Free Republic

Australia's main scientific agency said yesterday it believed with "unprecedented precision and certainty" that a missing Malaysia Airlines aircraft crashed into the sea north-east of an area scoured in a fruitless, nearly three-year underwater search. Its assertion is based on satellite pictures taken two weeks after MH370 went missing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board a flight to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. But the Australian government rejected the conclusion of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), saying it was not specific enough. The Boeing 777 is thought to have been diverted thousands of kilometres off...

In the spring of 2017, a five year long lawsuit against a Florida gun shop owner was finally settled. It appears the shop owner was able to sell the shop and retire, while the anti-Second Amendment group ended up with a face saving statement. In 2012, a mentally ill man named Benjamin Bishop shot and killed his mother and her boyfriend in cold blood. He was forbidden from owning a gun or ammunition, but a friend, Matthew Schwab, purchased the gun for him at a local gun shop. The Brady lawsuit alleged that Bishop attempted to buy a gun at...

The New York state court system's longtime communications chief was fired Thursday after inadvertently telling a reporter that he "barely" went to work at his $166,000-a-year job. David Bookstaver's firing came a day after the New York Post reported he unwittingly dialed a reporter's voicemail, which captured him conversing with someone else — and acknowledging that he was sloughing off at the office. "I'm not doing anything. I barely show up to work," Bookstaver said in a part of the recording the newspaper posted online.

ARLINGTON Ever since Six Flags opened in 1961, the six flags that have flown over Texas have been a staple of the park. No more. As of Friday morning, the five flags other than the United States flag — representing France, Spain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas and the Confederacy — are being left to the history books.

CEDAR CITY – The issue of Utah prairie dogs may be on their way to the U.S. Supreme Court after an appeals court refused to hear arguments this week regarding an earlier ruling that found a federal judge had erred in his 2014 decision. In 2013, attorneys for People for the Ethical Treatment of Property Owners filed a lawsuit against the federal government challenging its regulation of the Utah prairie dog and its impact on property rights. Members of PETPO include private property owners as well as entities such as Cedar City Corporation, who claim the burrow-dwelling rodents are damaging...

John Coleman says Al Gore started it — the “global warming silliness.” But now the retired weatherman and founder of The Weather Channel is “horrified” to see San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer channeling the ex-veep with a Climate Action Plan. It “just turns my stomach.” John Coleman left KUSI in April 2014 after 20 years as meteorologist. “I think he saw money and power, and I don’t know what else he thought of it,” Coleman says of the Republican mayor. “I can’t believe he really [felt he] was going to save the city from some terrible fate.” Coleman, 82, laughs...

The Trump administration has ended Operation Choke Point, the anti-fraud initiative started under the Obama administration that many Republicans argued was used to targeted gun retailers and other businesses that Democrats found objectionable. Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd told GOP representatives in a Wednesday letter that that the long-running program had ended, bringing a conclusion to a chapter in the Obama years that long provoked and angered conservatives who saw Choke Point as an extralegal crackdown on politically disfavored groups. "All of the department's bank investigations conducted as part of Operation Chokepoint are now over, the initiative is no longer...

Serial entrepreneur Marcus Lemonis had some choice words on Wednesday about those who may support President Donald Trump's response to the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. "There's no doubt that there is probably not many consumers in this country today that are in favor of what has been said in the last couple days and if they are, quite frankly, don't shop at my business," said Lemonis, who is CEO ofCamping World and host of CNBC's "The Profit." In a chaotic Tuesday news conference, Trump appeared to equate torch-bearing white nationalists with the protesters who demonstrated against them.

Health Care: In Iowa, the state's sole remaining insurer announced on Thursday that it wants to boost ObamaCare premiums by 57%. This isn't exactly the vibrant, competitive, low-cost market that Democrats promised. But it is the inevitable outcome of ObamaCare's government-knows-best approach to health care. Earlier this year, Aetna and Wellmark Blue Cross & Blue Shield announced that they were pulling out of Iowa's ObamaCare exchange, leaving only Medica, which was also threatening to leave. Not surprisingly, Medica has used its newfound monopoly status to push for increasingly higher rates, while trying to pin the blame President Trump for the...

Progressives used to pressure U.S. corporations to cut back on outsourcing and on the tactic of building their products abroad to take advantage of inexpensive foreign workers. During the 2012 election, President Obama attacked Mitt Romney as a potential illiberal “outsourcer in chief” for investing in companies that went overseas in search of cheap labor. Yet most of the computers and smartphones sold by Silicon Valley companies are still being built abroad — to mostly silence from progressive watchdogs. In the case of the cobalt mining that is necessary for the production of lithium-ion batteries in electric cars, thousands of...

