Free Republic

A DOTD project manager has informed a citizen committee that they must limit their discussion to DOTD's selected proposals for the Interstate 49 extension or resign from the committee. The order, issued in an Tuesday email to the Community Working Group, came from Toby Picard, the engineer who is project manager for the proposed connection of Interstate 49 with U.S. 90 south. There currently are 14 versions of the connection, all of which include at least a partially elevated highway through the heart of Lafayette. These are the only options that are acceptable for discussion by the committee, Picard's email...

Natural hair braiders like Nutall had excelled in their craft for years, learning braiding from their mothers and grandmothers. But now, the state was telling them they had to log more than 1,500 hours of education through an eight-week course with costs topping $12,000,

(Rome) In presenting the renewed women's supplement of Ossservatore Romano "Donne Chiesa Mondo" (Women Church World) all speakers appealed to Pope Francis, including Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin. "The decisive factor was Pope Francis' statement, to increase the proportion of women in the newsroom," said Giovanni Maria Vian, editor of the "daily newspaper of the Pope". "If we are ready now, then that's all to the merit of Pope Francis. He said: 'This is the hour of the laity', and women are all laity," said the feminist Luisa Muraro, author in the current issue of the women's supplement of...

Textbooks in Pakistan that are used to teach about 41 million children, negatively portray religious minorities such as Christians and Hindus, referring to them as "nefarious, violent, and tyrannical by nature." (Reuters/Kham)Third-grade level students attend class at the Mashal Model School on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan. "Pakistan's public school textbooks contain deeply troubling content that portrays non-Muslim citizens as outsiders, unpatriotic, and inferior; are filled with errors; and present widely-disputed historical 'facts' as settled history," said Robert George in a press release. George is the chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). A study done by...

We urge all out progressive readers to sign our petition calling on Donald Trump to stop his reactionary support of private charities, stop being generous, and let the state take care of people! The state always is there to help the oppressed and the downtrodden. Donald Trump's theatrics include handing a scholarship for the former Miss Wisconsin's son, flying an ill boy, giving a simple bus driver money, and giving donations to veteran groups. Instead, Mr. Trump should consider expanding government services, where thousands of caring bureaucrats can help the toiling masses as a class, according to their needs. It...

A State Department staffer who oversaw security and technology issues for Hillary Clinton is refusing to answer Senate investigators’ questions about the former secretary of state’s use of a private email server — marking the second time an ex-State employee has declined to talk to lawmakers. John Bentel, a now-retired State employee who managed IT security issues for the top echelon at the department, declined to be interviewed by GOP staff on the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security committees, according to a letter obtained by POLITICO. The chairmen of both committees, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), are...

TEL AVIV – A non-profit at the center of controversy regarding its campaign to defeat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Tuesday’s polls has removed the State Department from its website’s list of “partners,” WND has learned.Below is a snapshot taken by WND last month, which clearly shows the U.S. Department of State, replete with a logo, listed as a “partner” of the OneVoice Movement on the group’s website. image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2015/03/state-department-scrubbed-600.jpgInternet Archive’s Wayback Machine also has a cache image taken in 2014 showing the State Department listed on the same “partner” page.The State Department logo is missing from the current...

Attorney General Loretta Lynch confirmed to Congress last week that career Justice Department attorneys are working with FBI agents on the ongoing criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email practices and possible public corruption at the Clinton Foundation. According to legal experts, this gives agents "access to the U.S. government’s full investigative tool box, including subpoena power for individuals, business or phone records, as well as witnesses." Fox News legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano says that if Lynch presents their evidence to a grand jury, "Mrs. Clinton will be indicted." Judge Napoitano reported on Fox News this morning that the final...

The U.S. just approved the sale of eight F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan ostensibly for humanitarian reasons, but GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher finds the sale appalling, saying it will disturb the peace. "He is appalled by the sale, which is not conducive to peace in the region, the security of Balochistan, or our own national interest," Kenneth Grubbs, communications director Rohrabacher, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. The Department of State announced Friday it was pushing ahead with the $700 million deal with Islamabad. With the F-16s in hand, the U.S. hopes Pakistan will ensure militants are unable to maintain...

Anarchists did not try to carry out genocide against the Armenians in Turkey; they did not deliberately starve millions of Ukrainians; they did not create a system of death camps to kill Jews, gypsies, and Slavs in Europe; they did not fire-bomb scores of large German and Japanese cities and drop nuclear bombs on two of them; they did not carry out a ‘Great Leap Forward’ that killed scores of millions of Chinese; they did not attempt to kill everybody with any appreciable education in Cambodia; they did not launch one aggressive war after another; they did not implement trade...

