Free Republic

Nine people have been arrested after up to 50 teenagers and adults started a huge brawl after a high school basketball game. The violent scenes unfolded at Whitehaven High School in Memphis, Tennessee, with people punching and kicking each other before police officers swarmed the auditorium on Friday night. Two juveniles - aged 15 and 17 - were arrested along with seven other adult men following the game which saw the home team lose to local rivals Hamilton 76-54.

Suddenly everyone in Washington wants a gas tax hike — apparently so that consumers don’t save too much money at the pump. As prices keep falling, the politicians and the moochers in Washington want a piece of the action. Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois and even Republicans such as Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee have linked arms with the entire road-building industry and green groups that want the cost of fuel to go up.Mrs. Pelosi won’t even hide her cynical motivation: With gas prices low, maybe motorists won’t notice that we’re gouging them: “If there’s...

In case you haven’t heard, President Obama plans to make his latest and greatest idea public today—to grant a “free” community college education to every student who graduates from high school. Well, the idea sounds nice, especially now, when college is unaffordable for many young people and requires taking out significant loans by those who do attend. But, is a “free” government program actually free or void of costs? Of course not. Remember when President Obama promised free healthcare to young people when he was touring college campuses at a whirlwind rate? Has that promise held water? The answer is...

The fiscal impact of the ethanol mandate is huge — Michaels estimated it totals “billions, easily” in direct and indirect money — but it has come under attack by liberals as well as conservatives and appears to have lost some of its clout on Capitol Hill. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency — which administers the Renewable Fuel Standard — is considering a cut to the amount of ethanol blended into the nation’s gasoline supply. ... a growing number of environmentalists want the ethanol requirement eliminated, too. ... In 2007, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed into law...

An “informed consent” bill that would require women to receive information about their pregnancy and abortion alternatives before receiving an abortion has been introduced by a Tennessee lawmaker. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Mae Beavers (R), would mandate physicians to tell women how long it was since they conceived, that abortions are “in a considerable number of cases … a major surgical procedure,” and that there are agencies that can assist should she choose to not have an abortion and either keep her child or put her child up for adoption. If a woman is more than six months pregnant,...

It is rare for conservatives to score a federal policy victory these days, especially with a Democrat in the White House, but as Michael Barone reminds us, just by playing defense conservatives have done exactly that on transportation. Unfortunately there are some in Congress who want to reverse these gains. The big win for conservatives on transportation comes from two sources. First, when the gas tax was last raised in 1993, it was not indexed for inflation, so the 18.4 cents a gallon collected today doesn't go as far today as it did more than two decades ago. Second, thanks...

The final recount from November’s election had not even been finished when current House Speaker John Boehner blew the mandate. How did Mr. Boehner treat the American people who just gave the Republicans a mandate? He gave the American people and the conservative base of the GOP the middle finger. The “CRomnibus” spending bill ...was Mr. Boehner’s way of sticking it to conservatives On Jan. 3, a new Congress begins and one of the first orders of business in the House of Representatives is to pick a new speaker. Mr. Boehner has repeatedly shown he is not the man to...

While states debate expanding their Medicaid programs under Obamacare, they're wrestling with a looming 2017 deadline — when their taxpayers begin paying for the cost of the expansion. Beginning in 2014, states that agree to expand Medicaid to persons with incomes of up to 138 percent of the poverty line will have the federal government pay 100 percent of the cost. But beginning in 2017, the federal share will fall to 95 percent, and it drops to 90 percent in 2020. This has officials — many of them in Republican-dominated states across the country — worried that they will not...

Officers responded to a home in the 2300 block of Devoy at about 6:20 p.m. Tuesday, where they saw 22-year-old Nico Carlisle with multiple gunshot wounds lying at the front door. Officials pronounced Carlisle dead at the scene. Investigators say Carlisle and another man knocked on the door, then forced their way inside when a woman answered the door. Carlisle then put a gun to the woman’s neck. The homeowner grabbed a handgun before going to investigate the commotion, and fired multiple shots at the men, hitting Carlisle.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI has warned local authorities of a threat that Islamic State militants would blow up the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge spanning the Mississippi River, an agency spokesman said on Tuesday. The bridge is a major route connecting Tennessee and Arkansas. The Federal Bureau of Investigation passed the threat on to local police in a bulletin out of an "abundance of caution," spokesman Chris Allen said. "This is an unsubstantiated, anonymous threat," he said, adding that there was no useful intelligence arising from it. Allen had no details on when the threat was received or how. The...

