Free Republic

~ Favorite Inauguration Songs.Send off's or Welcome to Song's~ Ray Charles - Hit The Road Jack (Original) *Video* God Bless the U.S.A. by Lee Greenwood *Video*

A badly burned body found on the floor of a River North parking garage early Tuesday has been identified as a 60-year-old real estate attorney, officials said. Louis S. Cohen, 60, was of the 200 block of Ivy Lane in Highland Park, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. An autopsy Wednesday was pending and did not determine a cause and manner for Cohen’s death, the office said. Just before 6 a.m. Tuesday, police and fire crews responded to a fire in the 11th floor of a parking garage in the 300 block of North LaSalle Drive and found...

The war on drugs continues to enjoy popular support in the Philippines despite condemnation from many outside the country. Recent opinion surveys show 85 percent of Filipinos approve of the violent crackdown on illegal drugs but at the same time 78 percent are fearful they, or someone they know, may become a victim of the increased violence. Despite that 89 percent of people have noted a decline in crime since the anti-drug campaign began and find that overall they are safer.

ROMA, Texas — Four family members who ran one of the largest cartel smuggling operations in south Texas had their life in prison sentences commuted and will likely be returning to this border city from where they ran their criminal empire. One of the main destinations that the criminal organizations delivered drugs to was Chicago, Illinois. This week, outgoing President Barack Obama commuted the sentences of 209 convicted criminals and pardoned 64 others. The majority of the convictions were from drug trafficking or production offenses. Four of those convicted criminals who had been sentenced to life in prison will be...

Facebook's CEO is ruffling feathers in Hawaii with a series of lawsuits that seek to stamp out the claims of locals residents who still have an ownership right in a large tract of land he bought on the island of Kauai. Mark Zuckerberg purchased the 700-acre parcel of rural beachfront property in 2014, but, owing to the quirks of traditional Hawaii culture and property law, he technically shares the title with hundreds of other people in the state. As the Honolulu Star Advertiser explains, the Kuleana Act of 1850 granted land ownership rights to native Hawaiians—rights that can descend to...

From Wash Post Blogger 'Pat Rockford' 6:11 am EST:I got the straight dope here, from some chicka's daughter my kid sister know: six of the Rockettes have "a little something extra" prepared to offer at the end of their routine. Some shadow legal outfit funded by those damned bleeding hearts is apparently signed up to pay the legal fees. If they don't strip-search these gals before they step on stage, just remember: Paddy here told you so.

Bail was set at $1 million Wednesday for a Cottage Grove man who authorities linked to a complex Dark Web plot to pay for his wife’s murder before he ultimately poisoned and shot her himself and staged her death as a suicide.

The state of California “accidentally” released the private information of nearly 3,500 firearms instructors in October 2016. The information was released as part of the response to a Southern California Public Radio (KPCC) reporter’s Freedom of Information Act request. The reporter was seeking information on state Firearms Safety Certifications. Fox News reports that information on “3,424 firearms instructors” was inadvertently released. That information contained “dates of birth, driver’s license numbers and California identification numbers.” On December 28, 2016 — over two months after the release of information was discovered — “the California Department of Justice sent out a letter to...

BBC report on the launch of Westmonster.com

With the Inauguration just days away, "PizzaGate" has been thrust back into the spotlight for the first time since the election thanks to reporter Ben Swann of CBS46 in Atlanta - only this time, it's not a puff piece labeling it a conspiracy theory, or another New York Times article going out of it's way to defend Comet Ping Pong. Swann lays out the players, including Comet Ping Pong owner James Alefantis (who was in a relationship with CTR-mastermind David Brock), as well as pedophile terminology, logos, and some of the pedo-friendly musical acts featured at the restaurant. Swann even...

WASHINGTON — Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to stream into D.C. for Donald Trump’s inauguration. Security will be tight and many roads will be closed to cars and pedestrians, so you’ll have to do your homework if you want to avoid headaches heading to the Mall or just getting around D.C. on Jan. 20. ... Weather With the forecast calling for rain, the no-umbrella policy for the inaugural events has been revised. According to Mike Litterst with the National Park Service: “Totes” style umbrellas that collapse will be allowed on the parade route as well as the National...

