Free Republic

However, another rule is set to take effect soon that might just take the cake. Or pizza, in this case: The nation’s franchise restaurants are about one month away from the imposition of new nutritional-labeling rules dreamed up by the Obama administration, another gift of the grievously misnamed Affordable Care Act. For outlets of brands with 20 or more locations, that means posting signs in the shop with calorie counts for every item on the menu and for every variation on that item. That’s probably not such a big deal if you are, say, Raising Cane’s, and your menu ranges...

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday vowed to shutter Rikers Island and replace it with “at least a few new facilities” to lock up jailbirds elsewhere in the city. “New York City will close the Rikers Island jail facility,” de Blasio said during a City Hall news conference. “It will take many years, it will take many tough decisions along the way. But it will happen.” But de Blasio stopped short of adopting the recommendations in a draft report from a blue-ribbon panel headed by former New York state Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman. That plan calls for building a new...

This from Associated Press: "A mass grave containing the remains of babies and young children has been discovered at a former Catholic orphanage in Ireland, government-appointed investigators announced Friday in a finding that offered the first conclusive proof following a historian's efforts to trace the fates of nearly 800 children who perished there." "A great many people are always asking what is the good of keeping these children alive? I quite agree that it would be a great deal kinder to strangle these children at birth than to put them out to nurse." -- Doctor Ella Webb, June 18, 1924,...

After watching the second televised debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in October 2016—a battle between the first female candidate nominated by a major party and an opponent who’d just been caught on tape bragging about sexually assaulting women—Maria Guadalupe, an associate professor of economics and political science at INSEAD, had an idea. Millions had tuned in to watch a man face off against a woman for the first set of co-ed presidential debates in American history. But how would their perceptions change, she wondered, if the genders of the candidates were switched? She pictured an actress playing Trump,...

California Congresswoman, Maxine Waters is known for her gaffes and ultra left wing ideological beliefs. Here is she is right after Obama won his second term bragging about his extensive database on everyone.

....senior White House adviser was photographed kneeling on a couch in the Oval Office while the President met with leaders of historically black colleges...but social media users took offense at her sitting on the furniture in heels.

In 49 B.C., Julius Caesar, governor of Gaul, and his legion forded the Rubicon, the dividing line between Gaul and Italy, and marched on Rome, thus declaring civil war. Rome was the last of the free cities that had existed throughout the Mediterranean. They had vanished and finally only Rome, a republic, remained. Her people were free citizens of the republic, not subjects of a single ruler. The Roman Republic of a thousand years ended with Caesar’s invasion and the Roman Empire and rule of emperors – actually dictators – began. The founders of our republic drew in part from...

Two men gave Detroit police a fright of their lives as they entered a local station while wearing guns to file a complaint. The men, one of who is known only as 'Brandon', filmed themselves walking into Dearborn Police Station in Michigan to complain. In the video, which was filmed on a snowy day, one of the men, who is wearing a ski mask and glasses, says: 'We're going to go in and file a complaint because we were illegally pulled over about an hour ago.

Everyone in Italy and the rest of Europe will "soon be Muslim" because of our "stupidity", warned Monsignor Carlo Liberati, Archbishop Emeritus of Pompei. Liberati claimed that, thanks to the huge number of Muslim migrants alongside the increasing secularism of native Europeans, Islam will soon become the main religion of Europe. "All of this moral and religious decadence favours Islam", Archbishop Liberati explained. Décadence is also the title of a new book by the French philosopher Michel Onfray, in which he suggests that the Judeo-Christian era may have come to an end. He compares the West and Islam: "We have...

FULL TITLE: Activist who was walking across America barefoot to raise awareness of climate change is hit and killed by SUV A man who was hiking across America barefoot on the side of highways to 'save the earth' was struck by a Buick SUV and died Saturday. Mark Baumer, 33, began his shoeless trek in October. His journey aimed to raise awareness and funds for the FANG Collective, a Rhode Island organization that supports nonviolent resistance to the natural gas industry. Florida Highway Patrol confirmed Baumer was hit on the side of Highway 90 in Walton County. He was pronounced...

