Free Republic

Washington, DC – Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell today issued a Secretarial Order calling for a comprehensive science-based strategy to address the more frequent and intense wildfires that are damaging vital sagebrush landscapes and productive rangelands, particularly in the Great Basin region of Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Oregon and California. The strategy will begin to be implemented during the 2015 fire season. Goals include reducing the size, severity and cost of rangeland fires, addressing the spread of cheatgrass and other invasive species, and positioning wildland fire management resources for more effective rangeland fire response. “Targeted action is urgently needed to...

NEW YORK – Mayor Bill de Blasio, his administration threatened to be overwhelmed by a rift with rank-and-file New York Police Department officers, on Monday condemned the thousands of cops who turned their backs to him during a pair of funerals for slain police officers. In his first public remarks on the officers' protests, de Blasio said the cops' searing rebuke was hurtful to the families of the two officers killed in an ambush last month and was an offense to the city at large. "Those individuals who took certain actions the last two weeks, they were disrespectful to the...

Activist turned terrorist Bill Ayers spoke with Iranian news agency Fars News last week, and called the United States a terrorist nation. Ayers is probably best known for his own terrorist activities with the Weather Underground during the 1960s and 1970s. When speaking about what constitutes terrorism and a terrorist state, Ayers said: “U.S. is indeed a terrorist nation.” Then he added: “It’s also the greatest purveyor of violence on earth over the past half century, and the foremost threat to world peace today.”

In addition to major telecommunications firms aiming to influence the public debate on net neutrality, there’s the Ford Foundation, the second-largest private foundation in the world. “If you are a foundation for justice in the world, and you don’t understand that the Internet is going to be a major battleground in this century, and you’re not engaged in that fight and supporting people who are concerned about access and security, you’re going to be left out of one of the most important justice issues of the day,” Foundation President Darren Walker told the Council on Foreign Relations this summer. “And...

Earlier this semester, the UNC-Wilmington African American Center hosted a panel discussion on the Ferguson race riots. A student of mine noticed that none of the panel participants actually visited Ferguson. Given that I interviewed protestors on site in Ferguson in August, the student wanted to know why I was excluded from the panel. It would only make sense to assume that I had some unique insights into the Ferguson situation relative to those who had never actually been there. Of course, the problem with my student is that he is a man of principle and thus fails to comprehend...

The rally is for Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, who is running to become the next governor of Maryland. Video at the link

There are several debates when it comes to Barack Obama. One has to do with whether he is more Marxist or more Muslim. The answer may involve his usage of one to promote the elevation of the other ... Though Brzezinski rightly expressed concerns that the ‘Arab Spring’ could turn into the ‘Arab Winter’, he essentially advocated a repeat of his 1979 Afghanistan strategy in Libya ... After Gadhafi was overthrown, four Americans were murdered in Benghazi and the U.S. abandoned its embassy in Tripoli. Those of us with much less worldly experience knew it was a bad idea. How...

(I wrote this shortly after Obama's 2012 election to this disastrous second term) I haven’t slept well since the alleged “election”. Last night, it finally came to me how the last gasp will come. But first, some personal history. For over 50 years I’ve been watching – and doing all I could to resist – the infectious rot of fascism, socialism, communism, progressivism (or whatever the name loony left plasters over their insane totalitarian/utopian social engineering scheme for perfecting mankind). My family and I – and a handful of others it has been my privilege to know – have invested...

Public Enemy No. 1 for rural Utah sheriffs just happens to be a fellow peace officer: Dan Love, the Bureau of Land Management’s special agent in charge. Elected law enforcement officers from Nephi to Blanding call him an arrogant and dishonest bully who has little regard for local authority and dodges accountability, derailing a collaborative approach to police work on the state’s federal lands. Love reportedly just laughed when Garfield County Sheriff James "Danny" Perkins relayed ranchers’ complaints about federal officers removing plastic feed tubs from the range and threatening the ranchers with litter citations. He drew early controversy during...

The guy wearing the red bandanna didn’t mess around. Measuring, cutting and hammering away, he made sure the siding was just right for the new house in Oak Cliff. Nothing like having a seasoned leader on the job. Former President Jimmy Carter didn’t let a little heat and his age (90) get in the way Wednesday morning at the house on Exeter Avenue.

