Free Republic

Charges have been brought against an educator who was earlier this year dubbed “teacher of the year” by Athens City Schools. According to the police, Daelyn Waldroup, 26, broke into a car after scaling a fence to get to one that was impounded at a vehicle impound facility. According to an affidavit obtained, this occurred on the morning of June 6. It states that J Pro Car & Towing on Decatur Pike received a call from Athens police. According to the report, the officer discovered Waldroup there sitting in a locked car behind a fenced-in area. According to the affidavit,...

In Pennsylvania, the GOP primary contest to replace retiring Senator Pat Toomey remains an uncertainty as frontrunners Mehmet Oz and David McCormick jockey to gain any advantage possible in their currently unfolding recount, but the Democrats aren't necessarily in any better shape with just more than five months until November's general election. Their nominee, current Pennsylvania Lt. Governor John Fetterman, swept every county in the commonwealth on primary night in May — despite the fact that their nominee was in the hospital after suffering a stroke and having emergency surgery to implant a pacemaker to regulate his heart rate. At...

When Republicans who oppose federal marijuana prohibition vote against your legalization bill, you probably are doing something wrong. That is what happened last week, when the House of Representatives approved the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act by a vote of 220 to 204. The ayes included 217 Democrats but only three Republicans, two fewer than voted for the MORE Act when the House passed it in 2020. The meager and waning GOP support for the bill suggests that Democrats want credit for trying to legalize marijuana but are not really interested in building the bipartisan coalition that would...

You heard it. I heard it. The whole world heard it. Even CNN reported it. PJM’s Matt Margolis reported on it here. At the winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee in Washington on Saturday, Kamala Harris said: “The United States stands firmly with the Ukrainian people in defense of the NATO alliance.” Now, Ukraine is not actually in NATO, and so standing firmly with the Ukrainian people would not actually be an act in defense of the NATO alliance, and of all people, the person pretending to be vice president of the United States should know that. So...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk took aim at Sen. Bernie Sanders over the weekend after the lawmaker demanded the wealthy pay their “fair share.” Sanders, an advocate for redistributing wealth, tweeted Saturday afternoon that “we must demand that the extremely wealthy pay their fair share. Period.” Early Sunday, Musk fired back at the Vermont independent. “I keep forgetting that you’re still alive,” he wrote in a tweet. Musk followed that up with another message for Sanders. “Want me to sell more stock, Bernie?” he asked. “Just say the word …” Musk falls under Sanders’ description of “the extremely wealthy” as the...

Special Prosecutor Thomas Plymale dismissed all charges against Philip Barnett, who spent 10 years in prison for a crime DNA testing proved he did not commit. Charges were also dropped against his co-defendants Nathan Barnett, Philip’s brother, and Justin Black. A fourth defendant, Brian Dement, accepted a sentence modification of time served. All four men were convicted of the 2002 murder of a young woman in Cabell County, W.Va. “Today is a great day for the Barnett family; Philip and Nathan’s names are finally cleared. The DNA results from the crime scene evidence, which excluded Philip and Nathan and matched...

Actor Matthew McConaughey, who is weighing a gubernatorial bid in the state of Texas, is going to bat for universal mask wearing, expressing his belief that it does not take away an individual’s identity or freedom and asserting that no data exists showing the practice as harmful.

Former French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner was booed at a rally in support of murdered Jewish woman Sarah Halimi, whose alleged killer was not charged due to his heavy marijuana use. An estimated 20,000 people took to the streets of Paris on Sunday to protest the lack of a trial for the man who allegedly murdered 65-year-old Sarah Halimi in 2017, it is claimed, by pushing her out of the window of her Paris apartment while shouting “Allahu Akbar”. Several protests in support of Halimi were held in other cities in France, such as Montpellier, according to a report by...

Sarah Halimi was beaten before she was thrown off her Paris apartment building's roof in April 2017. (Courtesy of the Halimi family) (JTA) — Lawyers for the family of Sarah Halimi, a Jewish woman whose killer was deemed unfit to stand trial in France, say they want to have him tried in Israel. The idea articulated Wednesday in a statement by lawyers Francis Szpiner and Gilles-William Goldnadel is based on the fact that Israeli citizens may litigate in Israel over alleged anti-Semitic attacks abroad. Sarah Halimi’s sister, Esther Lekover, is an Israeli. “We regret that the situation has come to...

France's top court ruled on Wednesday that the killer of an elderly Jewish woman will not go on trial, France24 reported. Kobili Traoré admitted to murdering his neighbor, Sarah Halimi, in 2017. He shouted "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great" in Arabic, and "I killed the devil," shortly before throwing her off the balcony of her third-floor Paris apartment, The New York Times said. On Wednesday, the Court of Cassation - France's final court of appeal - affirmed two prior judgments that ruled that Traoré could not be held criminally responsible for his actions because he was in a state...

