Free Republic

The Mercer Island School District in the State of Washington has barred students from playing the game of “tag” on school grounds or within eyesight of school personnel. Communications director Macy Grade described the ban as “an essential step to ensure the physical and emotional safety of all students.” In the game of “tag,” one child is designated as “it” until he or she can tag/touch another child and pass along the “it” status. Grade characterized the game as “potentially devastating to children’s self-esteem. First of all, the person who is ‘it’ is isolated and stigmatized. Second, all the other...

D.C. Council Member Yvette Alexander announced Tuesday that the week of Sept. 20, 2015, would forever be known as “DC Calls It Quits Week.” The announcement comes just one week before the city plans to implement a 67 percent tax on e-cigarettes, effectively taxing vape shops out of existence. Alexander brought a gaggle of people to the front of the council chambers to make the announcement and to encourage “everyone in the District of Columbia to put down those cigarettes.” "Put down those tobacco product today, and hopefully this can be the beginning of a new beginning for anyone who...

Prepare to be “nudged” by Obama's new “behavioral science” squads — for your own good, of course. Under the guise of better “serving” the American people through government, Obama signed an executive order this week calling for federal agencies and departments to deploy emerging “behavioral science” techniques against the public.Among other goals, the expansion of federal mind manipulation is supposed to help more Americans access government welfare programs, take their “recommended” vaccines, supply more information about themselves to the federal government, and accelerate the transition toward what Obama called “a low-carbon economy.” The controversial decree, signed on September 15, explicitly...

When it comes to garbage, the city of Seattle has launched a waste war. Nine full-time solid waste inspectors have been hired as part of a controversial program to check city trash to make sure people are recycling. Additionally, contracted waste haulers have been effectively deputized as trash police, given the authority to tag bins when people fail to recycle and compost enough. The program is now the subject of a lawsuit, as residents fume over what some call an intrusive government program. “I understand people have noble goals,” said Keli Carender, who got tagged two weeks in a row,...

Regulating fast food kids' meals that include toys may end up making the meals healthier, according to a new study. If a proposed new policy in New York City is approved, then fast food meals that come with toys would contain fewer calories overall, and fewer from fat and sodium, researchers report. "We can create policies that will nudge us toward healthier behaviors," said senior author Marie Bragg, of NYU Langone Medical Center in New York. The proposed policy, which was introduced to the New York City Council, says fast food meals that come with a small toy must include...

As always, the Food and Drug Administration has its eye on the ball and its arms around freedom…in a big, stifling bear hug. The Founders no doubt intended that the federal government would have a passel of people in charge of telling successful condiment producers what they can put on their labels. For freedom. In this case, the federal government has decided a vegan company cannot put the name “Just Mayo” on its clearly labeled vegan mayonnaise product because the company doesn’t include egg whites in the mixture and does include some healthy stuff, like beta carotene. One would think...

Sometimes government’s dishonesty, incompetence, wastefulness, and misguided nannyism combine to make a perfectly ridiculous story. Today’s comes to us from Florida, where the Ocheesee Creamery is being forced to dump gallons upon gallons of good, natural skim milk because the state is requiring the business to label its good, natural skim milk “imitation” because they haven’t added anything to it. Paul and Mary Lou Wesselhoeft have been fighting this in federal court with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs, which had formerly allowed them to sell their skim milk while calling it skim milk. No one seemed confused...

(CNSNews.com) - The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 changed the nutrition requirements for school lunches and breakfasts, but the U.S. Agriculture Department says the law also gives schools the flexibility to prepare meals that are "familiar to kids from culturally diverse backgrounds."Blogging at the USDA website on Wednesday, Dr. Katie Wilson, deputy undersecretary for for food, nutrition and consumer services, hailed the nation's "diversity" of people, ideas, and culture: "One of the way culture is expressed is through the foods we eat," she wrote. "Our nation's school meals should be no exception." Wilson said she recently participated in one...

An independent study finds that e-cigarettes are 95 percent safer than tobacco and could be “game-changer” for getting people to quit smoking.The study, commissioned by Public Health England, says that while e-cigarettes may not be totally safe, they contain almost none of the chemicals in cigarettes associated with serious diseases like lung cancer and emphysema.The report adds that there is a substantial body of high-quality evidence that e-cigarettes are an effective tool for getting smokers to kick their habit. The devices, which were only invented in 2007, already have 2.6 million adult users in England alone.Contrary to a study released...

(CNSNews.com) – To help “create a classroom where students aren’t limited based on gender stereotypes,” teachers should address classes using words like “friends or “students” rather than girls and boys, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) advises in a new back-to-school guide.The first tip suggested by the HRC’s Welcoming Schools Initiative is for teachers to avoid using gender to “divide and address students.” The guide claims that separating students for activities according to gender “can leave some students feeling out-of-place, making them distracted or isolated and not able to focus on learning.”The guide recommends finding new, inventive ways of dividing students...