....The Left demonizes David Koch and his brother Charles for their free-market views, their political donations, and the fact that they run a substantial energy company. Harry Reid has made a new career of it, calling them “un-American.” But on the platform that morning were liberal Democrats Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney. Ms. Maloney was particularly gracious when she said, “There is hope for the world when Koch and I can agree on something. On this we agree 100 percent.” Now, contrast that with the arrogant, intolerant, petulant, radical-left environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Last week, at the People’s Climate...

The widow of Nelson Mandela punctured the self-congratulatory mood of the UN summit on Tuesday, saying world leaders had failed to rise to the challenge of climate change. :snip: The Green Climate Fund was founded in 2010 to help poor countries cope with climate change. UN officials and developing country diplomats have said repeatedly it will not be possible to reach a climate deal in Paris, without a significant fund for those countries which did the least to cause climate change but will bear the brunt. South Korea and Switzerland went on to pledge $100m each, Denmark pledged $70m, Norway...

Forget the stuttering he does as the video begins as he laments how no one in Washington is doing their job except him.Who knew the sort of comedic talent Obama turned out to be. He's funny making quotes about how hard he works, doing his job, but the funny part ends up solely as self defecating humor.

President Barack Obama said Thursday that American companies performing tax "inversions" are not doing right by their country. Obama said that these companies, which buy foreign firms to technically change their tax domicile to a country with a lower tax rate, benefit from America's university system and infrastructure, but then turn around and "game the system." He told CNBC exclusively that, despite the legality of this corporate practice, inversions are not fair. "You are an American company. You continue to benefit in all kinds of ways from being an American company," the president said. "It is true that there are...

I was driving through northern Illinois last night listening to a call-in program on WGN in Chicago. People were calling in all upset about the goat's head sent to Cubs owner Tom Ricketts at Wrigley Field. Some guy called in from Indiana and said, "Why are you all so upset because someone sent a goat's head to Wrigley Field? Aren't you the guys that sent a horse's ass to the White House?" I almost ran off the road!

Let's start with the Marxist part. What defines a Marxist? Someone who believes in government control over the people. Someone whose obsession is income redistribution. Someone who dedicates his life to taxes, spending, debt, regulations and bureaucracy. Since Obama is the biggest spender in history, the biggest taxer in history, the biggest debt creator in history, and the biggest creator of regulations in history, it’s safe to say Obama is a Marxist. Now let’s deal with the Muslim sympathizer part. Obama's policies have led to crisis and chaos throughout the Middle East. His policies led to the Arab Spring. His...

At a Democratic leaders press conference on Thursday, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that House Republicans are too “afraid of the Tea Party” to pass immigration reform, adding that the reality is that the Tea Party’s power has already “peaked.” The New York Democrat and longtime immigration reform supporter said that House Republicans are led by false anti-amnesty rhetoric from Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, and conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh. Schumer noted that recently ousted House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is the only member of Congress that the “minority” Tea Party voters were able to remove from office.

Obama and his criminal syndicate are completely and tyrannically running the show in the USA. US and Constitutional laws are not being followed—and have not been since Obama took the Office of POTUS—by Obama and the members of his ruling cabal. Obama’s legal authority is to enforce the laws of the land. Obama has—and is—doing neither. Instead, he is writing and judging laws—replacing both Congress and SCOTUS.

Federal authorities have issued a moratorium blocking oil, gas and coal leasing on 800,000 acres of public land in southwestern Colorado and eastern Utah that is habitat for the imperiled Gunnison sage grouse. ... restrictive measures that will impact jobs and economic development

President Obama, appearing emboldened after his recent move to cut carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, on Saturday ridiculed members of Congress who deny climate change or plead scientific ignorance as an alibi for avoiding an inconvenient truth. Speaking in gleefully sarcastic terms to a commencement ceremony at the University of California, Irvine, Mr. Obama likened those who deny climate change to people who would have told John F. Kennedy, at the dawn of the space program, that the moon “was made of cheese.” He saved his most scathing words for lawmakers who say they are not qualified to judge...

