Free Republic

Over the weekend, I spent a lot of time reading about the Bundy Ranch Saga, looking into the area in Nevada where the Bundys live, and asking Google a bunch of questions I wanted answers to. While researching, I happened upon a press release from an environmental group, and decided to call the person listed as the "contact" person. The leftist environmentalist and I had about a 45 minute conversation over the phone about the Bundy Ranch, Nevada, and the history of what has been happening there, from his perspective. It was a long time to be on the phone,...

Liberals are always spouting that they practice tolerance and that mean old conservatives are all bigots who would round up undesirables into internment camps if given half a chance. We know that such views are nonsense, and that progressive liberals prove themselves on a daily basis to be festering mounds of hate and anger. If there's one thing I despise, it's rank hypocrisy and many of our Jerk of the Week winners are guilty of practicing it. Our winner this week is also guilty of this charge and they're becoming increasingly emboldened. Their actions have hit the internet this week...

Open Letter to the Legislative Tyrants of Connecticut. An Open Letter to the Legislative Tyrants of Connecticut.Sent via email. To the CT State Senators And Representatives who voted Yes on "An Act Concerning Gun Violence Prevention and Children's Safety, also known as Public Law 13-3 or Connecticut Senate Bill No. 1160," 3 April 2013.And, yes, I said tyrants. You bought it, in the form of the woefully misnamed "Act Concerning Gun Violence Prevention and Children's Safety," you own it, you are certainly -- if you get your way -- going to pay for it like it or not, so...

Few people understand how lawless Abraham Lincoln was in propagating our country’s biggest nightmare—the Civil War. And not enough people sense the parallel of Obama’s emerging lawlessness. Lincoln achieved his political aims by bullying—rather than effective, innovative solutions and negotiations. Here are some facts: • Lincoln closed more than 300 newspapers that disagreed with him. • He arrested members of state legislatures, preventing them from debating the secession issue. • He ordered military trials for citizens when civilian courts were available. Many of these trials resulted in hangings. • Operating as a military dictator, Lincoln spent millions not authorized by...

Happy holidays from the Obama administration. Federal agencies are currently working on rolling out hundreds of environmental regulations, including major regulations that would limit emissions from power plants and expand the agency’s authority to bodies of water on private property. On Tuesday, the White House released its regulatory agenda for the fall of 2013. It lists hundreds of pending energy and environmental regulations being crafting by executive branch agencies, including 134 regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency alone. The EPA is currently crafting 134 major and minor regulations, according to the White House’s regulatory agenda. Seventy-six of the EPA’s pending...

SALT LAKE CITY — National Park Service workers were busy Friday preparing to open eight national recreations sites in Utah that were closed the past 11 days due to the federal government shutdown. Zion National Park opened Friday with limited services, according to a recorded message at the park's main telephone number. Trails that don't require permits and the Zion Mount Carmel Highway are open. Both visitor centers, the Kolob Caynon scenic drive, the south campground will open this afternoon, according to the recording. The park's shuttles will begin running Saturday morning.

Barack Obama’s namesake healthcare scheme will cut $716 billion from Medicare over the next 10 years. Add to this a dramatic reduction in Medicare related reimbursement for doctors and hospitals and countless seniors may find it difficult to obtain necessary medical treatment. Following are Medicare facts which most baby boomers may know little or nothing about. But those who must depend upon Medicare over the next decade are going to get a real education; an education in the true nature of death panels and socialized medicine. 1) “Medicare is essentially compulsory. People who refuse to join Medicare Part A are...

If you think your mileage may vary with a brand new vehicle, take a look at the differences in fuel economy results for older cars. Sites like the EPA's Fuel Economy tracker and Fuelly prove that there is not such thing as a standard MPG number, despite the EPA's best efforts. This all isn't stopping the EPA from releasing a new window sticker designed for used cars, which the agency announced today. It could be an important tool, since over 40 million used cars were sold in the US last year.

It’s ironic that President Obama so often carps about politics — blaming “politics as usual” or “hyperpartisanship” for everything from the lack of economic growth to joblessness to climate change — when he is the most relentlessly partisan president in recent memory. Obama is a staunch left liberal who finds it very difficult to rise above politics and attempt to unite the country. Arguably, his very best speech, the one delivered in Tucson after the Gabby Giffords shooting, did transcend partisanship. It was an outlier. The president inserted himself into the Trayvon Martin story in a deeply irresponsible manner. Disregarding...

A CBS affiliate in Clark County, Nevada, has uncovered video of a disturbing incident in family court, in which a mother present for a routine proceeding is sexually assaulted and then arrested in full view of the court. An internal investigation has since revealed that both the harassment and its alleged cover-up may be part of a wider problem of abuse within the family court system. The initial events took place in 2011, when Monica Contreras was led from the court into a waiting room for a supposed, though unexplained, drug search. She then says a court marshal named Ron...

