Free Republic

A plan, now stealthily making its way through state legislatures with astonishing speed, would junk the Electoral College and award the presidency to the winner of the popular vote. The plan involves an Interstate Compact where states would commit to select electors pledged to vote for the national popular vote winner regardless of how their own state voted. When enough states pass this law, sufficient to cast 270 votes which is the majority of the Electoral College, it will take effect. So far, nine states and the District of Columbia, casting 136 electoral votes, have joined. This is halfway to...

Western Washington University sent a questionnaire to students asking them for advice on how the administration could succeed at making sure that in future years, “we are not as white as we are today.” The question notes that WWU’s racial make up does not perfectly reflect the nation at large, and asks students to consider strategies that other universities have used to focus on skin color as the paramount indicator of a student-applicant’s worth. The president of WWU has stated that his explicit goal is to reduce the white population on campus, according to Campus Reform. “I’ve said before and...

Tears flowed on both sides of a Spokane courtroom Thursday as a jury acquitted Gail Gerlach of manslaughter in the March 2013 death of Brendon Kaluza-Graham. Gerlach’s wife, Sharon, wept and embraced her family as the verdict, not guilty on both a first-degree and second-degree manslaughter charge, was read in open court. Ann Kaluza-Graham, grandmother of the man shot dead trying to steal Gerlach’s SUV, burst into tears as she said her grandson never got a chance to answer theft charges or prove himself a changed person. “This was a tragedy,” Gerlach said in a brief statement after the verdict...

All of a sudden, the Ring of Fire is starting to tremble violently. Last month, we had a whole bunch of major earthquakes along the Ring of Fire, and this month volcanoes all over the Ring of Fire are erupting. Of course, there has always been seismic activity within this giant band that stretches around the Pacific Ocean. After all, approximately 75 percent of all volcanoes are located in the Ring of Fire and approximately 90 percent of all global earthquakes occur along the Ring of Fire. But what is alarming is that the level of activity appears to be...

Though we've discussed this before, I discovered some new evidence and thought it would be fun to bring this topic up yet again. Nearly every American has seen this painting. In fact, it has become one of the best selling pieces of art in recent years. Thousands of homes, churches, office buildings, etc. have adorned their walls with this extremely powerful portrayal of America's first president kneeling in prayer. As is common with the legacy of our Founding Fathers, Americans today gain a sense of pride, reverence, and even patriotism when witnessing poignant recreations such as this painting. But how...

Intrepid, pro-gun journalist Emily Miller is leaving the Washington Times and heading to greener pastures as the chief investigative reporter for WTTG, a Fox-owned station in Washington, D.C. Miller, who will start the new gig on April 28, addressed the transition via her Facebook page on Friday, saying, “I’m just so excited.” Apparently, FOX 5 is equally excited to bring the seasoned journalist and award-winning author into the newsroom for some hard-hitting stories. “Emily’s tenacity and experience as a print reporter covering a wide range of issues makes her a fierce competitor and an asset for FOX 5,” WTTG general...

Homeless Tent Cities have proven a disaster in Seattle, Portland, Sacramento and other mainland cities where they have been tried. Homelessness Industry organizers set up their tents in an area--and the meth-addled denizens generate a crime wave targeting local businesses and residents as they seek out anything they can steal to buy drugs. Exasperated local officials pay the organizers off in order to get them to move into a different jurisdiction where the cycle of crime and shakedown begins again. In Honolulu, unofficial tent cities are now set up in strategic locations designed to pressure the tourism industry, the Chinatown...

Former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. has been moved from a federal prison in North Carolina to a minimum-security prison camp in Montgomery, Ala., after clashing with prison officials and being placed in solitary confinement, a source told the Chicago Sun-Times. The 49-year-old former Chicago congressman had been advising other inmates in North Carolina about their rights in prison, according to the source, who said a guard took exception to that. As a result, the longtime South Side politician was placed in solitary confinement for four or five days more than a month ago, the source said. It took about...

I thought this sounded good. It starts this Sunday on AMC. Has anyone heard anything about it yet?

The new AMC series Turn, which premieres April 6, is bewildering at first. We’re dropped smack in the middle of British-occupied New York. The year is 1776, and Abraham Woodhull (Jamie Bell) is scraping by as a cabbage farmer and sometime innkeeper in Setauket, Long Island. He’s husband to Mary (Meegan Warner), and father to a young child. His father, Richard (Kevin McNally), is a local magistrate loyal to George III. Then the scene shifts. We’re now in New Jersey. A stunning overhead shot reveals a sprawling field of bluecoat rebel bodies lying next to a pool dyed red with...

