Free Republic

Eighteen year-old Jordan Wiser is training to be a firefighter. He’s a certified emergency vehicle operator who works as a first responder when he’s not attending high school. And, after just spending 13 days in jail, he’s now facing felony charges for weapons possession. The weapon? A pocketknife. It was in his EMT vest, and he uses it to cut through seatbelts when he’s practicing saving lives.

Ohio Democrats, still pushing their phony “voter suppression” meme, kicked off a campaign tonight to put a constitutional amendment on the November ballot. They even brought in Al Sharpton for support. Sharon Coolidge of the Cincinnati Enquirer tweeted coverage of the event, and it seemed to be the same tired arguments that have been repeated endlessly, until she reported this: Sharon Coolidge‏@SharonCoolidge Melowese Richardson, convicted of voter fraud and then released early from prison, called to stage for a "welcome home." Remember Melowese Richardson?  She was a poll worker who used her position tovote for Obama multiple times. She is one of the few who...

SACRAMENTO — When my family moved from northwest Ohio to pricey Southern California, we could afford an entry level house but couldn’t also spring for private-school tuition for the kids. So we scoured the test-score databases, looking for those neighborhoods where home values were reasonable and public schools were tops. Given the focus on schools, it will surprise no one that we settled in a city with a majority Asian-American population.

A national gay rights organization has taken issue with a Roman Catholic Archdiocese's recently implemented "morals clause" added to their private school teacher contracts. "As support for LGBT equality continues to grow, particularly among Catholics, the Cincinnati Archdiocese is enacting draconian restrictions on Catholic school employees," Paul Guequierre of the Human Rights Campaign wrote in an entry on the group's website Tuesday that calls for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati to reconsider its new rule. "HRC is calling on Diocese leaders to model Christian values and not discriminate against LGBT teachers or straight allies in their employment practices." Guequierre argued that...

Along the banks of the Mahoning River in the struggling Ohio steel town of Youngstown sits a once-abandoned furniture warehouse that has been converted into a sleek new laboratory. Inside is a Silicon Valley-style workspace complete with open meeting areas and colorful stools. Several 3-D printers hum in the background, while engineers type computer codes that tell the machines how to create objects by layering materials. The lab, called America Makes, is the first in a series of so-called “manufacturing innovation hubs” that President Barack Obama has launched with the promise that they could revitalize America’s industrial sector and spur...

NEW WILMINGTON, Pa. -- State police are searching for an unlikely suspect in a western Pennsylvania hit-and-run accident: the driver of an Amish buggy. Troopers from the Mercer barracks say the buggy twice hit a passenger vehicle at a crossroads on Route 158 in Wilmington Township, about 6 p.m. Sunday. The buggy then left the scene and its driver has yet to be identified. Police say the victim is a woman who owns a Honda CRV, a crossover vehicle that was struck on its left side. Nobody was hurt in the crash.

An Oberlin College professor has filed a lawsuit because, she claims, another professor on the Oberlin faculty has harassed her and created a hostile work environment for female employees for years. The plaintiff is Eunjung An, professor of French and cinema studies ... comparative literature professor Ali Yedes informed an unnamed Oberlin employee last year that he had helped his nephew obtain a student visa to the United States expressly to “stab and kill someone from his department.”.. Yedes serves as the school’s “Muslim Religious Life Affiliate (Islamic Center of Cleveland).” .. An’s lawsuit claims that Yedes has been engaged...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was caught on a hot mic Thursday telling Secretary of State John Kerry to let him know how he could “help” with House Speaker John Boehner. Screengrab via NBC News Screengrab via NBC News Kerry had just testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee on the need to provide Ukraine with economic assistance amid its turbulent transition following the ouster of former President Viktor Yanukovich. Both House and Senate Republicans have expressed opposition to the proposed bill, mainly over a provision that would give unused U.S. Military money to the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.). Graham was offering...

Via TCOT Report'Is the Prosecution of ‘Pocketknife Felon’ Jordan Wiser about Electing Harold Specht to a Judgeship?'Many have read with outrage the story of 18 year old Jordan Wiser; a young man whose car was searched without permission at his vocational school, resulting in his expulsion, arrest, felony indictment, imprisonment, and separation from his beloved, terminally ill grandfather. The prosecutor in this case, Harold E Specht, Jr. has been quoted saying the reason for Wiser’s arrest and felony prosecution centers on the discovery of a four-inch pocketknife, which was locked in the trunk, inside his EMT kit – a duffel...

UPDATE 3/10/14 @ 1 p.m. LAWRENCE COUNTY, Ohio (WSAZ) --The man who was shot during what investigators say was a daytime home invasion is now listed in good condition at a Huntington hospital.Investigators with Lawrence County, Ohio Sheriff’s Office say Joseph Willis, 36, Ironton broke into a house on CR 19 in the Kitts Hill area Friday afternoon. According to Sheriff Jeff Lawless, the homeowner who was startled by noises, retrieved a handgun and went towards the front door where he found the intruder coming toward him.