Many federal workers and contractors who earn the minimum wage are getting a raise next year. Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez has issued a rule to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10. The higher level applies to new federal construction and service contracts beginning Jan. 1. President Barack Obama had announced the raise earlier this year, but Perez moved to put it into effect. "No person who works a fulltime job should have to live in poverty," Perez said Thursday in a conference call with reporters. "All workers, not just those who work on federal contracts,...

President Barack Obama will host a live Q&A on Tumblr called #ObamaIRL on Tuesday to discuss education, college affordability and student debt. You can watch the live stream on the White House's Tumblr page on Tuesday at 4 p.m. ET.

On the same day that Sonic, an Oklahoma City-based fast food chain, issued a statement against customers carrying guns at their restaurants, an employee at the company’s Topeka, Kan. store was robbed. According to Topeka police, two males robbed a carhop on Friday afternoon, reports the Topeka Capitol-Journal. Sonic is unique among major fast food eateries in that it provides customers the option of having carhops bring orders to their vehicle. While police said no guns were displayed by the robbers, the crime follows a new policy that the Oklahoma City-based company issued Friday. “We’ve considered the views and desires...

French economist Thomas Piketty has become a darling of the left for allegedly "proving" that, as paraphrased by Chris Giles at the Financial Times, "wealth inequalities are heading back up to levels last seen before the first world war." The Media Research Center's Julia Seymour has described Piketty as a "'rock star' of the far-left," an accurate assessment given praises heaped upon his book and especially his public policy prescriptions by the likes of Alternet and Vox's especially gullible Matthew Yglesias. Seymour also notes that Piketty's work has received a great deal of favorable notice in the establishment press, and...

The Obamanation formula for the successful financial "Fundamental Transformation of the United States of America" can be defined, in part, as follows: Mc + Vf = Sg Where: * Mc = Marxist Communism, defined by Englishman Intellectual Karl Marx as: "FROM EACH ACCORDING TO HIS ABILITY, TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS NEED." * Vf = Volker Failure threshold of permanent financial failure as defined by Economist Intellectual Paul Volker: "The Federally Regulated stimulation of financial debt, Private, State, or Federal, until that financial debt exceeds what can be recovered in a court-managed bankruptcy." * Sg = Single Government, which is...

The president's top five jokes from the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner touched on television, the speaker of the House and - of course - HealthCare.gov. He even brought a special guest for an assist at the end.

A User’s Guide to Russian Propaganda Submitted by Terresa Monroe-Hamilton on April 19, 2014 – 3:07 pm ESTNo Comment By: Brent P. Western press and media are having trouble distinguishing facts from Russian propaganda. This is understandable – the Russian propaganda machine is a mature and venerable institution that engages in an art that, for better or for worse, the West simply does not practice as often nor as effectively. The intent of this guide is to help those less accustomed to the ways of the Russian government to discern between reporting and propaganda. There are a few simple tell-tale...

--snip-- BANGKOK (AP) - A survey released Tuesday -- the first comprehensive one of its kind - says that only 10 killers of 908 environmental activists slain around the world over the past decade have been convicted. The report by the London-based Global Witness, a group that seeks to shed light on the links between environmental exploitation and human rights abuses, says murders of those protecting land rights and the environment have soared dramatically.

Here’s your history lesson of the day, and it’s a duzy. Do you all remember the department store chain Montgomery Ward? It was in the same class as JC Penney and Sears, and like Penney’s and Sears had a robust catalog business in the 20th century. The catalog ended in 1985 and the stores closed in 2000. The incident we are going to talk about happened during World War 2, in 1944. When I read this it initially put my jaw on the floor, but when I thought about it for a moment, I realized that it put all...

Texans like to talk all the time about how big Texas is, and how if you´re driving from the bottom of Texas to Canada, then you´re spending half of your time just getting through the state itself. So is that true? It´s pretty close. Texas really is gigantic. Redditor Armeleon put together a map that gives you a good idea of the massive size of Texas. Texas spans about 800 miles from north to south. Everything seen in red on the map is closer than 791 miles to Texas (the longest straight-line distance in Texas from north to south is

Parents across the country may hold the key to this year’s mid-term elections as they vent their anger over the implementation of a controversial education achievement measure called the Common Core State Standards Initiative. Forty-five states and the District of Columbia have adopted the initiative in a bid, they say, to improve education standards in Math and English, and give new life to what many view as a sagging education system. Indiana recently voted to back out of Common Core. But many parents see the initiative as a bid by the federal government to take over the education system. They...

