Free Republic

Abby Huntsman announced on Monday she’s quitting “The View” to join her father, Jon Huntsman Jr., on his Utah gubernatorial campaign. But Page Six is told that the campaign isn’t the real reason for her exit from the ABC fixture, which has recently been rocked by a breakdown in the relationship between Meghan McCain and her fellow panelists. “It’s an unhealthy environment — just the way that things are handled during shows and how people deal with each other,” said an insider familiar with Huntsman’s thinking. “It’s intense.” “Abby made an issue [to executives] about the overall environment. She’s felt...

On Monday, during an interview with the Des Moines Register, 2020 presidential hopeful mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg said drug possession should not result in jail time. Buttigieg said, “Incarceration should not even be a response to drug possession. What I have seen is while there continues to be all kinds of harms associated with drug possession and use, it is also the case that we have created in an effort to deal with a public health problem, we have created an even bigger problem — a justice problem, and it’s own form of a health problem when...

"No voices calling for peace. No voices critical of empire. Just establishment media and current and former Pentagon officials who feed off the trillion dollar war machine." As President Donald Trump spent the early days of 2020 instigating and then backing down from a potentially catastrophic confrontation with Iran, corporate media in the U.S. turned to the very same people who promoted the country's worst foreign policy disaster in a generation to advocate for repeating the mistakes of two decades ago. The decision of networks and cable news outlets like CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News to bring on a stream of past advocates for...

California is increasing business tax rates on legal marijuana, a move that stunned struggling companies that have been pleading with the state to do just the opposite. Hefty marijuana taxes that can approach 50 percent in some communities have been blamed for pushing shoppers into California’s tax-free illegal market, which is thriving. Industry analysts estimate that $3 are spent in the illegal market for every $1 in the legal one. The California Cannabis Industry Association said in a statement that its members are “stunned and outraged.” The group said the higher taxes that will take effect Jan. 1 will make...

Hefty marijuana taxes that can approach 50 percent in some communities have been blamed for pushing shoppers into California’s tax-free illegal market, which is thriving. Industry analysts estimate that $3 are spent in the illegal market for every $1 in the legal one. The group said the higher taxes that will take effect Jan. 1 will make it even worse for a legal industry struggling under the weight of heavy regulation and fees, local bans on pot sales and growing and a booming underground marketplace. Josh Drayton of the cannabis association predicted that an eighth-ounce purchase of marijuana buds, typically...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) talks with CNN's Wolf Blitzer about President Donald Trump's decision to kill Iranian general Qasem Soleimani

Former Rep. Ron Paul said he wished President Trump would "flip-flop" his policy on Iran and criticized Trump's loyalty to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia. "I think our country is not doing so well. Our foreign policy is in shambles," the Texas Republican said. "Unfortunately, the one place where I wish he would flip-flop every once in a while or change his policy completely is dealing with Iran. He is steady on it, he said it on the campaign. He's very loyal to Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia." Trump authorized airstrikes that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani and...

Spanish special-operations police, their faces covered with balaclavas and their weapons visible, attempted to force their way past Bolivian police at the Mexican Embassy in La Paz on Dec. 27. The effort failed but it left behind troubling questions about whether rogue interests inside the Spanish government are working with Mexico on behalf of former Bolivian officials, some of whom face criminal charges. Spanish elite police had already escorted the Spanish Embassy’s chargé d’affaires and its consul to the Mexican Embassy earlier that morning. When two more cars, carrying masked members of the same counterterrorism unit, showed up later and...

llinois’ governor granted more than 11,000 pardons for low-level marijuana convictions on Tuesday, describing the step as a first wave of thousands of such expungements anticipated under the state’s new marijuana legalization law. The expungement process is a key part of the law, which takes effect Wednesday and made Illinois the 11th state to legalize marijuana for people 21 or older. When they crafted the policy, Illinois lawmakers said they wanted to repair some of the damage caused by law enforcement’s efforts to combat sale and use of the drug, particularly in minority communities. Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker announced the...

We have a choice next November, possibly the last chance for honest choice we will ever get. Choose wisely 2020 promises to be the most crucial and pivotal year for America, if not, certainly in our lifetime. This new year will either produce our best chance for a stable social, political, and financially secure future or it will radically alter everything this country stands for, our values, and the freedoms we have come to enjoy and take for granted. The Democrat Party is not your grandfather’s or even your father’s Democrat Party. It has morphed and contorted, into a deranged...

