Free Republic

The Connecticut teen who has been in state custody for more than a year after her parents were accused of medical child abuse after disputing a diagnosis has apparently penned a note, giving a look into how she says she’s being treated. “They hurt me all the time push me all the time and more,” the purported note from Justina Pelletier says. It also says “[they] do not let me sleep vary [sic] much. “Hury [sic]!” Keith Mason, president of Personhood USA, a group helping lead the Free Justina Coalition, told TheBlaze that Justina gave the note to her parents...

Dozens of Ukrainian army defectors rode into the disputed eastern town of Slovyansk today on a column of armoured troop carriers bearing the Russian national flag. The defectors, including highly trained paratroopers. were said to have switched sides after being persuaded to defect by pro-Russian insurgents in nearby Kramatorsk, where they were part of a Ukrainian force that secured a military airfield yesterday. With Russian flags flying, the soldiers headed on a convoy of six troop carriers into Slovyansk, stopping first outside city hall, which has been occupied by pro-Russian protesters for several days, before entering the police station.

On this April 15, filers and accountants alike are finding a new array of taxes resulting from the president’s health care legislation. These include at least 20 ObamaCare-related tax increases totaling $409 billion over the next ten years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. The new taxes are especially irksome to ObamaCare opponents, because they are imposed by a law that passed on a straight party-line vote and are being enforced by an agency that some accuse of party favoritism. "I think it's rather unfortunate that the IRS has this huge role in the Affordable Care Act because it's...

15 April 2014 Last updated at 19:14 ET New York police disband Muslim 'eavesdropping' unit The New York Police Department has disbanded a secret programme designed to eavesdrop on Muslims to identify potential terrorism threats. The Demographics Unit had dispatched plainclothes detectives to listen to conversations and build files on places frequented by Muslims, US media say. The squad had been the subject of two federal lawsuits in the past, and drew ire from civil rights groups. It is also said to have sowed Muslim mistrust for law enforcement. "This reform is a critical step forward in easing tensions between...

The major news media, with the exception of Fox News, has been deafeningly quiet about the federal government’s thwarted raid last week on a Nevada rancher. Heavily-armed agents from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) descended upon Cliven Bundy’s ranch, seizing 389 of his 900 cattle. The BLM shut off access to federal lands, claiming he was illegally using them, and a no-fly zone was established for a 3-mile-square area around Bundy’s ranch. A sign was posted - unconstitutionally - limiting the First Amendment to a small designated area. The feds flew helicopters overhead to chase the cattle, knowing full...

The International Renaissance Foundation's mission is to foster an open, participatory, plaurlist society based on democratic values in Ukraine...

PRIMM, Nevada – As part of President Obama’s all-of-the-above approach to energy, today Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar “flipped the switch” on the Enbridge Silver State North solar project, the first large-scale solar energy facility on U.S. public lands to deliver power to American consumers. This milestone is in line with the administration’s broad commitment to expanding production of all sources of American made energy, including from renewable sources, such as wind and solar, which has doubled in the President’s first term, as well as domestic production of oil and gas resources, which have increased each year the President...

Despite much diplomatic effort, the situation in Ukraine worsens. A coordinated Russian campaign, including an invasion threat, special operations destabilization in eastern Ukraine patterned on the Crimea model, and warnings of gas cutoffs document ever more clearly Vladi­mir Putin’s aim to cripple the Ukrainian government and control much or even all of this strategically vital European country.

KIEV, April 15. /ITAR-TASS/. Shots are being fired at the airdrome near the city of Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast, and one fighter plane has been shot down, witnesses report from the scene. As follows from what the people say four fighter planes, presumably Sukhoi-27 were hovering over Kramatorsk. At a certain point they opened fire at the local airdrome. Who commanded the planes and who downed the fighter remains unclear.

The Iraqi army began buttressing its defense lines on April 12 to save parts of the capital city of Baghdad from the approaching danger of falling to al Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). Iraqi intelligence reports that terrorist forces have broken through into the city’s western outskirts and preparing to head out to other parts of the city of more than seven million and the Green Zone government headquarters. In addition to the lethal bombings and shootings which have reduced the country to misery, Debkafile’s counter-terrorism sources describe a more insidious ISIS tactic of conquest: Armed...

