Free Republic

The U.S. Department of Justice secretly spies on millions of cars by gathering and storing information about motorists in order to build a national database to track movements, according to a new report in the Wall Street Journal. The database was originally used by the Drug Enforcement Administration to hunt vehicles involved in drug crimes by tracking license plates, but according to the WSJ, the program expanded to hunt for criminals sought for crimes that were non-drug related. DEA officials have been on record saying they track vehicles near the U.S.-Mexico border to help fight drug cartels, but the new...

A Kirksville, Mo. doctor righteously and very satisfyingly slapped down a substitute teacher after she sent a note home condemning the lunch his second-grade daughter had brought to school. The doctor and mad dad is Justin Puckett, reports ABC News. As Puckett — who is certified in obesity medicine — later observed to the principal at the school, the teacher and a cafeteria worker didn’t see the whole lunch. Sure, they saw a pickle, a bag of marshmallows, some Ritz crackers and four tiny chocolate bars. Importantly, what the sub and the lunch lady missed were four pieces of ham...

Colorado’s decision to legalize marijuana was a bad idea, the state’s governor said Friday. Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat who opposed the 2012 decision by voters to make pot legal, said the state still doesn’t fully know what the unintended consequences of the move will be. If I could've waved a wand the day after the election, I would've reversed the election and said, 'This was a bad idea,’” Hickenlooper said Friday on CNBC's “Squawk Box.” “You don't want to be the first person to do something like this,” he said. He said that he tells other governors to “wait...

The United States intelligence community funded, nurtured and incubated Google as part of a drive to dominate the world through control of information. Seed-funded by the NSA and CIA,Google was merely the first among a plethora of private sector start-ups co-opted by US intelligence to retain ‘information superiority.’ The origins of this ingenious strategy trace back to a secret Pentagon-sponsored group, that for the last two decades has functioned as a bridge between the US government and elites across the business, industry, finance, corporate, and media sectors. The group has allowed some of the most powerful special interests in corporate...

All youth football games would be required to have a doctor present to monitor possible concussions as part of legislation considered Friday by the New York City Council. The hearing focused on the safety of young players who are even more vulnerable to brain injuries than their counterparts in high school, college and professional leagues. “It’s too common that kids are taught that getting your bell rung is OK and you need to play through it,” said Councilman Corey Johnson, a Democrat from Manhattan. “Repeated concussions can cause lifelong health injuries especially when the brain does not have time to...

President Obama believes more states are likely to legalize marijuana following efforts in Colorado and Washington state. "My suspicion is that you're going to see other states look at this," the president told YouTube blogger Hank Green. Obama said that the federal government was "not going to spend a lot of resources" enforcing federal marijuana laws in states that had decided to legalize the drug. He also noted that the Department of Justice was examining how to shift policies for nonviolent drug offenders. In an interview with The New Yorker last year, Obama appeared to tacitly endorse a Colorado referendum...

Doctors’ house calls are considered a thing of the past, but not in the appointment book of Dr. Carrol Frazier Landrum, an 88-year-old physician from Edwards, Mississippi. The good doctor will see you no matter who you are, where you are, or how much money you have — as long his 2007 Toyota Camry can deliver him to your location. But now his state’s medical board wants to see him gone. Dr. Landrum, a WWII veteran, was forced to make a change after crime drove him from his Edwards, Mississippi, office two years ago, and he couldn’t find another space...

Mitt Romney’s opening pitch for a third shot at the White House left many Republicans scratching their heads, in part because his plans to fight poverty and tyranny seemed to borrow the lexicon of liberals like FDR, LBJ and Woodrow Wilson. With a full house of Republican National Committee members listening aboard the USS Midway in San Diego, Mr. Romney implored his party last week “to lift people out of poverty” and “to make the world safe.” The first phrase is a favorite of liberals who gush over Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs...

A new project from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is using computer simulated training sessions to teach doctors in Minnesota how to talk to fat kids.The nearly $500,000 study using “virtual role play” to coach doctors is the latest attempt by the federal government to combat obesity.“Obesity in the United States is at historically high levels and is an important health problem,” the grant for the project states. “Interventions targeting children are a high priority because children bear the greatest lifetime health risk from overweight and obesity.”“Health professionals in primary care settings are influential in the lives of families,”...

The advertising campaign in New York telling men to stop “manspreading” has cost the city’s taxpayers more than $76,000.“Dude…Stop the Spread, Please” was the biggest takeaway from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) new campaign announced last month, instructing riders on proper subway etiquette. “Manspreading” is when a man keeps his legs apart while sitting.Invoices obtained by the Washington Free Beacon from the MTA through a Freedom of Information Law request reveal that the campaign has cost $76,707.70.The MTA hired Edison Lithograph and Printing Corp. to print thousands of posters and placards, which will appear in 2,600 subway cars. The company...

