Free Republic

A nascent rebellion by western states looking to reclaim some of the land that was appropriated by the federal government is taking shape. A group of about 50 western lawmakers from 9 states met in Utah to discuss ways to bring about a revolution in land management that would see the states have a mich bigger say in how their own land is managed. Salt Lake Tribune: It’s time for Western states to take control of federal lands within their borders, lawmakers and county commissioners from Western states said at Utah’s Capitol on Friday. More than 50 political leaders from...

I wish I knew what was in the water that the Republican leadership is drinking so we can administer a counteragent. Democrats are floundering as more and more people start realizing the true cost of ObamaCare, not to mention the out of control spending of Washington. Across the county, progressive liberal programs are being attacked and rolled back, such as Common Core. Despite the mainstream media constantly shielding Obama and actively participating in his lies, a majority of Americans believe that he lies on important issues. With all these things lining up in the Republicans' favor, you would think they...

I can feel the schadenfreude welling inside me as I read that a group of Cherokee women are preparing to confront Elizabeth Warren as she sets forth on a national book tour to publicize her new book.  Sen. Warren matters a lot more than most freshman senators because she must be considered a near-frontrunner for the Democratic 2016 nomination if Hillary Clinton decides that playing with her forthcoming grandchild is better way to occupy her time than going through the meat grinder as a candidate. In Elizabeth Warren’s new book, A Fighting Chance, Warren claims to be “hurt and angry�...

Transcendence is to the sci-fi genre what Noah is to the Bible. Both are poorly conceived reboots of a literary form into pseudo-visionary garbage. Each film also exemplifies the current trend of agnostic filmmakers playing God. In Transcendence, Johnny Depp, as the obviously named Will Caster, unleashes his berserk world-dominating ambitions after he dies and is resurrected as an artificially intelligent computer program with the power to “overcome the limits of biology.” In Noah, filmmaker Darren Aronofsky reconceives the Biblical story of the Flood and God’s covenant with man through His servant (played by Russell Crowe) as a smart-ass...

Last night, Chris Hayes face off against Assemblywoman Michele Fiore over the ongoing saga of the Bundy Ranch. Fiore reminds us why we love TV. [video] Fiore for the win! The Assemblywoman is feisty, unflappable, stays on message, goes at Hayes hard, and comes out looking great. A terrific segment and a good interview by Hayes, amazingly enough. The best part was when she left him flat-footed right at the end after catching him with the slaughter question. Although Hayes salvages the moment for himself with the barbecue crack. You can agree or disagree with Bundy or Fiore all you...

Hillary Clinton may end up deciding that she wants to spend the 935 days until Election 2016 making corporate speeches and spoiling her grandchild. Recent events have exposed weaknesses in Clinton’s supposedly impregnable armor, gaps through which a Democratic or Republican challenger could damage, perhaps even defeat her. The bad headlines to which she has been subjected are enough to make anyone — anyone who isn’t a Clinton — think twice about running for president. Look at the polls. This week’s Fox News poll has Clinton’s favorable rating at its lowest point in six years. She is at 49 percent...

Humorist: Brad Stine Tolerate This! "Atheists Are Irrational"

Japan began its first military expansion at the western end of its island chain in more than 40 years on Saturday, breaking ground on a radar station on a tropical island off Taiwan. The move risks angering China, locked in a dispute with Japan over nearby islands which they both claim. Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera, who attended a ceremony on Yonaguni island to mark the start of construction, suggested the military presence could be enlarged to other islands in the seas southwest of Japan's main islands. "This is the first deployment since the U.S. returned Okinawa (1972) and calls...

Did you know that the number of Americans getting benefits from the federal government each month exceeds the number of full-time workers in the private sector by more than 60 million? In other words, the number of people that are taking money out of the system is far greater than the number of people that are putting money into the system. And did you know that nearly 70 percent of all of the money that the federal government spends goes toward entitlement and welfare programs? When it comes to the transfer of wealth, nobody does it on a grander scale...

Every time we say the creed, we note that Jesus "descended into hell." Holy Saturday is the day that commemorates this event. What happened on this day, and how do we celebrate it? Here are 12 things you need to know. 1. What happened on the first Holy Saturday? Here on earth, Jesus' disciples mourned his death and, since it was a sabbath day, they rested. Luke notes that the women returned home "and prepared spices and ointments. On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment" (Luke 23:56). At the tomb, the guards that had been stationed there kept...

The Talented Mr. Putin. We've picked a sort of a bad time to have a "community organizer(TM)" in the white house...

