Free Republic

Pennsylvania Sheriff James Custer said Monday that he’s done with the Democratic Party because of its “unconstitutional” lockdowns and “socialist agenda.”. “It’s the shift in ideals of the current Democrat Party at the national level — the socialist agenda — and this is something that I had been considering for several months. It probably started back when the pandemic started,” the Fayette County sheriff told “Fox & Friends” when asked why he was abandoning the Democrats for the Republicans. Custer also pointed to “the [lockdown] mandates coming down by the Democratic governors and of which we have one here in...

Washington’s Supreme Court unanimously struck down the state’s death penalty Thursday, ruling that it had been used in an arbitrary and racially discriminatory manner. Washington has had a moratorium on executions since 2014, but the ruling makes it the 20th state to do away with capital punishment by legislative act or court decree. The court converted the sentences of the eight people on Washington’s death row to life in prison. “The death penalty is unequally applied — sometimes by where the crime took place, or the county of residence, or the available budgetary resources at any given point in time,...

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said that she would consider running for president at a town hall in Holyoke, Massachusetts, on Saturday. "After November 6, I will take a hard look at running for president," Warren said, to an extended standing ovation from her audience. This is the first time that Warren has publicly said that she is considering a presidential bid. Warren is considered a potential frontrunner in a Democratic primary race, along with former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Warren is known for her progressive politics and her populist views on the economy. Warren has previously...

President Barack Obama is challenging Congress to help him create jobs and rebuild the nation’s infrastructure. In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama points to the launch of two new high-tech manufacturing hubs and a competition to rebuild the nation’s roads, bridges, mass transit, ports and railroads. Obama says Congress can help in both areas. …

In one of its last actions of the year, the United Nations General Assembly on Christmas Eve agreed to extend for another three years the formula that has U.S. taxpayers contributing more than one-fifth of the world body’s regular budget. No member-state called for a recorded vote, and the resolution confirming the contributions that each country will make for the 2013-2015 period was summarily adopted. The assembly also approved a two-year U.N. budget of $5.4 billion. The U.S. has accounted for 22 percent of the total regular budget every year since 2000, and will now continue to do so for...

The following news headline appeared on the internet last week: "Scientists warn global warming will fuel spread of ticks that carry Lyme disease." The corresponding article begins this way: Another effect of climate change may be crawling up your leg this summer as you frolic in the woods. Scientists say our warming world is speeding the spread of ticks that carry potentially debilitating Lyme disease. Okay, given that many in the climate change fraternity -- including, famously, Phil Jones of East Anglia University -- have been forced to concede that global warming has been on "pause" since 1995, how exactly...

Republican to revive lightbulb warBy Andrew Restuccia - 05/07/12 04:43 PM ET A House Republican is planning in the coming weeks to revive the GOP offensive against federal lightbulb efficiency standards. Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) will offer an amendment to Energy Department spending legislation that would block funding for implementation of the standards, the lawmaker's office told The Hill. The standards have come under fire from conservatives in recent years. Republicans won the inclusion of a similar provision in an omnibus spending compromise that House and Senate lawmakers agreed to in December. The provision blocked funding for implementation of the...

Part of the hypocrisy of the "anti-bullying" movement is that the concept of bullying is never defined in a meaningful way. Evidently, bullying is one of those things that is defined by the "victim." Hence, we have the spectacle of the man who created the video "It Gets Better" can speak against the bullying of gay kids, but then turn around and bully kids with Christian beliefs - and get away with it. Fox News: As many as 100 high school students walked out of a national journalism conference after an anti-bullying speaker began cursing, attacked the Bible and reportedly...

As hype around the general election ramps up, it looks like progressives again will do anything to hold on to power and advance their agenda. Events this week gave us a peek behind the curtain into the mind of the honest, “tolerant” class and exposed how they work. Let’s take a look. The Shell Game One thing about political lefties: They assume the general public is even dumber than their ideas. Surveys repeatedly show Americans are not liberal, that the word evokes a negative reaction from a large percentage of people. So what do they do? They start calling themselves...

This past weekend the New York Times devoted two big op-eds to the decline of the suburb. In one, new urban theorist Chris Leinberger said that Americans were increasingly abandoning “fringe suburbs” for dense, transit-oriented urban areas. In the other, UC Berkeley professor Louise Mozingo called for the demise of the “suburban office building” and the adoption of policies that will drive jobs away from the fringe and back to the urban core. Perhaps no theology more grips the nation’s mainstream media — and the planning community — more than the notion of inevitable suburban decline. The Obama administration’s housing...

