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(CNSNews.com) – Attorney General Loretta Lynch acknowledged Wednesday that there have been discussions within the Department of Justice about possibly pursuing legal action against so-called climate change deniers. “This matter has been discussed. We have received information about it and have referred it to the FBI to consider whether or not it meets the criteria for which we could take action on,” Lynch said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Justice Department operations.Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) raised the issue, drawing a comparison between possible civil action against climate change deniers and civil action that the Clinton administration pursued against...

This election will include yet another public referendum on the topics of climate change, global warming, greenhouse gases and all the rest. With that in mind, we should probably prepare for a healthy, spirited debate of the subject. But if you happen to be somewhat skeptical of the science being offered by the anthropogenic global warming crowd, you may want to watch what you say. The Justice Department is listening and they may be considering legal action against all of you heretics. Jon Street reports from the scene of yesterday’s meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee. During Lynch’s testimony at...

Two weeks ago, the University released the final version of its diversity and inclusion action plan, which could not have been compiled without the exhaustive efforts of students throughout last semester. “There are people breaking down, dropping out of classes and failing classes because of the activism work they are taking on,” said David, an undergraduate whose name has been changed to preserve anonymity. Throughout the year, he has worked to confront issues of racism and diversity on campus.

Governor Raimondo’s proposed new truck-tolls, headed this week for House and Senate votes, may cost Rhode Island business, according to an announcement Saturday by Ocean State Job Lot. The company said it is putting on hold its "plan for expansion within the state," specifically what it described as a 500,000-square-foot, $50-million distribution center. At a Saturday morning news conference at Ocean State Job Lot's new store at 5947 Post Road in North Kingstown, David Sarlitto, the company’s executive director, issued this statement: "At the re-location opening of its flagship store in North Kingstown today, Job Lot announced its opposition to...

Gun rights is a topic which seems all too readily broken down among racial lines if you get all of your news from cable TV or the New York Times. Black Americans don’t like guns and white people are just crazy about them, right? (Or just crazy, I suppose.) But while there are some definite trends to support the stereotype, no group is ever as homogeneous as the press would have you believe. While I rarely turn to NPR for my news, I ran across an interesting interview this month conducted by Karen Grigsby Bates, speaking with one black gun...

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Black people are disproportionately victimized by gun violence, and prominent African-American leaders are among those calling for tighter gun control. Yet as Karen Grigsby Bates of NPR's Code Switch team found out, many other African-Americans believe that owning guns is crucial to protecting themselves and their rights. KAREN GRIGSBY BATES, BYLINE: Know how some people can't do without something? April Howard has three possessions that are non-negotiable. APRIL HOWARD: I have a .22, a .38 and a rifle. BATES: And she's keeping them all. Howard's had guns for several years now, the result of a close call...

Many images that came out of Ferguson, Mo., last month looked like scenes from Birmingham, Ala., in the 1960s: the gun-wielding police officers, the sign-carrying protesters and the chants demanding equal treatment and human dignity. But that’s where the similarities ended. For all the righteous indignation it inspired, the Ferguson turmoil has become the latest in a series of flash-in-the-pan causes that peter out without inspiring lasting movements for racial justice. As an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Mississippi during the ’60s, what I learned was the importance of organizing at the grass-roots and how even...

The liberals at National Public Radio can’t really imagine guns being necessary for anything...unless perhaps it’s to keep Southern segregationists at bay. On Thursday afternoon’s Tell Me More talk show, host Michel Martin brought on Charles Cobb, who wrote the book This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made The Civil Rights Movement Possible. She called it a “hiding in plain sight story” and asked why he wrote the book: COBB: I'm very conscious of the gaps in the history, and one important gap in the history and the portrayal of the movement is the role of guns in...

Most Americans are unaware of the connection between the civil rights movement and the Second Amendment. Via Guns.com: Charles Cobb, a professor and former activist, is telling the little known story of how guns protected the non-violent, civil rights advocates of the 1960s in a new book. A noted journalist and professor at Brown University, Cobb recently published, “This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed,” a look at firearms inside the Civil Rights movement, which includes a firsthand account of his experiences. Cobb maintained in a recent interview with NPR that he witnessed the untold story of guns inside the civil...

In his new book, This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made The Civil Rights Movement Possible, journalist Charles Cobb shows how important guns were not only to leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. but also to many black Southerners who "believed in both nonviolence and self-defense."