A Montgomery County couple says they’re being investigated for neglect for allowing their two children to walk home from a park by themselves. Danielle and Alexander Meitiv say the county’s Child Protective Services began investigating them after police stopped their 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter about half-way through a mile-walk home on Dec. 20 in Silver Spring. Police say they stopped the children and drove them home after someone reported seeing them. …

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is proposing strict new dietary guidelines for day cares that would prohibit them from frying food that is served to children.Child care providers would also be formally required to provide children with water upon request, though they would face restrictions on how much apple juice and orange juice they serve.The proposed nutrition standards are intended to promote the "health and wellness of children" at day cares that participate in government-funded meal programs, the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service said Wednesday.One of the more notable provisions would restrict day cares from frying food on site...

It was a one-mile walk home from a Silver Spring park on Georgia Avenue on a Saturday afternoon. But what the parents saw as a moment of independence for their 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, they say authorities viewed much differently. Danielle and Alexander Meitiv say they are being investigated for neglect for the Dec. 20 trek — in a case they say reflects a clash of ideas about how safe the world is and whether parents are free to make their own choices about raising their children. “We wouldn’t have let them do it if we didn’t think they...

New York Mayor Bill deBlasio brushed off recent troubles between the police and the community in order to focus on what he considers “a much bigger existential threat to our way of life.” That threat: the use of Styrofoam containers by restaurants to keep takeout orders hot or cold. “Styrofoam is one of the top two or three threats to the planet,” de Blasio argued. “I realize that it doesn’t grab headlines like cops killing minorities or being killed in return do, but it has a bigger footprint in the scheme of things over the long run.” The Mayor insisted...

If two out of three adults are considered to be overweight in America, it is no surprise that losing weight tops New Year’s resolutions every year. Regardless of age, race, or gender, the battle of the bulge unites many of us. Heck, I even hired a personal trainer since I can’t get it together on my own. And while most of us will abandon our nutrition and exercise routines before January is over, there is a man whose dedication to health in 2015 could make all the difference in the 2016 elections. His name is Chris Christie, governor of New...

The White House on Thursday announced first lady Michelle Obama’s pick to lead her campaign for kids to eat healthier, saying Debra Eschmeyer would take over a post that has increasingly come under fire in Republican circles. “For more than a decade, Deb has been leading the way in teaching kids about the importance of healthy eating,” the first lady said. “From classrooms and gardens to kitchens and farms, Deb has made learning about nutrition fun and accessible for kids across the country.” Eschmeyer will take over the position of executive director of the Let’s Move campaign, as well as...

City to ban foam takeout, delivery food containers in environmentally friendly push The ban, which will start July 1, covers foam take-out containers, packing peanuts and plastic cups. New Yorkers’ beloved foam takeout and delivery food containers will soon be products of a bygone era. Mayor de Blasio — finishing off an initiative begun by his predecessor — will announce a ban on the environmentally unfriendly material Thursday, according to The New York Times. The ban will start July 1 and cover foam packing peanuts as well as plastic foam cups and takeout containers. City Hall declined to comment when...

The federal government is financing the development of a smartphone app that will use facial recognition technology to check attendance in college classrooms.The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded $50,000 to Missouri University on Jan. 2 for the project that will record videos to create “face tracklets” of students.The project is necessary, the grant argues, because checking attendance the old fashioned way is too hard.“Checking attendance in scenarios such as classrooms commonly needs an instructor to recognize each student one by one by reading the names on a roster or ask students to sign up the attendance sheet,” the grant explains....

A New York requirement that all children attending public school be vaccinated has been upheld by a federal court. On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a regulation by New York City health and education officials. The rule was being challenged on grounds that the law was discriminatory and that its local applications violated freedom of religion. The court also upheld a regulation that allows school officials to prevent non-immunized children from going to school during an outbreak of vaccine-preventable diseases. The state statute was being challenged by three New York City plaintiffs,...

George S. Patton once came upon a dying man at the 15th Evacuation Hospital at Sant’ Agata during the Sicilian invasion. He sparked a cigarette and placed it in the young soldier’s mouth. He smacked a shell-shocked trooper for cowardice moments later.The slap surely would have ended Patton’s career were he serving in today’s Army. The act of comfort to the dying man probably would as well.The Department of Defense is trying to extinguish the cigarettes of our nation’s servicemen. The War on Terror reversed some of the gains in the fight against tobacco as smoking rates jumped 13 percent...