Free Republic

It’s only a trickle, not yet a trend, but it is out there, and it has a name: sologamy. Sologamy is the marriage of someone to one’s own self—the his- or herness of it is not relevant, although it seems to be mostly women who are doing it. Apparently Linda Baker was the first person to marry herself back in December 1993. Others have followed suit, including Sara Sharpe, who wrote about her self-marriage in A Dress, A Ring, Promises to Self. And there’s Nadine Schweigert, a thirty-six-year-old-woman from Fargo, North Dakota, who was interviewed by Anderson Cooper after marrying...

The Missouri church attended by Michael Brown’s father and his family was one of a dozen or so buildings burned to the ground during Monday night’s protests in the wake of a grand jury’s decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson. While the majority of the buildings destroyed on Monday were in downtown Ferguson, the Flood Christian Church is located some three miles away from the protests in a remote section of Country Club Hills. Pastor Carlton Lee, who has been a vocal advocate for the Browns since their son was shot in August, has said he believes that white...

A Milford parent is questioning the two-day suspension of his 10-year-old son from Stacy Middle School. Nickolas Taylor, a fifth-grader, was suspended after pointing an imaginary ray gun - his finger - and mouthing laser sounds in the school’s cafeteria last Friday, said Brian Taylor, Nickolas' father. “I think this is very slanderous toward Nickolas and his character,” said Taylor. “It was non-threatening. He’s just a typical boy with an imagination.” A conduct slip, written by Assistant Principal Noah Collins, lists the offense as a threat. Collins could not be reached for comment despite numerous phone calls and emails seeking...

“The countries that are most efficient in energy use, not only do they not subsidize energy — in fact, they tax energy use,” Obama said. “So you look like — in a country like Norway, which produces a lot of oil, but gasoline there is still $6 or $7 a gallon, which in liters — who wants to do a liter conversion for me?” “Anyway, it’s very expensive,” Obama added. “And we’ve doubled fuel-efficiency standards on cars,” he continued. “So in a few years, by the middle of the next century, by 2025, you won’t be able to sell a...

Democrats are doubling down on their attacks against the Koch brothers. Prompted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrats spent millions of dollars spotlighting Republican ties to the billionaire conservative megadonors Charles and David Koch. But despite Republicans — and some Democrats — publicly decrying the strategy after Tuesday’s GOP wave as an ineffective waste of money, Reid told allies on election night that he planned to continue hammering the brothers, according to an operative close to him. Continue Reading Text Size And big-money liberal groups ranging from the Democrats’ Senate campaign arm and House super PAC to the outfits...

While the bipartisan voice grows to ban Ebola victims from entering the United States, a new report claims that President Obama is considering a plan to bring the world’s Ebola patients to the United States to be treated.

I’m not a psychiatrist, I haven’t sat down and interviewed George Zimmerman or the cop who shot Michael Brown, I don’t know what their motives are, I don’t know what kind of people they are, what kind of childhood traumas they have experienced. But I don’t think it’s nuts that in a certain way, when that cop killed Michael Brown, and when George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, they were killing Barack Obama.

Madison Police Chief Mike Koval endorsed the legalization of marijuana last week, saying the drug should be regulated and taxed, with revenues used to fund treatment programs for harder drugs. The comments came during an interview with the State Journal Wednesday about data showing African-Americans in Madison were arrested or cited for marijuana offenses at about 12 times the rate of whites in the city. Koval called efforts to enforce laws against marijuana an “abject failure,” and said the same about the broader war on drugs. “We’ve done such an abysmal job using marijuana as a centerpiece of drug enforcement,...

Toward the end of the romantic comedy film The American President, Michael Douglas’s President Shepherd tells the assembled press corps, “Being president of this country is entirely about character.” This 1995 movie was made as a way of rescuing the scurrilous character of Bill Clinton from accusations of womanizing. It’s a pleasant and entertaining film but this line of dialogue, like just about everything else in the picture, is untrue. Being president of this country is somewhat about character — everything in life is — but it is also, very much, about ideas. There have been times over this past...

The US military has yet to offer Pte First Class Chelsea Manning sex change treatment despite medical recommendations, her lawyer has said. Defence secretary Chuck Hagel approved treatment for a condition known as gender dysphoria in July. But lawyer David Coombs says her requests for hormone therapy and other accommodations have been "ignored". The soldier formerly known as Bradley Manning is serving a 35-year sentence for leaking secret files to Wikileaks. "This time last year I publicly asked that I be provided with a treatment plan, to bring my body more in line with my gender identity," Pte Manning said...

