Free Republic

In the days leading up to the Major League Baseball All-Star game, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) erroneously called Washington Nationals manager Davey Johnson the manager of the “National Mets.” Reid made the comments on the Senate floor July 11, during an argument about changing filibuster rules for presidential nominees.

George Zimmerman's lawyer literally flipped a prosecution witness -- a gray, foam dummy -- to re-enact the defense's version of the confrontation that ended in the death of Trayvon Martin, straddling the mannequin and bashing its head against the floor as stunned jurors looked on Wednesday. The mannequin was initially introduced by prosecutor John Guy during cross-examination of defense witness Dennis Root, a former law enforcement officer who testified as an expert on defensive use of force. Guy used it to show how, if Martin were straddling Zimmerman, he would have had difficulty reaching for a gun holstered at his...

EASTON (AP) – Police in eastern Pennsylvania say a man pumped more than 20 bullets into a patrol car occupied by a mannequin police officer. Upper Nazareth Township police Chief Alan Siegfried says the man then hurled the dummy across the road, where its head was struck by an oncoming vehicle. The suspect then fled.

January 16, 2013 Dope by BigFurHat VERSION 2 SANS SARAH-

MIAMI (AP) - A 20-year-old college student who told investigators he was merely trying to get a reaction from President Barack Obama's supporters pleaded guilty Wednesday to posting threatening messages against the president on Facebook. Joaquin Amador Serrapio Jr. could get up to five years in federal prison for pleading guilty to a single count of threatening to kill or harm the president, but likely will get less time, said his attorney Alan Ross. Sentencing is set for Aug. 22 before U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke.

2012/04/24 15:43 KST (LEAD) German experts dismiss N. Korean missiles at parade as mock-ups SEOUL, April 24 (Yonhap) -- The new intercontinental ballistic missiles displayed in a military parade in North Korea were mock-ups and the presentation was "a nice dog and pony show," according to two German experts on North Korean missiles. The North showed off the missiles on transporter-erector-launchers during the parade to mark the centennial of the April 15 birth of the country's late founder Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong-un. The display sparked intense speculation on the North's ballistic missile capability following its...

A black doll with a chain around its neck was discovered hanging from a tree on Ann Arbor Public Schools property Tuesday, according to an email from the elementary school’s principal. A group of six to seven fifth-grade girls at Burns Park Elementary found the doll while outside on recess. District Spokeswoman Liz Margolis said the doll was stuck in between two high limbs in a tree on the east side of the school’s property. She said the position of the doll did not resemble a hanging. A few of the girls that discovered the doll were black, Margolis said....

Yesterday in the Huffington Post, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., taught us an important lesson: Health care can be free! For example, she wrote, “When President Obama announced that because of health care reform, birth control would soon be available for free in new insurance plans, you would have expected universal approval.” She also wrote, “Finally, (Obama’s) decision will help working families by giving them access to free birth control.”

KNOXVILLE (WATE) - A man was taken to the hospital Sunday afternoon after shooting himself in the hand at a gun show. Gun dealer Bill Adams, 64, of Kodak, was taking a concealed gun out to show a customer, when the gun discharged and shot him in the hand. Knoxville Police said the man removed the magazine from the .45 semiautomatic Kimber handgun, but a shell remained in the chamber.

Thousands have flocked to watch a fake presidential rally held by comedian Steve Colbert and one-time Republican presidential frontrunner Herman Cain in Charleston, South Carolina. And in an interesting twist, the crowd, comprised mostly of students, was far larger audience than any at an actual rally during this year's election cycle in the state. Herman Cain, whose presidential campaign was plagued - and finished - by a string of accusations of sexual misconduct, appeared alongside Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2089657/Herman-Cain-Steve-Colbert-rally-South-Carolina-draws-bigger-crowds-real-presidential-candidates.html#ixzz1k7BcEwIC

Some bets just shouldn't be made. Just ask a 21-year-old Vallejo man who made a $100 bet with his friends that he could fit into a baby swing at a local park. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the unidentified man -– who should be thanking police for not releasing his name –- lubed himself up with liquid laundry detergent and jammed himself into the kiddie swing's leg holes about 9 p.m. Friday. But he got stuck, his legs swelled and he couldn't get out...

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...

Now that he has been handed an untimely resignation as CEO of al Qaeda whats next for this freshly minted free agent? Who said Achmed the Dead Terrorist couldn't have a second banana? :-)

Engineering researchers the University of Southern California have made a significant breakthrough in the use of nanotechnologies for the construction of a synthetic brain. They have built a carbon nanotube synapse circuit whose behavior in tests reproduces the function of a neuron, the building block of the brain. The team, which was led by Professor Alice Parker and Professor Chongwu Zhou in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering, used an interdisciplinary approach combining circuit design with nanotechnology to address the complex problem of capturing brain function. In a paper published in the proceedings of...

A group of House Democrats has released a letter to Republican congressional leaders calling on them to announce which of their members will be forgoing their congressional benefit health insurance (which is subsidized by the government) in light of their party's opposition to health care reform overhaul legislation. "If your conference wants to deny millions of Americans affordable health care, your members should walk that walk," four Democrats write in the letter, which is addressed to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and House Republican leader John Boehner. "You cannot enroll in the very kind of coverage that you want for...

History certainly has examples of high inflation that resulted from dire fiscal situations. But there are also many examples of governments that fueled new spending programs by raising taxes or by cutting other spending. Our government may well raise taxes, cut military spending or cut spending on certain types of health care.

Despite a resolution by Congress authorizing war against those responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President Obama’s nominee to be the number two official at the Justice Department, James Cole, wrote an op-ed in 2002 likening the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to the domestic crimes of murder, rape and child abuse, while arguing that the attackers ought to be treated like domestic criminals. “But the attorney general is not a member of the military fighting a war--he is a prosecutor fighting crime,” Cole wrote in a Sept. 9, 2002 article in Legal Times that critiqued...

A dummy act is missing its dummyHave you seen a dummy? No, you can stop looking at the guy picking lint out of his belly button on your couch or your boss. We're talking about a Pinocchio-like, wooden puppet, but missing the hand up its back that brings it to life. The Naples Police are searching for Clarence the dummy, which went missing from the trunk of a popular ventriloquist act's car earlier this month, according to the Naples News. The dummy hunt was on after Richard Parrott submitted a missing person's report for his wooden pal, Clarence. Creepy, right?...

I woke up this morning to the sound of my alarm clock, which is powered by electricity provided by the public power monopoly that is regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then proceeded to take a shower in clean, drinkable water from the Municipal Water Utility. After that, I watched on of the FCC regulated channels on my TV to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determinded the weather would be like by usinc satellites launced, maintained, designed and built by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while...

U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson recently worried that it might be, according to a videotaped congressional hearing that is getting plenty of play online and over the airwaves. Johnson's comments came during a House Armed Services Committee meeting as he questioned Adm. Robert Willard, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, about the impact of U.S. troops on the little island. "My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize," Johnson said, straight-faced and seemingly serious. The admiral seemed to take the question seriously, too. "We don't anticipate that," he said, proceeding...