The nation's capital is now under a blizzard watch, the first watch of its kind issued in advance of Winter Storm Jonas. Now is the time to prepare for Winter Storm Jonas, which is expected to kick into high gear Friday and pummel parts of the East through the weekend with heavy accumulations of snow and ice. Strong winds will likely add to the threat of power outages and may also bring serious coastal flooding along parts of the Atlantic coast. The National Weather Service issued the blizzard watch late Wednesday morning for Washington, D.C., and nearby Baltimore. The watch...

During the last half of 2015, a specter haunted the Republican "invisible primary" for the 2016 presidential nomination: an independent run for president by Donald Trump that would split the GOP base and send a Democrat gliding into the White House. As he consolidated a position in the polls as the GOP front-runner, Trump was maneuvered into signing a party loyalty pledge (required to get onto the ballot in South Carolina), and then ruled out an indie run at and after a December candidate debate. With a guy like Trump, an abandonment of this doubled-down oath is always possible, especially...

Prosecutors: Gun used to kill Officer Sean Collier . A man who loaned a gun used by the Boston Marathon bombers to kill a police officer was sentenced Tuesday to the 17 months he has already served and apologized, saying his actions were "dumb." I was young, dumb, and thought I could outsmart everyone," 22-year-old Stephen Silva told a judge in U.S. District Court. He pleaded guilty to gun and heroin distribution charges last year.

A New England police union is poised to formally throw its support behind Republican front runner Donald Trump at an event in New Hampshire Thursday. Trump Flynn The New England Police Benevolent Association will be holding a "presidential candidate's forum" in Portsmouth tomorrow night for the purposes of endorsing a candidate. Donald Trump is scheduled to appear, his campaign tells Seacoast Online. According to NEPBA executive director Jerry Flynn, the union will be endorsing Trump, "or no one." But if Flynn's personal Facebook page is any indication, the regional union will be standing with The Donald. There, Flynn wrote Trump...

In the current issue of National Review, I have a piece called “Underground at Brown.” What’s it about? I’ll tell you. In fact, I’ll blow that piece out — i.e., expand it — here in Impromptus. At Brown University, in Providence, R.I., there is a secret forum in which students may discuss potentially controversial issues freely. Let me say that again: At Brown, there is a secret forum in which students may discuss potentially controversial issues — or anything they want — freely.

Joy Pullmann, a nationally-recognized education expert, claims that "normal people in fly-over country" feel exploited by cultural and political elites who have moved from not listening to the people, to exploiting them. What worries the education expert - who is now the managing editor of The Federalist - the most about a Hillary Clinton presidency is "the distaste factor" stemming from the former secretary of state raising her child with nannies. According to Pullmann, Hillary is "so out of touch" with so little to share with parents. Pullmann continues in the exclusive interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation by...

Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee withdrew Friday from the Democratic presidential race, further narrowing the already thin field of competitors facing front-runner Hillary Clinton. Chafee, who has struggled to gain traction in the polls, announced his decision at a Women's Leadership Forum conference where other candidates also were speaking. "After much thought I have decided to end my campaign for president today," Chafee said, while reminding the audience of his "prosperity through peace" campaign slogan. Appealing for less U.S. military intervention abroad, he said: "I would like to take this opportunity one last time to advocate for a chance...

It’s over. The Democratic Party’s first debate just ended, and my main takeaway is how sad it is that the party of JFK has been reduced to five elderly white people arguing over who can out nut-job each other. For all his problems, Kennedy was a tax-cutting anti-communist who loved and defended this country whose values have no place in today’s Democratic Party. I don’t know what country those candidates were talking about, but it sounds awful. It has a rigged system that keeps down minorities, women, gays, men, aliens, animals, trees, anything living and most things dead. But somehow...

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Frontrunner Clinton prepares to debate surging Sanders Hillary Clinton faces heavy pressure during the first Democratic presidential debate Tuesday to outperform primary rivals cutting into her lead and perhaps keep her biggest potential challenger on the sidelines. Vice President Biden, still mulling a bid, is not expected to be on stage in Las Vegas. But he’ll surely be watching as the former secretary of state spars in person for the first time with her 2016 Democratic opponents. And those candidates have not been shy about casting Clinton as a calculating candidate swaying with the political winds. Most recently, Clinton has...