Free Republic

Breastfeeding mothers staged a "nurse-in" Wednesday at Target stores nationwide to show solidarity with a Texas woman who said she was ridiculed for breastfeeding her baby at a Houston store. Michelle Hickman organized a Facebook campaign to call for the "nurse-in," which took place in several US cities including Houston, Knoxville, Tenn., and Decatur, Ill. About 50 nursing mothers showed up to protest at the Webster, Texas, Target store where Hickman said she was harassed last month, MyFOXhouston reported.

Three U.S. students have been arrested in Cairo for allegedly throwing firebombs at Egyptian security forces amid ongoing anti-government protests. The Americans attend the American University in Cairo as exchange students. The school, which sits on Tahrir Square, the central protest site, confirmed the students' arrest. National television showed video of the three, identified as Derrik Sweeney, from Georgetown University, Luke Gates, from Indiana University and Greg Porter, from Drexel University. Kevin Sweeney, Derrick's father, told CBS Radio news that his son was being held in a courthouse in Cairo.

Occupy Miami protesters moved back to their original location at Government Center on Tuesday after being given a deadline, a county spokeswoman said. “It has been peaceful so far and we hope to keep it that way,” said Suzy Trutie, a county spokeswoman. Trutie said the protesters moved by their 5 p.m. deadline. The protesters had to switch locations on last week to the north lawn, about 50 feet away from where they had been demonstrating, so the county could complete construction on the roof of a building. The project was completed Monday and the county has issued a letter...

Seven OccupyMN demonstrators have been arrested for blocking traffic today after refusing to leave tents set up in the middle of the intersection of 6th Street S. and 3rd Av. S. They are the first multiple arrests during the two-week anti-Wall Street demonstration. The protest, which focused on the large number of foreclosures, began around noon when about 100 protesters set up four small tents on the sidewalk in front of the U.S. Bank building at 5th St. and 3rd. Ave. S. The police watched but took no action, so the group then marched to the intersection on the other...

Three Americans who were imprisoned in Iran and accused of spying voiced their support Monday for activists with the Occupy Wall Street movement and California prisoners protesting solitary confinement conditions. Minnesota native Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal and Sarah Shourd each spoke at the "Occupy Oakland" encampment in front of City Hall where dozens of activists have been sleeping in tents for the past week. The three University of California-Berkeley graduates thanked supporters who advocated for their release and said they are inspired by the Wall Street protests. "This is the perfect place to celebrate our freedom," said Bauer, a freelance...

Herman Cain deserves credit for proposing a tax-reform plan that is specific, promotes economic growth, and has captured the imagination of conservatives nationwide. His 9-9-9 plan builds on the insight that one of the chief defects of the current tax code is its bias toward consumption over savings. But his plan’s peculiarities of design, substantive weaknesses, and political naïveté render it unworthy of conservative support. Cain’s ultimate objective is a 30 percent national sales tax, but his interim plan is to replace the current income, payroll, and corporate tax codes with three new taxes. A 9 percent income tax would...

Face-off looms as NY protesters fear evictionBy Brigitte Dusseau | AFP – 8 minutes ago **SNIP** In a statement on their website, the Occupy Wall Street movement urged supporters to join them at 6:00 am (1000 GMT) on Friday at Zuccotti Park for "non-violent eviction defense." "Bloomberg says that the park will be open for public usage following the cleaning, but with a notable caveat: Occupy Wall Street participants must follow the rules. These rules include, 'no tarps or sleeping bags' and 'no lying down,'" the statement said. "So, seems likely that this is their attempt to shut down #OWS...

DALLAS (AP) — George W. Bush says that after eight years in the White House, he's happy to be back home in Texas and out of the spotlight. But the former commander-in-chief tells The Associated Press there's one aspect of his presidency he still misses: interaction with U.S. troops. And Bush, who sent them to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, says that despite his desire to remain largely out of the public eye, he wants to make sure veterans and military members know they still have his support. "I was a little concerned that our veterans don't think that I...

Chanting “The whole world is watching!” the Occupy DC protesters tried to storm the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum today. They pinned a guard against the wall. The mob forced the museum to shut its doors early. Hey, didn’t we see the tea party do this sorta thing too? NBC Washington reported on the violent mob outing. According to Smithsonian spokesperson Linda St. Thomas, a crowd of “about 100 to 200 people” tried to enter through the museum’s Mall entrance. “They were carrying signs and a lot of protest materials,” St. Thomas said in a statement. “You cannot bring that...