Wyoming has spent $7.9 million on sage grouse conservation since 2005. That was the finding of a new report by the Western Governors Association, which inventoried the efforts of 11 western states to protect the bird and its habitat. The report comes in advance of an expected 2015 ruling by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over whether to add the species to the endangered species list. The sage grouse's listing could curtail energy development throughout the West. ... Utah, by comparison, spent $8.8 million on improvements to sage grouse habitat in 2013 alone.

Catch award-winning, acclaimed author, Trevor Loudon with Glenn Beck on TheBlaze TV March 26th at 5:00 PM EST KeyWiki.org Page: http://keywiki.org/index.php/Keith_Ellison Election Facts for 2014: • Party – Democrat • State – Minnesota • Location – Minnesota 5 • First Elected – 2006 • Candidates in 2014: Keith Ellison – D – Incumbent Undeclared No Declared Opposition Listed Keith Maurice Ellison is a Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party member of the United States House of Representatives, representing the 5th District of Minnesota. He is also a Co-Chair on the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and of the...

First Lady Michelle Obama received an unscheduled greeting today from the President of China at the end of her first full day in the country, a place which President Obama has said he wants to “rebalance” US foreign policy. But the first lady is not engaging in any formal talks on issues such as human rights or global politics. Her trip to China is purely for cultural reasons. President Xi Jinping welcomed the first lady and disclosed he had spoken to President Obama by phone a few days ago and confirmed the two presidents are scheduled to hold a bilateral...

If the United States wants to avoid falling like the Roman Empire, it must avoid “overconsumption” and distribute resources equally, according to a study funded by NASA. “The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent,” reads the NASA-funded report published in the Ecological Economics journal. “Two important features seem to appear across societies that have collapsed,” the study adds. “The stretching of resources...

Obama is not a dictator, but there is a danger in his aggregation of executive power. Recently, a bizarre scene unfolded on the floor of the House of Representatives that would have shocked the framers of the Constitution. In his State of the Union address, President Obama announced that he had decided to go it alone in areas where Congress refused to act to his satisfaction. In a system of shared powers, one would expect an outcry or at least stony silence when a president promised to circumvent the legislative branch. Instead, many senators and representatives erupted in rapturous applause;...

President Obama announced his fiscal 2015 budget on Tuesday morning at Powell Elementary in the District’s Petworth neighborhood, highlighting the school’s early childhood education program as a model for the nation.

President Obama vowed to use his executive authority to usher in a "year of action" even if Congress remains gridlocked, he said in his weekly address. "Where Congress isn’t acting, I’ll act on my own to put opportunity within reach for anyone who’s willing to work for it," the president said. Obama pointed to a recent trip to North Carolina to announce the formation of a new public-private manufacturing institute as evidence of how he could act alone to spur economic activity. "It’s a partnership between companies, colleges, and the federal government focused on making sure American businesses and American...

Beginning his address, the Holy Father reiterated his imagery of Baptism as an unbroken chain in the transmission of faith. Each baptized Christian, he said, is a link in that chain. “Such is the grace of God and so is our faith, that we should transmit to our children, because they, as adults, can transmit it to their children,” the Pope said. “Baptism makes us enter into this People of God that transmits the faith. This is very important. A People of God that walks and transmits faith.” Continuing his catechesis on the Sacrament of Baptism, Pope Francis reminded the...

The Washington Times www.washtimes.com 'Black Pledge' posted on school Web site Ellen Sorokin THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 1/28/2002      A public school district in Oklahoma City has been accused of espousing black separatist doctrine because a copy of the "Black Pledge of Allegiance" is posted on its Web site.      The pledge — which refers to the colors of the flag that represents the Black Liberation Movement — appeared on the site last spring after students attending Millwood public schools found the pledge while studying black and cultural pride. "We pledge allegiance of the red, black and greenOur flag, the symbol ...

