Free Republic

A Canadian high school student named Bronwyn Delacruz never imagined that her school science project would make headlines all over the world. But that is precisely what has happened. Using a $600 Geiger counter purchased by her father, Delacruz measured seafood bought at local grocery stores for radioactive contamination. What she discovered was absolutely stunning. Much of the seafood, particularly the products that were made in China, tested very high for radiation. So is this being caused by nuclear radiation from Fukushima? Is the seafood that we are eating going to give us cancer and other diseases? The American people...

Grant Middle School workbook’s gun-rights description has some up in arms A workbook used by Grant Middle School that has generated controversy among gun-rights supporters won't be removed from the classroom. Jason Nevel Updated Mar 24, 2014 at 10:23 PM A workbook used by students at Grant Middle School that has generated controversy among gun-rights supporters has no political agenda and won't be removed from the classroom, Springfield interim Superintendent Bob Hill said Monday. Since the controversy surfaced online last week, Hill said, he's received a handful of calls and more than a dozen emails. Gun-rights supporters claim students at...

In the race for U.S. Senate, Republican challenger Jim Oberweis is getting shunned by two top Republicans - one local, one national. Dick Durbin is such a favorite for reelection that Republican Senator Mark Kirk says he’s not even planning to campaign with fellow Republican Oberweis. “I’m going to be protecting my relationship with Dick and not launching into a partisan jihad that hurts our partnership [in which we] both pull together for Illinois.” And at his side at an unrelated news conference was Republican Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, in town for a fundraiser, who took a...

Former President Jimmy Carter says he corresponds with foreign leaders the old-fashioned way – through snail mail – because he suspects his communications are watched by intelligence agencies. “I have felt that my own communications are probably monitored,” Carter said in an interview with Andrea Mitchell that was aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And when I want to communicate with a foreign leader privately, I type or write the letter myself, put it in the Post Office and mail it, because I believe if I send an email, it will be monitored,” Carter said.

WND EXCLUSIVE The 1 officer who stands between you and militarized police 'I can nullify any kind of unconstitutional law forced upon the people' The office of sheriff was created to address worries exactly like the rampant militarization of police forces in America, claim two sheriffs who have challenged elected officials in their states over what they believe are unconstitutional abuses of power. “Right now the threat to individual Americans from al-Qaida and other groups is nowhere near the threat we face from officials in our own country who are working at taking away our liberties,” Delaware Sheriff Jeff Christopher...

One of the hallmarks of a totalitarian state is that there are so many laws and regulations that no one can possibly know what they are, let alone obey them. Thus everyone is a criminal, and only the despot’s discretion separates the solid citizen from the criminal. Unfortunately, the United States is rapidly approaching–if it has not already reached–this dystopian status. So Glenn Reynolds’s great column in USA Today should be a starting point for lots of conversations. Glenn offers several suggestions for how this situation might be remedied, which, again, are a starting point for discussion. But the real...

The director of the U.S. government office that monitors scientific misconduct in biomedical research has resigned after 2 years out of frustration with the “remarkably dysfunctional” federal bureaucracy. David Wright, director of the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), writes in a scathing resignation letter obtained by ScienceInsider that the huge amount of time he spent trying to get things done made much of his time at ORI “the very worst job I have ever had.” ORI, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), monitors alleged research misconduct by researchers funded by the National Institutes of...

Liberals will use a Straw Man argument and say that Bush and Clinton used Executive Orders far more than Obama has. But it isn't the NUMBER of Executive Orders that is at issue, it is the NATURE of the Executive Orders. If Congress passes a law saying that illegals will be deported - WILL - if they do X,Y and Z when coming here, how can Obama keep from breaking the U.S. Constitution by saying that "Dreamers" can stay and long as they do A, B and C? Some would say that Governors cannot override federal law as the U.S....

Last week, 33 individuals who were attempting to establish an underground church were sentenced to death. The missionary who was assisting them has been imprisoned for months, and his fate, like all of those he has come in contact with, is still perilously undetermined. Officially, their crimes are related to “attempting to overthrow” the regime of dictator Kim Jong-un. But in North Korea, where the lines between state-allegiance and cult-like devotion to government leaders is so blurry that it may no longer exist, the crimes of being a Christian and opposing the regime are one and the same. A growing...