Local offshoots of the Occupy Wall Street demonstration that has taken over a park in New York's financial district are being organized in Wisconsin. Participants have rallied near Wall Street for three weeks against what they perceive as corporate greed and economic inequality. A flash point sparked over the weekend when about 700 participants were arrested as they marched in vehicle travel lanes of the Brooklyn Bridge. Organizers in Milwaukee, Madison and Appleton are planning rallies Oct. 15 as part of an International Day of Action in support of the protests. Organizers of the Milwaukee event plan a rally at...

Engraved at the base of the statue of Liberty Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send...

It doesn’t take much to get an airport security badge these days, even if you are a dog. In an examination of a database of more than 1.1 million security badges for roughly 900,000 airport workers at 359 US airports, the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General found omissions or inaccuracies in 96,000 records, such as missing security status, birthdates and birthplaces. In one instance, a security badge was issued to a dog. The badges are issued to airport workers and give clearance to secure areas. Applicants must pass a criminal background check and a security threat assessment from the...

CAMBRIDGE, MA – A groundbreaking study has determined that 83% of the members of Congress are certified morons! The Kennedy School of Government did a longitudinal study over the last 30 years that looked at the average IQ of members of Congress – the Senate & House of Representatives. The study found that, despite the many advanced degrees from prestigious universities, and despite the fact that many in Congress are millionaires, the average IQ of U.S. Representatives is 101. The average IQ of U.S. Senators, is surprisingly, even lower at 98. “We spent one hour a month with each member...

ELECTRIC cars could produce higher emissions over their lifetimes than petrol equivalents because of the energy consumed in making their batteries, a study has found. An electric car owner would have to drive at least 129,000km before producing a net saving in CO2. Many electric cars will not travel that far in their lifetime because they typically have a range of less than 145km on a single charge and are unsuitable for long trips. Even those driven 160,000km would save only about a tonne of CO2 over their lifetimes. The British study, which is the first analysis of the full...

General Motor's CEO, Dan Akerson, wants higher gas taxes and the price of a gallon of gas to increase closer to $5 a gallon. Are you kidding me?! The comments were made in an interview with the Detroit News. Regarding government imposed fuel efficiency increases Akerson stated, "You know what I'd rather have them do, this will make my Republican friends puke, as gas is going to go down here now, we ought to just slap a 50-cent or a dollar tax on a gallon of gas. People will start buying more Cruzes and they will start buying less Suburbans."...

A Million Electric VehiclesThe president wants them by 2015, but 2064 is a more realistic estimate. Back in January, during his State of the Union speech, President Obama said that he wanted the U.S. to “become the first country to have 1 million electric vehicles on the road,� and he wanted it to happen by 2015. Given current sales of the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf, the president may hit his target . . . sometime in 2064. In May, U.S. sales for the much-hyped Volt totaled 481. The Leaf did better, with 1,142 units sold. That’s a grand total of 1,623 electric cars...

A teenager from Kanawha County has admitted to beating and robbing an elderly woman. UPDATE 5/16/11 @ 11:30 a.m. CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- A teenager from Kanawha County has admitted to beating and robbing an elderly woman. Shane Peck pleaded guilty Monday to robbery and assault. Click here to find out more! Peck and another teenager, Joseph Gibson, broke into Geraldine Gibson's house in Big Chimney back in March. That is when police say they beat and robbed her. Geraldine Gibson was hurt so badly she was in ICU for days after the crime. Peck and Gibson say Geraldine's son...

Teacher allegedly refused to hang up picture ORANGE, Mass. (WWLP) - A civil rights controversy is brewing at an elementary school in the Town of Orange, and it all surrounds an11 year-old's drawing of the American Flag. The family of Frankie Girard is claiming that their son's civil rights were violated after a teacher allegedly told him that hanging his picture of the American flag would offend another student. The Butterfield Elementary School is at the center of controversy for the incident on Monday. According to Frankie Girard’s father, John, the boy was in art class drawing a picture. "He...

