Free Republic

LOUISIANA, MO. -- The Missouri State Fire Marshal continues its investigation into an early morning Thursday fire that took the life of a 3-year-old Louisiana, Mo. boy. A city police officer stunned Riley's stepfather Ryan Miller with a Taser gun three times as he tried to enter the burning house. Lori Miller, Riley's grandmother, said police stunned Ryan Miller as he tried to get back in the house. “He tried to get back in the house to get the baby,” Lori Miller said. “They took my son to jail because he tried to save his son.” Ryan Miller's sister-in-law doesn't...

COLUMBIA — The mention of the U.S. president elicited booing during a halftime ceremony at the Missouri-Tennessee game. During halftime, new members of the Missouri National Guard were being sworn in on the field of Memorial Stadium, said team spokesman Chad Moller. Part of the oath the service members took reads, "I will obey the orders of the president of the United States." During a pause after that line was read, members of the crowd could clearly be heard booing and jeering, said LeMari Porter, an MU student present at the game. MU student Julia Bosley was sitting in the...

Latest Monthly Assessment - The November 2013 Drought Outlook is based on initial conditions, short and medium range forecasts, the CPC updated monthly outlooks for temperature and precipitation, and climatology. During late October, heavy rains ahead of a slow moving cold front fell across parts of south-central and southeastern Texas, causing localized flooding in Austin and regions just to the southwest. Widespread rainfall associated with the same storm system also overspread eastern Kansas, Missouri, southern Iowa, and northern Illinois, with accumulations of an inch or greater observed. Additional rainfall in these areas are expected during the first week of...

Senate Democrats vented their frustrations over the faulty rollout of the Affordable Care Act in a meeting Thursday with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and other senior officials. “There’s a lot of frustration, everywhere,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said after the meeting. McDonough tried to assure angry senators he is personally taking charge of the disparate federal offices in charge of implementing the massive law, which has been plagued by technical errors. “He gave us the impression that he’s taking charge of the different elements and cracking the whip. He said to let him know if we had...

In December, the final primary lead smelter in the United States will close. The lead smelter, located in Herculaneum, Missouri, and owned and operated by the Doe Run Company, has existed in the same location since 1892. The Herculaneum smelter is currently the only smelter in the United States which can produce lead bullion from raw lead ore that is mined nearby in Missouri's extensive lead deposits, giving the smelter its "primary" designation. The lead bullion produced in Herculaneum is then sold to lead product producers, including ammunition manufactures for use in conventional ammunition components such as projectiles, projectile cores,...

Reuters reports that the FBI and other agencies are in the process of investigating multiple threats to Midwest Water Supply Systems. Specifically, the FBI has named Wichita, Kansas as a target, but utility facilities have also been put on alert in other Midwestern cities. (Reuters) The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation learned of the threats in the past two days and has contacted the water supply facilities and law enforcement offices for the municipalities, said Bridget Patton, a spokeswoman for the FBI office in Kansas City, Missouri. Patton declined to discuss the nature of the threats or the number of...

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill predicts that Congress will reach a budget agreement in mid-December that averts a replay of the federal shutdown and near-default that occurred less than a week ago. Speaking on this week’s Politically Speaking podcast, McCaskill, D-Mo., was optimistic that both parties in both chambers will seek to cut a deal. The podcast is a joint venture between the St. Louis Beacon and St. Louis Public Radio. McCaskill’s comments were among her most expansive since Congress approved a compromise bill last Wednesday to end the shutdown and avert a default of the nation’s payments on its debts....

***SNIP*** Republican states have purposely and vindictively put up roadblocks to prevent its citizens from easy access to health care information as the Affordable Care Act was rolled out. They've either ignored the roll-out or encouraged people not to sign up. Missouri's lieutenant governor Peter Kinder, urged "active resistance" to the new law. This is why we have low information voters and why, according to two polls, 7% or 8% favor the Affordable Care Act over Obamacare, even though they are one and the same. ***SNIP*** Rachel Grob, Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has studied how different states are...

New mom faces ARREST because she took son she's breastfeeding to jury duty when there was no-one else to care for him. A Missouri woman is to face court this week for bringing her new born child to the courthouse for jury duty because she was breastfeeding. Laura Trickle, of Lee’s Summit, delivered her daughter Axel in March and was breastfeeding when she was called for jury duty in August. She asked to be exempt from appearing, as she was breastfeeding, but received notice that she must report to court to fullfill her civic obligation and serve jury duty, according...

Congrats to the RedBirds, and a shout out to Cardinal Nation!

