Free Republic

The first researchers to systematically document ill health in livestock, pets, and people living near fracking drill sites were Michelle Bamberger and Robert Oswald. Bamberger, a veterinarian, and Oswald, a professor of molecular medicine at Cornell University, used a case study approach-looking at individual households-to search for possible effects (Bamberger and Oswald 2012). Many fracking chemicals are known carcinogens, endocrine disruptors or other classes of toxins (Colborn et al. 2011). Bamberger and Oswald's studies, carried out during the ongoing fracking boom, uncovered serious adverse effects including respiratory, reproductive, and growth-related problems in animals and a spectrum of symptoms in humans...

The Fundamental Transformation of America is, in a sense, his cover. Obama has this dream. No, not the somewhat sappy one allegedly ghost-written for him on the pages of Dreams from my Father by Billy Ayers, but one of far more frightening dimensions. Obama’s dream is everyone else’s waking nightmare, the takeover of North America by caliphate-seeking jihadists. Nobody’s ever going to believe it. People who can’t allow themselves to believe that Obama doesn’t love America would never be ready to believe that Obama was brought into power for the express purpose to hand the coveted North America kingdom over...

A student's Jewish affiliation became the subject of a heated debate at University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) earlier this month, after the student government nearly scrapped her acceptance due to her background. Student Rachel Beyda applied to be a member of the UCLA Judicial Board in February, and presented herself as a candidate in front of the Board. However, the meeting quickly dissolved into a debate over whether her Jewish background and affiliation with Jewish life on campus is a "conflict of interest," as can be seen in the video below. The debate begins at 47:30.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) haven’t spoken to each other in two weeks despite the shutdown fight gripping the Capitol, House Republicans said Wednesday.During a closed-door House GOP conference meeting Wednesday morning, Boehner told Republicans that he hadn’t spoken to McConnell recently despite the looming Feb. 28 deadline to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).“He said he hadn’t spoken to Mitch McConnell in a few weeks. We gave them a good bill. It funds the stuff we’re supposed to do, secure the borders,” Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) said after a morning conference meeting.Another...

Even groups whose purported mission is to defend Jews against attack do not always acknowledge the extent of campus anti-Semitism and SJP’s role in perpetrating it. Tina Malka, the associate regional director of the San Diego chapter of the Anti-Defamation League was quoted as stating that SDSU’s inclusion on the Top Ten list was “unfair to the school.” [SNIP] Yet, the ADL is determined to keep its head in the sand and dismiss the many documented incidents at SDSU with the claim that they do not indicate an “anti-Semitic environment.” It is time for the ADL and other mainstream Jewish...

President Barack Obama’s love of country isn’t just a concern for Rudy Giuliani, according to a recent Huffington Post/YouGov poll. A plurality of Americans surveyed — 47 percent — said that Obama loves America, but the rest say the president does not or that they’re not sure. The responses break down an expected partisan line, with only 11 percent of Republicans saying Obama loves America, and 85 percent of Democrats responding the same way. Independents are mostly split, with 42 percent say Obama loves the U.S., while 38 percent disagree and 20 percent are not sure. Story Continued Below The...

When it comes to most of the thorny issues she’ll be asked to referee on between President Obama and Congress, Loretta Lynch, the woman nominated to be the next attorney general, said she doesn’t yet have a sense for how she’ll come down. Ms. Lynch, who faces a probable vote Thursday in the Judiciary Committee and likely action by the full Senate next month, deflected dozens of questions in 221 pages of written responses to the panel, saying she wasn’t familiar with the fight over documents from the Fast and Furious gun-walking operation, couldn’t talk accurately about major parts of...

A Wisconsin father is outraged about a homework assignment given to his son that bashes the Republican Party on the issue of illegal immigration. An 8th grade social studies class at Shattuck Middle School had to complete an assignment that suggested Republicans were destroying the “pathway to citizenship” for immigrants. The teacher, Grace Davis, used a political cartoon that featured a Democrat laying bricks to build a “pathway to citizenship,” while a Republican character removed the bricks to dismantle the immigration process. …

One in five Germans believe that a revolution would be the only way to truly reform society, a study released by the Free University of Berlin on Monday shows. Anti-capitalism, anti-fascism and anti-racism were all are prominent positions according to the study entitled “Against state and capital—for the revolution”, which has revealed a public much further to the left than previously thought. In the report, 20% of the people surveyed agreed with the statement that “Living conditions won’t be improved by reforms—we need a revolution”. A similar percentage of people said they saw the rise of a new fascism in...

KING, Wis. — At the old union hall here on a recent afternoon, Terry Magnant sat at the head of a table surrounded by 18 empty chairs. A members meeting had been scheduled to start a half-hour earlier, but the small house, with its cracked walls and loose roof shingles, was lonely and desolate. “There used to be a lot more people coming,” said Magnant, a 51-year-old nursing assistant, sighing. The anti-union law passed here four years ago, which made Gov. Scott Walker a national Republican star and a possible presidential candidate, has turned out to be even more transformative...