John Dodson, the federal agent who blew the lid off the Justice Department’s “Fast and Furious” gun-walking scandal, claims the FBI had ties to the men who killed U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in 2010 near Nogales, Ariz. In fact, Dodson says the Mexican bandits who gunned down Terry were working for FBI operatives and had been sent to the border to do a “drug rip-off” using intelligence gathered by the DEA. Dodson, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said he doesn’t think the FBI was part of the rip-off crew, but the...

Those inside the Cowboys organization finally have caught up with those outside the Cowboys organization. Ed Werder of ESPN reports that the “current expectation” within the Cowboys organization is that coach Jason Garrett and his staff will be fired if the team doesn’t make it to the playoffs

Let me begin with a categorical statement that, given current events and recent political history, can be easily defended: Barack Hussein Obama is a willful, indoctrinated child of the Left with strong Islamic sympathies who is not fit to govern. Indeed, he would not be fit to govern Lower Slobovia, let alone the United States of America. Obama is a historic disaster of the first magnitude and, if not restrained, he will see to the irrevocable decline of the country which foolishly elected him, leaving the world on the brink of a conflict — or in the midst of one...

ByStephanie Condon CBS News December 13, 2013, 6: 31 PM Sebelius dodges question about whether she offered resignation Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Friday refused to say whether she's offered to resign in the wake of botched rollout of the new Obamacare marketplaces. "I'm not going to discuss what I talk about with the president," Sebelius said from Miami, where she was promoting the new marketplaces. Earlier this week at a congressional hearing, Sebelius acknowledged to lawmakers that the launch of HealthCare.gov, the Obamacare website, was "flawed and failed and frustrating." She hasaccepted responsibility for the failed...

Nelson Mandela, the revered statesman who emerged from prison after 27 years to lead South Africa out of decades of apartheid, has died, South African President Jacob Zuma announced late Thursday. Mandela was 95. "He is now resting. He is now at peace," Zuma said. "Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father." "What made Nelson Mandela great was precisely what made him human," the president said in his late-night address. "We saw in him what we seek in ourselves." Mandela will have a state funeral. Zuma ordered all flags in the nation to be...

As I was getting a tour of DreamWorks, I didn’t ask, but just looking at faces, I could tell there were some folks who are here not because they were born here, but because they want to be here and they bring extraordinary talents to the United States. And that’s part of what makes America special. And that’s part of what, by the way, makes California special, because it’s always been this magnet of dreamers and strivers.

Attacks on the Affordable Care Act have stepped up over the last week or so. You'd think that the healthcare reform known as Obamacare is leading to the wholesale loss of affordable insurance by huge sectors of the American public, many of whom will be impoverished by being forced into low-quality health plans at exorbitant prices. You'd think the entire reform is on "life support," as the usually judicious National Journal put it today, speculating that Democrats may soon start calling for its repeal. Don't buy the hype. The numbers tell an entirely different story. What they also demonstrate is...

Will those of us who see no difference between the failed Green Energy Socialist ideological experiment of the Solyndra Bankruptcy, and the failed Socialized Medical Insurance Tax Socialist ideological experiment of the Obamacare Bankruptcy vote in large enough numbers in the 2014 National Congressional Election to REPEAL and ABOLISH Obamacare, Boehnercare or another Federal "replacement" to Universal Socialized Medical Insurance?

Toni McCall Townes-Whitley, the former Princeton classmate of Michelle Obama whose company won the no-bid contract to build the HealthCare.gov website, was a student radical whose efforts included bringing a famous black communist to campus. According to the archives of the student newspaper, Toni McCall Townes-Whitley, Princeton ’85, was chairwoman of the Organization of Black Unity and was the black representative for the Third World Center (TWC) alongside the future first lady. Townes-Whitley, née McCall, was a well known black activist at Princeton at the time. She authored a college thesis titled “The Question of Diversity,” calling for more racial...

Posted by Jim Hoft on Wednesday, March 24, 2010, 4:37 AM Not that any of us are surprised but Barack Obama’s mouthpiece, The New York Times, praised the Marxist redistribution of wealth enforced by Obamacare. And the author savors the fact that Obama is deliberately undoing “what historians have called the age of Reagan.” For all the political and economic uncertainties about health reform, at least one thing seems clear: The bill that President Obama signed on Tuesday is the federal government’s biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three decades ago. Over most of that...