Free Republic

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy pushed back against a protester this week after she confronted him about his unwavering support for Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh. The Louisiana senator was walking down a Senate Office hallway Monday when a liberal activist and former Bernie Sanders staffer accused him of supporting a rapist. “Why wouldn’t I support Kavanaugh?” Mr. Cassidy asked, according to a video tweeted by The Daily Caller’s reporter-at-large Benny Johnson. “Because rapists are bad,” the protester responded.

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday said sitting officials can be impeached for prior criminal conduct, citing a recent legal precedent. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) made the remarks after he was asked at a Washington event at the Brookings Institution about whether a sitting president can be prosecuted for federal crimes that he or she committed before taking office.Schiff pointed to a 2010 case in which the Senate voted to impeach Thomas Porteous Jr., who was a Louisiana federal district court judge at the time. Schiff said the Senate convicted him on four articles of impeachment...

Voters in most Southern states are expected to back Republican candidates in the upcoming midterms, according to a new NBC News/SurveyMonkey online poll. The poll found that voters in most Southern states are more likely to support a Republican for Congress than the nation as a whole, with 48 percent of Southerners saying they would vote for a GOP candidate if the midterms were held today compared to 43 percent that would back Democrats. Forty-nine percent of voters nationally would vote for a Democratic candidate if the elections were held right now while 42 percent would vote for a Republican,...

While there’s been much discussion about the pending plan to widen Interstate 10 through Baton Rouge, the $360 million earmarked for the project is not expected to cover all four phases of the work. Following a speech to the Baton Rouge Rotary Club today, Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development Secretary Shawn Wilson said state officials are confident the first two phases of the project—first widening and replacing the aging elevated portions of the highway from the I-10/I-110 merge to the City Park Lakes, then replacing the bridges over the lakes—can be completed within four years using federal Grant Anticipation...

NATCHITOCHES, La. - A Louisiana woman is accused of asking her girlfriend to kidnap and kill her 7-month-old son in July, a crime carried out when the boy was doused with gasoline and burned to death. Levi Cole Ellerbe died hours after suffering second- and third-degree burns over 90 percent of his body, according to the Alexandria Town Talk. The boy’s mother, Hannah Nicole Barker, was in court Friday for a preliminary hearing, at which Lt. Jeremy Swisher, with the Louisiana State Fire Marshal’s Office, laid out the case against Barker. Barker, 23, is charged as a principal to first-degree...

A group of college students is working together with lawmakers and communities to try to make the route to locations throughout the southeast a little shorter by using Interstate 14 to connect Killeen, Texas, with Columbus, Georgia. The idea started when Frank Lumpkin was in high school, taking part in Youth Leadership Columbus. While taking part in the class, he said he realized that the city needed more infrastructure to succeed, and he said he has been working on the project ever since. “From the moment I saw this robust transportation network that linked the southern military instillations, would address...

Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and West Virginia all have adult obesity rates of at least 35 percent Prevalence ranged from 22.6 percent in Colorado to 38.1 percent in West Virginia Middle-age adults between ages 45 and 54 are twice as likely to be obese as young adults between ages 18 and 24 Data came from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which is a survey conducted via telephone by the CDC and state health departments. In addition to having the highest obesity prevalence, West Virginia also led the nation in the percentage of adults with diabetes at 15.2....

A Louisiana mayor reportedly banned his city’s recreation programs from purchasing Nike products in the wake of an ad campaign featuring former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Mayor Ben Zahn, of Kenner, signed a memo last week that states that “[u]nder no circumstances” can any Nike apparel or equipment be “purchased for use or delivery” at any recreation facilities in the city. “Effective immediately all purchases made by any booster club operating at any Kenner Recreation Facility for wearing apparel, shoes, athletic equipment and/or any athletic product must be approved by the Director of Parks and Recreation, or his...

A Louisiana mayor issued a memo last week apparently banning the city’s recreation department from purchasing any Nike products. Kenner City Mayor Ben Zahn appeared to declare on Sept. 5, that “under no circumstances” should Nike products or any product with the Nike logo be purchased, WBRZ 2 reported Saturday. Zahn's office sent the memo to Parks and Recreation Department Director Chad Pitfield on Sept. 5, according to what appears to be a copy of the letter posted to WBRZ. Local news outlets later obtained the memo which appears to state that “effective immediately,” any booster club operating at city...