A former U.S. Postal Service employee in Anchorage was arraigned Friday on charges he accepted at least $334,000 in disability and worker's comp payments while he spent his summers fishing. The U.S. attorney's office says in a Friday release that 56-year-old Amacio Zamora Agcaoili Jr. was indicted by a federal grand jury on 18 counts, including theft of government funds. Assistant U.S. Attorney Yvonne Lamoureux also claims Agcaoli lied about not working when he was paid for preparing tax returns and immigration paperwork. Authorities also claim he failed to tell the Social Security Administration about his worker's comp payments, to...

It also follows a reorganization of Western-backed fighters aimed at creating a more effective military force and increasing protection for Christian and other religious minorities—something of particular importance to Washington. This shift is seen as a test of whether the U.S. can find a trustworthy rebel partner able to keep sophisticated weapons out of the hands of extremists, Saudi and Syrian opposition figures said. The U.S. has long feared that if it does supply advanced arms, the weapons will wind up with radical groups—some tied to al Qaeda—which have set up bases in opposition-held territory.

Dear FRiends: Our unelected, unaccountable, unconstitutional law making government agencies have been taken over by politicized, militarized environmental fascists who, aided and abetted by unaccountable black-robed progressive rulers, have devised plans to reduce the people who settled and worked the land to the status of second class citizens, depriving them of their God-given rights and ultimately driving them off the land. These unelected, unaccountable agencies and judges now serve a higher master. The un-American Marxist/progressive movement. People like Obama/Reid/Pelosi have designs for the land and ultimately for all of us. They’re using environmentalism and junk science and corrupt politicians and...

by Warren Seale | Top Right News Unreal. On the “Tom Joyner Show” on Wednesday, Rev. Al Sharpton spoke about the “meaning” of Easter: “I think that the message is, no matter what the world may do to you unfairly, no matter how your crucified, nailed to the cross at home, or in your personal relationships, or on the job that you can rise if you don’t lose yourself during the hard times and the challenges. 

It’s the holiday season, one of those rare years when Passover and Easter come close together, as they did during the original Easter. So I get a twofer when I wish my readers “Happy Holidays!” ...whenever I’ve attended a Seder I’ve been impressed by the fact that Passover is a religious holiday dedicated to an idea that’s not really primarily religious: freedom. Yes, it’s about a particular historical event: the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. But the Seder ceremony makes clear that,... freedom itself is also being celebrated. Passover acknowledges that freedom (and liberty, not exactly the...

Traffic moves through downtown Lagos, Nigeria. The United Nations Population Division, which tracks demographic data from around the world, has dramatically revised its projections for what will happen in the next 90 years. The new statistics, based on in-depth survey data from sub-Saharan Africa, tell the story of a world poised to change drastically over the next several decades. Most rich countries will shrink and age (with a couple of important exceptions), poorer countries will expand rapidly and, maybe most significant of all, Africa will see a population explosion nearly unprecedented in human history. If these numbers turn out to...

Rep. Don Young took aim at a frequent target on Friday, blasting federal regulatory sprawl that he said endangered economic growth and the Alaskan way of life. Young spoke during a luncheon with the Associated General Contractors of Alaska in Fairbanks, and directed most of his fiery comments toward the growing profile of federal agencies. He said they’ve passed 13,883 new regulations in the past four years, compared to 628 new bills that made it through Congress. “We’re no longer a free nation,” Young said. “We’re a nation of regulatory law.” ... Young said President Obama’s philosophies aim to make...

In a speech delivered at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government on Tuesday evening, White House Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Adviser Lisa Monaco said it could help prevent terrorism if parents watched for “sudden personality changes in their children at home.” “President Obama has been laser-focused on making sure we use all the elements of our national power to protect Americans, including developing the first government-wide strategy to prevent violent extremism in the United States,” said Monaco, in a transcription posted by the White House. “At the same time, we recognize that there are limits to what the...

Proverb 19 (NKJV) The Fear of the Lord Leads to Life 01 Better is the poor who walks in his integrity 00 Than one who is perverse in his lips, and is a fool. 02 Also it is not good for a soul to be without knowledge, 00 And he sins who hastens with his feet. 03 The foolishness of a man twists his way, 00 And his heart frets against the LORD. 04 Wealth makes many friends, 00 But the poor is separated from his friend. 05 A false witness will not go unpunished, 00 And he who...

