Free Republic

On Friday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer mocked the Republican tactic of using the budget process to defund President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care reform law. Krauthammer called the House’s vote to defund the law “Kabuki” and warned that it would come back to haunt congressional Republicans. “I think the Boehner speech is what you would expect,” Krauthammer said. “He didn’t want to do it. He had to do it, so he had to defend it, and that’s Kabuki. I think it’s going to go to the Senate and if we end up...

Let Johnny Manziel be himself By Kevin Van Valkenburg There is a vocal contingent of college football fans, and an even louder collection of media pundits, sports moralists and general know-it-alls, who cannot wait for Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel to grow the hell up. -snip- I want him to put on the black hat, so to speak, and score 100 touchdowns, steal 100 girlfriends, draw 100 penalties, and apologize for nothing. If he played the rest of the season like a cross between Ric Flair and Roddy Piper, I'd be ecstatic. I'd high-five my television screen. If he makes...

This past week, U.S. District Court Judge Roger Titus dismissed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's contention that the use of criminal background checks for prospective employees unfairly discriminates against minorities. Titus labeled the EEOC's arguments “laughable.” EEOC Chairwoman Jacqueline Berrien called the Judge's ruling “clearly erroneous. Statistics show that minorities represent a disproportionate share of those convicted of crimes. A hiring policy that screens out persons with a criminal history will inevitably screen out more minorities. This is illegal.” Berrien conceded that “businesses may feel uncomfortable with the idea of hiring those with criminal records, but this must be balanced...

<p>Makhaela Jenkins is being banned from football by an Ohio school district.</p> <p>An Ohio school district is refusing to let a seventh-grade girl play football, prompting requests that the board change its policies on female athletes.</p> <p>Liberty Union-Thurston District superintendent Paul Mathews said the longstanding policy doesn't violate any gender-related regulations, because the district offers girls other, non-contact athletic options.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. was sentenced to two and a half years in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to scheming to spend $750,000 in campaign funds on TV's, restaurant dinners, an expensive watch and other costly personal items. His wife received a sentence of one year.</p>

Gov. Martin O’Malley’s office has announced the appointment of a diverse group of four new judges to the Baltimore City District Court on Aug. 13. Kevin Wilson and Martin Dominic are African American; Mark Franklin Scurti and Nicole Pastore Klein are White. “I am pleased to appoint such an accomplished and diverse group of candidates to serve on the Baltimore City District Court,” said O’Malley, in a statement released the same day. “These appointees will bring to the bench a broad range of legal expertise and a true commitment to public service.” Wilson took the former position of just-retired District...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has proposed a new plan to change U.S. neighborhoods it says are racially imbalanced or are too tilted toward rich or poor, arguing the country's housing policies have not been effective at creating the kind of integrated communities the agency had hoped for. The proposed federal rule, called "Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing," is currently under a 60-day public comment period. Though details of how the policy would specifically work are unclear, the rule says HUD would provide states, local governments and others who receive agency money with data and a geospatial tool to...

PHILADELPHIA--The stench of injustice has spilled over with the nauseating smell of institutional murder once again. Left unchanged, this injustice will linger until the next injustice, and the next case…until we finally get it: public policy, in the form of reparations, is the solution to all of our social ills and the injustices that frame our existence. It’s time to rethink our demands and actions. Reparations is a word to describe what can be done to help victims of chattel enslavement overcome the horrific generational damage that they suffered and the means to give them back their dignity and to...

Trayvon Martin’s friend Rachel Jeantel will enjoy a full ride to any historically black college or university of her choosing thanks to radio personality, philanthropist, and media executive Tom Joyner. The 63-year-old made an offer to pay for all of Jeantel’s education needs on open air July 16, and the 19-year-old accepted in an interview on HLN the following day. “If there’s something that I can help her do—that she wants to do—I want to help,” Joyner said during a phone interview with Jeantel and her attorney, Rod Vereen, during The Tom Joyner Show. Joyner made the offer after viewing...

The National Black Church Initiative (NBCI) , an organization representing 34,000 Black churches, is staging a rally July 15 at noon in front of the Justice Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. to protest the verdict in the murder trial of George Zimmerman. The NBCI, which has been among the leading advocates for justice in the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., is calling for the demonstration to buttress demands for the Justice Department to launch a prosecution under federal civil rights laws of George Zimmerman, who was found not guilty July 13 by a Florida Circuit Court jury...