Via her verified Twitter account, CBS investigative news reporter Sharyl Attkisson announced Monday that she has resigned from CBS. -- I have resigned from CBS. — Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) March 10, 2014 -- Although Politico received no comment from Attkisson other than the split was amicable, the left-wing outlet is reporting that Attkisson left due to the network's "liberal bias." This split is ahead of her contract. "She increasingly felt like her work was no longer supported and that it was a struggle to get her packages on television."

ladimir Putin has put President Barack Obama’s vacation plans on hold. Obama’s headed to Coral Reef High School in the southern part of the city for an event about education and the economy Friday, which first lady Michelle Obama had been expected to attend as well. What hadn’t been known was that Obama’s daughters were planning to come with them, and that the four were going to extend the trip for a brief family getaway. Now the White House tells POLITICO that he’s reconsidering. “The president had planned to stay in South Florida with his family for the remainder of...

In the same week that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) intercepted a Gaza-bound shipment of Syrian missiles from Iran, President Barack Obama is asking Congress to reduce U.S. funding for Israel's missile defense programs by $200 million, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

COLUMBUS, Ohio • A central Ohio principal says she suspended a 10-year-old boy from school for three days for pretending his finger was a gun and pointing it at another student's head. The boy's father says he thinks it's the adults who are acting childish after the boy was suspended from Devonshire Alternative Elementary School in Columbus last week.

Dispatches How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations A page from a GCHQ top secret document prepared by its secretive JTRIG unit "One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. It’s time to tell a chunk of that story, complete with the relevant documents. Over the last several weeks, I worked with NBC News to publish a series of articles about “dirty trick” tactics used by GCHQ’s previously...

Evidence from a dashboard camera on a police cruiser ended a nightmare for a New Jersey man facing false charges of eluding police, resisting arrest and assault. Prosecutors dismissed all the criminal charges against Marcus Jeter, 30, of Bloomfield, N.J. and instead indicted two Bloomfield police officers for falsifying reports and one of them for assault after the recording surfaced showing police officers beating Jeter during a traffic stop, according to WABC of New York. A third has pleaded guilty to tampering. Jeter's defense attorney requested all recorded evidence, but the police failed to hand over a second tape until...

Arizona governor's veto aimed at own party's right Feb 27, 2014 By BOB CHRISTIE PHOENIX (AP) - Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer slapped down the right wing of her own party, vetoing a bill pushed by social conservatives that would have allowed people with sincerely held religious beliefs to refuse to serve gays.

What Happens When Bureaucrats Who Apparently "Need" Your Money More Than You Get A Taste Of Their Own Medicine? Funny Video Takes Apart The Whole "I Need It So I Can Steal It" Mentality. This Should Be Good For A Laugh Or Two! Who Says There Is No Free Lunch? Watch Now!

Bureaucracy: The FCC jumped the shark with its outrageous plan to police America's newsrooms. This grasp for a new mission signals an agency that has outlived its purpose. We have a better idea: Just scrap the FCC. There's nothing worse than a federal agency that has lost its original mission, has nothing productive to do and, as a result, is restlessly rustling around for something to justify its existence. That describes the Federal Communications Commission, an old-line agency founded in the 1930s to regulate a limited supply of television airwaves divided among three networks, which is now gone with the...

‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ Was this Samantha Power baffling Daniel Pearl tweet evil or stupid? Samantha Power@AmbassadorPower Daniel Pearl's story is reminder that individual accountability & reconciliation are required to break cycles of violence. @DanielPearlFNDN

FACT: The toothless 1977 regulations fully expired in July 1997, when President Clinton rewrote them to toughen CRA enforcement as part of a crusade to close the "mortgage gap" between blacks and whites. For the first time, banks were required to show results. One of the five performance criteria in the "lending test" — the most heavily weighted component of the CRA exam — was adopting "flexible lending practices" to address the credit needs of poor borrowers in "predominantly minority neighborhoods." Banks that didn't bend their underwriting rules risked flunking the exam. Ex-Federal Reserve Board Gov. Lawrence Lindsey, a staunch...