Free Republic

At 2:10 p.m., five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo-bombers comprising Flight 19 take off from the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station in Florida on a routine three-hour training mission. Flight 19 was scheduled to take them due east for 120 miles, north for 73 miles, and then back over a final 120-mile leg that would return them to the naval base. They never returned. Two hours after the flight began, the leader of the squadron, who had been flying in the area for more than six months, reported that his compass and back-up compass had failed and that his position was...

Republican Jason Mariner, the winner of this week's GOP primary election for a U.S. House seat in Florida, is reportedly a convicted felon who is ineligible to hold office in the state. Mariner, 36, became the Republican nominee for Florida's 20th Congressional District after winning Tuesday's primary with 58 percent of the vote. His past as a convicted felon could be an issue in next month's special election, as Florida law only allows ex-felons to hold office or vote if they have formally applied to have their rights restored. While the GOP nominee told Florida Politics on Thursday that he...

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky on Saturday urged voters to oust GOP Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins for voting with Democrats to keep Obamacare. During his address at the "Save America Summit" at Trump National Doral in Miami, Florida, Paul called for the ousting of Senate Republicans who crossed party lines to vote with Democrats against repealing the Affordable Care Act. "This is our problem: seven Republicans voted to keep Obamacare. You remember John McCain doing it. We won't name all others, but that's the thing, this is our problem," he told the crowd. "We know the Democrats...

Downed power lines caused California’s deadliest wildfire two years ago, when the Camp Fire tore through Butte County and killed 85 people.As the fire raged, a Georgia woman who recently won a seat in Congress shared a false conspiracy theory alleging something else — that the fire was caused by lasers from space, according to recently uncovered social media posts.Now-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, wrote in a Facebook post that “there are all these people who have said they saw what looked like lasers or blue beams of light causing the fires, and pictures and videos.”A screenshot of that post...

The ‘Year of the Rat’ started with little celebration as the entire country of China is overwhelmed with the outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus. Experts are now warning of the possibility of an epidemic. One doctor on Twitter discussed the danger of the Wuhan coronavirus: (SEE tweets and charts)

A woman at a grade-school football game in Ohio on Wednesday was reportedly tased and arrested by a police officer for not wearing a face mask in the stands. The woman was sitting in the bleachers with her mother when she got into an altercation with the cop about mask-wearing at a middle school in the town of Logan, the Marietta Times reported. Video of the incident, which was posted to YouTube, shows the woman resisting as the officer struggles to handcuff her for nearly two minutes before he deploys his Taser.

Former national security adviser John Bolton is willing to defy the White House and testify in the House impeachment inquiry about his alarm at the Ukraine pressure campaign if a federal court clears the way, according to people familiar with his views. Bolton could be a powerful witness for Democrats: Top State Department and national security officials have already testified that he was deeply concerned about efforts by Trump and his allies to push Ukraine to open investigations into the president’s political rivals while the Trump administration held up military aid to that country. The former national security adviser, who...

President Donald Trump Friday afternoon called House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and asked him to pull the health care bill 30 minutes ahead of a scheduled floor vote. This is the second day in a row an expected House vote did not take place due to lack of Republican support from their own party for the Obamacare replacement. The move was a major retreat for Trump, who demanded that lawmakers vote on the embattled GOP-crafted bill that’s facing stiff opposition from the conservative and moderate wings within the House Republican conference. In remarks Friday afternoon from the Oval Office, Trump...

What the Secret Service could learn from drunken sailors Roberto Loiederman, a merchant seaman from 1966 to 1974, is a writer in California. He co-authored “The Eagle Mutiny,” an account of the 1970 mutiny on a U.S. vessel. What happened in Cartagena, Colombia, with the Secret Service seems unsavory to me, but not for the reasons you might think. I make no judgments about men spending a night with escorts. As far as I’m concerned, those who take a holier-than-thou attitude about this are like Inspector Renault in “Casablanca” when he says he’s “shocked, shocked” to discover there is gambling...

Former President Clinton To Receive The First Ever Presidential Hybrid Car - BELATED BARF ALERT!!! Ford Motor Company just announced today the delivery of a Mercury Mariner Hybrid "Presidential Edition" to former President Bill Clinton. This marks the first hybrid vehilce to be outfitteed for presidential service. The car will be formally accepted by the former President himself at a Global Initiative conference set for September 20-22nd in New York City. It's no secret that President Clinton is a strong advocate of issues such as alternative energy and climate change. Earlier this month he announced the formation of the Clinton...

Mercury Mariner Hybrid Named 2006 Green Car of the Year LOS ANGELES, Jan. 5 /PRNewswire/ --- The 2006 Mercury Mariner Hybrid -- Lincoln-Mercury division's first gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle -- has been named Green Car Journal's 2006 Green Car of the Year. The award was presented by Green Car Journal editor and publisher Ron Cogan at a press conference this afternoon at the Los Angeles Auto Show. "The hybrid Mariner is the right idea at the right time," says Roland Hwang, vehicles policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "To regain its competitive edge, Detroit must come to grips with...

William Pickering, Key U.S. Figure in Space Race, Dead at 93 Mar 16, 2004 By Andrew Bridges/ The Associated Press PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - William H. Pickering, who as director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the dawn of the space age oversaw the launch of the first U.S. satellite, has died, lab officials said Tuesday. He was 93. Pickering, who twice appeared on the cover of Time magazine, died of pneumonia Monday at his home in suburban La Canada Flintridge, JPL said. "Dr. Pickering was one of the titans of our nation's space program," JPL director Charles Elachi said....

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 July 16 Outbound from Mercury Credit: Mariner 10, NASA Explanation: After just passing Mercury, the robot spacecraft Mariner 10 looked back. The above picture is what it saw. Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, is heavily cratered much like Earth's Moon. As Mercury slowly rotates, its surface temperature varies from an unbearably cold -180 degrees Celsius in the half facing away from the Sun, to an...