Free Republic

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker shrugged last year after several high-profile corporations left his state. “Countless companies are choosing Illinois as their home,” Mr. Pritzker said. Then why does a new Internal Revenue Service report show an accelerating taxpayer exodus from Illinois and other high-tax states?

Piss Christ? Piss Koran! Part Four: Resolution by Matthew Bracken “Your call, smart guy.” The phone connection made a click and the line went dead. (The rest is at the Gates of Vienna link above.) Mike wasn’t a kid. He knew that he wouldn’t live forever. He’d had enough brushes with death to understand that a healthy old age was not guaranteed in the contract. He’d been standing next to men who had stepped the wrong way, and fallen. He’d helped pull a man’s body off a concrete footer where he’d been impaled on an uncapped rebar stake. Just two...

Don't expect to beat the heat this weekend in a canoe, a kayak or a windsurfing board off Manhattan. City officials declared the Hudson River, the East River south of the RFK Bridge and the Harlem River unfit for recreational activity due to raw sewage spilled by a treatment plant fire. "Right now, there's no impact on public beaches," Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Cas Holloway said. "However, you should not be doing contact recreation on the Hudson River." People splashing in the tainted water risk vomiting, diarrhea and fever. The warning to avoid the waterways is in effect through...

WASHINGTON, March 1, 2008 – On what was described as a “fine Navy, Marine Corps day,” in New Orleans, Defense Department officials, servicemembers and distinguished guests gathered today to christen a tangible symbol of America’s mettle. “This is a special day for a magnificent ship that has a special place in the heart of every American,” Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England said during the christening ceremony for USS New York. Everyone in the country, he said, has felt a special connection with New York since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “On the day the towers fell, all Americans...

  Our nihilistic society A driver of a pick-up truck in downtown Manhattan drives backward up a one-way street while talking on his cellphone. People are yelling at him to stop but he doesn’t hear them. His truck hits a woman who is crossing the street and kills her. He is not arrested. The fact that he was using a cellphone while driving a truck backward in a one-way street and killed someone and is not arrested for this does not become an occasion for outrage or even questions. The media and everyone else, including the dead women’s grief-stricken colleagues...