The E! News sensibility has finally permeated the Oval Office. Tonight on the White House website there will be a first ever Station of the Union address pre-show. It begins at 8pm and is hosted by Terrence Jenkins on the White House website. There may be an audience since it’s coming “straight from the theater at the Executive Office Building.” According to a press release, Jenkins, “an acclaimed author,”… has been a “co-host of BET’s hit show 106 & Park and more recently as the co-anchor of E! NEWS with Giuliana Rancic. Up next, Jenkins will STAR opposite Paula Patton...

The FBI is investigating whether Hillary Clinton's State Department improperly directed contracts to Clinton Foundation donors, in possible violation of public corruption laws, Fox News is reporting. Three sources confirmed the previously-unknown investigation angle to Fox reporters Catherine Herridge and Pamela Browne. "The agents are investigating the possible intersection of Clinton Foundation donations, the dispensation of State Department contracts and whether regular processes were followed," one law enforcement source told Fox. Examples abound of Clinton’s State Department opening doors for Clinton Foundation donors, as well as to the then-secretary of state’s friends and political allies.

“This is precisely why I called for a halt to refugees entering the U.S. from countries substantially controlled by terrorists. I once again urge the President to halt the resettlement of these refugees in the United States until there is an effective vetting process that will ensure refugees do not compromise the safety of Americans and Texans.” Abbott is absolutely right. “Terror arrests reported in Sacramento, Houston and Milwaukee,” by Denny Walsh and Sam Stanton, Sacramento Bee, January 7, 2016: Federal agents have arrested a terror suspect in Sacramento, along with two others in Houston and Milwaukee in a case...

MATT LEE, ASSOCIATED PRESS: And then the last one is – and every time this happens, the line comes out from people in this Administration and other governments as well, is that we will not accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state, and yet, it is. You also say this about other things too. You say you will never accept Crimea as a part of Russia. And yet, it is. Isn't it time to recognize these things for what they are and not live in this illusion or fantasy where you pretend that things that are, are not? ADMIRAL JOHN...

The State Department has told Senate investigators it cannot find backup copies of emails sent by Bryan Pagliano, the top Hillary Clinton IT staffer who maintained her email server but has asserted his Fifth Amendment right and refused to answer questions on the matter. State officials told the Senate Judiciary Committee in a recent closed-door meeting that they could not locate what’s known as a “.pst file” for Pagliano's work during Clinton's tenure, which would have included copies of the tech expert's emails, according to a letter Chairman Chuck Grassley sent to Secretary of State John Kerry that was obtained...

One of the goals of Californians who traveled to Paris for climate talks this week was to showcase green-energy businesses that are succeeding in the state. But on Monday it was the “coercive power” of government for which Gov. Jerry Brown was seeking credit.

ISIS can export jihadis to the United States–such as Tashfeen Malik, who killed 14 in San Bernardino–by going online and arranging 90-day fiancé visas for as little as $375. Since 2009, President Barack Obama’s deputies have streamlined the process so that it can all be accomplished completely online–without any face-to-face check with a U.S. embassy official. There were 24,486,536 tourist, business and other arrivals in the U.S. from residents of the 38 friendly nations on the U.S. Visa Waiver Program. Since Obama took office, the number of visas issued per year to non-friendly, non-waiver residents has jumped by over 50...

A suburban Houston school district police officer who pulled over a female motorist and then asked to lick her feet has been sentenced to 1 year in jail.

Amid a raging national debate on guns, a bust in New York City highlights a problem for police in crime-plagued urban areas. While officers can control illegal gun sales in their cities, they have been at a loss to stop the flow of firearms from places with looser laws. Eight people from three states have been arrested and charged with buying guns legally in Atlanta and Pittsburgh and bringing them to New York, sometimes aboard low-cost Chinatown buses. “I sell guns,” alleged trafficking ringleader Michael Bassier was caught saying on a wiretap, according to prosecutors. “I’ve got two Mac 10s

State Department says classified material on Hillary's home-brew server was so sensitive that the safe it gave her lawyer to store the emails wasn't secure enough The State Department has told Senate investigators that it didn't provide Hillary Rodham Clinton's lawyer with a secure-enough method to read now-highly classified material from her homebrew email server because it didn't anticipate that the messages would be deemed so secret. In July, State Department officials installed a safe at the office of attorney David Kendall after the government determined some of Clinton's emails may have contained classified information. But it said last week...