Despite all the talk about curbing tax breaks for corporate jets and big oil companies like Exxon Mobil and Chevron, the largest dollars in President Barack Obama's proposed deficit-reducing tax hikes ($293 billion over ten years) come from limiting the value of itemized tax deductions claimed by the better off. While it's gotten little notice on the mainland, Obama's birth state has just raised its taxes on the well off in much the same way. Last month, Democratic Governor Neil Abercrombie signed S.B. 570, making Hawaii the first state in the nation to place a dollar cap on the itemized...

I'm trying to help Independent Paul McKain (http://www.paulmckain.com/) who is running for Allan Boyd's seat. Paul is a true conservative running as an independent because a study we conducted said that a Republican was unlikely to take this gerrymandered district. Paul needs talking points at the national level for the coming debates and for his advertisements. I recall seeing several articles on FR as Obama made the World Apology Tour. One of them talked about agreements he'd suggested and world leaders signed that would prevent any future Ronald Reagan from doing what the original did to get us out of...

I was following the health reform stories very closely on Free Republican as well as FNC, MSNBC and CNN and noticed some coincidences in timing that look suspicious. These Tea party slur accusations (link below) on Saturday were very close in time to the immigration reform march on Sunday. I was also following the deal that the Hispanic Caucus demanded from the White House to secure their votes on Health reform which they talked about on FNC amazingly. HereÂ’s a sequence of stories (below) and ping me if you see a possible connection as I do. Members of the Congressional...

Panel Absolves Climate Scientist By JOHN M. BRODER WASHINGTON — An academic board of inquiry has largely cleared a noted Pennsylvania State University climatologist of scientific misconduct, but a second panel will convene to determine whether his behavior undermined public faith in the science of climate change, the university said Wednesday. The scientist, Dr. Michael E. Mann, has been at the center of a roiling dispute arising from the unauthorized release of more than 1,000 e-mail messages from the servers of the University of East Anglia in England, home to one of the world’s premier climate research units. While the...

The "inconvenient truth" overhanging the UN's Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world. A planetary law, such as China's one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently, which is one million births every four days. The world's other species, vegetation, resources, oceans, arable land, water supplies and atmosphere are being destroyed and pushed out of existence as a result of humanity's soaring reproduction rate. Ironically, China, despite its dirty coal plants, is the world's leader in terms of fashioning policy to combat environmental degradation,...

(snip) I am concerned, however, that a number of the legislative proposals being circulated would significantly reduce the capacity of the Federal Reserve to perform its core functions. Notably, some leading proposals in the Senate would strip the Fed of all its bank regulatory powers. And a House committee recently voted to repeal a 1978 provision that was intended to protect monetary policy from short-term political influence. These measures are very much out of step with the global consensus on the appropriate role of central banks, and they would seriously impair the prospects for economic and financial stability in the...

FROM THE WEBSITE: City Year unites young people of all backgrounds for a year of full-time service, giving them the skills and opportunities to change the world. As tutors, mentors and role models, these diverse young leaders make a difference in the lives of children, and transform schools and neighborhoods in 19 U.S. locations and one in Johannesburg, South Africa. Just as important, during their year of service corps members develop civic leadership skills they can use throughout a lifetime of community service. Major corporations and businesses participate in our mission by serving as strategic partners, team sponsors, and national...

WASHINGTON - Massachusetts officials are closely monitoring an abortion funding ban in the sweeping health care legislation before Congress to make sure that it does not restrict women’s access to abortion coverage in the state. Abortion is a covered service for low-income Massachusetts women enrolled in subsidized insurance plans available since 2006 through the state’s landmark health care law.But the bill that squeaked through the US House late Saturday would prohibit private insurance plans from covering abortion if they accept federal subsidies. It also bans abortion coverage in the new government insurance option. State officials say there are too many...

Throughout the primary campaign last year, Obama consistently said one of the genuine, important policy differences between him and Hillary Clinton was that he did not support an individual mandate to buy health insurance. I know people who voted for him in the primary on this one issue. One example of many: Senator Clinton. . . believes that we have to force people who don't have health insurance to buy it. Otherwise, there will be a lot of people who don't get it. I don't see those folks. And I think that it is important for us to recognize that...

Just had the 218th vote, which is what they need to psas th ebill