Obama official: Reduced gov't spending to blame for slowdown By Michael O'Brien - 04/28/11 04:40 PM ET A top economic aide to President Obama blamed reductions in government spending for a slowdown in U.S. economic growth in the first quarter. Austan Goolsbee, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said that a slowdown in government spending was mostly responsible for the 1.8 percent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) between January and March, down from 3.1 in the fourth quarter of 2010. "It was an expected slowdown," Goolsbee said in an interview on Bloomberg television. "The biggest driver was...

I've been looking for a good analogue to the willingness of Republicans to believe, or say they believe, that Obama was born abroad, and one relevant number is the share of Democrats willing to believe, as they say, that "Bush knew." There aren't a lot of great public numbers on the partisan breakdown of adherents to that conspiracy theory, but the University of Ohio yesterday shared with us the crosstabs of a 2006 poll they did with Scripps Howard that's useful in that regard. "How likely is it that people in the federal government either assisted in the 9/11 attacks...

Well this just got interesting. The Department of Homeland Security is going to stage a mock terrorist drill in Iowa this Saturday, March 26th. Sounds like a good idea right? Well, the scenario details two white males, ages 17 and 18, with ties to anti-immigration groups and gun enthusiasts, opening fire on a group of minority students, hitting a Hispanic student......

What? Are you kidding me? No, I’m not. A new Rasmussen survey shows that 11% believe a Communist system is morally superior than the current U.S. system. 1. Is the United States system of politics and economics morally superior to communism or is communism morally superior to the United States system of politics and economics? 77% U. S. system is morally superior 11% Communism is morally superior 13% Not Sure So according to 11% of those surveyed, a Communist system is better than Freedom, Capitalism, and the ability to be an idiot and vote for Communism. Though taking a “wild...

MADISON, Wis. -- Wisconsin's Democratic state senators will have votes they cast in committee counted and other penalties imposed against them will be rescinded after they returned to the state on Saturday. Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said Tuesday that assurances he received from Democrats that they will participate in future Senate sessions and votes allowed him to rescind finding the Democrats in contempt.

A Government Accountability Office report to be released on Tuesday concludes the federal government "could potentially save billions of taxpayer dollars annually" by "reducing or eliminating duplication, overlap, or fragmentation" in federal government programs. The report was mandated by a provision included by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., in a bill passed last year raising the federal debt ceiling. And Coburn said on Monday evening that the findings bolster his long-standing attempts to consolidate or eliminate duplicative programs. "It makes us all look like jackasses," Coburn told reporters, arguing both the legislative and executive branches can barely track federal programs. "Anybody...

The Rotunda continues to fill up as the 4pm deadline approaches. The Ustream video showed an almost empty Rotunda 35 minutes ago. Now the Rotunda is packed.

O'Reilly began a segment tonight by saying that he did not believe the recent poll that showed that 51% of likely GOP primary voters didn't believe that Obama was born in HI. He offered up a different poll showing that 58% of Americans believed Obama was born in HI. Rove came on and after admitting that Obama could end the birth certificate controversy immediately by simply releasing his birth records, Rove said the controversy benefited Obama. Then both O'Reilly and Rove equated "birthers" with "truthers" and Ron Paul supporters and said they were on the Tea Party and GOP fringe....

Funny videos of various focus groups testing smart phones.

SEATTLE -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington is suing King County over its refusal to place advertisements critical of the Israeli government on Metro buses. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court says Metro had a long history of allowing noncommercial advertisements on its buses, and that makes the buses a traditional public forum. The ACLU says the county's refusal to run ads that said "Israeli War Crimes: Your Tax Dollars at Work" violates the First Amendment rights of the group that sought to run the ads. The county received complaints asking officials to block the ad from...

<p>A proposal by Senator Mark Udall, D-Colo., for bipartisan seating during the annual State of Union address is picking up support. The plan, that would sit Republicans, Democrats, and Independents should-to-shoulder during the President's address, is getting the thumbs up from both sides of the aisle and even right down the middle.</p>

With his talk-radio avoidance policy making the national news and rating the second-highest placed headline on the Drudge Report Wednesday, Governor Chafee is defending his decision. In an interview Wednesday, Chafee denied speculation that the policy had anything to do with the harsh criticism that some of the state’s conservative talk-show hosts had been flinging his way in the wake of his move to rescind his predecessor’s executive order on illegal immigration. “We just want to focus on the job at hand, getting the economy rolling again, and we can’t be diverted with all the nonsense on talk radio,” he...