Political analyst predicts 25 Dems will run for president in 2020 Political analyst Bill Schneider predicted on Tuesday that 25 Democrats would launch presidential bids to challenge President Trump in 2020. "My guess is that in 2020, we're going to see 25 Democrats running for president. Every Democrat thinks, why not me?" Schneider told Hill.TV's Joe Concha on "What America's Thinking." "I'll take the over. It might be 30," Hill campaign reporter Reid Wilson interjected. "Might be 30. How are you going to have a debate? You're going to have to have six layers of debates. It's going to be...

Sessions also borrowed a line so often articulated by his Deputy Attorney General, that he is proud of his DOJ for “advancing the rule of law,” which has become code for “resisting the president’s directions.”

Two long running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department. Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff...… 2:25 PM - 3 Sep 2018 ....The Democrats, none of whom voted for Jeff Sessions, must love him now. Same thing with Lyin’ James Comey. The Dems all hated him, wanted him out, thought he was disgusting - UNTIL I FIRED HIM! Immediately he became a wonderful man, a saint like figure in fact. Really...

Exploration Mission-1, which is scheduled to take place in 2020, will consist of an uncrewed Orion capsule being sent into orbit around the Moon and then returning to Earth. Using lunar gravity to gain speed and propel itself 70,000 km beyond the Moon – and almost half a million km from Earth – this mission will send a spacecraft farther into the Solar System than ever before. The Orion pressure vessel, which is the vehicle’s primary structure that will hold a pressurized atmosphere for the astronauts, consists of seven large aluminum pieces that are welded together using a state-of-the-art process...

In April the inept and corrupt Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that he was not going to create a special counsel to investigate the Mueller investigation despite calls from Republicans in the House to do so. Instead, AG Sessions stated that he was going to ask an Obama appointee to look into the situation. We knew then that Sessions was balking and doing all he could to prevent justice in his Justice Department and now there’s proof. CNN first reported that John Huber, the federal prosecutor in Utah, has been investigating Republicans’ allegations that the FBI abused a surveillance program...

When it comes to banning firearms in America, Leftists operate with a dark twist on a common aphorism; for them, “there is more than one way to skin the Second Amendment.” While Democrats have had marginal success stalling efforts by the GOP in Congress to pass much-needed firearm legislation (for example, the Hearing Protection Act and national reciprocity for concealed carry), not since Bill Clinton’s 1994 federal Assault Weapons Ban have they enjoyed any real legislative victories on gun control. Public opinion still favors protecting the Second Amendment from congressional interference, despite efforts by Democrats to turn every mass shooting...

Five Republican senators had breakfast with Attorney General Jeff Sessions last week and encouraged him to not resign despite constant pressure from President Donald Trump. According to The Wall Street Journal, Sessions invited Sens. John Cornyn of Texas, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, and John Kennedy of Louisiana to dine with him last Thursday morning at the Department of Justice. The meeting took place in Sessions' dining room and included a lengthy discussion about Trump's repeated attacks on him. The senators, according to the Journal, urged Sessions to keep doing what he's...

EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH, LA (WAFB) - Tech support at the East Baton Rouge Parish School System (EBRPSS) is scrambling to get a school bus tracking app online in time for the start of school. Students return on Thursday. Leaders cannot confirm when the app will be ready. Some 600 bright yellow school buses are ready to roll across the parish. They were all updated last school year with GPS trackers. Chief of Student Support Services Gary Reese says it helps system leaders keep drivers on time and accountable. "The GPS is functioning. We see every bus," Reese said.

The confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump’s latest judicial nomination was refreshingly bipartisan for Trump's first ever out lesbian pick. Trump nominated Illinois judge Mary M. Rowland, through a June announcement, for a seat as a district judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Why is this significant for Instinct Readers? Because Rowland is an out lesbian and the first openly LGBTQ judge to be nominated by Trump since entering the White Rowland has had a long standing history in the world of law. She got her bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is leading a five-state coalition that on Thursday won an $839 million judgment against the federal government in an Obamacare lawsuit, a massive blow to the Obama administration’s namesake legislation. The Affordable Care Act (ACA, better known as Obamacare) requires medical providers to pay a Health Insurance Provider Fee (HIPF). Even though the ACA exempts states from paying that fee when providing health care, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) during the Obama era created a regulation requiring states to pay the fee anyway, a fee that is styled as a tax...

[W]heat is losing its crown. The tonnage (though not the acreage) of maize harvested in the world began consistently to exceed that of wheat for the first time in 1998; rice followed suit in 1999. Genetic modification, which has transformed maize, rice and soyabeans, has largely passed wheat by—to such an extent that it is in danger of becoming an "orphan crop"... And with population growth rates falling sharply while yields continue to rise, even the acreage devoted to wheat may now begin to decline for the first time since the stone age... [W]heat is a genetic monster. A typical...