Free Republic

LAUREL COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18) - A quiet summer night in Laurel County got shaken up by a loud crash, and a swarm of bees. Neighbors say they could hear the screaming all the way up the hills. People on Patton Spur Road don't see many cars come down the dead-end street. But last night, Gary Anderson watched from his porch as a purple Tracker veered on and off the pavement. "Then he passed probably going about 35-40 miles an hour, pretty fast really. And all the sudden, I heard a big boom," said Anderson. He says the driver, Noah...

Two former Republican governors turned Libertarians have emerged as an unlikely wild card in an unpredictable election year. On Wednesday evening, voters will get a closer look as Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson and his running mate, Bill Weld, appear live on CNN for their second town hall.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is cutting short the sentences of 214 federal inmates, including 67 serving life sentences. The White House says it's the largest batch of commutations on a single day in more than a century. Almost all the prisoners were serving time for nonviolent drug offenses. The commutations bring to 562 the total number of sentences Obama has shortened. The White House says that's more than the past nine presidents combined. Almost 200 of those who have benefited were serving life sentences. White House counsel Neil Eggleston says Obama will continue granting clemency to more inmates...

President Barack Obama on Wednesday cut short the sentences of 214 federal inmates, including 67 life sentences, in what the White House called the largest batch of commutations on a single day in more than a century. ADVERTISEMENT Almost all the prisoners were serving time for nonviolent drug crimes, reflecting Obama's long-stated view that the U.S. needs to remedy the consequences of decades of sentencing requirements that put tens of thousands of Americans behind bars for far too long. Obama has pushed for a broader fix to criminal justice laws and has used the aggressive pace of his commutations in...

The five people killed Sunday in a crash on Interstate 80 in western Nebraska have been identified by relatives as a young family heading to Colorado for missionary training. Killed were Jamison Pals and his wife, Kathryne, both 29, and their three children: 3-year-old Ezra; Violet, who was almost 2; and 2-month-old Calvin, family members said. They were from St. Paul, Minnesota. “They were on their way to Littleton, Colorado, for a month of missionary training with WorldVenture,” said Karen Pals, a sister-in-law from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. “Then they were going to move to Japan to work, probably in October.”...

Have you lost that loving feeling? If so, the United States federal government might just be able to help. Before you swipe right on Tinder or update that eHarmony account, consider instead taking a quick trip out of the country. Because on your way back home into the Land of the Free, US Customs and Border Protection will have agents standing by ready with heaps of government stimulus. It happened to a Jane Doe (the name has been withheld to protect what little remains of her dignity), a 54-year old US citizen who had recently been on a trip to...

“When I win the lottery ...” How many of us have chanted that refrain, daydreaming about how we’d quit our jobs, grab our winnings and head to a secluded beach with the family to live in blissful paradise? Or whatever your imagination conjures life-after-hitting-the-jackpot to be. Of course it hardly ever turns out that way. We’re always hearing about lottery winners who blew it all. But Ronnie Music Jr., 45, a former maintenance supervisor in Georgia, has taken the storyline to a new depth. Music, who won $3 million in a scratch-off lottery game in Georgia last year, invested his...

... The solution favored among ranchers is infused with a fatalism that nothing will change — government being government, and the cartels always one step ahead — so why bother. But here it goes: Intensive, round-the-clock patrols along the border are required for a fence or wall to work; otherwise, those determined to cross will always find a way. But, they argue, if you have boots on the ground, you will have no need for anything so beautiful as the Great Wall of Trump. It is easy, from a distance, to dismiss the ranchers along the border as right-wing Chicken...

The solution to racial war. All lives matter, but the problem is sin, not skin (though aspects of cultural can be sinful). The Cross and the Switchblade movie (1969, copyright Dick Ross and associates, and which can be seen here) is about the true story which is told in the book, the Cross and the Switchblade written in 1962. The movie (which mostly used local talent) stars Pat Boone as David Wilkerson and Erik Estrada as Nicky Cruz, the teen gang member whose life was dramatically transformed by Christ. Nicky was the leader of the notorious Brooklyn Puerto Rican gang...

“So it is worth reminding ourselves of how lucky we are to be living in the most peaceful, most prosperous, most progressive era in human history,” Obama said in the speech. “Because the world has never been less violent, healthier, better educated, more tolerant, with more opportunity for more people, and more connected than it is today,” he also said. Here are excerpts from the president’s speech as transcribed on the White House website: Obviously, this has been a tough couple of weeks, not just here in the United States but around the world. And that’s being amplified to some...