AD CITES MAJOR ACHIEVEMENTS, INCLUDING JOBS, THE ECONOMY AND MILITARY STRENGTH EXCORIATES MEDIA “ATTACKING OUR PRESIDENT” AND “POLITICIANS STANDING IN THE WAY”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vptm8IvmPck

Progressives used to pressure U.S. corporations to cut back on outsourcing and on the tactic of building their products abroad to take advantage of inexpensive foreign workers. During the 2012 election, President Obama attacked Mitt Romney as a potential illiberal “outsourcer-in-chief” for investing in companies that went overseas in search of cheap labor. Yet most of the computers and smartphones sold by Silicon Valley companies are still being built abroad — to mostly silence from progressive watchdogs.

Competition is heating up among U.S. grocery chains, but Americans are increasingly buying their food at Walmart. The retailer on Thursday said food sales had grown to their highest level in five years, as Walmart expands its grocery business both in stores and online by adding more organic produce. The company is also testing grocery delivery in New York, and has taken aggressive steps to compete with Amazon.com. “We’ve seen strong results from the rollout of online grocery, which is now in more than 900 U.S. locations,” Doug McMillon, president and chief executive of Walmart, said in a Thursday call...

In one of the biggest 2018 premium hikes sought to date, Iowa’s only ObamaCare insurer is looking for a 57 percent rate increase – that’s 13 percent more than they asked for just two months earlier. It’s a troubling trend that’s been spreading across the country as jittery insurers stay stuck in a holding pattern waiting on Congress and the Trump administration to decide the fate of the Affordable Care Act. President Trump has at different times encouraged lawmakers to let ObamaCare implode, pushed his party to repeal and replace the bill, admonished his own party for failing to do...

Now that President Trump has signaled his support for the RAISE Act, many Americans are being forced to think about the merits and pitfalls of our legal immigration system. One important problem that has received no attention is how the large-scale immigration of foreign physicians has contributed to the atrophying of our medical schools. Specifically, America’s universities can no longer train enough medical practitioners to meet the nation’s healthcare demands—America relies on the immigration of foreign professionals to maintain its healthcare system, and standard of living. In a sense, we rely on imported physicians like we rely on foreign oil....

According to SF Gate, the transportation company invested in 40,000 cards, each pre-loaded with $11After the Warriors claimed their third NBA championship in a row, BART stocked up on Clipper Cards. According to SF Gate, the transportation company invested in 40,000 cards, each preloaded with $11. The company hoped that the cards would have alleviated transportation stress for fans during the Warriors celebration parade in June. Months later though, BART is left with around 38,000 transportation cards. Over a half-million dollars’ worth of cards sit in boxes untouched. The idea seemed reasonable at the time. The parade was estimated to...

The congressional calendar is jammed. There are serious doubts that there's room for all the legislation that's lined up waiting for a vote. ... There are just 12 days before the end of September, when the House and Senate are in session together. In those 12 days, Congress has to pass a budget and a debt ceiling extension. That's surely very difficult. Now throw in the Republican Party walking away from the Republican president. That is what's happening. And the chances of getting a budget, debt ceiling, health care, tax cuts and infrastructure done this year are surely slim and...

Democrats are on edge over Hillary Clinton’s forthcoming book that is likely to dredge up the controversies surrounding her 2016 defeat to President Trump, just as the out-of-power party is trying to "move on" and chart a course back to the majority. The former secretary of state, U.S. senator and first lady who added Democratic presidential nominee to her resume last year apparently isn’t done with public life. She plans to release her book, “What Happened,” next month. But Bloomberg reports that Democrats are privately concerned that Clinton’s book will help Trump, by fueling his case that Democrats are going...

With a sweeping overhaul of the tax code on the horizon, two Senate Democrats believe this is the moment to broach the third rail of climate change policy: a carbon tax. The plan by the senators, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Brian Schatz of Hawaii, to level a $49 per metric ton fee on greenhouse gas emissions is widely acknowledged as a long shot. But the lawmakers, along with climate activists and a cadre of conservative supporters, insist the tax reform is a way to create bipartisan support. The senators propose to use a portion of the estimated $2.1...

The price of Rat meat goes up in Thailand I rarely copy a news story but a story about eating rats I can't pass up. This story from PDN about the price of rat meat in Phitsanulok. Before you think that's it's only poor farmers eating rats, the cost of rat meat is double that of chicken and pork. This lady says it costs 250 baht a kilogram for a big rodent, not that i'm noting to buy a whole kilo of it! Still I've eaten rat meat and although I prefer fried frog, fried rat isn't too bad...