Since 1993, 98 percent of EPA regulations (196 out of 200) pursuant to these programs were promulgated late, by an average of 5.68 years (or 2,072 days) after their respective statutorily defined deadlines. Currently, 65 percent of the EPA’s statutorily defined responsibilities (212 of 322 possible) are past due by an average of 5.88 years (or 2,147 days). EPA’s persistent failure is troubling—and not just because it suggests incompetence, Yeatman explains. “Despite the agency’s failure to meet nondiscretionary responsibilities, EPA in 2010 took on an enormous discretionary responsibility in proceeding with greenhouse gas regulations. Why is the EPA giving priority...

"My dad fought a war so this can never happen in America. I will not dishonor my father's memory by giving up what he fought for. No, sir. With all due respect, I will not consent to a search without a proper warrant." James Fallows May 21 2013, 11:34 AM ET Over the weekend I related the story of Gabriel Silverstein, a businessman and pilot who for no apparent reason was subjected to a two-hour detention and invasive search by Homeland Security officials as he traveled across the country in his small plane. The picture above is not from that...

Sarah Hall Ingram, the IRS executive in charge of the tax exempt division in 2010 when it began targeting conservative Tea Party, evangelical and pro-Israel groups for harassment, got more than $100,000 in bonuses between 2009 and 2012. More recently, Ingram was promoted to serve as director of the tax agency's Obamacare program office, a position that put her in charge of the vast expansion of the IRS' regulatory power and staffing in connection with federal health care, ABC reported earlier today **snip** High-ranking career federal civil servants like Ingram are eligible for recognition through citations known as Distinguished and...

Ct Sen Murphy has asked News Corp not to air the NASCAR NRA 500.

Piers Morgan and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s want to be dictators and slave masters. Regulating a person’s diet is the regulation of a person’s life. Here was Morgan’s response to a guest who disagreed with him on sugary drink control:“I think people need [these types of laws] occasionally, particularly on issues like smoking, drinking, guzzling sodas too big for them, you know, eating 16 Big Macs a day, whatever it may be, the reality is we all need a bit of nannying about that. That’s why so many people are on diets. That’s a form of nanny state.”When governments...

Upgrade on the whole "Suicide by shooting yourself multiple times in the chest and then head"... From another thread brought up as a point that there used to be a lot of suspicious "suicides" like the ones you see in Russia where a journalist hurls them self off the top of their own apartment building when the roof access door was always locked. Or where the person who was a political dissident decided to strangle them self and then saw off their own head after shooting them self in the head multiple times but it is ruled as a "suicide"...

Guns and abortion. One is an enumerated, constitutional right, and the other is not. The Second Amendment guarantees the right of the people of the United States to keep and bear arms. It’s not a government-given right; it’s a natural right—the right to defend yourself, your family, and your freedom. In rare circumstances, abortion might be necessary to preserve the mother’s life. But there is no right to kill unborn babies in the U.S. Constitution. But 40 years ago next week the U.S. Supreme Court contended that abortion is an implied “right of privacy,” one that previously had lain hidden...

YONKERS, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) — A deal to give New York one of the toughest gun control laws in the nation is being negotiated by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who, sources said Tuesday, is hoping to announce the plan Wednesday during his State of the State speech in Albany. Cuomo hopes to jump-start the 2013 legislative session with a big deal that could dramatically alter gun control laws across the state.Highly placed sources told CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer that Cuomo is negotiating with Assembly and Senate leaders for a package of gun control laws that would be a dramatic response to the...

COMPLETE TITLE: Government Scientist Threatens “Murderous Rampage” After Watchdog.org Exposes Massive Spending at Secret Junk Science Lab ~ ~ ~ ~ Nutty Professor Kerrilee Ann Crosby threatened a “murderous rampage” after a conservative group exposed massive spending at a secret green junk science lab.Watchdog.org reported: A woman angered by a Watchdog investigation into the government lab where she works retaliated by threatening mass murder against this news organization in several Twitter posts. “Have you ever felt like going on a murderous rampage? Start at @WatchdogCO ‘s offices. They perpetuate lies like this,” Kerrilee Ann Crosby tweeted last month while working...

Not since the tear gas and mass arrests of Chicago 1968 have the Democrats put... --snip-- But the pinnacle of the week came in two key moments. The first occurred in an opening DNC video that included the jaw-dropping line "Government is the only thing that we all belong to." Who exactly wrote the script for this video? Chairman Mao? As Mitt Romney appropriately tweeted in response, in America, "[w]e don't belong to the government. Government belongs to us." That Democrats see this foundational reality completely backwards is extraordinarily instructive. Couple that revelation with the Democrats' decision to drop the...