Free Republic

Among the many trends the pandemic accelerated, one of the least noted has been the increase in so-called cashless toll roads—highways where electronic fee-collection systems have replaced human toll collectors. Now, as traffic returns to pre-pandemic levels, another trend is plaguing these new systems: fare evasion. Around the country, turnpike authorities and bridge and tunnel operators are logging hundreds of millions of dollars in losses as scofflaws find increasingly inventive ways to outfox the systems. Though advocates say that the losses represent a small portion of total revenues, some officials are contemplating raising tolls to account for the shortfalls—in the...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) referred to a pro-Trump caravan spotted in New York City as a “pileup of chumps.” Photos and videos emerged over the weekend, showing ‘Trump trains” popping up across the nation. One such parade occurred over New York City’s Whitestone Bridge. Photos and videos show dozens of vehicles on the bridge with pro-America and pro-Trump flags:

You're chumps.

Video

A parade of people backing President Trump on Saturday crashed Democratic nominee Joe Biden's drive-in rally in Bristol, Penn. The former vice president called the band of Trump supporters parked outside his rally "chumps" while addressing the crowd.

Video of a Biden campaign stop in Pennsylvania highlighted by the Trump campaign shows the Democratic presidential candidate calling Pennsylvanian voters who do not support him "chumps." "I'll work as hard for those who don't support me as those who do, including those chumps with the microphone out there," Biden said.

TOKYO (AFP) - Anti-Christmas protesters calling themselves "Losers with Women" marched through Tokyo's streets Saturday, bashing the upcoming holiday as a capitalist ploy that also discriminates against singletons. The group of about 20 -- part of the Communist-inspired group that routinely protests Western holidays -- marched under angry banners that read "Smash Christmas!" in Tokyo's Shibuya district, where couples and families strolled for holiday shopping. The scrooges -- mostly single men -- said they were against capitalism and were opposed to the commercialisation of Christmas. "In this world, money is extracted from people in love, and happy people support capitalism,"...

Mitt Romney played the “Israeli card” in a Republican foreign policy debate and promised Israel would be the first country he will visit if elected. "We have a president who pursued an agenda of saying we're going to be friendly to our foes and we're going to be disrespectful to our friends," Romney said in a CNN debate Tuesday night featuring GOP presidential hopefuls. President Barack Obama visited Israel during his election campaign, including a trip to the Western Wall, which in his view is not a legitimate part of Israel's soversignty. He is expected to visit Israel next year...

Another vacant season winds to an end for the grand hotel formerly known as Trump. The yellow and blue tower, one of the few modern structures in Broward County designed by a world renown architect, should have been the throbbing heart of the renaissance on Fort Lauderdale Beach. It’s empty. As empty, perhaps, as the Trump brand that was used to lure investors into a condominium-hotel scheme that would collapse before a single guest signed the register. The architectural flourishes of the 24-story building, with great portholes looking out over A1A, were meant to evoke the old fashioned “elegance and...

The BIG What if ? What if? What if Europeans stopped Germany from rearming in the early 1930s? What if Truman stopped the Chinese communists takeover in 1948? What if Johnson had invaded North Vietnam in the mid 1960s? What if G H.W. Bush (SR) refused to raise taxes in 1990? We all have our favorite historical ‘What if?’ to dream about. Well what if Trump actually ran for President? A Republican who will finally will kick Butt Trump’s interviews gave us a sample of what we could expect from a President ‘kick butts’ Trump, and we can take him...

It’s time for the MSM to put its drool buckets in permanent storage. In the past month, we’ve had: – The Pleasanton (CA) Weekly bullied by the White House press shop over a benign article that irked the administration because it made Michelle Obama look snooty. – The San Francisco Chronicle punished by the White House because a print pool reporter used a cell phone to record video of protesters at an Obama Bay Area fundraiser. And now, the Boston Herald has been spanked by the White House for…running a front-page op-ed by Mitt Romney: The White House Press Office...

"Some UFOs are intelligently controlled extraterrestrial spacecraft, and this is the biggest story of the millennium." These words are not the rantings of a deranged individual looking for attention or a comfortable straitjacket. Stanton Friedman is a maverick of sorts. Employed for 14 years as a nuclear physicist for companies like General Electric, General Motors, Westinghouse and Aerojet General Nucleonics, he worked on highly classified programs involving nuclear aircraft, fission and fusion rockets. In 1958, UFOs caught his attention, and Friedman has since lectured about this subject at more than 700 colleges and professional groups in all 50 states and...

The balance in international military power may be shifting again. In the last two years, Russia, India and China have all announced or clarified major defense programs that include everything from the development of advanced fighters to upgrading aircraft carriers.

Chimps don't mind being chumps in raisin game 19:53 04 October 2007 NewScientist.com news service Roxanne Khamsi Unlike humans, chimpanzees will gladly accept a rotten deal from one another, suggesting they have a very different concept of fairness, a new study shows. Experiments reveal that chimps are more focused on the immediate outcome of a transaction than the overall fairness of the deal. By contrast, people generally place a huge emphasis on equity in deal brokering – so much so that it will cause them to make irrational economic decisions. This is demonstrated, for example, in what's known as the...

Representative Howard Coble of North Carolina . . . Representative Steven C. LaTourette of Ohio . . . Representative John J. Duncan Jr. of Tennessee . . . Representative Walter B. Jones of North Carolina . . . Representative Ric Keller, a Florida Republican . . . Representative Heather Wilson, a New Mexico Republican . . . Republican Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine . . .

NEW YORK While the Iraq Study Group report earned generally positive reviews at newspapers across the country today, Thursday's front page of the New York Post took a far different (but typically outrageous) approach, picturing James Baker and Lee Hamilton, the chairmen of the panel, as "surrender monkeys" -- with their faces pasted on the heads of actual chimps. The front page story by Niles Latham declares, "The Iraq Study Group report delivered to President Bush yesterday contains 79 separate recommendations - but not one that explains how American forces can defeat the terrorist insurgents, only ways to bring the...

CAIMITO, Cuba (Reuters) - They do not come to Cuba for the beaches and tropical mystique that draw more than 2 million other visitors each year. Instead they come to spend their vacations working in the countryside under a blazing sun, eating rice and beans and sharing a room without air-conditioning or toilet with seven others. They are so-called revolutionary tourists who arrive each year from about 50 countries for a "total immersion" in one of the world's few remaining socialist countries. "I call it a revolutionary vacation. I dedicate my free time to doing something concrete for the Cuban...

In mid-afternoon trading, the Dow industrials were down 204.99 to 11,214.90, the Nasdaq composite had fallen 28.57 to 2,200.56 and the Standard & Poor's 500 index was down 19.44 at 1,272.64.

by Mark Finkelstein May 17, 2006 If the Da Vinci Code was already feeding the flames of controversy with its challenge to the basic tenets of Christianity, actor Ian McKellen managed to throw a refinery tank's worth of gasoline on the fire on this morning's Today show, asserting that the Bible should carry a disclaimer saying that it is "fiction." Matt Lauer, on his second day "On The Road With The Code," was in Cannes for the film festival, where the Code will have its debut. It has already been screened to some critics, who have given it decidedly mixed...