Free Republic

A candidate for the Libertarian Party’s chairman position stripped off his clothes and strutted his stuff on stage at the party’s national convention Sunday, instead of simply making a speech. He did not win the position. The lumberjack-looking candidate tried a laissez-faire approach to campaigning at the Orlando event: He cued a dance song, clapped, and then slowly removed his tie, shirt and suspenders, all for the live C-Span cameras.

The Howell man whose impromptu strip tease last month at the Libertarian Party's national convention made headlines across the U.S. has been suspended from the party. James Weeks II announced Sunday evening that Libertarian Executive Committee officials approved his suspension earlier in the day because of his actions. Weeks, chairman of the party's Livingston County branch and an announced party candidate for county sheriff, said "the reasoning behind this suspension is their disapproval of my use of free expression in lieu of a speech during my run for Libertarian Party chair at the national convention." Weeks has maintained his dance...

The furor over Trump’s assaults on the impartiality of a Latino judge had just begun to subside when he lobbed two tweets Friday morning responding to Warren, who had lambasted him as a "thin-skinned, racist bully" in a speech the previous evening. "Pocahontas is at it again!" Trump wrote in one. "Goofy Elizabeth Warren, one of the least productive U.S. Senators, has a nasty mouth." [Snip] The response to the Pocahontas remarks have been mixed and in many cases muted - a sign of how jittery GOP leaders are still trying to find their comfort level with his rhetoric. [Snip]...

Link here: http://www.clickondetroit.com/sports/hockey-legend-gordie-howe-dies-at-age-88

Coming out of bankruptcy in late 2014, Detroit had a new lease on life - it had shed some $7 billion in debt and restructured another $3 billion, and could finally move forward, or so it was thought. Detroit has hit two significant potholes on its recent road to recovery, one being the fact that it was "discovered" that there was an enormous pension shortfall, and now we learn that the Michigan legislature has just narrowly approved a $617 million bailout of Detroit's Public Schools. The financially and academically ailing 46,000-student Detroit Public Schools has been managed by the state...

A Michigan teen who was ticketed — as a passenger — for balking at taking a Breathalyzer test says that she refused because the detective did not have a warrant. Now 17-year-old Casey Guthrie has filed a federal lawsuit against the cop who slapped her with the $100 citation last month. The honor student is also challenging the constitutionality of a Michigan law that makes it a civil infraction for anybody under age 21 to refuse a police officer's request to blow into the device — and does not require the cop to produce a warrant. "No adequate remedy exists...

New reports indicate the Cuomo administration tried to subvert information about a cancer-causing chemical in the water supply of the town of Hoosick Falls … and nobody seems all that concerned. Documents obtained by Politico show the New York State Department of Health dismissing warnings from the EPA, and refusing to alert residents of the very dangerous situation. Over a year ago, health department officials issued a ‘fact sheet’ indicating that “health effects are not expected to occur from normal use of the water” within days of a contradictory declaration by the EPA which advised residents not to drink or...

The Marine Corps has dismissed the colonel responsible for all recruit training — and the sergeant major of the recruit training regiment — at Parris Island in the aftermath of the March death of a recruit. Col. Paul D. Cucinotta was relieved of command Monday, according to Corps spokesperson Capt. Joshua Pena. In an email to The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette, Pena wrote that Cucinotta was relieved by Maj. Gen. James W. Lukeman, commanding general, Training and Education Command, who cited “a loss of trust and confidence in (Cucinotta’s) ability to serve.” Pena said a “command investigation” that...

A pickup truck sought by cops for reckless driving plowed into a group of bicyclists along a western Michigan road, seriously wounding four and killing at least five people, authorities said. A flurry of 911 calls made before the deadly collision alerted police to a blue truck driving dangerously throughout northern Kalamazoo County Tuesday evening. The calls began at 6:08 p.m. and repeated at 6:13 p.m., and 6:21 p.m. The final call at 6:36 p.m. told police of a pickup truck that slammed into nine bicyclists on a rural road three miles north of Kalamazoo Police were “looking for the...

The debate over the future of Detroit’s public schools took a nasty turn over the weekend when the editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press called for Republican state legislators to be murdered for disagreeing with him. “We really ought to round up the lawmakers who took money to protect and perpetuate the failing charter-school experiment in Detroit, sew them into burlap sacks with rabid animals, and toss them into the Straits of Mackinac,” wrote Stephen Henderson. The crime the lawmakers were guilty of? Supporting expanded choice for Detroit’s failing school system. “A sack. An animal. A lake. No...