An oft-repeated but, in my view, ultimately misguided self-critique by Christians, is that we are better known for what we are against than what we are for. I fully agree with the spirit of the comment. As Chuck Colson liked to say, Christians should not just resist the bad stuff but always propose a better way. Today, however, that statement is too often used as a way of saying Christians should be more positive, as if Christians should be known for what we are for, and not known for what we are against. But Christians just can’t choose between those...

In the wake of the strike ordered by President Trump that killed General Qasem Soleimani, many on the left have rushed to criticize Trump for retaliating against the attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. 2020 Democrats, in particular, piled on Trump with condemnations. "President Trump just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox," said Biden. Cory Booker, who apparently is still in the race, claimed, "We have a president who has failed to show any larger strategic plan." Elizabeth Warren acknowledged that Soleimani was an evil terrorist responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans, but also said,...

Gov. Ralph Northam said Friday that he would throw his weight behind the decriminalization of marijuana in Virginia this year but said he wants to study full legalization before going further. Northam announced legislation Friday that would make possession of small amounts of marijuana a civil offense carrying a $50 penalty, instead of a criminal misdemeanor. The proposal is part of a broader “criminal justice reform agenda” that includes changes to the state’s parole system, a higher threshold for theft to be considered a felony, and an increase to the age at which a young offender can be tried...

Looking back at 2019 is incredibly disorienting. The country is horribly divided. In fact, the president of the United States was just impeached along partisan lines. The government is running trillion dollar (and growing) annual budget deficits, even though the economy is doing well. Still, listening to many politicians and pundits, you'd think the nation is doing terribly and the government isn't spending a dime. That's 2019 in a nutshell. The economy is entering its 11th year of expansion. Poverty is at an all-time low; so are African American and Hispanic unemployment rates. The 3.5% overall unemployment rate hasn't been...

A Democrat mayor from Massachusetts was arrested on Thursday after a federal investigation found that he allegedly stole over $230,000 from investors and spent the money on himself. Mayor of Fall River Jasiel Correia, who was elected mayor at just 23 years old, used the investment money to fund his own lavish lifestyle and pay off his student debts.

FALL RIVER, Mass. — Fall River Mayor Jasiel Correia II was arrested early Friday morning at his home in the city. Correia, 27, was charged in a superseding indictment with bribery; extortion conspiracy; extortion and aiding and abetting; wire fraud; and filing false tax returns. He is accused of conspiring to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from marijuana companies. In federal court Friday afternoon, Correia entered a plea of not guilty and was released on $250,000 bond. He will be required to pay $25,000 of that amount by the end of the day Tuesday. Genoveva Andrade, Correia's...

SAN ANTONIO – Midway through a sold out two night stand at the Majestic Theater here, country music icon Willie Nelson said that in spite of recent breathing related health issues, he has no plans to give up touring. “I love the bus,” he told KSAT TV’s Paul Venema during a recent interview. “This is my home.” Performing, he says, is his key to happiness and good health. “It’s an energy exchange,” he said, describing his relationship with the audience. “They give me a lot of positive energy and I hope to give them a lot of positive energy.” He...

Aides of Democrat presidential hopeful Kamala Harris are saying fellow candidate Tulsi Gabbard is the reason their campaign is suffering. New reports are detailing the slump in the California senator’s bid as advisers say the drop in polls started after the July debate where Gabbard slammed Harris’ record. During the debate, Gabbard took aim at Harris’ history as a prosecutor by saying she was in a position to help people yet she didn’t. She also said Harris laughed off marijuana use comments while imprisoning people for the same crime, and using prisoners as so-called “cheap labor.” “She blocked evidence that...

On this day [February 1] in 1887, Harvey Wilcox officially registers Hollywood with the Los Angeles County recorder’s office. Wilcox, who had lost the use of his legs as a child due to polio, envisioned the land as the perfect site for a utopian-like community for devout Christians, where they could live a highly moral life free of vices such as alcohol (Wilcox was a prohibitionist). Daeida Wilcox called the new community “Hollywood.”

It’s like Michael Jordan retiring from the NBA. It’s like Donald Trump quitting Twitter. It’s like Lindsay Lohan forsaking drama. Willie Nelson has quit weed. The country icon — whose smoking habit was rivaled only by Snoop Dogg‘s — told KSAT TV, “I have abused my lungs quite a bit in the past, so breathing is a little more difficult these days and I have to be careful.”