Free Republic

…By continuing to reduce the noxious emissions of state government: Ok, Scott. You have my attention. –> Scott Walker celebrates Earth Day by firing 57 environmental agency employees http://t.co/uopOpPZooI No seriously — if you’re going to make the environmentalist catch-22 argument as Democrats John Kerry and Claire McCaskill have, that a shrinking economy is good for the environment because of less carbon emissions, then you have to agree that the same holds true for shrinking the government as well. Radical environmentalism isn’t my religion, but the Book of Saul demands that its practitioners stay faithful to their own tenets....

His name is Peter. He’s a “concerned 8-year-old citizen.” And when it comes to expressing his concerns about the direction America is headed, he sugarcoats nothing. Peter’s shoot-from-the-hip sentiments were on full display in a blistering handwritten letter he penned to first lady Michelle Obama, which appeared in the Weekly Standard. So why wasn’t the letter addressed to the president? Apparently Peter initially got miffed over the first lady’s much-maligned school lunch calorie cutback — even though he attends a private school — and simply added other issues to the letter: “He said something about wanting to ‘give a voice...

A US judge has ruled that New York City must allow its buses to display a controversial ad exposing Islamist anti-Semitism. The ad in question—sponsored by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI)—portrays a masked Hamas terrorist next to a quote from Hamas’s official MTV TV station declaring that: “Killing Jews is worship that brings us close to Allah.” The ad then asks: “That’s his jihad, what’s yours?” The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) had refused to run the ads, which had been scheduled to run for a full month, claiming it feared they could incite “violence and terrorism”. That decision prompted...

An Air Force veteran was hauled away in handcuffs and detained by campus security at Valdosta State University in Georgia after she stopped protesters from desecrating an American flag. Michelle Manhart admits that she snatched Old Glory from a group of demonstrators who put the flag on the ground and were walking on it. One member of the unnamed group told the Valdosta Daily Times they were desecrating the flag as “a symbol of our protest.” “When a slave understands his situation and understands he doesn’t want to be in slavery, he does not respect or revere anything his slave...

Ben Affleck insisted on censoring the fact that one of his ancestors owned slaves from PBS show “Finding Your Roots,” the Sony email hack has revealed. In a hacked Sony email from July 22, 2014, now available on WikiLeaks, the show’s host, Henry Louis Gates Jr., writes to Sony USA chief Michael Lynton asking for advice: “One of our guests has asked us to edit out something about one of his ancestors–the fact that he owned slaves. Now, four or five of our guests this season descend from slave owners, including Ken Burns. We’ve never had anyone ever try to...

LEE CO., GA Authorities say a woman was accidentally shot by her son-in-law while he was trying to shoot an armadillo. The incident had a lot of people scratching their heads- even law enforcement. "Just the circumstances, just all the way around, the whole situation was unusual," said Investigator Bill Smith with the Lee county Sheriff's Office. The shooting happened Sunday night on Gosa Road. Lee County Sheriff's deputies said 54-year-old Larry McElroy was outside when he fired his 9 mm pistol at the armadillo. The bullet killed the animal, but also ricocheted off of it, hit a fence, went...

WASHINGTON — The White House relented on Tuesday and said President Obama would sign a compromise bill giving Congress a voice on the proposed nuclear accord with Iran as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in rare unanimous agreement, moved the legislation to the full Senate for a vote. An unusual alliance of Republican opponents of the nuclear deal and some of Mr. Obama’s strongest Democratic supporters demanded a congressional role as international negotiators work to turn this month’s nuclear framework into a final deal by June 30. White House officials insisted they extracted crucial last-minute concessions. Republicans — and many...

A D.C. dog owner did what anyone with a missing pet would do. He posted fliers — but then, he says, police threatened him with a $750,000 fine.

A 3-year-old fatally shot a 1-year-old at a Cleveland house during the weekend, according to police, who said they are seeking to arrest the adult who left the gun in the home. The 1-year-old, identified as Braylon Robinson, was shoot in the face on Sunday, police said on Monday. "The mother was in the room with the children facing away from them when she heard a single gunshot. The mother then observed the victim lying on the floor bleeding," according to statement released by Cleveland police. Police said the gun was left in a home where several children were playing....

