Free Republic

A former Rhode Island state lawmaker has agreed to plead guilty to fraud charges, becoming the third former House member in 11 days to be charged with criminal conduct and prompting the U.S. attorney to decry the state’s political culture. The charges filed against Democrat Ray Gallison in federal court Monday include mail fraud, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and filing false tax returns. Gallison, an attorney, acknowledged taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from a dead man’s estate and other misconduct. “This says something about our political culture here, which I think should get our attention,” U.S. Attorney Peter...

American college campuses are becoming the main battleground for the First Amendment, usually because faculty or administrators don’t respect the free speech rights of students. In November I wrote about such a case at Iowa State. Another case showing the authoritarianism that increasingly characterizes the professoriate involves the master’s program in social work at Rhode Island College (RIC). A student who did not believe that lobbying the state legislature for “progressive” causes was properly a part of his education and suffered for it filed suit against the school in state court. This remarkable case started way back in 2004, when...

Rhode Island is likely to lose one of its two U.S. House seats after the 2020 U.S. Census, according to projections by reapportionment guru Kimball W. Brace, who has for many years helped Rhode Island lawmakers draw both state legislative and congressional districts

Senate Democrats are making it clear that Sen. Jeff Sessions will not have an easy time being confirmed as President-elect Donald J. Trump’s first attorney general. In a letter addressed to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Democrats on the committee pushed for extensive confirmation hearings, indicating that they plan resistance, despite the fact that they referred to him as “a colleague” with whom they “have a personal and cordial relationship.” The senators also requested that Grassley allow for outside witnesses to testify on Sessions’ track record on immigration, civil and voting rights, women’s rights, and government oversight due...

Whether it’s walking in the woods or catching up on reading, Hillary Clinton appears to be enjoying more leisurely activities than running a contentious presidential campaign. On Sunday, Clinton was spotted browsing books at The Savoy Bookstore in Waverly, Rhode Island, according to the Westerly Sun. She was joined by Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and son-in-law Marc Mezvinky, as well as her grandchildren, Charlotte and Aidan. The visit was a surprise to bookstore employees and shoppers, who sensed something was about to happen when black SUVs and men wearing earpieces rolled up to the store. Employee Jessica Wick took to...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Reports are coming in from several locations around the state of long lines at the polls, driven by high turnout that has overwhelmed the ballot-counting machines. "The volume is so high it's causing the backlog," said Tony Pires, the director of administration in Pawtucket. "The turnout is so large that one machine can't keep up with the volume." Pires added, "It doesn't seem to be a local issue. It seems to be state-wide." Lines of two hours have been reported at Summit Commons on Hillside Avenue in Providence. Pires also said voting machines were overwhelmed at the...

Hundreds of women, girls and other supporters proudly donned their yoga pants Sunday afternoon as they peacefully paraded around the Rhode Island neighborhood of a man who derided the attire as tacky and ridiculous. Alan Sorrentino says the response to the letter to the editor, printed in The Barrington Times Wednesday, has been “vicious” and that he’s received death threats. He implored marchers to stay away from his home and maintained the letter was meant to be humorous. But organizers say the so-called yoga pants parade wasn’t a protest against Sorrentino specifically but part of a bigger movement against misogyny...

BARRINGTON, R.I. (WPRI) — In just a short amount of time, more than 100 women have made plans to wear yoga pants and march in a parade down a street in Barrington. The parade comes in response to a Barrington Times letter to the editor written by a town man about his dislike for yoga pants. The backlash to Barrington resident Alan Sorrentino’s letter came almost immediately, with many women taking offense and sharing their feelings on social media and the Barrington Times website. WPRI’s news partners at The Providence Journal spoke to the woman who organized the event and...

America’s first offshore wind power plant will cost about $17,600 dollars to build per home it will power. Three miles off the coast of Block Island, Rhode Island, the wind farm is supposed to generate enough energy to power 17,000 homes, but will cost $300 million to build five turbines. This cost is just to build the turbines, not to operate them. The extremely high cost of offshore wind doesn’t worry environmentalists and progressives, however, because, as Salon.com says about the project, “it’s the precedent that counts.” Despite the extremely high cost, federal officials want to power a whooping 23...

