Free Republic

It could never happen here, right? Boston – National Guard units seeking to confiscate a cache of recently banned assault weapons were ambushed by elements of a Para-military extremist faction. Military and law enforcement sources estimate that 72 were killed and more than 200 injured before government forces were compelled to withdraw. Speaking after the clash, the Massachusetts Governor declared that the extremist faction, which was made up of local citizens, has links to the radical right-wing tax protest movement. The Governor blamed the extremists for recent incidents of vandalism directed against internal revenue offices. The governor, who described the...

The consequences of climate change on Boston are expected to be far more calamitous than previous studies have suggested, a new report commissioned by the city says. In the worst-case scenario, sea levels could rise more than 10 feet by the end of the century — nearly twice what was previously predicted — plunging about 30 percent of Boston under water. Temperatures in 2070 could exceed 90 degrees for 90 days a year, compared with an average of 11 days now. And changes in precipitation could mean a 50 percent decline in annual snowfall, punctuated by more frequent heavy storms...

Russia is not the country you think it is. Its economy is smaller than South Korea’s. Its people are poorer than Kazakhstan’s. It trails Finland in technology. And it has a smaller military budget than Saudi Arabia... ...Russia hosted the Olympics, punched Georgia in the nose, took back the Crimea, invaded Ukraine, flew bombers through NATO airspace, built military bases in the Arctic, and generally flexed and posed like an oiled, aged, but still buff, body builder. And we’ve been paying increasingly rapt attention, not noticing the geriatric walker hidden just off stage. A closer look is almost shocking. According...

On a cool spring day at the Capitol, Toni Atkins delivered a series of blows unlike anything the tobacco industry had ever felt in California. Then speaker of the Assembly, the San Diego Democrat had been a lame duck for the last six months since the house elected Anthony Rendon to replace her. It was a Thursday morning in March and her final session as speaker, a tenure that lasted just shy of a year and 10 months. In a series of quick votes, the Assembly passed six smoking bills, the most significant of which raised the age to buy...

Utah is certainly not turning out to be friendly territory for Donald Trump. A new UtahPolicy.com survey gives the presumptive GOP nominee a 9-point lead over Democratic foe Hillary Clinton. The survey, conducted by Dan Jones & Associates, finds Trump with 36% of the vote in Utah. Clinton would get 27%. Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson has 10%, while Green Party nominee Jill Stein pulls in 2%. 18% said they would prefer another candidate while 2% were undecided. Trump's share of the vote is virtually unchanged from a recent Salt Lake Tribune poll that showed Trump and Clinton tied at...

Democrat Hillary Clinton leads Republican Donald Trump 47 percent to 42 percent in a new CNN/ORC poll released Tuesday. When voters are given a choice of a four-way race, Clinton's advantage over Trump narrows to 42 percent to 38 percent, with Libertarian Gary Johnson receiving 9 percent and Green Party candidate Jill Stein 7 percent.

A new Morning Consult poll shows national security is back at the forefront of voters’ minds following the mass shooting in Orlando that left dozens dead and injured. In a national survey taken in the days after Omar Mateen’s attack on Pulse, a gay nightclub, almost three out of 10 voters (29 percent) said security was their top issue under consideration when casting their vote — a 10-point increase from a poll in early June. Similar spikes in voters’ concerns about national security were observed following the attacks in Paris, San Bernardino and Brussels. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump...

President Obama’s Twitter account, which is run by his "Organizing for Action" staff, follows 636,000 accounts. Many of them you might expect: Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, John Kerry. Even Mariah Carey and Snoop Dogg don't really raise an eyebrow. But several accounts on the presidential follow list fit a different theme: Asa Akira, a porn star who has 653,000 followers and, in her Twitter bio, states "I have an award-winning a****le." Joanna Angel (390,000 followers), who describes herself as a "multiple award winning punk porno princess;" Penthouse Pet Of The Year Nikki Benz (808,000 followers); and Ashley Steel (138,000 followers),...

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has been quietly having conversations with state party leaders to discuss the latest push by convention delegates to nominate anyone other than Donald Trump. Priebus has spoken with GOP party chairmen in multiple states in recent days in part to get a better sense of how large the anti-Trump faction is among their convention delegations, according to two people familiar with the conversations. While Priebus has made clear in these conversations that he is not spearheading the latest push for a coup, his involvement sends a signal that the RNC is taking this effort...

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus tapped former congressman Enid Mickelsen to chair the all-important rules committee during the convention. Just two weeks ago, Enid had this to say about the presidential race: Ryan Struyk @ryanstruyk Enid Mickelsen just named chair of GOP convention rules panel. Here's what she told Salt Lake Tribune two weeks ago. She has also spoken approvingly of the idea that the rules could be changed to allow delegates to vote for someone other than a candidate they are bound to by result of primary or caucus. It's unkown if Trump was consulted about the choice.

