Free Republic

SPOKANE, Wash. - Court documents reveal a bizarre string of events that led them to arrest a man they suspect killed his wife's family in Colbert. It was clear the night of the murders Roy Murry was the man they were looking for. Lisa Canfield, Terry Canfield and John Constable were shot to death, their home set on fire. Canfield's daughter Amanda Murry was supposed to be at the home that night, but had to work late. When she arrived at the Colbert home at 3:38 that morning, she saw fire and police and immediately called her estranged husband Roy....

One of the first concepts taught in basic economics is the demand curve. As the price of something goes up, the demand for it goes down. And vice versa. One doesn’t even need an economics class to understand that a $50-million house will not have a bunch of buyers in a bidding war, compared to a much less expensive house. Or that a sale, lowering the price of something, is a good way to sell more and clear the inventory. So why is there such confusion about the minimum wage? A wage is simply the price of labor. Raise the...

Contractors are now planning to dismantle the beached and broken Davy Crockett right where it sits. Workers will encircle the 431-foot barge with a cofferdam, forming an enclosed area, and take it apart piece by piece. The original plan of floating it away to a dry dock proved to be untenable, marking another setback in an operation that’s already the most expensive shipwreck in Washington history. Until this week, federal and state authorities had been planning to cut the ship in two and float both halves away to a dry dock. But officials said they were unable to reach agreements...

Last weekend was Memorial Weekend, honoring our fallen soldiers who lost their lives defending our country and our flag. Last weekend a US Forest Ranger came through our campground at Devils Elbow, which is Idaho Panhandle National Forest Land. He told our camp host, Butch & Sharon, they had to take down their US Flag. He refused. I don't know the outcome of his refusal, their is a chance he will loose his job. But he states he will not take down his flag. We also do not know if this ranger was acting on his own, or if this...

'Liberty For All Brings You ARMS EXPO 2015 Arms Expo is a gun expo and patriot campout for the whole family. Join us for two days of outdoor events, speakers, family activities, vendors, and private gun sales. Liberty Market & Gun Show Food, drink, artisan crafts, prepper supplies, firearms and gear; that's what you'll find at the Arms Expo Liberty Market & Gun Show. Vendors and citizens are free to buy and sell as they please. No constitutional infringement! Classes & Demonstrations An AR-15 build class, food storage and canning, patriot networking, self-defense, how to apply liberty to your everyday...

Did The New York Times just inadvertently tell us what the real goal of the raise-the-minimum-wage campaign is? A Times editorial last week cheered Los Angeles’ enactment of a $15-an-hour minimum wage — but noted that restaurants, particularly fast-food joints, don’t like it. Said The Times: “The restaurant industry . . . will not go down without a fight.” We didn’t think that bringing down an entire industry was what the campaign for a $15 minimum was supposed to be about. Oops. Back in March, we noted that a similar hikein Seattle’s minimum wage was leading to a spate of local restaurant closings, given that labor costs...

Sen. Maria Cantwell engaged in a very public maneuver on the Senate floor Thursday, withholding her vote in favor of the big trade bill until she got assurances that there would be a vote on renewing the Export-Import Bank. Afterward, explaining the fervency of her support for the Ex-Im Bank, she told such a howler that even the Capitol press corps, not empowered to actually call a senator a liar, made sure to offer readers the opportunity to reach that conclusion on their own. The Democrat from Washington state, where Boeing is the single largest employer, said her support for...

WASHINGTON (WJLA/AP) - A U.S. Capitol Police spokeswoman says a bomb squad has safely destroyed a pressure cooker found in a "suspicious" vehicle left unattended near the Capitol building and that the vehicle's owner has been arrested. Lt. Kimberly A. Schneider told The Associated Press by email that officers on patrol spotted the parked, unoccupied vehicle Sunday on a street on the National Mall west of the Capitol and an odor of gasoline was also detected. She says a bomb squad "disrupted the items of concern in the vehicle including the pressure cooker," producing a loud bang about 7:45 p.m....

A Washington state senator has survived a campaign by Western Washington University students who demanded their school revoke his master’s degree because he’s not radical enough on global warming. Doug Ericksen, a Republican and chair of Washington’s Senate Energy, Environment and Telecommunications Committee, has blocked efforts to force businesses and residents to go green, but he supports voluntary compliance. He opposes mandated cap-and-trade programs and low-carbon fuel standards. But the effort to yank Ericksen’s degree — he earned his MA in political science and environmental policy at WWU — met with a stiff rebuke last week from the university’s president....

A pizza shop owner in Seattle says the city's new minimum wage law is forcing her to close her doors. The new law says businesses have six years to phase into giving employees $15 an hour. Devin Jeran was happy to get a raise when Seattle's minimum wage went up to $11 an hour at the beginning of the month. “I definitely recognize that having more money is important, especially in a city as expensive as this one,” he said. He'll only enjoy that bigger paycheck for a few more months. In August, his boss is shutting down Z Pizza,...