I am trying to find the name of a Science Fiction story I read thirty to forty years ago. The plot line revolves around a former Mercenary stranded on a newly settled planet. The leaders of the planet have decided that they have about a hundred years to get their population up to a level that will allow them to fend off others. The solution is to pair post pubescent women with slightly older men and breed as rapidly as possible while building the infrastructure necessary for a society. I seem to remember that the main item of value on...

That Mr Putin has difficulties with the truth is already apparent from the transparent lies he told us during the Crimean crisis. Who can forget that stage-managed press conference with a group of carefully-vetted Russian journalists back in March at which Mr Putin said in all seriousness that there were no Russian troops active in Crimea, when the province was in fact already overrun with Spetsnaz Russian forces orchestrating Moscow's annexation of the territory? Now the Russian president is at it again, this time trying to persuade a sceptical President Obama that there are no Russian soldiers or spiesinvolved in stirring up...

As I watched Tuesday while the anchors on “Fox & Friends” leveled unsubstantiated charges against Rep. Elijah Cummings as if they were facts, I couldn’t help thinking how much more dangerous Sen. Joe McCarthy might have been in the 1950s if there had been a show like this to amplify his reckless allegations. The Fox News morning show was playing one of cable talk’s dirtier games, and the longtime Democratic congressman from Baltimore was its target for his role in the House IRS probe. The lightweight, smiley morning crew — Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade and Elisabeth Hasselbeck — were saying...

Easter Conversion ‘Boom’? Some U.S. dioceses are reporting that 2014 will be an unusually fruitful year, in terms of the number of people welcomed into the Church. by CHARLOTTE HAYS 03/31/2014 ---The Archdiocese of Washington, where Bidzinski’s parish is located, will welcome the largest number of candidates and catechumens ever recorded for the archdiocese this Easter. The archdiocese will baptize or confirm 1,311 adults, children and teenagers this Easter ---Bishop Robert Lynch of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Fla. — where around 1,100 new Catholics will be welcomed at the Easter vigil — blogged on the diocesan website that this is the largest number...

A property rights fight near Seattle's waterfront will continue, despite the death of the property owner. Late last year, the Seattle City Council voted to used its powers of eminent domain to take the parking lot owned by a 103-year-old Spokane woman named Myrtle Woldson. The city asked her to sell. She refused. So the city council simply voted to condemn the property and take it.

MILFORD, Conn. (WTNH) – Was it something I said?U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal might have been thinking just that after a near brush with death during a press conference Friday at the Milford Metro-North station.Just as Milford Mayor Ben Blake started to say, “safety, as you know, is paramount,” a train came whooshing by the platform, inches from the senator who had his back turned and was partly standing on the yellow line.The press conference was called after Blumenthal slammed Metro-North Railroad for collecting $552,000 in fines over the past decade for safety violations and defects.

It’s getting tougher for Minnesotans to avoid the state’s taxes by spending part of the year somewhere else. Snowbirds and high earners are discovering that they must do more than buy a condo in the Sun Belt and register a vehicle there, after a court decision last year reinforced the state’s ability to use any of more than two dozen criteria to determine who is a Minnesota resident. “People refer to it as Hotel Minnesota,” said Matt Shea, a lawyer at Gray Plant Mooty. “You can come any time you like, but you can never leave.” To determine tax residency,...

We are all miserably accustomed to being informed that our rights must be curtailed because the Founders “couldn’t have imagined” the way in which they would eventually be exercised. “Well, sure it made sense to have an armed population back when the people only had muskets,” this argument tends to go. “But now that four-year-old children can buy semi-automatic nuclear death-rays with their Happy Meals, it’s just anachronistic.”

Gov. Rick Scott was just about to kick into gear his Hispanic outreach campaign when two top Republicans in the Florida Senate complicated the effort by unexpectedly blocking a priority bill that would give in-state tuition rates to some undocumented immigrants. The abrupt procedural move by Senate President Don Gaetz and Senate budget chairman Joe Negron on Thursday caught Scott unaware along with fellow House Republicans and the party’s most respected former governor, Gov. Jeb Bush, who had privately asked some senators to hear the measure. In a rare joint public statement, Bush, Scott and another former Republican governor, Bob...

Featured Term (selected at random:LAPSI Third-century Christians who relapsed into heathenism by sacrificing to the gods or performing other acts of apostasy. There were three classes: sacrificati, who had actually offered sacrifices to idols; thurificati, who had merely burned incense to the gods; and libellatici, who certified in writing that they had offered sacrifice to idols without having actually offered sacrifice. After the edict of Decius (250-25) the lapsi who had apostasized through weakness often wished to repent and return to Christian worship. Pope Cornelius and St. Cyprian favored their return, and the synods of that time felt that after...