Two people are facing criminal charges after a “party game” gone wrong ended in a man’s death. Authorities said Jimmy Mounts, 27, of Romeoville, was at a garage party in the 2000 block of Waterford in Crest Hill Sept. 25 when he starting offering other guests $5 if they could take a punch from 21-year-old Tiffany Startz, of Joliet. John A. Powell, 25, who was 5-foot-8 and weighed 140 pounds, took Mounts’ wager and stood before the 5-foot-5, 142-pound Startz, police said. Witnesses told police Startz swung and hit Powell once in the face. He collected his money from Mounts...

With the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” looking imminent, the next question on America’s mind is what a military with openly gay soldiers will look like. Most experts, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, believe that a repeal of the discriminatory law won’t at all endanger the military’s stability. And a large majority of enlisted troops agree with them. But what if a military that welcomes gays and lesbians with open arms doesn’t just not fall part, but actually shows remarkable improvement? For decades now, scientists seeking to understand why people...

Coldest December since records began as temperatures plummet to minus 10C bringing travel chaos across Britain Swathes of Britain skidded to a halt today as the big freeze returned - grounding flights, closing rail links and leaving traffic at a standstill. And tonight the nation was braced for another 10in of snow and yet more sub-zero temperatures - with no let-up in the bitterly cold weather for at least a month, forecasters have warned. The Arctic conditions are set to last through the Christmas and New Year bank holidays and beyond and as temperatures plummeted to -10c (14f) the Met...

BELMONT -- A Republican activist is raising signatures to place an Arizona-style immigration law on the California ballot in 2012. The proposition would require all state and local police officers to investigate the immigration status of those they stop if they have reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally. It would make it a state crime for illegal immigrants to seek work while concealing their immigration status. In addition, it would make it a state crime for an employer to hire an undocumented immigrant, whether the hiring happens intentionally or negligently. Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced...

What he had said was too volitile and I felt that his statement, which I won't repeat, seems wrong to me because Muhammad Ali is a Muslim. Is he responsible? Is that what you're saying, Bill, that it was him or Kareem Abdul Jabar? You mean they did that?

The US has banned toner and ink cartridges from passenger aircraft in the wake of last month's bomb plot. In addition, cargo flights from Somalia and Yemen are banned, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said. High risk cargo will receive extra screening and parcels must be screened and certified to have come via an established shipper, she said. The strictures come after bombs hidden in cartridges were intercepted on route from Yemen to the US in cargo planes. The printer cartridge ban affects cartridges over 16 ounces.

WASHINGTON - Millionaire blogger Arianna Huffington is picking up the bus fare for more than 10,000 New Yorkers headed Saturday to Comedy Central's "Rally to Restore Sanity." "It was a moment of irrational exuberance," Huffington joked in an interview with the Daily News, admitting she never expected so many people to take her up on the offer.

Conservative Delaware senate candidate Christine O’Donnell, a popular target of the mainstream media, was questioned on CNN’s “American Morning” for her statements about faith and prayer in her interview with Christian Broadcasting Network White House Correspondent David Brody. The Christian candidate cited prayer as playing a central role in her campaign, and her comments drew raised eyebrows over at CNN.

Fantastic video! See Barney "dance" around the issues. The only thing which would make this video better would be photoshopping a tutu on that "happy kind of guy" Barney. Video by the Sean Bielat campaign....follow the link....

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - More than 50 Memphians are on a long bus ride, they hope will eventually pay-off in more job opportunities for Memphis and Shelby County. They'll be part of thousands expected to gather at the National Mall in Washington D.C. for the "One Nation Coming Together" rally tomorrow. Mass demonstrations in Washington D.C for decades, whether about civil rights, war, poverty or collective dissatisfaction with governmental policy, these forms of usually non-violent protest have symbolically served as clarion calls for action. More than 50 Memphians boarded an NAACP chartered bus Friday morning to participate in the latest example...

Obama, Pelosi, and Reid shoved the hated ObamaCare legislation through the world's greatest deliberative body, and we are seeing the results. As my friend Rick Ballard says, "Those who went along with the Three Stooges of the Democalypse are going to pay for it on November 2." The polls are rather uniform in showing the likelihood of a tsunami wiping out a Democrat majority in the House, with only the margins being in doubt, and some, like Dick Morris, are predicting that the Senate will also shift into Republican hands. Although it's the main drag on the ticket, it's not...