The Supreme Court this June could cut off millions of Americans from affordable Obamacare coverage. The response from the nation’s governors gathering in Washington this week was an assortment of shrugs. POLITICO interviewed more than a dozen governors, from both parties, this weekend at the National Governors Association winter meeting. Most said they’re in a wait-and-see zone. The Supreme Court will hear arguments next week, the decision is likely in late June and no one can foretell how the court will rule on its second major case that could strike at the heart of the president’s signature health law. For...

It was, the mayor of San Francisco said, a “shocking start” to the year for a city amid a technology boom with soaring rents and construction cranes, fashionable restaurants and gentrifying neighborhoods. In January, four young men sitting in a stolen car were gunned down in a trendy neighborhood near City Hall. Ten days later, a mother was shot dead outside her home in front of her three children. In another, a blood-spattered woman staggered into a restaurant seeking help for bullet wounds, and a man was found shot dead in an SUV outside. With the homicide count climbing to...

President Barack Obama has told governors that he won’t agree with all of them on every issue, but he looks forward to working with them over the next two years. […] He’s scheduled to sit down Monday with the group that has plenty of governors from the GOP ranks. Republicans made major gains during the midterm elections and 31 governors’ mansions are now in GOP hands. …

What is Zionism? The ideological question, rooted in the 19th century, has gained surprising urgency in an Israeli election campaign that seems more open than had been expected. Seeking to take votes from the nationalistic right of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the relatively liberal opposition has rebranded itself as the Zionist Union—sparking a debate about a concept that some considered resolved when the Jewish state was declared and widely recognized in 1948. […] On the left, politicians speak of true Zionism as requiring the establishment of peace and equality in the land, including by making peace with the Palestinians and...

True LGBTQ storiesFemi Redwood Femi Redwood of Milton, Del., grew up in an environment that was accepting of both her sexuality and her race, despite the fact that she was one of the few minorities in town. This only made her more observant later in life as she encountered less-accepting people and communities. She tells a story about a gay, white male co-worker when she was still living in Delaware and dating a white woman:One night we’re in his car. He says that he doesn’t think black and white people should mix; they shouldn’t be in relationships, and they shouldn’t...

Democrats are struggling to answer a simple question—“What’s a Democrat?”—and must do a better job of explaining their core values to voters, according to a task force formed after the party’s dismal showing in the 2014 election. “I am here to tell you the Democratic Party has lost its way,” said a panel member, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear. The problems are not with the “party’s core beliefs,” he said, but relate to “our inability to convey our principles to the American people in a precise, concise and passionate way.” According to interim findings in the Democratic National Committee’s report released...

The biggest obstacle for Coca-Cola and Pepsi these days isn’t tied to taste tests, the declining popularity of sugary drinks or even their century-long rivalry. It’s the surging U.S. dollar. The two soda giants rely on overseas customers for roughly half of their revenue. When they turned in their quarterly results last week, both reported a drop in sales. The strong dollar made all the difference: strip it out and shrinking sales suddenly rise. The dollar has been a source of constant complaint this earnings season. Global corporations from Avon Products to Yum Brands have said their quarterly results would...

Can better urban planning help prevent terrorist attacks? The idea sounds fanciful, even disrespectful to victims of extremist violence. But officials in Paris, still reeling from last month’s deadly terrorist attacks on a satirical magazine and a kosher deli, are putting some hope in a plan to re-zone the city and annex the notorious inner suburbs, or banlieues, where the terror plot was born. In what would be perhaps the greatest redesign of Paris since Baron Haussmann laid out its famed boulevards in the mid-19th Century, the “Métropole du Grand Paris” would attempt to bring the poor, heavily immigrant neighborhoods...

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai is out with a new message to fight net neutrality: “If you like your wireless plan, you should be able to keep it.” Borrowing the phrase from President Obama, the Republican commissioner penned an op-ed with Federal Trade Commissioner (FTC) Joshua Wright, raising concerns with Obama’s 332-page plan to regulate the Internet. While the president insists his plan is for a “free and open Internet,” Pai and Wright said net neutrality is anything but. “If you like your wireless plan, you should be able to keep it. But new federal regulations may take away your freedom...

President Barack Obama told world leaders on Thursday that promoting democracy and acceptance of people of all faiths are essential to stopping the spread of violent extremism. "Groups like al Qaeda and [ISIS] peddle the lie that some of our countries are hostile to Muslims. Meanwhile we've also seen, most recently in Europe, arise inexcusable acts of anti-Semitism, or in some cases anti-Muslim sentiment, or anti-immigrant sentiment," Obama said at the closing session of a White House summit on combating extremism. "When people spew hatred towards others because of their faith or because of their faith or because they are...