Free Republic

University of Rhode Island campus police will start carrying guns Friday, making it the final public university in the nation to arm its officers. The move to arm police came after a false alarm in 2013, when some students in a lecture hall thought they heard someone say they had a gun, setting off a panic on URI’s bucolic campus in South Kingstown. While campus police arrived at the scene in less than a minute, it took about five minutes for armed police from South Kingstown to arrive. No gun was ever found. […] A student government survey of URI...

The fallout from the “Deflategate” report released Wednesday remains very much up in the air (sorry), with most informed opinion pointing to at least a several-game suspension for quarterback Tom Brady. The media coverage of the report has focused largely on the highly-qualified language of its conclusion (“more probable than not” that Patriots staff cheated, and that Brady “was at least generally aware”), rather than on the far more damning details of the report. Patriots (and Brady) apologists like to point to this language as an indication that the report doesn’t meet the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard of proof,...

The world’s first nuclear powered aircraft carrier was moved into its birthplace dry dock at Huntington Ingalls’ Newport News Shipbuilding this weekend as part of the ongoing inactivation process. The aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise (CVN 65), was moved Saturday from Newport News’ Pier 2 to Dry Dock 11, where the super carrier was constructed over 60 years ago.

Happy International Workers Day, the perfect occasion to write about Bernie Sanders, an actual Socialist running for President. The jokes fairly assemble themselves, mostly along the lines of: Sanders is far from the first Socialist presidential candidate, he’s just the first to admit it. You may assemble your own snarky rejoinders as the cranky 73-year-old gears up a challenge to Ms. Inevitability, Hillary Clinton. But once the chuckles fade, it is worth noting that Sanders brings some wild cards to the table. None of them suggest strongly that he will be the nominee, but they do suggest that he could...

Former Sen. Lincoln Chafee said he is not convinced Hillary Clinton will be the presidential nominee for the Democratic Party. Clinton faces a primary challenge from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and potentially Chafee himself. When asked about Clinton being pushed further to the left, Chafee brought up the scandals surrounding the Clinton Foundation and lack of accomplishments. “I would argue that between what’s happening internationally in her tenure as Secretary of State, no real accomplishments, and now these new allegations coming out about the Clinton foundation and the book coming out next week. These are real,” Chafee said.

Was TWA Flight 800 shot out of the sky? As a former pilot, that is a question I get asked about all the time. I’m no conspiracy theorist, but let’s be clear: Yes. I say it was. And I believe the FBI covered it up. LOOK BACK: REPORTING THE CRASH OF TWA FLIGHT 800 ON JULY 17, 1996 There are many reasons to disbelieve the official explanation of what happened to TWA 800 almost 19 years ago, on July 17, 1996, off the South Shore of Long Island. There’s hardly an airline pilot among the hundreds I know who buys...

Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee said Thursday on CNN that he's running for the Democratic nomination for president, just a week after announcing he formed an exploratory committee, his most definitive statement he's made toward formalizing a 2016 campaign. "Yes, that's why I'm running. Because I feel strong about where we're going as a country," Chafee told CNN's "New Day" on Thursday, when asked why he's been so critical of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. Chafee was asked by CNN's John Berman in the context of having not formally declared his presidential campaign. Chafee spokeswoman Debbie Rich said Chafee did...

Hillary Clinton might have a new headache. On the eve of her presidential campaign launch, Lincoln Chafee, a former U.S. senator and governor from Rhode Island, announced Thursday that he is exploring a run for the Democratic presidential nomination. And unlike other potential Clinton challengers, Chafee appears to be spoiling for a fight.

Lincoln Chafee, a former governor and senator from Rhode Island, says he's exploring a run for the 2016 Democratic nomination. On a new web site, Chafee, who served as an independent as governor and a Republican in the United States Senate, says he's concerned about "international instability, especially in the Middle East and north Africa." "Throughout my career, I exercised good judgment on a wide range of high-pressure decisions, decisions that require level-headedness and careful foresight," he added. "Often these decisions came in the face of political adversity. During the next weeks and months I look forward to sharing with...

Few proposals in Governor Raimondo’s budget have sparked a more heated debate than her proposed “Obamacare tax.” The tax – technically, a “health reform assessment” fee – is the mechanism she’s settled on to pay for the state-run health insurance marketplace created to implement President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The federal government paid the startup costs for HealthSource RI – to the tune of nearly $170 million at last count – but it’s up to the states to figure out how to pay to keep it operating going forward. And that means the state has to come up with its...

