Free Republic

WASHINGTON, PRNewswire — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a regulation to prohibit conversion of vehicles originally designed for on-road use into racecars. The regulation would also make the sale of certain products for use on such vehicles illegal. The proposed regulation was contained within a non-related proposed regulation entitled “Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Fuel Efficiency Standards for Medium- and Heavy-Duty Engines and Vehicles-Phase 2.” The regulation would impact all vehicle types, including the sports cars, sedans and hatch-backs commonly converted strictly for use at the track. While the Clean Air Act prohibits certain modifications to motor vehicles,...

For years you've been telling your friends, family, co-workers and anyone who will listen that you're addicted to cheese. It's a part of every meal or snack, and you think about it constantly. According to a new study from the University of Michigan, cheese crack is a real thing. And so is your addiction. The study, published in the U.S. National Library of Medicine, examines why certain foods are more addictive than others. Researchers identified addictive foods from about 500 students who completed the Yale Food Addiction Scale, designed to measure if someone has a food addiction. Pizza, unsurprisingly, came...

Here is how Father Mike Schmitz, a priest for the Diocese of Duluth, MN, explains society's acceptance of trans-gender. He breaks it down pretty well...

Employees of Obama donor Leo Hindery Jr.’s media conglomerate Intermedia Partners, which now owns most of the top gun-culture media outlets in the country, believe that Hindery plans to gut and destroy all of them as part of a business plan that has already led to numerous layoffs and the virtual shuttering of prominent television production facilities in Minnesota and Montana. Hindery, who was in consideration to be President Barack Obama’s secretary of commerce, is managing partner of Intermedia Partners. The New York-based media private equity fund owns Intermedia Outdoor Holdings, which publishes 17 hunting, fishing, and shooting magazines, including...

Paul Shawcross, Chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget, has officially responded to a November petition requesting that the United Sates government construct a Death Star by 2016. Shawcross stated that the White House would not be pursuing any Death Star construction projects, citing critical design failures: “Why should we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?” The Obama administration also claims that the Death Star proposal would conflict with their core policies, saying, “The Administration does not...

Gov. Scott Walker gave vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan a resounding endorsement today and joked it's another sign of a "cheesehead revolution." "If there was a Paul Ryan fan club, I'd be president," Walker said the morning after he learned Mitt Romney picked Ryan as his running mate. Walker indicated he knew Ryan would be the nominee last night. Walker told reporters in Wauwatosa that he and Ryan "texted back and forth" last night and that as Walker said his nightly prayers last evening, "at the top of my list was Paul Ryan and his family." Walker also said he...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) -- A coalition of groups supporting immigrants has recruited teams of volunteers to help push programs they hope will add thousands of new U.S. citizens to the voter rolls in several states in time for the November presidential election. The national push comes after Democratic President Barack Obama has failed to deliver on promised immigration reforms in his first years in office and his likely opponent, Mitt Romney, adopted harsh rhetoric on illegal immigration to win support from conservatives while campaigning for the GOP nomination. The Department of Homeland Security says an estimated 12.6 million people were...

Union leaders are asking Democratic candidates for governor to veto the next state budget if it doesn't restore collective bargaining for public workers, and one leading candidate - Kathleen Falk - has agreed. Such a veto could lead to gridlock with the Legislature, particularly if Republicans continue to control one or both houses, and to possible layoffs of state workers, officials warned. Nonetheless, the move is a key strategy that union leaders are considering for undoing Gov. Scott Walker's repeal last year of most collective bargaining for public employees. Falk, the former Dane County executive, has committed to restoring collective...

Our tax dollars at work… a half-billion dollar loan (actually $529 million) from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a hybrid toy for the wealthy and/or celebri-licious (like Leonardo DiCaprio, one of the first customers) that, in real world driving, won’t get much better mileage than your average crossover utility vehicle. Not only that, but the cars are manufactured in Finland — that’s right, Finland – and shipped here for sale, where their purchasers will then receive a $7,500 tax credit for buying one (the “cheap” base model starts at $96,895, with the full-zoot Eco Chic model going for...

...I’m late on the comments because I am helping a major US corporation once again ship a perfectly running, extremely profitable manufacturing operation overseas. By all means of evaluation, it makes no sense to ship it away. This operation meets all cost targets, highest yield requirements and etc. It is moving because someone has a burr that says we can make it cheaper overseas. Just wait until yields drop, requiring throughput to increase, and increased part costs due to the additional wasted parts that will be bought...

With the practice of paying forced union dues soon to become a relic of the past for many public employees, officials of the Wisconsin Education Association Council have reportedly contacted members in a bid to convince them to continue paying up through automatic bank withdrawals. That's not surprising because the revenue stream the state's largest teachers' union is trying to protect is substantial. In fact, the organization collected more than $23.4 million in membership dues in fiscal year 2009 from its approximately 98,000 members. The numbers are included on WEAC's IRS forms for the year. Fiscal year 2009 was the...

Life Extension® has published 57 articles that describe the health benefits of walnuts. Some of this same scientific data was featured on the website of Diamond Foods, Inc., a distributor of packaged walnuts. Last year the FDA determined that walnuts sold by Diamond Foods cannot be legally marketed because the walnuts “are not generally recognized as safe and effective” for the medical conditions referenced on Diamond Foods’s website. According to the FDA, these walnuts were classified as “drugs” and the “unauthorized health claims” cause them to become “misbranded,” thus subjecting them to government “seizure or injunction.” Diamond Foods capitulated and...

In just a matter of weeks, the We Are Wisconsin PAC has established itself as the left-wing powerhouse in the Wisconsin recall elections. As was previously exposed by Media Trackers and The MacIver Institute, We Are Wisconsin PAC has assembled political operatives from around the country to steer the massive amounts of money pouring in from big-labor to overwhelm Republican incumbents and challengers and flip the Wisconsin state senate.

A health insurance company affiliated with the state's largest teachers union is refusing to release hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal money to school districts that recently dropped the company in favor of less expensive providers. The federal money, which the nonprofit WEA Trust applied for on behalf of individual school districts, is intended to offset high-cost medical claims for early retirees ages 55 and older who are not yet eligible for Medicare. WEA Trust is affiliated with the Wisconsin Education Association Council. School officials argue that WEA Trust applied for the federal money during the 2010-'11 fiscal year,...

A float set to role down the streets in Oak Creek and Racine was supposed to honor those who died on 9/11. The good intentions of one firefighter sparked a controversy. Members of the youth group at Parkway Apostolic Church in Oak Creek have completed cleaning up and rehabbing the 9/11 float, but that float almost didn't have anyone to March with it. The 9/11 remembrance was originally built in 2002 by Lt. Mark Gorniak of the Oak Creek Fire Department and appeared in the parade back then. he thought it was time to bring it back, but he quickly...