Wells dry up and underwater tables fall so fast in the Middle East and parts of India, China and the US that food supplies are seriously threatened, a leading resource analyst has warned. Lester Brown, head of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, claims that 18 countries, together containing half the world's people, are overpumping their underground water tables to the point – known as "peak water" – where they are not replenishing and where harvests are getting smaller each year. The situation is most serious in the Middle East. According to Brown: "Among the countries whose water supply has...

For two consecutive Sunday somebody's carelessness with a gun left a minor in our metropolitan area dead. On June 23, a New Orleans mother Laderika Smith said she locked her 5-year-old daughter Brandajah inside a bedroom on North Galvez Street before leaving the house to go to the store. Apparently, the child found a .38 revolver in the closet and accidentally shot herself in the head.A week later in Marrero, 23-year-old Christian Cardon of Gretna was reportedly showing off his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle to a group of friends. Cardon told Jefferson Parish Sheriff's deputies that he had left the magazine...

For reasons that have eluded people forever, many of us seem bent on our own destruction. Recently more human beings have been dying by suicide annually than by murder and warfare combined. Despite the progress made by science, medicine and mental-health care in the 20th century — the sequencing of our genome, the advent of antidepressants, the reconsidering of asylums and lobotomies — nothing has been able to drive down the suicide rate in the general population. In the United States, it has held relatively steady since 1942. Worldwide, roughly one million people kill themselves every year. Last year, more...

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Black activists marked the 42nd anniversary of the War on Drugs with a protest in front of the White House aimed at ending a targeted action that has led to the disproportionate arresting, conviction and incarceration of Blacks for decades. The Institute of the Black World 21st Century, an organization dedicated to the empowerment of the Black community, mobilized a network of community groups last Monday for the “day of direct action.” Workers on their lunch breaks and a few tourists paused to snap cell phone photos of the group of activists as they marched, led by...

ItÂ’s commencement season. College seniors across the country are donning mortarboards, getting misty-eyed and preparing to face the realities of President Barack ObamaÂ’s sparkling economic recovery. The Daily Caller is a little misty-eyed, too, because college students will soon disperse from campuses for a long summer, which likely means far fewer stories about stupid and otherwise outrageous occurrences on campus. The time is right, then, to celebrate the academic year that was. Here are the 20 stupidest, most outrageous and most cringe-worthy campus moments of 2012-13. Florida Atlantic University: Worst university in AmericaWhat an embarrassing year for Florida Atlantic. The...

To date, 80 North Carolina residents have squeezed their savings for the bragging right of owning the Tesla Model S electric car, some paying more than $100,000 for their g-force ride, but they may be among the last. A legislative proposal, backed by the N.C. Automobile Dealers Association, would make it illegal for Tesla, or any other car maker, to bypass dealerships and sell directly in the state. The proposal cuts at the heart of Tesla’s business model: selling luxury cars over the phone or Internet and then delivering them to the front door of high-net-worth customers. **SNIP** The whole...

For a man who regards Brussels as the biggest threat to Britain’s freedom since the Second World War, the choice of beer for Nigel Farage was obvious when we met at the Westminster Arms on Friday: Spitfire. It is brewed by Shepherd Neame in Kent to celebrate the Battle of Britain. Farage, a man of Kent, gulped down the first pint in 15 minutes, ordered a ‘reload,’ polishing off his second in another ten; and the moment we stepped outside, he lit up a fag.

PHOENIX -- When members of the student council at an Arizona high school organized a schoolwide "Redneck Day" and encouraged classmates to dress — and spoof — accordingly, they hoped to build school spirit leading up to prom week. Instead, "Redneck Day" at Queen Creek High School has angered African-Americans and civil-rights leaders and touched off a debate about free speech, social stereotypes and good taste. Tom Lindsey, superintendent of the Queen Creek Unified School District, said the only intent of Wednesday's event was to satirize the A&E reality TV show "Duck Dynasty," which follows a family of duck hunters...

..gunfire scattered thousands attending Saturday's 4/20 counterculture holiday, the first since Colorado legalized marijuana.

Maryland made national news recently for a "rain tax" to start July 1. The tax, an unfunded mandate originating with the Environmental Protection Agency and cemented by the state legislature and governor last year, means homeowners, businesses and nonprofits in certain counties will pay a fee based on the amount of "impervious surfaces" on their property. It is supposed to raise about $482 million annually. Satellite imagery will help counties comply with the law, designed to reduce runoff into the Chesapeake Bay. Call it the 'Drones for the Bay' program. The "Free State" is a Petri dish for progressive causes...