NEW YORK – President Obama’s attorney-general nominee, Loretta Lynch, admitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee that her investigators in the money-laundering probe of HSBC were aware of evidence compiled by whistleblower John Cruz but she chose, nevertheless, not to bring criminal charges. Lynch provided written answers to questions submitted by committee chairman Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, in a document posted on the panel’s website dated Feb. 18. As WND reported, Lynch’s confirmation vote in the Senate initially was postponed after Sen. David Vitter, R-La., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, opened the investigation of Lynch’s role in the HSBC...

It was like a scene from an episode of The Walking Dead. But it wasn't zombies who could barely stand, it was New Yorkers. And it wasn't an apocalyptic infection they were suffering from - but the same bad batch of bad drugs. Thirty-three people were hospitalized for a possible overdose on K2, a type of synthetic marijuana, in Brooklyn on Tuesday morning. Witnesses reported seeing more than a dozen people passing out, vomiting, urinating and twitching in the middle of the street around 9.30am in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.

Three days before his death, Philando took part in this video where it shows his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, being a power-mother, smokied a joint with Philando and their daughter in the background. Make sure you watch the frames where the daughter is caught on cam and absolutely hates her situation... Media wants her opinion of what happened. What about her credibility?

FONTANA >> Jack Sparrow is recovering from methamphetamine overdose, but he’s not the fictional pirate of the Caribbean. He’s a small Chihuahua from Fontana. On July 5, Jack’s owner brought him to the Inland Valley Veterinary Specialists and Emergency Center in Upland, police said in a news release Monday. Jack’s owner, identified by police as 21-year-old Isaiah Nathaniel Sais, from Fontana, allegedly told doctors he believed Jack may have ingested methamphetamine. And according to test results, he was right. Jack tested positive for the street drug known as “Crank”, according to the news release. But Sais left the vet’s office...

June 12, 2013 State Department Whistleblower, a Career Foreign Service Officer, Seeks Congressional Protection After State Threatens Her Kids Bryan Preston The State Department whistleblower is Aurelia Fedenisn. She worked in the department’s inspector general’s office until her retirement in December 2012. According to USA Today, she has sought protection as an official whistleblower after the State Department directly threatened her, once at her home. It threatened her with criminal charges when she turned over documents to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) showing evidence that the department had watered down her report, in which she alleged that the department at the...

Factories such as Tarter Industries are having problems meeting current production needs because of a critical shortage of workers. And, expansion plans for 2017 may have to be put on hold if workers cannot be found, said Travis Cox, vice president and general manager for Tarter Industries. “Lack of workers is now my No. 1 inhibiting growth factor, bar none,” said Cox. “My last shortage report shows we are about 75-80 people under full budget head count. That’s just trying to keep up, not growing and expanding.” Cox said TI is aggressively searching within two counties on each side of...

CITY OF MALOLOS—Policemen appear to have become targets of a wave of vigilantism across the country. The body of PO3 Michael Lee Manalad of the Malolos police was found on Thursday morning on a grassy knoll in the City of Meycauayan, strapped with the sign, “Pulis na pusher ’wag tularan (This policeman is a pusher. Do not emulate).” Manalad was in uniform when residents found him in Ubihan village at 12:47 a.m. His pockets contained sachets of suspected shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride). A native of Basilan province, Manalad served in the mobile patrol unit of the Malolos police. Police said they...

It took me years to figure out that markets work better than government. I started out as a typical Ralph Nader-influenced consumer reporter, convinced that companies constantly rip us off. To me and most of my fellow left-leaning reporters, the answer was always: more regulation. Gradually, I figured out that regulation causes many more problems than the occasional rip-off artist does. Companies that served customers well prospered, while market competition meant cheaters seldom got away with cheating for long. Regulation, by contrast, lasted forever. It punished innovation, making it harder for good people to offer better alternatives. How do I...

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday urged communist rebels to start killing drug traffickers, adding another layer to a controversial war on crime in which he has warned thousands will die.

'Crazed' naked runway model, 21, brings Times Square to a standstill for an hour screaming about Donald Trump, fashion and being a virgin before spitting on cops and jumping from a 16ft ledge Incident occurred at 8am Thursday on the red staircase in Duffy Square Man has been identified as fashion model Krit McClean McClean yelled out: 'Donald Trump where are you' and'I love fashion, it's taught me so much' He declared that he was 'mother earth' and also said he was a virgin He then jumped from a 16-foot platform and missed an inflatable crash bag Landed on the...