Juanita Broaddrick has accused Bill Clinton of raping her in 1978, and most recently, she’s challenged Chelsea Clinton’s complaints about “attacks” on her parents. Now, Hillary’s trolls are making Broaddrick pay the price for speaking up. The retired Arkansas nursing home administrator shared exclusively with The American Mirror some of the awful messages social media users have sent her over the last two days.

Commercial fishing boat owners and groups are reacting to the executive action taken by President Obama that created a marine national preserve in the North Atlantic on Sept. 15. They say that banning commercial fishing there is unnecessary, since the fishing industry has already been working with government agencies on conservation measures.

Not an AP photo: NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) — The U.S. Navy’s futuristic Zumwalt destroyer has arrived in Rhode Island for its first port visit since leaving the shipyard to join the fleet. The stealthy destroyer arrived at Naval Station Newport Thursday afternoon. It left Bath Iron Works in Maine, where it was built, on Wednesday. It’s headed to its commissioning in Baltimore, then to its homeport in San Diego.

Statement of Methodology: This survey of 500 likely North Carolina general election voters was conducted between September 5 and September 7, 2016, and is based on live telephone interviews of adults who indicated they were likely to vote in the November 2016 general election for president. Each area’s quota and demographic information -- including race and age -- was determined from previous like elections and 2010 Census data. Samples of both standard landline and cell phones were called using a probability-proportionate-to-size method, which means that the phone numbers assigned to each county were proportional to the number of likely voters...

Donald Trump, according to a new poll, is down just three points on Hillary Clinton in the traditionally-reliable Democratic state of Rhode Island, a state Barack Obama won by 27 points in 2012. A poll released Wednesday from Boston’s Emerson College shows Clinton at 44 percent, Trump at 41 percent, Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson at 8.4 percent and Green Party nominee Jill Stein at 3.5 percent. ... The college polled the presidential race in six New England states and New Jersey. The results show Clinton ahead in all seven states, though the contests are tight in Rhode Island, New...

Brown University's student body president will be hand-delivering menstrual products into all nonresidential bathrooms with the help of 20 other students as classes begin this week, and, as of this fall, New York City public school students will provide free tampons and pads in all school buildings with sixth through 12th graders. [Snip] "There's been a lot of conversation about why pads and tampons are a necessity, not a luxury, but not a lot of action. We wanted to take it into our own hands," says Nguyen, a senior studying education policy. "Low-income students struggle with having the necessary funding...

The 2016 Atlantic Hurricane Season is heating up. Two tropical systems are taking aim at the United States. Tropical Depression Eight (Hermine) is expected to brush the Outer Banks of NC. Tropical Depression Nine (Ian) is in the Gulf of Mexico, anticipated to affect the Florida coast. Public Advisories: Ian(TD 9) Hermine (TD 8)Discussions: Ian (TD9) Hermine (TD 8)

With increasing frequency, it is getting harder and harder for conservative Catholics, no matter how well credentialed they are, to get hired in academia, particularly in Catholic universities. When he was still teaching at SUNY, author Thomas E. Woods, Jr., told me that his enthusiasm for the Latin Mass was met with more hostility in Catholic colleges and universities than at the State University of New York, where they thought it was exotic. In the latest issue of Modern Age, a quarterly review, English professor Anthony Esolen recalls his own experiences a quarter century ago when he went to work...

A Rhode Island congressman says he’s asking President Barack Obama to withhold classified materials and briefings from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the interest of national security. U.S. Rep. David Cicilline, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent a letter to Obama on Wednesday. […] Cicilline says Trump’s “call for hostile foreign action” goes beyond partisan politics and “represents a threat to the republic itself.” …

Mark S. Weiner died while following his heart, heading to see his lifelong friends, the Clintons. On Tuesday morning, the longtime Democratic Party activist and major fundraiser rose, eager to travel to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia to hear a speech by his longtime friend, former President Bill Clinton, and to see Hillary Clinton become the first female nominee for president from a major party. During his speech at the convention Tuesday night, Bill Clinton said he and Hillary cried when they heard of Weiner's death. “He was getting dressed to come to the convention,” former Providence Mayor Joseph...