All of the congressional Republicans with viable 2016 presidential ambitions voted against the bill enacted overnight to reopen the government and increase federal borrowing. So did two members of the Senate GOP leadership and three members of the party’s House leadership. The opponents also included a majority of the Republicans who are chairmen of House committees and most of the members of the House GOP caucus who aspire to election to the Senate next year. While the Democrats were unified in their support for the legislation, a review of Wednesday night’s back-to-back roll calls in Congress reveals just how divided...

For more than a year, Assembly Speaker John Pérez dated a Hollywood funeral director who faces fraud allegations in one of the biggest financial scandals to rock the U.S. funeral industry. During their relationship, Pérez, a Los Angeles Democrat, mixed political business with his personal life in ways that showed poor judgment, ethics experts say. A Pérez spokesman said the lawmaker conducted himself appropriately during a casual dating relationship. Tyler Cassity, proprietor of a boutique cemetery called Hollywood Forever as well as a Mill Valley cemetery, and defendant in a $600 million fraud lawsuit in his native Missouri, accompanied Pérez...

Sen. Clarie McCaskill (D-Mo.) accused Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) of not listening to voters in general but only the “loud” ones. She told MSNBC that “the moderates need to muscle up here.” “You know, everybody on — in this far extreme, unreasonable, irrational right, is afraid of somebody running against them from the right. And they need to be afraid of a moderate Republican running against them,” said McCaskill, who defeated challenger Todd Akin in the last election cycle. “And people — and Boehner really needs to show courage here. I know that he’s calling this Cruz’s shutdown. Boehner knows...

Senator Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.) said this morning that legislators present at the World War II memorial who didn’t have veterans from their states present were merely playing politics. “There’s people here who have nothing to do,” McCaskill said this morning at the World War II memorial in Washington, D.C. ”They’re just trying to score a political point.” When asked by CNS News if they were attempting to grandstand, McCaskill answered that “it appears that they are,” but did not single out any legislators by name. Earlier this morning, World War II veterans entered the memorial for the second time...

A House-passed bill to ensure the military gets paid under any government shutdown was approved without dissent in the Senate on Monday — a rare bipartisan agreement as Congress stumbled toward midnight when the fiscal year ends and current appropriations expire. The measure, now on its way to President Barack Obama’s desk, would also ensure continued pay for civilian employees of the Defense Department and Pentagon contractors whom Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel determines “are providing support to members of the Armed Forces.” Put forward by House Republicans, the bill is considered good politics for the GOP, since analysts suggest the...

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) on Monday called for criminal charges to be filed against people who defrauded a federal phone subsidy program. McCaskill sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, urging the agency to refer examples of fraud in its Lifeline program to the Justice Department for prosecution. "Knowingly providing false information to a government agency for profit must be investigated. If these companies are found in violation of federal law, I expect the DOJ will prosecute those responsible to the fullest extent of the law," she wrote. She also urged the FCC to more aggressively use its own...

ST. CHARLES, MO (KTVI)– It may be a non-election year, but the St. Louis area is about to be in the national political spotlight. The Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, will hold a convention in St. Charles, Saturday, September 28. It’s bringing big-name, conservative, Republican, politicians to the St. Charles Convention Center. With those politicians come national headlines and a crowd from across the country. The grass roots group, the American Conservative Union, putting on the event. It’s a virtual all-star conservative parade. As with past CPAC gatherings, there may be “moments”, like Sarah Palin’s “Big Gulp” moment at...

Many children grow up looking up to their mothers. But one woman in Missouri is setting the wrong example for her kids. She allegedly took them along for a jewelry store heist. Surveillance video captures her going into a store with her two young kids, a boy and girl. The store owner says that the woman distracted him, while her kids filled up her purse with thousands of dollars in jewels. Police did recover $10,000 worth of merchandise and identified the woman in the surveillance video. However, thieving family is on the run tonight.

An armed man is a free man whilst an unarmed man is a serf who is subject to the whims and dictates of the State. That is why progressive liberals fear and despise gun ownership and why they relentlessly pursue to destroy the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. They know that an armed population can resist any final destruction of their God-given liberties. This week saw a mixed bag of news as it pertains to gun rights. However, while there was a setback in Missouri, the overall news is encouraging. On Tuesday, voters in Colorado successfully recalled two anti-liberty...

Gov. Jay Nixon saw a historic number of his vetoes go down Wednesday at the hands of a Republican-dominated General Assembly. But in the end, he was able to claim victory on the year’s two most high-profile issues — a $700 million tax cut and a bill aimed at criminalizing enforcement of federal gun laws. Fifteen Republicans joined with every Democrat in the Missouri House to put the final nail in the coffin of a tax cut bill that many Republicans pointed to as the marquee achievement of the 2013 legislative session. The override came up 15 votes short of...