Is there a coup underway, while America is in the transition period, and before Trump swears in as the 45th president of the United States? How real is the clash between the rogue Manhattan billionaire and the intelligence gang behind the throne? Who will win the struggle for power over foreign policy? These are serious times and require serious considerations. The U.S. sent an entire armored brigade to the Russian border, and Vladimir Putin is preparing as if for war. Missile defense systems are raised; tall claims and serious charges have been leveled; diplomatic relations have chilled to a permafrost....

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders will participate in a prime-time CNN Town Hall next week just as the Republican-controlled 115th Congress and President-elect Donald Trump begin to roll out their agendas. Sanders, the progressive icon who challenged Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, will sit down with CNN's Chris Cuomo. The one-hour event will be held at George Washington University on January 9 at 9 p.m. ET and will air on CNN, CNN International and CNN en Espanol. It also will be live-steamed online and across mobile via CNNgo and CNN SiriusXM channel 116. Sanders will take questions on major...

On the list of surprising visitors calling on president-elect Donald Trump last week, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas ranks right up there with alleged Secretary of State candidate Mitt Romney. While Romney who called Trump a “phony” and talked openly about derailing his candidacy during the campaign had an actual job attached to the meeting with his former nemesis on Saturday, Cruz’s visit was billed as more of a drop-by. It’s true that after the name-calling between Cruz and Trump (who tagged him “Lyin’ Ted’) during the primary campaign; after Trump’s derogatory comments about Cruz’s wife; after Trump’s suggestion that...

"It’s easy to point to these small, impoverished towns and name racism, the second amendment or plain stupidity as the only reasons why these people would ever vote for a man like Donald Trump. I find this to be highly intellectually dishonest, though. To write this off as simple racism is to ignore the very real and very heartbreaking struggles small town America faces."

A 10-day losing streak for the euro against the U.S. dollar is rekindling an old debate: Will the single currency reach parity with the dollar? In the last two weeks, the euro has fallen 4% against the dollar, hitting $1.06, a level last seen 12 months ago.

Britain and the US appear to be going through similar crises of identity. Across the pond, Donald Trump’s incredibly divisive victory has seen protests across the country. The state of the UK isn’t much better: Theresa May’s Brexit bumbling and the High Court’s decision to leave Article 50 to an MPs' vote has left the country thoroughly frustrated. But there seems to be a solution forming in the minds of Britons: Poach the American leaving office.

Developers say they'll have enough food, water and electricity to live off the grid for a yearThere's a group of North Texans preparing for impending doom. But they're not just stockpiling guns and provisions. They'll have underground bunkers, tunnels and even a DNA vault. Make no mistake, they plan to live in luxury and style. underway on a unique new neighborhood called Trident Lakes. Over the next few years, fields of grass will conceal 400 underground bunkers, a tunnel system and even a vault to store DNA. It's all part of a plan to prepare for any impending doomsday. "You...

Here in the Valley, we’d prefer our technology to be free of annoying social complexities. We’re extremely good at imagining a world where a particular innovation has won the day, but we’re also pretty talented at ignoring the messy transitions necessary to actually get there. Our most current case in point is the autonomous vehicle. The received wisdom in the Valley is that the technology for self-driving cars is already here — we just have to wait a few years while the slowpokes in Washington get with the program. Within five years, we’ll all be autopiloted around — free to spend our otherwise unproductive...

Tourists in Indonesia ignored instructions to flee an erupting volcano so they could continue taking photos, the country’s disaster agency has said. Mount Barujari, part of the Mount Rinjani National Park on the island of Lombok, erupted without warning last Tuesday, ejecting a column of ash two kilometres into the sky that subsequently delayed flights to and from nearby Bali. Indonesia’s Disaster Mitigation Agency quickly moved to evacuate the 1,023 tourists, including 639 foreigners, that were in the park at the time. It claims, however, that many refused to leave the mountain, in some cases even hiding from officials, so...

(CNSNews.com) – The Unites States should phase-out all denominations of the U.S. dollar larger than a $10 bill to thwart money launderers and tax evaders, Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff told attendees at a Council on Foreign Relations event this week in Washington, D.C.“Cash is not used in ordinary retail transactions. It’s used by tax evaders and in a lot of crime of all types, including drug trafficking, human trafficking, extortion, racketeering, you name it,” said Rogoff, a member of the economic advisory panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and author of The Curse of Cash.“Cash is being used...