<p>SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Officials from nine Western states say it’s time they take control of federal lands within their borders.</p> <p>The lawmakers and county commissioners met at Utah’s Capitol on Friday to discuss their joint goal of wresting oil-, timber- and mineral-rich lands away from the feds.</p>

There is a new wrinkle in rights-denial and the lame-stream media told you nothing, except we want to get as many people into the background-check system as possible, to make everyone safer. 90% of the public supports this. (92%, according to a democrat’s party mailer with Mr. Obama’s name on it) First, let me repeat: 90% of the public doesn’t support much of anything, especially gun stuff, so that number, like most “news” numbers these days, especially from advocates, politicians or government (unelected apparatchiks) is totally bogus (John Lott dissected their ludicrous math). Even so, try this “thought experiment” opinion...

Because it’s a Trojan Horse — if it’s included in the must-pass defense authorization bill when it’s sent to the Senate, Harry Reid can expand it into a larger amnesty confident in the knowledge that it would have to be passed. I’ve been told by a Republican House member that the Democrat (and, presumably, “hellbent” House leadership) plan is to add the entire DREAM Act to the defense bill once it gets to the Senate Here’s the article where the American Legion comes out against this policy. It’s fairly obvious that the Legion’s leadership isn’t trying to step on the...

History is witness to a time past when the Islamic civilization produced globally unparallelled architecture, literature, science, philosophy, theological discourse, and cultural influences – influences so strong it made European nobles want to dress like Muslims. Critics of Islam and Muslims scoff at this romanticism, asserting that Muslims have not produced anything great since the Middle Ages and most likely will never again. The inherent bigotry and even fallacy of that argument aside, for those critics I have to say, look out, a new Muslim renaissance is upon us. In the midst of growing anti-Muslim sentiment in the US since...

Fourth week of prices. My intention was to generate trending graphs this week, but as I started playing with the data I realized this post would become hideously huge. So what I would like the reader base to do is to determine what graphs/trends would be most useful and/or interesting. As of right now we are tracking 42 vendors, 9 calibers, and 2 lot sizes. Against those 3 vectors, we have the prices by date. We could do average price per round per caliber by vendor. Or trend lines of prices by lot size by caliber by vendor. Really anything...

Northwest Suburban High School District 214 may drop out of the National School Lunch Program next year due to what officials called restrictive changes in the law. The change comes in advance of a new "Smart Snacks in Schools" law that goes into effect July 1. The law will mandate what can be served, not only for reimbursable meals, but for all food items available in the morning, during the school day and 30 minutes after school ends, including food sold at a fundraiser such as a bake sale, food in vending machines and school stores and school breakfast. "The...

Prosecutors have filed a first-degree murder charge against a 47-year-old Observatory Park man accused of killing his wife while she pleaded for help on a call with a 911 operator. Richard Kirk purchased marijuana candy about 6:40 p.m. Monday and is accused of shooting his wife to death about three hours later. ... The 44-year-old woman spent 13 minutes on the phone with the 911 operator. According to dispatch recordings, it took officers more than 15 minutes to arrive at the brick Tudor home. ...

Q: If you could drill a tunnel through the whole planet and then jumped down this tunnel, how would you fall? Posted on August 3, 2012 by The Physicist Physicist: This is a beautiful question, in a small part because itÂ’s an interesting thought experiment with some clever math, but mostly because of all the reasons it couldnÂ’t be done and wouldnÂ’t work. Right off the bat; clearly a hole canÂ’t be drilled through the Earth. By the time youÂ’ve gotten no more than 30 miles down (less than 0.4% of the way through) youÂ’ll find your tunnel filling will...

As a rule I abhor the modern English language practice of using nouns as verbs. However, given that it is Holy Week and given that it is the perfect allusion, allow me to paraphrase Daniel Henninger: Big Guy just “Pontius Pilated” the Ukraine. It is an accurate, if awkward, construction. "The White House reiterated that no lethal assistance was planned" to help Ukraine defend itself. The U.S., however, did send ready-to-eat meals. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney's comments were antiseptic: "The Ukrainian government has a responsibility to provide law and order." It is fitting that churchgoers the world over...