A federal prosecutor has filed a formal criminal information charging Marcus Mumford, Ammon Bundy's lawyer, with three misdemeanors. It accuses Mumford of creating a disturbance by impeding or disrupting official government duties by "verbally and physically interfering with" deputy U.S. marshals in their "transportation of a person in their custody." The second charge is failure to comply with signs that prohibit the disruption of official government duties. The third charge is failure to comply with the lawful direction of a federal police officer..... The information replaces the initial citations against Mumford. Marshals tackled Mumford, stunned him with a Taser and...

XI JINPING took a stab at seizing the mantle of global economic leadership on Tuesday, delivering a lengthy defense of free trade and globalization at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. To some extent, it worked: Many in the elite crowd of business leaders, government ministers and journalists seemed thrilled to hear the Chinese president, in his first appearance at the swishy forum, proclaim that there was “no point in blaming economic globalization for the world’s problems” — particularly as he spoke on a day when British Prime Minister Theresa May was outlining a “hard exit” from the...

Many of China’s space capabilities are designed to counter U.S. military advantages. In the highly “informatized” and technologically advanced battles that characterize the 21st century, outer space will play a dominant role. Space assets direct military operations and help in making crucial battleground decisions. In this regard, attempts to weaponize space and command this sphere are to be expected from great powers. The United States and USSR started weaponizing space in the in the 1950s and 1960s respectively, and China is now following suit. What Is the “Weaponization” of Space? The weaponization of space includes placing weapons in outer space...

As his time in the White House winds down, President Barack Obama received an unusual piece of mail: a letter from accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Officials confirmed that the letter arrived at the White House to CBS News, but are declining to provide further details. Mohammed is awaiting his death-penalty trial at Guantanamo Bay, accused of planning and orchestrating the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, at the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. The Miami Herald, which first reported on the letter, says it was written in 2014, and was only delivered...

UPDATE: Sheila Butt announced on Tuesday that she is withdrawing the bill. Read more about that here.Tennessee, more than 1 million people depend on benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to put food on their tables. Rep. Shelia Butt, R-Columbia, introduced a bill that would stop people from using those benefits, know as SNAP or food stamps, to buy foods high in calories, sugar and fat. Some people in our area think the bill is a good idea. "Milk and food items is fine," said Alan Rogers. "That's what they're for. Just to sustain life. All this other stuff...

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday it will not repay claims totaling more than $1.2 billion for economic damages from a mine waste spill the agency accidentally triggered in Colorado, saying the law prohibits it. The EPA said the claims could be refiled in federal court, or Congress could authorize payments. But attorneys for the EPA and the Justice Department concluded the EPA is barred from paying the claims because of sovereign immunity, which prohibits most lawsuits against the government. …

~ The FReeper Canteen Presents ~ ~ Remembering Our Troops!! ~ MEDEVAC TRAINING A soldier helps hoist a member of the South Carolina Helicopter Aquatic Rescue Team into a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter during a medevac training and certification mission in Eastover, SC, March 9, 2016. South Carolina Army National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Roberto Di Giovine Canteen Mission Statement Showing support and boosting the morale ofour military and our allies' militaryand family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. PUMP PRESSURE Navy Seaman Apprentice Jaren Solt throttles the pressure of a JP-5 fuel pump on...

Sara Kelly Keenan says she’s living proof that gender isn’t binarySara Kelly Keenan was sitting in a booth with her father at Santa Cruz Diner eight years ago this month when he admitted that doctors had wanted to assign her a gender when she was born: “They said that they could make you a 3-inch penis if I wanted them to, but I said, ‘Hell no, that’s my daughter, she’s a girl!’” “That’s when I realized that he knew I was genetically a male,” says Keenan. It took 49 years and the onset of advanced Alzheimer’s for Keenan’s father to...

President Obama said he would regard any effort to round up and deport Dreamers as an attack on American "core values" that would cause him to speak out publicly. The so-called Dreamers, young people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, "for all practical purposes are American kids," Obama said at what is expected to be the final news conference of his tenure. "The notion that we would just arbitrarily or because of politics punish those kids, when they didn't do something themselves ... would merit my speaking out," he said. Obama's administration has protected more than 700,000...