Two weeks ago 42 Republicans voted to endorse President Barack Obama’s transgender agenda. They did it by voting for the Maloney amendment, which affirmed Obama’s 2014 executive order barring “discrimination” on the basis of “sexual orientation and gender identity” in the private employment policies of federal contractors. Over the weekend, Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., posted a characteristically thoughtful Facebook post defending his vote for the Maloney amendment. The overarching policy concern is whether the government should elevate “sexual orientation and gender identity” for special legal privileges, especially in terms of laws barring “discrimination.”

ANN ARBOR, MI — If you don't bring your own reusable bags when you go grocery shopping, it could cost you. Washtenaw County commissioners voted 6-2 Wednesday night to approve a new carryout bag ordinance that imposes a 10-cent fee on consumers for every disposable bag they receive at retail grocery stores in the county. That includes both paper and plastic. The ordinance is intended to eliminate unnecessary waste and incentivize people to be more environmentally conscious. However, there's pending state legislation that could take away the county's ability to impose such regulations. Senate Bill 853 passed through the state...

Under Michigan law, the Michigan State Police (MSP) are required to publish a list of the firearms that they intend to dispose of each month.  Agencies in Michigan are required to turn over to the State Police firearms that have been forfeited or confiscated from prohibited possessors.The firearms are checked to see if they have been reported stolen.  If they have not been reported stolen, the MSP are required to dispose of them.  Before they are disposed of, the list of firearms has to be published each month.  Owners of the firearms are given 30 days to contact the...

Likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton holds about a 4-point lead over presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump in Michigan, according to a poll unveiled Wednesday. Mrs. Clinton had a 43 percent to 38.5 percent edge over Mr. Trump, according to the poll of 600 likely voters in the state released to the Detroit News and WDIV-TV.

Right-thinking Americans will be relieved to know that conservatives in the House joined the Democrat minority to kill the entire Water and Energy appropriations bill rather than allow it to pass with Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney’s transgender amendment attached to it. However, here are the 43 Republicans who voted in favor of this dastardly amendment… Remember their names. According to the American Family Association: “The amendment would legitimize President Barack Obama’s radical agenda to punish those who don’t follow his pro-LGBT agenda. “This amendment requires the federal government to follow Obama’s executive order 13672. This executive order instructs the federal...

On Wednesday, 43 Republican members of Congress joined the Democrats to vote for President Barack Obama’s transgender agenda. Now they’re trying to spin their vote. These 43 Republicans voted for the Maloney amendment, which ratified Obama’s 2014 executive order barring private businesses who do contract work for the government from engaging in what the government considers to be “discrimination” on the basis of “sexual orientation and gender identity” in their private employment policies. As I pointed out in an earlier Daily Signal article, “discrimination” on the basis of “gender identity” can be something as simple as having a bathroom policy...

We’ve asked this question before: Is there any group in the conservative coalition that Speaker Paul Ryan and the Republican establishment have not betrayed? After last night’s vote to codify Obama’s extra-constitutional “guidance” mandating that men must be allowed into the showers, dressing rooms and public toilets used by women, the answer would have to be "NO," there’s no issue left upon which Ryan and his servile underlings have not betrayed America’s conservative majority.  About now someone is going to say “hold it” you’re being unfair, because Paul Ryan didn’t vote for the amendment from Democratic Rep. Sean Maloney (NY-18), that codified Obama’s executive order...

To the casual observer, it would seem that gay rights falls neatly on the political spectrum. Democrats champion bills that aim to protect LGBT people from discrimination, and Republicans increasingly propose and pass ones aimed to protect the religiously devout. But there's growing evidence that Republicans in Congress and across the country are sidestepping the more controversial religious protection and bathroom bills and, in some cases, embracing LGBT non-discrimination laws instead.... And more broadly, Republicans in Congress, Southern-state governors and a business community that usually aligns with the GOP seem to be eschewing some of the more controversial religious freedom...

A Friday piece in Politico Magazine warns that a Hillary Clinton “fumble on trade” could give Donald Trump wins in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan in a general election contest. In a piece entitled, “How Hillary Loses,” David S. Bernstein writes that the new polls showing Trump ahead of Clinton represent a “terrifying moment for Democrats.” While Bernstein says one should not read too much into the early polls, he argues that the polling numbers reveal that “there is now a clear path for her to lose” the election. In particular, Bernstein explains that trade could win Trump Ohio, Wisconsin, and...

Donald Trump announced this weekend he puts 15 states potentially into play in the general election this year. The states include: — Ohio — Florida — Virginia — Minnesota — Michigan — Pennsylvania — Wisconsin — New York — Maine — California ** Plus Donald Trump is beating Hillary Clinton in the latest Oregon poll and is essentially tied with Hillary in New Hampshire -two more traditional blue states. And Hillary Clinton hasn’t even been indicted yet!