Since 1992, Republicans have been smarting their loss by claiming that Ross Perot stole enough votes to elect Bill Clinton. Even as much as the loyal opposition seeks to demystify the winner's victory, the Perot-elected-Clinton lie has only served to force the GOP to adopt pro-immigrant pro-big-gov narratives. Perot was more liberal than Slick Willie himself. http://www.ontheissues.org/Ross_Perot.htm He was pro-abortion, pro-homo, and for tax hikes on fossil fuel, the driver of American jobs. Bush I's job approvals in 1992 were as low than Jimmy Carter's in 1980 http://spectator.org/63682_bushioisie-wrong-ross-perot-didnt-cost-ghw-bush-white-house-1992/ http://www.gallup.com/poll/116677/presidential-approval-ratings-gallup-historical-statistics-trends.aspx Of course Bush was 1000x better than Surrender Monkey Dhimmi, but...

On Tuesday Hillary Clinton accused Donald Trump of “cheering” the housing crisis that saw millions of Americans lose their homes. Hillary Clinton was probably hoping her comments during the crisis would not surface.

Local Muslims want the public to know their religion does not condone any violence, and clearly not the horror in Orlando. “This barbaric act has no place in Islam,” said Tahir Ali during a vigil on the steps of Worcester City Hall. Members of the Islamic Society of Greater Worcester gathered along with other clergy and political leaders for a public service at the end of a difficult week for the Islamic community. At the MBTA, anti-Muslim graffiti was discovered in a train. In another instance, guards responded with machine guns to a report of a Muslim couple praying on...

May 11, 2016 Michael Covel An insidious new fantasy is blooming in Washington, D.C, academia and the media… Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders dreams about it in between bong hits. It’s lovingly endorsed by “off the wall” left-wing economist Paul Krugman. And the ultra-progressive Huffington Post calls it “the idea that could revolutionize the 21st century.” The hype surrounding this “revolutionary” idea will soon be an everyday talking point. And if you’re a hard-working citizen who takes care of your own responsibilities, you should pay extra close attention… Because you’re about to get fleeced and forced to enjoy it… Utopian...

Helen Thomas, JFK went on date By: Andrew Glass October 5, 2013 03:47 PM EDT Helen Thomas covered 10 presidents, from Eisenhower through Obama, in her time as a White House correspondent. She also went on a date with one of them, it emerged during a memorial service attended by about 500 people Saturday at the National Press Club for Thomas, who died on July 20 at age 92. As told by Suzanne Geha, Thomas’s niece, who presided, Thomas arrived in Washington in 1942, at age 22, shortly after graduating from Detroit’s Wayne State University. United Press (later UPI) hired...

A federal judge ruled Friday that a lobbyist and former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official can testify for a coal company in its lawsuit against the agency. The EPA had sought to block Jeff Holmstead, who led the EPA’s air pollution office under then-President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, from appearing as an expert witness in Murray Energy Corp.’s case. The agency argued that Holmstead’s time at the EPA is a significant conflict of interest and his testimony would amount to little more than unreliable legal conclusions. The EPA “effectively argues that, because Mr. Holmstead once worked at...

Donald Trump’s Use of ‘Pocahontas’ Has Native Americans Worried Alan Rappeport Donald J. Trump is heading west this weekend for rallies in Las Vegas and Phoenix and a fund-raiser at Barry M. Goldwater’s old estate, known as Be-nun-i-kin, Navajo for “house on top of the hill.” But it is the prospect of Mr. Trump’s gathering with members of the Navajo Nation that is creating the most intrigue around the trip of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. His repeated use of the name “Pocahontas” to deride Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, has stirred a debate among Native Americans about how they...

American Indians will be silent no more. They’re calling out Elizabeth Warren and her preposterous claim that she’s “Native American.” The uber-liberal Massachusetts senator claims she’s an Indian – 1/32 Cherokee to be exact. She’s never provided any documentation or proof of that ancestry. She’s not a member of any band of Cherokee, nor could she be. Still, she’s used the nonsense claim to her political and professional advantage. In the 1990s, while Warren was teaching at Harvard, she was granted tenure partly because of her claim of “Indian roots” and the college’s effort to boost their diversity hiring record....

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal’s Laura Meckler and Colleen McCain Nelson broke the news that Hillary Clinton is vetting Elizabeth Warren for the vice presidency — but not vetting Bernie Sanders. In the process, they provided a shortlist of candidates that Clinton is considering: Beyond the Massachusetts senator, other prospective candidates include Labor Secretary Tom Perez; Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro; Sens. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Cory Booker of New Jersey; Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, and Reps. Xavier Becerra of California and Tim Ryan of Ohio, several Democrats said. Now, this...

At least one professor in America does not feel the Bern. University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Professor Jack Stauder says his political and ideological conversion away from socialism and Marxism occurred when he actually witnessed these systems in action. After traveling to more than 110 countries to pursue various forms of research, notably cultural anthropology, Stauder described his conversion from Marxism as a process of disillusionment. “I gradually became disenchanted with Marxism by visiting many of the countries that had tried to shape their societies to conform to its doctrines. I was disillusioned by the realities I saw in … socialist...