Free Republic

A new Gallup poll shows growing support for marijuana legalization, with 64 percent of Americans now in favor of the measure. The number is the highest level of support in nearly half a century of surveying adults on the issue, according to Gallup. Support has steadily increased in recent years, with the latest figure up 4 percentage points over last year and up 14 points from 2011. The poll also showed a majority of Republicans favoring legalization for the first time, with 51 percent expressing support. That number is up 9 percentage points from last year, according to Gallup.

Chocolate milk is coming back on the school lunch menu. So is white bread and saltier food. Several paragraphs tucked into in a massive 1,665-page government spending bill released on Monday would relax Obama-era nutrition standards for school lunches. On page 101 of the spending bill due for congressional votes later this week, the Secretary of Agriculture is directed to allow states to grant schools exemptions so they can serve flavored, low-fat milk and bread products that are not whole grain rich. “If kids aren’t eating the food, and it’s ending up in the trash, they aren’t getting any nutrition...

Speaking with the Washington Post over the weekend, President-elect Donald Trump promised that every American will have health insurance under his Obamacare replacement plan, which is set to be introduced in the openings months of his presidency. Though he didn’t provide the Post with many details about his plan, Trump said the plan will provide “less expensive and much better” coverage to Americans that Obamacare has “in a much simplified form.” “We’re going to have insurance for everybody,” Trump told the Post. “There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can’t pay for it, you don’t get it....

. . . I have been thinking about Gavin lately because his life and thought so perfectly capture the conservatism of Donald Trump. When you read Gavin, you begin to understand that the idea of Trump as a conservative is not oxymoronic. Trump is a conservative—of a particular type that is rare in intellectual circles. His conservatism is ignored or dismissed or opposed because, while it often reaches the same conclusions as more prevalent versions of conservatism, its impulses, emphases, and forms are different from those of traditionalism, anti-Communism, classical liberalism, Leo Strauss conservatism in its East and West Coast...

FLORIDA: Trump 42 - Clinton 39 OHIO: Clinton 41 - Trump 41 PENNSYLVANIA: Trump 43 - Clinton 41 With a drop in grades on honesty and moral standards, Democrat Hillary Clinton loses an 8-point lead over Republican Donald Trump in Florida, and finds herself in too-close-to-call races in the three critical swing states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to a Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll released today. Clinton loses ground on almost every measure from a June 21 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University. The Swing State Poll focuses on Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania because since 1960 no...

The driver of an SUV plowed through a group of protesters during a “Black Lives Matters” march in southern Illinois on Sunday, July 10.According to Carbondale police, at around 10 p.m., officers began to monitor demonstrators who began marching along Washington Street in Carbondale.Police say they continued marching throughout the downtown streets, briefly assembled in front of the Carbondale Police Department, before returning to the Town Square Pavilion.According to police, as they were returning to the pavilion, a vehicle tried to drive through the demonstrators in the 200 block of East Main Street while they were blocking traffic.You can see...

Former Vice President Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, the heads of Current TV, have just fired their star anchorman, Keith Olbermann, who previously left MSNBC on bad terms. Gore and Hyatt released a statement saying that “the values of respect, openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers . . . are no longer reflected in our relationship with Keith Olbermann and we have ended it.” According to Talking Points Memo, insiders say Olbermann missed almost half his working days in January and February and insisted on taking an unauthorized vacation day the day before Super Tuesday. Here is a statement...

In a campaign speech late Tuesday night, Governor Rick Perry stated that he is "returning to Texas" to reassess whether he is going to continue running for President. The speech contained several emotional moments, in particular two moments. The first was when he read a letter from an adoring supporter who called him a "great man." The letter described a conversation that Mr. Perry had had with a soldier and how his supporter looked on in awe as he watched Governor Perry call the veteran his "Christian brother." The second was when Perry announced that he would be returning to...

CNN Ticker Tag only NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo Signs State's Marriage Equality Bill. Same-sex couples will now be able to marry within 30 days.

Some right-wing activists announced on Sunday that they plan to set up three new outposts in the Judea and Samaria region in response to U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech.

Yunis al Astal, a member of the Palestinian Authority parliament, spelled out his organization's vision for the genocidal annihilation of the Jewish people in a television interview last week. The interview was broadcast on Hamas Al Aqsa TV and monitored by incitement watchdog group MEMRI. Al Astal described the ingathering of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel in terms of a divine plan that would give the Arabs "the honor" of annihilating "the evil of this gang." In a few years' time, he predicted, the Zionists will understand that they were brought here for the purpose of being...

First, they teleported photons, then atoms and ions. Now one physicist has worked out how to do it with energy, a technique that has profound implications for the future of physics.

A growing number of states reported rising jobless rates in October, and thirteen states reported unemployment rates above the national average of 10.2%, according to a government report released on Friday

China and the United States pledged

Toronto police have seized almost 400 firearms from registered owners in a six-month push aimed at reducing the number of guns on the city's streets. In March, officers began soliciting registered firearm owners across the city as part of what they call the Safe City Project. Many of those who had to surrender their firearms had either let their registrations lapse, or had stashed their guns improperly under beds or in closets.

German automaker Daimler AG has bought a 10 percent stake in electric car business Tesla Motors Inc. San Carlos-based Tesla had already been working with the Stuttgart giant to improve battery technology. Daimler, which used to own troubled U.S. car company Chrysler, is making electric versions of its popular two-person smart car. Daimler, which puts out the Mercedes-Benz brand, put Herbert Kohler on Tesla’s board of directors. Tesla, started by Elon Musk, has been looking for money. Last year, the company abandoned plans to build a new head office and factory in San Jose. It’s been waiting for about $350...

Iran and China are making "disturbing" gains in Latin America and Washington can no longer afford to shun leaders from nations like Venezuela and Bolivia, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday.

ALBANY, N.Y. – New York's top court has upheld the eviction of Bianca Jagger from a rent-stabilized Manhattan apartment. The Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that foreigners on tourist visas cannot claim New York digs as a "primary residence." The globe-trotting human rights activist and ex-wife of Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger was evicted in December from the Upper East Side apartment she rented for 20 years.

With its slogan "Disneyland is too far," Beijing's Shijingshan Amusement Park features a replica of Cinderella's Castle, with staff dressed like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and other Disney characters.

Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran's uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons, the SUNDAY TIMES of London is planning to report, British media sources tell DRUDGE... MORE... PAPER: ISRAEL PLANS NUCLEAR STRIKE ON IRAN