In honor of unofficial pot holiday April 20 (4/20), an organization repping country musician and marijuana enthusiast Willie Nelson is imploring President Joe Biden to declare the time a national week of cannabis celebration. An online petition to legitimize the “High Holidays” currently boasts 4,000 signatures. The document, penned by the iconic singer’s Texas-based concert team Luck Reunion, reads: “The fine people of Luck, Texas, and supporters of the great Willie Nelson, on behalf of cannabis users around the nation, are writing today to ask you to consider declaring the 9 days spanning April 20 to April 29 an official...

In Joe Biden's caretaker administration, it's amazing how many misdeeds can be erased through the useful tool of identity politics. Take his nomination Deb Haaland, a congresswoman representing greater Albuquerque, who's a registered member of a Native American tribe ... and a tax cheat, energy ignoramus, persistent welfare recipient, and marijuana booster, who has now advanced in the Senate as his nominee to run the $12 billion U.S. Department of the Interior. Her trump card in qualifications after all those red flags? That she's half-Native American and has mastered the identity politics games of victimhood. What could go wrong? Unlike,...

Hollywood film director Judd Apatow has claimed that President Donald Trump has “no issue” in killing Americans in order to win re-election. Apatow, known for The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Anchorman, and Talladega Nights, bashed Trump’s remarks about a vaccine for the Chinese coronavirus. Judd Apatow made the comments in response to a story from ABC News, which accused Trump of attempting to use the vaccine as a “political weapon” as part of the wider “wars on science.” “A president who admitted he downplayed the COVID-19 threat now says he actually ‘up-played’ it,” the ABC News story notes. “And he is maintaining...

If you're smoking weed to ease your stress during the coronavirus pandemic, experts say it's time to think twice. Smoking marijuana, even occasionally, can increase your risk for more severe complications from Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. "What happens to your airways when you smoke cannabis is that it causes some degree of inflammation, very similar to bronchitis, very similar to the type of inflammation that cigarette smoking can cause," said pulmonologist Dr. Albert Rizzo, chief medical officer for the American Lung Association. "Now you have some airway inflammation and you get an infection on top of...

SAN ANTONIO – Midway through a sold out two night stand at the Majestic Theater here, country music icon Willie Nelson said that in spite of recent breathing related health issues, he has no plans to give up touring. “I love the bus,” he told KSAT TV’s Paul Venema during a recent interview. “This is my home.” Performing, he says, is his key to happiness and good health. “It’s an energy exchange,” he said, describing his relationship with the audience. “They give me a lot of positive energy and I hope to give them a lot of positive energy.” He...

It’s like Michael Jordan retiring from the NBA. It’s like Donald Trump quitting Twitter. It’s like Lindsay Lohan forsaking drama. Willie Nelson has quit weed. The country icon — whose smoking habit was rivaled only by Snoop Dogg‘s — told KSAT TV, “I have abused my lungs quite a bit in the past, so breathing is a little more difficult these days and I have to be careful.”

... "I have abused my lungs quite a bit in the past, so breathing is a little more difficult these days and I have to be careful," Nelson, 86, said. Nelson had to postpone the tail end of his tour in August due to breathing issues. He resumed the tour the next month. "I started smoking cedar bark, went from that to cigarettes to whatever," Nelson told KSAT. "And that almost killed me." Now, he says, he's more conscientious about his health. "I don't smoke anymore -- take better care of myself."

A 26-year-old woman with dual American and Israeli citizenship who has been jailed in Russia since April after authorities allegedly found nine grams of cannabis in her luggage, has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison, her sister said. Naama Issachar's sister, Liad Gold, told Fox News on Sunday that her sister was sentenced Friday and the family has reached out to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for her. She said the prime minister called their mother the day of the sentencing to let her know that he will do everything he can to have her released...

Rocker David Crosby said in an op-ed published in the Daily Beast that President Donald Trump is “completely under the control of Russia” and suggested that the GOP intends to win again in 2020 with the help of the Kremlin. Crosby wondered what the Russians “have” on Trump, rehashing the egregious and unfounded allegations outlined in the anti-Trump Steele dossier. “It could be the alleged ‘pee tape,’ could be some truth to the whispers that Trump has been laundering Russian mob money for at least 20 years through his New York real estate deals, stashing illegal money in multimillion-dollar apartments...

Professor Donald Harris, Kamala’s Jamaican father, has taken offense at statements made during his daughter’s interview on the Breakfast Club radio show last week, specifically attributing her support for smoking marijuana to her Jamaican heritage. Professor Harris responded to the interview in a statement to jamaicaglobalonline.com: “My dear departed grandmothers(whose extraordinary legacy I described in a recent essay on this website), as well as my deceased parents , must be turning in their grave right now to see their family’s name, reputation and proud Jamaican identity being connected, in any way, jokingly or not with the fraudulent stereotype of a...