Thursday's session in federal parliament was suspended for a while after the independent MP Laurent Louis (photo) had called Premier Elio Di Rupo a paedophile. Several MPs left the hemisphere as a protest. The incident happened around 3pm. Laurent Louis, a French speaker, had climbed the platform to criticise the cost of President Obama's visit to Belgium. "It cost millions, cash that could have been used to fill millions of fridges", he argued. "We bring life in our capital to a halt, without showing respect to the citizens." As Louis kept going, Di Rupo (Francophone socialist) promised to release more...

VIDEO In case you hadn’t heard the news, American Idol star, singer and actor Clay Aiken is running for Congress in North Carolina’s second congressional district. He’s hoping to take on (and take down) current GOP Representative Renee Ellmers. While Aiken’s success could allow him to largely self-fund the effort, politics still requires you to get out there and do some fundraising, pressing the flesh with the local donors and power brokers. But as the following video shows, don’t bother stopping by if you’re a Republican. You’re likely to get an icy – and expletive laden – welcome. You can...

THE SIEGE OF the Waco compound belonging to the religious group Branch Davidians by the US military and police took place between 28 February and 19 April 1993. The Branch Davidians was a sect that separated from the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1955 and were led by David Koresh. In the run up to the siege, a local newspaper had printed a series of stories about the cult’s leader Koresh, stating that he had physically abused children in the compound and had committed statutory rape by taking multiple underage brides. Koresh, an advocate for polygamy was married to several women...

<p>The San Mateo County bomb squad destroyed a suspected pipe bomb Thursday in Half Moon Bay, California and later discovered the supposed threat was just a set of paintbrushes, authorities said.</p>

At the same time, the aircraft’s slip/skid indication deflected to the full right position on the Primary Flight Display (PFD). The PFD airspeed display then indicated that the aircraft was approaching the overspeed limit and the stall speed limit simultaneously. The aircraft pitched up and climbed to approximately FL410 and the indicated airspeed decreased from 270 kts to 158 kts. The stall warning and stick shaker devices also activated. The aircraft returned to Perth where an uneventful landing was completed. For those who enjoy reading and thinking about strange happenings and coincidence. However, no indication of loss of radio, transponder,...

The 113th Congress is considered one of the richest Congresses in history, and it’s possible that there are more millionaires in Washington than ever before. It’s easy to assume that everyone in politics is rolling in the dough, that they all have massive bank accounts with six and seven digit salaries coming in from goodness-knows-where. Yes, the picture of Congress that’s often painted is that they are the elite, among America’s top 1%. And it’s true that many of them are wealthy and successful, with assets outweighing their liabilities. But we can’t assume that’s the case for all of them....

WASHINGTON, March 28 –The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s (CEI) animated short film, “I, Pencil” about the free-market wonders of making the common pencil won first place at a prestigious film contest this month co-hosted by Canada’s Manning Centre and the Free Thinking Film Society. The award was presented at the 2014 Manning Networking Conference, held February 27 - March 1, 2014, in Ottawa. The films were evaluated by a three-judge panel and featured themes on conservatism, liberty, free markets, and democracy. CEI’s 6 minute long “I, Pencil” film was adapted from the 1958 essay by the late economist Leonard E. Read...

Probably the most emotive issue to come before the electorate in a vote on May 18 is an initiative to ban convicted paedophiles from working with children for life, the culmination of a ten year campaign sparked by a controversy in the town of Biel. The initiative has mainly been backed by the rightwing Swiss People’s Party and the centrist Christian Democrats. ... The initiative, brought by the Marche Blanche (White March) group of concerned parents, would amend the Swiss constitution to ensure that “persons who are convicted because they have affected the sexual integrity of a child or a...

With passage of the Third Force Act, popularly known as the Ku Klux Act, Congress authorizes President Ulysses S. Grant to declare martial law, impose heavy penalties against terrorist organizations, and use military force to suppress the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). ---SNIP-- the KKK engaged in terrorist raids against African-Americans and white Republicans at night, employing intimidation, destruction of property, assault, and murder to achieve its aims and influence upcoming elections. In a few Southern states, Republicans organized militia units to break up the Klan.

In the Land of the Free, people grow up hearing a lot of things about their freedom. You're told that you live in the freest country on the planet... ... This justice system is supposedly founded on bedrock principles-- things like a defendant being presumed innocent until proven guilty. The right to due process and an impartial hearing. The right to counsel and attorney-client privilege. ... 2. The concept of 'innocent until proven guilty' may officially exist in courts, but administratively it was thrown out long ago. These days there are hundreds of local, state, and federal agencies that can...