“Hillary Clinton represents the worst of the Washington Machine,” a voiceover says in the 60-second ad, which is scheduled to air beginning Monday in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. “The arrogance of power, corruption and cover-up, conflicts of interest and failed leadership with tragic consequences — the Washington Machine is destroying the American dream.”

Hillary Clinton (Kate McKinnon) announces she's running for president in a social media video co-starring her husband, Bill Clinton (Darrell Hammond).

President Obama said in an interview broadcast Wednesday that his push to address climate change has been partly influenced by a frightening moment when his daughter Malia had an asthma attack as a 4-year-old. “What I can relate to is the fear a parent has, when your 4-year-old daughter comes up to you and says, ‘Daddy, I’m having trouble breathing.’ The fright you feel is terrible,” the president said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Wednesday. “And if we can make sure that our responses to the environment are reducing those incidents, that's something that I think every parent would wish...

Washington (CNN)Kansas is poised to put a stop to the practice of welfare recipients using government aid to pay for psychics with a bill that cracks down on the use of welfare for fun. It aims to encourage those receiving government aid under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program to spend "more responsibly," as Kansas state Sen. Michael O'Donnell told the Topeka Capital-Journal. "We're trying to make sure those benefits are used the way they were intended," O'Donnell, vice chair of the state senate's standing committee on public health and welfare, said. "This is about prosperity. This is about...

James Best, best known as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on The Dukes of Hazzard, has died, at age 88. Best was a wonderfully versatile actor within a self-imposed narrow range—a Southerner who could be wily or stupid, sometimes both and a bit more. He was a gifted musician and acting teacher as well as an actor. Born Jewel Franklin Guy in Powderly, Kentucky, Best came by his show business career naturally–his mother was the sister of Ike Everly, the father of the Everly Brothers. Most people know him as Roscoe P. Coltrane, a bumbler who was the butt of jokes...

BUSH CAMPAIGN POSTER Jeb marked "Hispanic" in the field labeled “race/ethnicity” on his 2009 voter-registration app, obtained from the Miami-Dade County Elections Dept. Now says it was a "mistake."

The leechbook is one of the earliest examples of what might loosely be called a medical textbook It seems Anglo-Saxon physicians may actually have practised something pretty close to the modern scientific method, with its emphasis on observation and experimentation. Bald's Leechbook could hold some important lessons for our modern day battle with anti-microbial resistance. line break n each case, they tested the individual ingredients against the bacteria, as well as the remedy and a control solution. They found the remedy killed up to 90% of MRSA bacteria and believe it is the effect of the recipe rather than one...

On Wednesday, after entirely sitting out the three-week offensive, U.S. forces began carrying out airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Tikrit at the request of the Iraqi government, according to Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren.

The "hacking division" of Islamic State has posted a list of 100 U.S. military personnel saying they are fighting to defeat the terror group and has also included their names and photos so that "brothers in America can deal with you." These 100 individuals have been involved in efforts to defeat the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, and the list has been released to allow "brothers in America" to deal with them, the Sunni group says, according to National Public Radio. The information about the military personnel has been gathered mostly from...

Joe Biden made yet another of his trademark gaffes today as he met Ireland's prime minister to mark St Patrick's Day - then suggested one side of its sectarian divide was unwelcome in Washington. Sporting a green tie and noticing that everyone else was also wearing one, or clad in green, he suddenly blurted: 'Anyone wearing orange is not welcome in here.' The purported joke was a reference to Ireland's religious and political divide which was at the heart of the Troubles, the violence which killed 3,000 from the late 1960s until the start of the millennium. Orange is the...

The initiative would also pressure guests to reuse dirty linens. Claims of bureaucratic overreach within the Environmental Protection Agency are nothing new; however, its latest initiative is ruffling a few more feathers than usual. With funding from a grant made to the University of Tulsa, the EPA hopes to develop a prototype for a device that would monitor and report the water use of hotel guests across America. “Most hotels do not monitor individual guest water usage,” the grant states, “and as a result, millions of gallons of potable water are wasted every year by hotel guests.” As per usual,...