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing, expecting different results. Zo says, that if the GOP re-nominates Romney, they should be put in an asylum.

The roots of modern-day voter suppression is buried in Florida, and it grew and blossomed during the 2000 presidential elections. “Florida is the state where awareness of how serious flaws in elections administration could result in voters being disenfranchised developed,” said Marcia Johnson-Blanco, coordinator, Voting Rights Project, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.votersuppression2 The critical role of Florida in deciding the presidential contest between Republican candidate George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore, and the narrow margin by which the outcome was decided shined a global-sized spotlight on the state, revealing several election irregularities. Before the elections, state officials...

Another little boy has gotten in trouble at school for having something that represents a gun but isn’t actually anything like a real gun. This time, eight-year-old Asher Palmer rolled up a piece of paper, called it a gun and pointed it at other kids, reports the New York Post. Officials at the special-needs school in New York City which Palmer attended then expelled him. The school is the Lang School, a ritzy private bastion which specializes in educating students with language difficulties. Annual tuition is $51,500. “Asher is exactly the type of student Lang is supposed to be serving,”...

The problems that arise from having a mouth is that sometimes they open. It’s even worse when the owner doesn’t know how to keep it shut. But, when it comes to liberal Democrats, it has become an epidemic…and they just cannot contain themselves. Especially when it comes to the financially driven fear-fest known as climate change…because, you know…we’re all going to die. Ladies, and Gents, I present to you… 10 Things Liberals Insanely Link To Global Warming: 1) Global Warming Causes Rape Hide yo kids, hide yo wife, cuz global warming be raping everyone up in here! Back in February,...

An Obama administration official has floated the idea that Bowe Bergdahl was justified in deserting his platoon in Afghanistan and joining the Taliban over disagreements with the platoon's leadership. Brandon Friedman, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the Department of Housing and Urban Development posted a series of tweets Wednesday evening in which he speculated that Bergdahl deserted over bad leadership of his platoon and that is why his fellow soldiers were smearing him."Here's the thing about Bergdahl and the Jump-to-Conclusions mats: What if his platoon was long on psychopaths and short on leadership? (1/5)"" What if he grew...

“Over the weekend, we had at least five or six examples of large groups of kids coming off the CTA, that we escorted around basically like NATO protesters, which is the tactic that we used last year that was so effective,” McCarthy said. Police formed cordon lines around the groups of teens and followed them around to prevent them from causing trouble.

Prosecutors dropped gun charges against former Ald. Sharon Dixon (24th) Tuesday, but she has agreed to seek treatment in a 90-day inpatient program. Last year, a Cook County judge ruled that Dixon was unfit to stand trial on charges alleging she approached Chicago Police officers outside the 10th district with a loaded gun in the spring of 2013. Dixon, 51, was charged with unlawful use of a weapon and possessing a firearm without a license for the May 4, 2013 incident. She was remanded to the Illinois Department of Human Services for an evaluation.

“While promising them liberty , they themselves are the slaves of corruption, for by what a man is overcome, by that is he brought into bondage” 2 Peter 2“Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your shackles!” Karl Marx“All the world over, so easy to see, that people everywhere just want to be free…”(The Young Rascals)We live in an age of revolution. Everywhere on this planet people have been “breaking off the shackles” in one “liberation movement” after another in the quest for that elusive goal, which is freedom. The American revolution was followed by the...

The Department of Defense (DOD) paid $150 per gallon for alternative jet fuel made from algae, more than 64 times the current market price for standard carbon-based fuels, according to a report released on Wednesday. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted in its report that a Pentagon official reported paying “about $150 per gallon for 1,500 gallons of alternative jet fuel derived from algal oil.” GAO’s report examined the financial challenges facing increased purchases and use of alternative jet fuels by federal agencies. “Currently, the price for alternative jet fuels exceeds that of conventional jet fuel,” the report noted. The...

THE MAN who shot President Ronald Reagan is allowed to spend 17 days on release from a psychiatric hospital each month under a new court ruling, writes Mike Parker in Los Angeles. The freedom given to failed assassin John Hinckley Jr, which includes permission to drive to his mother’s house, has sparked a storm in the US and shocked former First Lady Nancy, 92. Hinckley, now 58, fired a hail of bullets at the late president in March 1981, in Washington, seriously wounding him. Three others were badly hurt including press secretary James Brady, now 73.