The FBI has warned local authorities of a threat that Islamic State militants would blow up the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge spanning the Mississippi River, an agency spokesman said on Tuesday. The bridge is a major route connecting Tennessee and Arkansas. The Federal Bureau of Investigation passed the threat on to local police in a bulletin out of an "abundance of caution," spokesman Chris Allen said. "This is an unsubstantiated, anonymous threat," he said, adding that there was no useful intelligence arising from it.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Memphis Division is warning police officers about a threat to blow up the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge sometime in December. FOX13 News obtained the FBI bulletin sent to Mid-South Law Enforcement agencies warning about a possible Islamic State terror plot targeting the I-55 Bridge.

Tennessee's new Attorney General Herbert Slatery announced today that the state will join a lawsuit challenging President Barack Obama's recent executive action on immigration. Texas Attorney General and Gov-elect Greg Abbott is leading the challenge, which 23 other states have now joined. Slatery said in a release Monday that the suit is not about immigration but "more about the rule of law and the limitations that prevent the executive branch from taking over a role constitutionally reserved for Congress." "The executive directives issued by the White House and Homeland Security conflict with existing federal law," Slatery said. "They replace prosecutorial...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The FBI sent a warning to local authorities about a possible plot to blow up a Memphis bridge. The FBI told WREG it received an anonymous tip, and stressed that there is “no actionable intelligence” that something will happen. All local law enforcement agencies have been alerted.

There is nothing “fair” about President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, said Thursday on Newsmax TV's “America’s Forum.” Blackburn offered a couple of examples of how the executive order is hurting some of her constituents, including a woman who legally emigrated from Kurdistan who has been waiting to get her permanent resident’s card. When the thousands of people being hired under Obama begin to process the wave of immigrants legalized by his order, the Kurdish woman will be behind those who entered the U.S. illegally. “They left unlawful rule in Iraq and came...

Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Haslam became the latest red-state governor to approve a twist on Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion Monday.Haslam is supporting a private-option version of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, which was pioneered by Arkansas in 2014. The proposal will have to be approved by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Republican-controlled legislature; if it goes through, Tennessee will be just the 28th state to move forward with the expansion of the welfare program through Obamacare.“We made the decision in Tennessee nearly two years ago not to expand traditional Medicaid,” Haslam said Monday. “This is an alternative approach that...

Gov. Bill Haslam of Tennessee on Monday morning became the latest Republican governor to announce support of Obamacare's Medicaid expansion —and the third in the nation since Republicans gained more power at the state and federal levels in the November midterm elections. Like most other Republican governors who want to take the health-care law's generous federal funding, Haslam is now offering a plan that deviates from the Medicaid expansion envisioned under the Affordable Care Act. Haslam, who made the announcement almost a month after his re-election, said the Obama administration has verbally approved the approach. The Tennessee plan, which Haslam...

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Did you know that there’s been a massive uptick in white thugs setting black folks on fire, yet the media has been virtually silent on this horrendous subject? Sure, we all have heard of Darren Wilson's shooting Michael Brown, but there has been no coverage of the aforementioned. Like in zero… nada… nothing… zilch. What kind of racist “news outlets” would be so heinous to cover up such gross and unspeakable evil? Why haven’t the most powerful people in our government and the entertainment industry spoken out and condemned this obvious xenophobic act of viciousness? How come there has been...

Incoming Virginia congressman Dave Brat, whose historic GOP primary victory over then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor shook up Washington’s power structure this summer, is blasting President Obama’s executive fiat on immigration reform as "morally vacuous" – while stopping short of calling for impeachment.