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Klamath Falls Field office of the Lakeview District will be hosting an open house to learn about the Draft Resource Management Plan (RMP)/Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Western Oregon. The open house meeting will be held the evening of May 26, 2015, from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm at the Shilo Inn Suites Hotel located at 2500 Almond Street, Klamath Falls, Oregon. BLM employees will be on hand to answer questions, provide information and listen to concerns. There will also be a demonstration on how to use the interactive maps and other online resources...

Americans often go to great lengths to keep the government off their assets. But last month, as Peter and Joan Petrasek had wished in their wills, a cashier’s check for $847,215.57 was made out to the Department of Treasury. The Petraseks had left their total accumulated wealth, of cash in the bank and sale of their West Seattle home, “to the government of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.” The Petraseks had no children. Why the unusual will? Why not a charity or some cause?

Thirty-five years have passed since Mount St. Helens erupted in Washington, killing 57 people and raining ash throughout the state. Lisa Rainey shared a photo of jarred ash with Seattle's KIRO-TV, writing: "Ashes and a newspaper from Mount St. Helen's blast from 1980 ... my grandma and grandpa scooped up ashes in their yard from the blast.” When the photo was shared on Facebook, many viewers began to share their memories of that day – May 18, 1980.

All 20 Republican lawmakers who voted against an amendment that prevents illegals from enlisting in the U.S. military refused to answer questions from Breitbart News regarding the expedited citizenship most illegals would have been eligible for once they joined the armed forces. They also each refused to answer whether they agree with House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) calling their Republican colleagues who voted for the amendment “xenophobic” and “un-American.” That means that for now, the 20 Republicans who defected and joined Democrats in opposing the amendment are allowing Pelosi’s comments to remain unchallenged. ... There is a core...

Faced with sliding domestic demand for coal, the governor of Wyoming has kept pressing for access to deep-water ports in the Northwest that would allow exports to Asian markets. Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead met Monday with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee in Olympia and plans to meet Tuesday with Oregon Gov. Kate Brown. "I wanted to get out here and talk to these two governors," Mead said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "If there are practical issues as well that we could help work through — everything from train traffic to train congestion, to issues of coal dust...

Now that stalled tunnel machine Bertha’s front end is disassembled, the damage looks worse than project experts thought — and contractors will miss their goal to resume digging in August. Not only did grit penetrate the rubber bearing seals, but the steel casings around the seals broke apart, sending fragments into the drive gears. Some teeth are cracked in the giant bull gear, which rotates the circular drill face, as well as several pinion gears that are spun by 24 electric motors. The news was revealed Monday morning by Todd Trepanier, administrator for the state’s Highway 99 replacement project, at...

Hundreds of people in kayaks and small boats have staged a protest in the north-western US port city of Seattle against oil drilling in the Arctic by the Shell energy giant. Paddle in Seattle was held by activists who said the firm's drilling would damage the environment. It comes after the first of Shell's two massive oil rigs arrived at the port. The firm wants to move them in the coming months to explore for oil off Alaska's northern coast. Earlier this week, Shell won conditional approval from the US Department of Interior for oil exploration in the Arctic. The...

Now that Oregon’s SB 941 has been signed by the Governor, gun rights activists have banded together and are organizing a facebook event page for a rally entitled “SB 941 I Will Not Comply Demonstration“. The rally is set for May 30th, at the Capitol building in Salem, and will feature a host of speakers. SB 941 is the “universal background check” bill, meaning that if you want to trade guns with your next door neighbor whom you’ve known for 10 years, you must both submit yourselves to background checks and get permission from the state police before the exchange...

The arrival in Seattle Thursday of an oil rig Royal Dutch Shell is outfitting for oil exploration in the remote Arctic Ocean marks a pivotal moment for an environmental movement increasingly mobilized around climate change. Activists paddling out in kayaks to meet the rig off Seattle's picturesque waterfront said it's their moment to stand against opening a new frontier of fossil fuel exploration. "Unless people get out there and put themselves on the front lines and say enough is enough, than nothing will ever change," said Jordan Van Voast, 55, an acupuncturist who was going out on the water to...

Ah, the beauty of our nation’s college campuses, the traditional hotbeds of free speech and open debate. I wonder what ever happened to those? Out in Washington State, some students at Western Washington University have come up with interesting new techniques in the field of debate. For example, one of their state senators, Doug Ericksen (R-Ferndale) was found by the upset underclassmen to be a heretical non-believer when it comes to the issue of global warming. Ericksen, as it turns out, is an alumnus of WWU, so rather than debating him on the hot topic, they have issued demands...