Opening an Ace Hardware store in Reynoldsburg was just another piece of the American Dream for owner Viktor Prozapas, who emigrated to the United States from Ukraine in 1998."I knew this was a land of opportunity and I want to remind people that we can work hard toward our dreams and we can achieve those dreams," he said. "The opportunities are out there and anyone who really wants to can make it in this country."

On February 27th, Gordon Brothers Group, a global advisory, restructuring and investment firm was awarded the store closing process for all locations by the bankruptcy court. Store closing sales will begin on March 1st and will involve significant discounts on all merchandise, as well as store furniture, fixtures and equipment in order to wind down company operations. “Our employees continue to do a tremendous job maintaining high quality standards and they are dedicated to fully serving our customers during this transition,” David Minnix, president of Dots, said. “We appreciate the continued support of our valued customers over the years and...

The net for Ohioans is a $174 million tax cut over the next three years. Kasich proposes funding an 8.5 percent income tax-cut for all tax brackets — a $2.2 billion reduction over the next three years — by raising the state’s tax on a pack of cigarettes 60 cents, from $1.25 to $1.85, while also taxing other tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes, at an equivalent rate. That would generate about $850 million during the next three years. Kasich also wants to raise the Commercial Activity Tax on gross receipts for businesses from 0.26 percent to 0.3 percent, a roughly...

House Approves Bill to Stop Obama's "War on Coal" 07 March 2014 The House has approved a bill to block President Obama's climate plan that aimed at regulating so-called carbon pollution from new power plants.

Did an Ohio elementary school jump the gun in its punishment of a 10-year-old? Devonshire Alternative Elementary School in North Columbus, Ohio, suspended a fifth grader for three days after he pointed his finger in the shape of a gun at another student’s head. Paul Entingh said his 10-year-old son, Nathan, was just messing around during science class. "He asked his friend to borrow a pencil and when his friend dropped it, my son Nathan was playing around and he did that with his fingers. Pointed it at the kid, said 'boom,'" Entingh told Fox 28. Paul and Nathan were...

A group of five U.S. senators have joined the growing chorus of influential voices, telling the Kellogg Co. to end its nearly five-month lockout of more than 220 workers at its Memphis, Tenn., cereal production facility.The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) Local 252G members who make Frosted Flakes®, Froot Loops® and other breakfast favorites were locked out as part of the drive by the company to replace steady, middle-class, full-time jobs with casual part-time employees who would make significantly lower wages and substandard benefits.In a letter to Kellogg’s CEO John Bryant, Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Robert Casey Jr....

Darrell Issa seen plowing ahead with IRS probe amid new evidence By JOHN BRESNAHAN and LAUREN FRENCH | 3/7/14 2:00 PM EST Updated: 3/7/14 3:53 PM EST Not even a trove of new evidence will stop Darrell Issa from going after Lois Lerner’s testimony. The House Oversight Committee Chairman is plowing forward with plans to hold the former IRS official in contempt of Congress - possibly as early as next week - despite word from the tax agency that it plans to hand over a broad set of documents spanning Lerner’s entire career at the IRS. Republicans have long sought...

VIDEO: 4 minutes - Rep. Marcia Fudge's oral presentation of the privileged resolution on House floor. The chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus is calling House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) to be stripped of his gavel for his behavior at a contentious IRS hearing on Wednesday. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) told Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday that Issa’s conduct in the hearing — which included cutting off the microphone of Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), the ranking Democrat — amounted to “an affront to the expectations of the American people.” Fudge also said Issa should apologize on the House...

A Columbus principal suspended a student for three days last week after the child pointed a "lookalike firearm” at another student in class and pretended to shoot. The boy’s age? 10. The “level 2 lookalike firearm” cited in his suspension letter? His finger. “I was just playing around,” said Nathan Entingh, a fifth-grader at Devonshire Alternative Elementary School in a far northern section of the district. “People play around like this a lot at my school.” Other kids have been caught playing pretend gun games on the playground at Devonshire and weren’t suspended, Nathan said. Devonshire Principal Patricia Price has...

America's kids have been suspended for pretending that pencils were guns, but an Ohio school may have topped that. A 10-year-old student at a Columbus elementary school was handed a three-day suspension for making a finger gun and pretending to shoot a classmate. The suspension letter more formally referred to his weapon as a "level 2 lookalike firearm," reports the Columbus Dispatch. Devonshire Alternative Elementary School's principal says students have been frequently told not to play pretend gun games, with a district rep saying kids were warned consequences would follow. Those consequences hit hard last week for fifth-grader Nathan Entingh,...