Ukrainian armed forces on Tuesday launched a "special operation" against militiamen in the country's Russian speaking east, authorities said, recapturing a military airfield from pro-Moscow separatists. Gunfire could be heard from the airfield at the town of Kramatorsk after a fighter jet swooped low over the area. Ukrainian troops were seen disembarking from helicopters.

6:30 p.m. – Interfax Ukraine reports that Interim President Oleksander Turchynov has announced that Ukrainian troops have successfully freed the Kramatorsk airfield. According to the AP, "The mayor of Kramatorsk said Ukrainian troops have now occupied the military airport and are blocking its entrance." The freeing of the airfield is part of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's "anti-terrorist operation," which is being conducted throughout eastern Ukraine to quell Russian-backed separatist movements. Rossiya 24 reports that four Russian-sponsored terrorists were killed as a result of the operation. Further, according to Interfax Ukraine, Andriy Parubiy, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense...

Following remarks Senate Majority leader Harry Reid made at the University of Nevada, Reno on Monday, the Nevada Democrat told Reno's KRNV TV his thoughts on the cattle controversy in Gold Butte. "Well, it's not over. We can't have an American people that violate the law and then just walk away from it. So it's not over," Reid said. There is no question that there were a lot of things going on down there with breaking the law," Reid said. "And that is not over yet. We can't let that continue. So I'm sure it is not the end of...

Two pro-Russian militants were apparently wounded in a clash at a military airfield Tuesday as armored Ukrainian units began moving into the county's restive east, part of a military operation to take back control of cities seized by separatists. Soldiers riding aboard armored personnel carriers took up positions around the region at the heart of the unrest, setting up checkpoints along key roads, with transport helicopters parked in fields nearby. Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov said the "antiterrorist" operation began in the early morning hours in the northern part of the Donetsk region, where the majority of the cities commandeered by...

A recording proving that Russia is backing separatists in eastern Ukraine has surfaced online. The SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) taped the operatives, whose code names are "Nose," "Adler," "Shooter" and "Agath," discussing strategy, weapon stockpiles, and requests for reinforcements. The SBU has identified the number calling the separatists in Ukraine as having a Russian +7 area code.

Russia has asked the United States to use its influence to prevent bloodshed in eastern Ukraine, as Kiev threatened a "large-scale anti-terrorist operation" to remove separatists from government buildings. Russian President Vladimir Putin made the appeal during a phone conversation with US President Barack Obama, in which the Kremlin said the two leaders discussed the escalating unrest. The Kremlin said the Russian president also rejected Western claims that Moscow is behind attacks on government buildings, saying they were "based on unfounded information." Earlier Mr Putin's spokesman said Russia had received several appeals for help from separatists who are seeking to...

The standoff between Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) deescalated on April 12, when the bureau announced that it will stop its operation to confiscate Bundy’s cattle.But another aspect to this ongoing story is jumping: The blogosphere is alive with allegations that Senator Harry Reid (pictured), and his son, Rory, have motivations of their own for wanting Bundy’s cattle off the disputed lands.Though the major media announced that a “deal” had been reached between Bundy and the BLM, Bundy explained what transpired differently in an interview with KLAS TV in Las Vegas: “There is...

Warning follows threat from Harry Reid that grazing dispute 'not over' The chief of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association says his sources inside the federal government are warning that Washington’s weekend retreat in a dispute over grazing land in Nevada was just to distract and defuse – because a raid on the family’s ranch still is being strategized. And there probably would be violence involved, said Richard Mack, the former sheriff of Grisham County, Ariz. “I don’t think it would be possible” to launch a raid without violence, he told WND Monday. “I don’t the Bundys would lie...

The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday released a scathing report in response to a series of deadly police shootings that pointed to patterns of excessive force by the Albuquerque Police Department, serious constitutional violations and a lack of training and oversight of its officers. After more than a year of reviewing hundreds of cases handled by the Albuquerque police, the federal agency found that officers too frequently used deadly force on people "who posed a minimal threat" and used a higher level of force too often on those with mental illness.

New figures by the Congressional Budget Office released on Monday reveal that over the next 10 years the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio will double to 78%. Over the last four decades America's average debt-to-GDP ratio was 39%. At the end of 2007, federal debt was just 35% of GDP. The CBO report says gross federal debt will soar from $17.7 trillion to $27 trillion over the next ten years. CBO warned of the dire consequences the nation's debt will have if gone unchecked. "Such high and rising debt would have serious negative consequences," says the report. "Federal spending on interest payments...