid tough votesBy Pete Kasperowicz - 03/18/12 01:54 PM ET Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on Sunday afternoon accused Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) of avoiding debate on a Senate budget resolution in order to protect Democrats from making tough choices on how to trim spending at a time of fiscal crisis. "When Senator Reid said it's foolish to bring up a budget, what he really is doing is avoiding having his members have to confront — and in public, not in secret meetings, but in public, with votes —...

<p>A TSA screener at Newark Airport was recently busted in a major heroin den near her workplace — still wearing her spiffy, government-issued uniform, authorities said.</p> <p>She’s accused of helping to distribute the 1,400 packets of heroin, stamped “Green Lantern” and “P Dope” in green ink, confiscated from the apartment, according to court records.</p>