Free Republic

WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 (UPI) — The Federal Communications Commission will seek more influence on Internet regulation to ensure net neutrality, its chairman said Wednesday. In an editorial published on {link:the website of the magazine Wired: “http://www.wired.com/2015/02/fcc-chairman-wheeler-net-neutrality?mbid=social_twitter”,nw}, Tom Wheeler explained new rules, proposed this week, “to preserve the Internet as an open platform for innovation and free expression. This proposal is rooted in long-standing regulatory principles, marketplace experience, and public input.” The new rules will cast {link:high-speed Internet service as a public utility: “http://www.cnbc.com/id/102376526″,nw}, an unidentified person, who was consulted the FCC {link:on the proposal, told CNN: “http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/02/technology/net-neutrality-fcc/index.html”,nw}. The change would...

The Venezuelan Ministry of Defense has authorized the Army to shoot any protesters that do not obey orders to disperse. Minister of Defense, General Vladimir Padrino López defended the decree as both “necessary and proper. In this time of crisis everyone should be working together in support of the government. Public complaints alleging that the government has not fulfilled its promises encourages people to oppose the government’s measures to deal with the crisis. Such disloyalty cannot be tolerated.” There is also a pragmatic aspect to the policy. According to the General, “to the extent that shortages of food and other...

The 2nd Amendment. While it was designed to be the last line of defense against a tyrannical government, it inadvertently is also a deterrent for radical Progressives who wish to fundamentally change our Constitutional Republic. Case in point. In 1988 Progressive author, Bob Zimmerman, ran for a Hawaiian Congressional seat and was soundly defeated. In 2015 Mr. Zimmerman has written a free “book” titled Common Sense. He modeled it after the historic pamphlet written by Thomas Paine which shared the same title. But instead of embracing individual Liberty, Mr. Zimmerman uses the words of the Founders to push a centralized,...

President Barack Obama wants to create a new government agency dedicated to keeping the nation’s food safe. The proposal in the president’s budget released Monday comes after outbreaks of illnesses linked to chicken, eggs, peanuts and cantaloupe in recent years. More than a dozen federal agencies oversee food safety, and consumer advocates have long called for bringing all those functions together in a single home. […] The budget proposes consolidating the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service and all of FDA’s food safety oversight into one new agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. The new agency...

C.S. Lewis wrote in 1952 that “perversions of the sex instinct are numerous, hard to cure, and frightful.” The good Oxford don did not live to see the times we now live in, times in which progressive extremists can state a straight face that actually there are no sexual perversions – times in which even the long-held taboos against pedophilia and incest are falling like dominoes. The evidence that in the name of absolute sexual freedom, traditional taboos are no longer to be honored is everywhere. While sexual perversion has always existed, it has never been as widely tolerated and...

In Senate hearings designed to vet Loretta Lynch, President Obama’s nominee for Attorney General, the question of whether it is constitutional for the government to use extrajudicial lethal force on an American citizen on American soil failed to elicit the obvious “NO” that should be expected from someone aiming to become the nation’s top law enforcer. As Lynch sees it, “it all depends on who gives the order. If it’s someone trustworthy like President Obama, I think we give him the benefit of the doubt. We can’t allow ourselves to get tied in knots over ‘due process’ concepts originating more...

A month after the rollout of California’s massive effort to issue driver’s licenses to 1.5 million undocumented immigrants, the process is working overall in Los Angeles and the Inland Empire. Still, many applicants report a mixed bag of experiences. Local advocacy groups are scrambling to address overflowing driver’s license preparation classes. Some test-takers are showing up at the Department of Motor Vehicles without studying, and some tech-phobes fear the touch-screen test format that allows four minutes for each question. Language kinks were being untangled last week for Mixteco speakers after confusion over whether translators could assist during the written and...

An attempt to mend the relationship between citizens and police in St. Louis broke into a shouting and shoving match late Wednesday — between citizens and police. Council members considering a bill to establish a civilian oversight board over police work were holding a public meeting when Jeff Roorda, the business manager of the city’s police union, and a woman appeared to get into a confrontation, an online video shows. The room erupted into shouts and profanity, as people rose to their feet and crowded in on the two. The bill was sponsored by Alderman Antonio French, an active participant...

Issue appeared to be isolated to translating words relating to homosexuality Google Inc. (GOOG) came under fire from LBGT (lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender) petition site AllOut.org, over flaws in its Translator Service, which led to translations to some languages yielding homophobic slurs. Google has now fixed the issue and apologized for its mistake. The controversy came after people noticed that when translating neutral words in foreign languages pertaining to homosexuality, the English translations at times suggested English colloquialisms that are commonly considered homophobic slurs among native speakers. This controversial vernacular was also peculiar as searches for neutral foreign equivalents...