The first clue that Gwyneth Paltrow didn’t know what she was talking about on Capitol Hill earlier this month came with the first words she spoke: “I’m here as a mother.” Apparently, the actress thinks that any mom can show up in Washington and hold a press conference that attracts lawmakers and the media. Memo to Ms. Paltrow: The rest of us moms don’t have that celebrity power. We haven’t won Oscar awards, assumed glamorous roles in the “Iron Man” movies, or married (let alone divorced) rock stars. But Ms. Paltrow has done all of these things so, of course,...

(CNSNews.com) – During a “voters first presidential forum” in New Hampshire on Monday, GOP presidential candidate Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal criticized President Barack Obama’s deal with Iran, saying he “declared war on trans fats and a ceasefire with the largest state-sanctioned sponsor of terrorism.” “This is a bad deal. He’s declared war on trans fats and a ceasefire with the largest state-sanctioned sponsor of terrorism,” said Jindal regarding the nuclear deal with Iran. As CNSNews.com previously reported, the Food and Drug Administration ruled in June that trans fat is not “generally recognized as safe” for use in food and gave...

The sage grouse population has exploded in the last two years, growing by nearly two-thirds from more than 49,000 males in 2013 to more than 80,000 this year. ... This is encouraging news for the bird, and for the people whose lives would be turned upside down by the federal government if it still insists on listing the critter as an endangered species on the brink of extinction. The report considered the population across the bird’s 11-state habitat, with specific news on the growth in Colorado numbers ... The report falls on the heels of a gloom and doom forecast...

(CNSNews.com) - The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced Friday it is investing up to $100 million in biofuels with the goal “to double the number of fuel pumps capable of supplying higher blends of renewable fuel to consumers, such as E15 and E85.”“A typical gas pump can deliver fuel that contains a maximum 10% ethanol (E10), which limits the amount of renewable energy most consumers can purchase at the pump, despite the fact that our farmers now produce record amounts of renewable biofuels,” the USDA press release says.“This new investment seeks to double the number of fuel pumps capable of supplying...

Californians are taking to drought shaming sites to tattle on each other for wasting water. Residents are using the sites to out each other for reasons including neighbors with leaky sprinklers to waiters who serve water without asking as the state's historic drought continues. The tattling has also reached social media where residents are using the hashtags 'droughtshaming' and 'watershaming' to reveal any water-wasting activities. An app called DroughtShame was even developed to 'capture geotagged photo proof of disregard for California's water restrictions'.

Healthy options are coming to Howard County, but some think the carrot is a stick.Four of five Howard County Council members, all Democrats, voted Friday to overturn County Executive Allan Kittleman's veto of a bill that creates nutritional guidelines for the food and drinks sold in government vending machines.Kittleman, the county's first Republican executive since 1998, framed the issue as one of choice for workers and visitors to county buildings, even if that means they choose fluorescent orange doodles chased by a bubbly soda."I trust Howard County residents and employees to make their own decisions about what to eat," Kittleman...

Professing to be “fed up” with the state legislature’s failure to enact a minimum wage he deems high enough, Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) has decreed a $15 per hour minimum wage for the fast food industry in his state. “I gave the legislature the opportunity to do the right thing, but their refusal to pass the $15 per hour wage has forced me to seize the initiative,” Cuomo said. “The voters of this state elected me to get things done. One way or another, that’s what I’m going to do. If the legislature thinks I’m treading on their turf they...

A video of a Pinellas County man being told by an inspector that his barbecue smoke cannot leave his property has been viewed more than 4 million times on Facebook. Scotty Jordan, 38, posted the video (caution, it contains profanity) to his Facebook page on Wednesday and by Monday morning it had 4,091,474 views and 86,510 shares. “I didn’t expect it to go this far, but I always believe everything happens for a reason,” Jordan said about the video in a Facebook post early Monday. “God puts situations and life experiences in front of you. It’s up to you to...

on July 22, Joe Graham from Air Compliance is writing a complaint form for “objectionable odor” from Jordan’s property where he was barbecuing. A neighbor living across the street called to complain, as she has apparently done many times before. This time she found a willing co-conspirator. “I can smell it again right now, but I’m on your property,” Graham tells the group. “You’re allowed to have it smell on your property, so that doesn’t count, but when I’m on the street, that’s when it counts.” “So we’re supposed to control the smoke and the wind and where it’s blowing...

New York Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice announced recently she will drop legislation mandating American automakers to install ignition interlock technology in all new cars that detects a driver’s blood alcohol content (BAC) and block the engine from starting if the driver’s BAC is above the legal limit.“Advancing the progress we’ve made combating drunk driving demands bold action,” Rice said in a press release.“It demands that we take a stand and say we refuse to keep letting drunk drivers take 10,000 lives each year. We refuse to keep seeing families torn apart when we know we can do more to prevent...