On top of an $18.9 million Defense Department grant doled out in Sept. 2010, the Institute received $13.6 million from the Department of Education, according to USASpending.gov. In the 2009 federal budget, another $5.8 million was appropriated through the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services. The state of Massachusetts gave the University of Massachusetts $5 million, earmarked for the Institute. As a senator in 2010, current Sec. of State John Kerry waged an unsuccessful attempt to earmark another $28.9 million for the museum ... the $18.9 million Defense Department earmark was “funneled through the Defense...

Currently, 61 members of Congress have confirmed they will not attend the speech. Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) California Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) — “I am disappointed Speaker Boehner chose to irresponsibly interject politics into what has long been a strong and bipartisan relationship between the United States and Israel. As President Obama has noted, it is inappropriate for a Head of State to address Congress just two weeks ahead of their election. I agree that Congress should not be used as a prop in Israeli election campaigns,...

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island — The new director of Rhode Island's health insurance exchange is making a case for keeping the state-run marketplace, as some lawmakers are calling for its demise. HealthSource RI has served as a model among the state-run marketplaces. Most other states use the federal exchange. Director Anya Rader Wallack says Rhode Island can use the state exchange as a tool to innovate and control health care costs in ways it couldn't if it switched. Gov. Gina Raimondo supports keeping the program in Rhode Island. But some say it isn't worth it. A group of lawmakers, led by...

US senator said that United States would continue to help Peshmerga forces in providing air support, training and with provision of arms ERBIL, Iraq The Kurdistan Regional Government’s president, Masoud Barzani, met with U.S. Senator Jack Reed, who is ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on Saturday, an official statement said. According to the official statement, Barzani and the U.S. senator discussed the progress of the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and U.S.- led coalition support for Peshmerga forces. During the visit, Barzani expressed his gratefulness to the U.S. senator and the American...

Weeks after the New England Patriots’ Super Bowl victory the DeflateGate scandal continues to rumble on in the background. According to ESPN’s Outside the Lines, a Patriots locker room attendant attempted to introduce an unapproved special teams ball into the AFC Championship game. The attendant, identified by ESPN as Jim McNally, is said to have been in charge of the officials’ locker room at Gilette Stadium since 2008. He is alleged to have handed a ball, which wasn’t officially approved for kick-offs, field goals and punts to an official during the first-half of the Patriots’ 45-7 victory over the Colts.

State legislators around the country have introduced more than 200 bills aiming to nullify regulations and laws coming out of Washington, D.C., as they look to rein in the federal government. The legislative onslaught, which includes bills targeting federal restrictions on firearms, experimental treatments and hemp, reflects growing discord between the states and Washington, state officials say. “You have a choice,” said Kentucky state Rep. Diane St. Onge (R). “To sit back and not do anything or say anything and let overregulation continue — or you have the alternative choice to speak up about it and say, ‘We know what...

**SNIP** He handed the bank teller a note, which asked for a donation to be made to his church, according to documents filed in court. Rhode Island police believe that the former professor, who currently lives in a Boston suburb, is responsible for a similar heist at a bank in Providence. According to the Providence Journal, a middle-aged man robbed a Citizens Bank in November, telling the clerk who handed over $3,000, 'Thank you, this is for the church.' The Post reports that while waiting to be arraigned for the incident on New Year's Eve, Gibbons told another man who...

The Supreme Court of Rhode Island has unanimously ruled that that the constitutional rights of two Catholic Providence firefighters were not violated when they were forced to drive a fire truck in a gay pride parade despite their religious objections to the homosexual lifestyle. Prior to the 2001 Providence gay pride parade, Roman Catholic firefighters Theodore Fabrizio and Stephen Deninno were assigned by the city to drive a fire truck in the parade. Although the two men asked city officials to to be reassigned in light of their religious objection to homosexuality, their request for reassignment was denied. After 10...

The Rhode Island Supreme Court has thrown out lawsuits brought by two Providence firefighters who said their constitutional rights were violated when they were ordered to drive a truck in a gay pride parade despite their religious objections.The firefighters, Theodore Fabrizio and Stephen Deninno, argued that they are Roman Catholics and therefore do not support or condone homosexuality. Justice William Robinson, writing for all five members of the high court this month, said the men appeared in the 2001 parade as public servants who were “relatively anonymous.” He called it a legitimate work assignment. …