In the largest award of its kind in the US, ousted InfoSpace chief Naveen Jain has been ordered to pay $247 million to the company that he founded as penalty for violating laws against "short swing trading". The order by a federal judge is a body blow for a man who took his Seattle-based Internet company to great heights in a space of four years before it crashed like most of its peers during the dotcom bust. The company board fired Jain last December. But Jain, who went ahead and founded Intelius after the ouster, is not giving up just...

SEATTLE, WA, April 2, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) have removed a Seattle-area troop leader and banned him from the organization for going public with his homosexuality, in what is thought to be the first such case since the BSA voted to allow openly homosexual youth, but not adults, to join. Scoutmaster Geoff McGrath, 49, a former Eagle Scout and leader of Troop 98 in Rainier Beach, had his BSA membership revoked Monday after an NBC News reporter contacted the organization seeking comment for a profile the network was doing on “the first openly gay Scoutmaster...

MILLER: Witaschek surrenders to D.C. police ‘Gun Offenders Registry’ Businessman convicted of having unregistered muzzleloader bullets By Emily Miller The Washington Times Friday, March 28, 2014 Mark Witaschek never had a firearm in the District of Columbia, but he is now on the city’s Gun Offenders Registry. This bizarre case has drawn national attention because an upstanding citizen was tried and convicted of possessing unregistered ammunition for muzzleloader bullets, which are simply pieces of lead and copper. On Friday afternoon, I accompanied Mr. Witaschek and his wife, Bonnie, to Metropolitan Police Department headquarters to abide by the terms of his...

Even hiking the minimum wage to $15 an hour may not be enough to allow low-wage workers to afford rent in Seattle, according to a new study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The group says a full-time worker in the Seattle-Bellevue metro area needs to earn $21.60 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment. That’s the so-called housing wage that the group calculates. In Washington state, the housing wage is $18.65 per hour. The group estimated that the worker spends no more than 30 percent of his or her income on rent and utilities. For the price of...

ARLINGTON, Washington (Reuters) - The number of people listed as missing from a devastating Washington state landslide that has killed at least 14 people rose on Monday to 176 from 108, Snohomish County emergency management director John Pennington said. "The 176 I believe very strongly is not going to be a number that we're going to see in fatalities, I think it's going to drop dramatically," Pennington said, adding that there appear to be duplicates in some of those people reported missing.

ARLINGTON, Wash. (AP) — The search for survivors of a deadly Washington state mudslide grew Monday to include 108 names of people who were reported missing or were unaccounted for, but authorities cautioned the figure likely would decline dramatically. Still, the size of the list raised concerns the death toll would rise far above the eight people who have been confirmed dead after the 1-square-mile slide Saturday swept through part of a former fishing village about 55 miles northeast of Seattle. Several people also were critically injured. About 30 homes were destroyed, and the debris blocked a 1-mile stretch of...

As some of you may know, Microsoft is planning to totally restrict access to the Microsoft download center to all non-genuine windows users. So you would expect some check for pirated copies of windows to be involved. If you visit the download center with IE you get an activex control, but if you try with Firefox, you'll have to download a little program, that returns a code you have to copy into the download page, to get access to the download you selected. By quickly looking at the program, I noticed it looks for a registry key, this key is......

ARLINGTON, Wash. (AP) — About 18 people are still unaccounted for after a massive mudslide in rural northwest Washington state killed at least three people and forced evacuations because of fears of flooding, authorities said Sunday. Snohomish County Fire District 21 Chief Travis Hots said at a news briefing that "we suspect that people are out there, but it's far too dangerous to get responders out there on that mudflow." Searchers in helicopters will be flying over the area of the square-mile mudslide Sunday to find people who may have been able to get out on their own, as well...

A transgender woman accused of being a serial killer is blaming the 1990 murders of three prostitutes in Washington State on Douglas Perry, the person she identified as before her transition. Donna Perry, 62, told police in 2012 in an affidavit filed in Spokane Superior Court that she had gender reassignment surgery in Thailand, and when a person transitions from male to female, "there's a great downturn in violence." She also told police that she intentionally had the operation, which she underwent in 2000, "as a permanent way to control violence." Perry is being held on $1 million bond in...

SEATTLE — The leading proponent of a $15 an hour minimum wage in Seattle was challenged face-to-face today. Kshama Sawant engaged with small businesses owners worried about their survival. The impromptu meeting came after a City Council briefing on the implications of raising the minimum wage 63 percent, from $9.32 an hour to $15. “Despite all the rhetoric I'd like to understand the facts of what these other cities do and how they define the various terms that they use in the minimum wage ordinances,” said Council President Tim Burgess at the briefing. “My argument here is there's just not...