The Wall Street Journal has reported that the Justice Department has been building a database which tracks vehicles across the United States. The license-plate tracking program reportedly reads plates and tracks cars on major highways across the U.S. The program’s high-tech cameras also reportedly take photos of drivers and passengers that are clear enough to identify people. The database was started in 2008 by the DEA to monitor drug traffickers along the Mexican border. It has since expanded, with more and more law enforcement agencies using it for non-drug-related reasons. Justice Department officials tells Fox News that the feds limit...

SAN MATEO, California — No more pedaling the bicycle or ridesharing with relatives and friends to work or to bring the children to school. This month, the Department of Motor Vehicles started issuing special licenses to people who cannot prove their legal presence in the country. So-called irregular Filipino immigrants are among the people joining the long lines of applicants for a California driver’s license at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Immigrant advocates say some applicants who previously held licenses under Social Security numbers that were not their own have been told they will need to meet with a DMV...

DAVOS -- The crackdown on illegal immigration combined with intensified border security has prompted large numbers of undocumented Mexican laborers to remain in the U.S. permanently -- even as many prefer to go home -- out of fear they will never be able to return, former Mexican President Felipe Calderon told International Business Times. “Many of them are currently trapped,” Calderon told IBTimes. “There are a lot of these people [who] want to be in Mexico eight months every year, but they are unable to go there, because if they cross the border, they will never be able to cross...

Doctors’ house calls are considered a thing of the past, but not in the appointment book of Dr. Carrol Frazier Landrum, an 88-year-old physician from Edwards, Mississippi. The good doctor will see you no matter who you are, where you are, or how much money you have — as long his 2007 Toyota Camry can deliver him to your location. But now his state’s medical board wants to see him gone. Dr. Landrum, a WWII veteran, was forced to make a change after crime drove him from his Edwards, Mississippi, office two years ago, and he couldn’t find another space...

DENVER — If bakeries can be compelled to make wedding cakes for same-sex marriages, can they also be forced to create anti-gay cakes? That’s the question before the Colorado Civil Rights Division after a customer filed a complaint against Azucar Bakery in Denver for refusing to write anti-gay messages on a Bible-shaped cake.

The creator, director and producer of the controversial movie about the encroaching police state and FEMA camps in America, David Crowley, has been found dead with his wife and young daughter over the weekend. The police are calling it a murder-suicide incident yet not ruling out anything suspicious. The movie was currently in production and Crowley had recently received a contract of $30 million to complete the project of his dreams. While depression can have its harshest affects on people, his friends and co-workers have stated that the police story is highly unlikely.

More than half a million undocumented immigrants are living within the five boroughs of New York City, but slightly more than 230,000 are eligible for the deferred action programs created by President Barack Obama. The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) released details data on featuring estimates of major U.S. counties and its undocumented immigrants population. MPI's data profiled 94 counties across the U.S. and discovered the five counties with the largest populations potentially eligible for either DACA and DAPA relief are Los Angeles, California; Harris, Texas; Orange, California; Cook, Illinois; and Dallas, Texas, accounting for 1.1 million people, or more than...

The Environmental Protection Agency, on the heels of the controversy at the IRS over missing emails, is facing a probe of its own over whether it improperly scrubbed text messages. The EPA inspector general's office announced this week it is launching an audit into the agency's policies for keeping text messages. The audit was prompted by a complaint from Republicans on the House science committee, worried the EPA may have "deleted thousands of text messages" that should have been preserved. Jennifer Kaplan, spokeswoman for the EPA inspector general's office, confirmed the complaint prompted the audit. "Our auditors were persuaded that...

(Reuters) - The White House on Thursday said legislation was not necessary to settle so-called "net neutrality" rules because the Federal Communications Commission had the authority to write them. Republicans in Congress are trying to drum up support for a bill that would counter the FCC's upcoming new rules. The Obama administration's comments, while not entirely rebuffing the legislative effort, could make some Democrats wary of joining it. "In terms of legislation, we don’t believe it’s necessary given that the FCC has the authorities that it needs under Title II," a White House official told Reuters. "However, we always remain...

I was in the middle of working on an article covering real U.S. economic stats versus manipulated statistics when the Charlie Hebdo shootings took place. And though I knew the implications of the event would be far-reaching, I was originally undeterred from my financial subject matter. I had already covered in previous articles the inevitability of ISIS attacks on Europe and America, including the “warnings” of Saudi Arabia in August of last year that jihadists would target the EU within months and the U.S. a month later. In September of last year, ISIS publicly urged attacks on French and U.S....

In 2011, concerned about the growing debt crisis, Standard & Poor, the venerable credit rating firm, downgraded the U.S. bond rating for the first time from “Triple-A” to “AA-plus,” a move that sent shockwaves through the financial markets raising troubling questions about the government’s growing debt. The move hit a nerve with a White House gearing up for a massive re-election campaign. Then Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called the Chairman of McGraw Hill, the owners of S&P, declaring that the government would hold S&P “accountable” and their conduct would be “looked at very carefully.” Geithner wasn’t bluffing. The Obama Administration...