SNIP Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in a statement released Thursday night, said: "While we denounce the assault on the Holy Koran and stress the importance of not letting this occur, we urge Muslims, whereever they are, to exercise the utmost restraint." "Do not do what would hurt the followers of the church," he said. SNIP

A populace that expects salvation from the government has some representatives believing they are saviors. A few weeks ago, California Congressman Pete Stark made a revealing comment at a town hall meeting. One of his constituents inquired about using the Constitution’s commerce clause to justify health care legislation that — for the first time in American history — requires citizens to purchase a product. When asked by that constituent what the federal government can’t do, Stark replied: “The federal government, yes, can do most anything in this country.” Really? In late August, Kentucky Congressman John Yarmuth had a similarly rare...

Of all the attacks on George W. Bush, one of the hardest to understand was the often-repeated leftist mantra that Bush was a liar. Particularly strange was the challenge to Bush's claims about Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction.” How did a claim so strongly endorsed by so many leaders on both sides of the aisle suddenly become not merely a mistake, but an out-and-out lie? Perhaps what was going on here was not so much a dispute about facts, but a dispute about world view. A basic dogma of the left is that American military intervention is a trick that...

Posted on the dark side by the dim bulbs: Cyrano (1000+ posts) Thu Aug-19-10 01:14 PM If we sit out the November elections, we're screwed Yeah, I know the Democrats are wimps and many of them are outright slime. But don't be too quick to dismiss the "lesser of two evils" argument. We are where we are today because of the Republican Party. Imagine if they had more than the power to just say "No." They already control the message because of Fox "news" and hate radio. Imagine them in control of one or both houses of congress where the...

The State Dept. will pay for the fund raising tour of the Imam who wants to build the mosque at Ground Zero. He will visit Riyadh, S.A., Quater, and Dubai, among other countries. After several days of phone calls and e-mail inquiries, the State Dept. answered, "we need to get clearance to comment" No denial was forthcoming. The Imam already has a mosque 10 blocks from the sone he wants to build.

In an insane case of political correctness, a federal government agency has classified an illegal immigrant arrested for cultivating marijuana in a national forest as a “displaced traveler from Michoacán Mexico.” The illegal alien (Gauldry Almonte-Hernandez) was recently busted during a U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement Operation raid of illegally grown marijuana plants in northern California’s Shasta-Trinity National Forest. So far this month, the feds have eradicated more than 92,000 marijuana plants throughout the 2.1 million acre national forest that encompasses five wilderness areas and hundreds of mountain lakes. In the first few days of July alone, about 50,000 plants...

A policy of no tolerance for weapons got an 8-year-old boy in trouble at his Rhode Island grade school this week. The boy brought in nearly a dozen M-14 Army rifles to his Tiogue School in Coventry, R.I. grade school and was chastised by the principal for the outrage. How did he get all those assault rifles into the school you might ask? Why he did it by gluing seven or so of his 2-inch-tall green army soldier toys to his camo colored ball cap for "make a crazy hat" day at school. That's right, a few green army man...

Atty. Gen. Eric Holder’s recent comment about Arizona’s illegal immigration law demonstrates that he is either blatantly disingenuous, or that the most powerful attorney in the country is incompetent. Holder admitted under questioning last Thursday that he has not read the Arizona statute, nor been briefed on the 16-page document by his staff. Nevertheless, our nation’s top law enforcement official has repeatedly said that the law is unconstitutional, misguided, and will be challenged. It turns out his expert legal opinion is nothing more than hysterical, and mostly erroneous, hyperbole—the kind that flies in the face of the vast majority of...

Utah Sen. Bob Bennett’s defeat Saturday underscored what many Republicans already know to be true: Their 2008 “yes” vote for the Troubled Asset Relief Program is no asset to their campaigns. The Wall Street bailout has turned into a millstone for many Republicans who voted for the $700 billion fund. The vote is proving to be a crushing burden in GOP primaries for those carrying it. Nowhere was it clearer than in Utah, where, as Bennett pleaded Saturday for the chance to serve a fourth term, a smattering of delegates at the Utah Republican convention serenaded him with the chant...