Free Republic

A high school in Northern California is under fire for vastly overstepping boundaries in its sex education curriculum. A sex education class at Acalanes High School in Lafayette is being taught by employees of Planned Parenthood, and the content of the lessons and the materials being utilized, are highly controversial. Parents of the students are infuriated that they had not been given advanced notice that the sex-ed class was being taught by Planned Parenthood employees. Parents are further angered by the methods and materials being used in the lessons, which include a checklist that asks students whether they are “ready...

Let’s get one thing clear right from the start: That 500-page summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s lengthy and expensive investigation of the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” doesn’t come close to being a fair and objective account. No, it’s a highly partisan document that will probably help our nation’s enemies a lot more than it will benefit us. The study took more than five years to complete and cost taxpayers an estimated $40 million. And in all of that time, and with all of that money, the investigators somehow never found the time to interview any of the...

Hello. I’m Wayne Allyn Root for Personal Liberty. President Obama is right — finally. This could be the only time in six years that I’ve agreed with Obama. He says that police officers should wear body cameras. Bravo. That’s the only smart move of his presidency. That’s what I’d call a no-brainer. Of course, Obama wants it for a different reason than I do. He is suspicious of cops. He thinks cops are often bad guys. He thinks cops are racist. I think cops have an impossible job. I think cops deal with terrible people all day long. I think...

Didn't think so, but it's understandable. Thomas was an unarmed mentally ill homeless man from Southern California who was tasered, clubbed and beaten to death in Fullerton by three cops in July of 2011. Thomas' face was pounded to a pulp and, after losing the ability to breathe normally, he died later in a hospital of brain damage. Video of the awful incident - including Thomas' screams and his cries of "Dad! Dad!" -- was recorded on security cameras and there was a minor outcry at the time over police brutality. Unlike the case of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.,...

The blowback from two recent grand jury decisions exonerating white police officers in separate cases wherein their use of force resulted in the deaths of black individuals has taken on a decidedly surreal tone. While to an extent we have grown to expect provocateurs like Rev. Al Sharpton and his ilk squeezing as much face time out of anything even remotely controversial in vein of race, the willingness of uninvolved (and often wholly uninformed) Americans in jumping on the bandwagon in this dark travesty is discouraging, to say the least.

Over the last few months motorists have enjoyed the steepest drops in gasoline prices since the collapse of the world financial markets in 2008. And Texans could soon be enjoying $2-a-gallon gasoline. But for the truckers who move food and televisions back and forth across the nation’s highways, the news has hardly been so bright. “We haven’t seen that same price discount. And now we’re entering into the winter. The competition with heating oil, you never know how that impacts diesel,” said John Esparza, president of the Texas Trucking Association. “Come springtime it’s going to be interesting to see if...

nt Dick Cheney called a Senate panel's report on U.S. interrogation tactics during George W. Bush's administration is "deeply flawed" and a "terrible piece of work." "The report's full of crap," he said in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday evening. Bush's Republican vice president insisted that the Central Intelligence Agency's rough tactics -- which the report said included mock executions, beatings, "rectal rehydration" and feeding, sleep deprivation and more -- helped the United States "catch the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11."

A movement is afoot from state lawmakers who believe the federal government has amassed far too much power, to the detriment of state authority and autonomy. They’re embarking on a massive undertaking -- crafting a set of guidelines for considering amendments to the U.S. Constitution in order to shift more power back to the states. Just blocks from the White House, U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., state lawmakers representing different political stripes and 28 states from Alaska to Florida this week brainstormed suggestions for going about an Article V convention to propose amendments to the U.S....

Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knew the Obama White House’s Benghazi talking points BEFORE the White House even sent them around to administration officials. Hillary Clinton used the administration’s exact talking point blaming the attack on a YouTube video before Obama’s White House speechwriter Ben Rhodes drafted it to prepare Susan Rice for Sunday morning talk shows days later.

...In all countries, if someone commits murder, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they commit rape or armed robbery, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they order, enable or commit torture — recognized as a serious international crime — they cannot simply be granted impunity because of political expediency...

Link Only http://www.sltrib.com/home/1935667-155/news-roundup-jeb-bush-may-have

Slumping oil prices have helped push Alaska’s potential budget deficit this year to $3.5 billion — an increase of $2.1 billion from what lawmakers expected in April. The price of oil, forecast at $105 a barrel in the state’s spring revenue forecast, is now expected to average about $76 a barrel for the fiscal year that ends June 30. The price is forecast to dip even lower, to $66 a barrel, during fiscal 2016 before rebounding. The average price last fiscal year was $107 a barrel, according to the fall revenue forecast released Wednesday. The forecast expects unrestricted general fund...

France's upper house of parliament on Thursday urged the government to recognize "the state of Palestine", following a similar and highly symbolic vote in the lower house. The Senate resolution, calling for French recognition of" Palestine" and an "immediate restarting" of peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, passed narrowly, with 153 votes in favor and 146 against. The vote came as European countries seek to restart the stalled Middle East process and followed an unopposed motion in the Irish parliament to recognize "Palestine" - the fourth assembly in Europe to do so. Lawmakers in Britain and Spain have...

Old Westbury, NY - December 10, 2014 - Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice announced the arrest and arraignment today of a Westbury man on a grand jury indictment for stealing more than $360,000 from the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Old Westbury where he served as treasurer. Joaquim Canario was arrested today by DA investigators and arraigned before Nassau County Court Judge Philip Grella on the charge of Grand Larceny in the 2nd Degree (a C felony). The defendant was released on his own recognizance. If convicted of the top charge, Canario faces a maximum sentence of five to...

A fugitive suspected of killing his 1-year-old child was reported at least three times to Hennepin County child protection for abusing the boy and his sibling, public records show. Brooklyn Park police were called Tuesday night to the 2100 block of 74th Court N. on a report of the child not breathing, authorities said Wednesday. First responders and paramedics administered CPR at the residence, then rushed the boy to North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale, where he died. Witnesses told police the child’s death was due to an assault. The boy’s father, Reggie Delanie Harper, 23, fled the residence before...

Back in October, I posted about the story that people were avoiding needed medical care because the Obamacare plans involved high deductibles or co-pays. Under Obamacare as it exists now, Americans are basically paying insurance premiums and not getting anything in return. If they avoid the doctor to avoid paying their deductible then they will probably never reach the point that the insurance company has to start helping them with expenses.

Myles Udland December 11, 2014Oil is falling again. In morning trade on Thursday, after a quiet session overnight, the price of WTI crude oil was sliding again, moving back below $61 a barrel and towards the lows hit on Wednesday. On Wednesday, WTI fell below $60.50, the lowest since 2009, while Brent crude oil also dipped below $65 a barrel. (snip)

LANSING — Several decades ago, Dr. Morris Kleiner was assigned by his boss at the Department of Labor to look into occupational licensing. “What had I done to him to deserve taking on this topic?” Kleiner asked at the Dec. 4 event hosted by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Lansing. But the issue became much of his academic work and is an increasingly important one. Kleiner, now a professor at the University of Minnesota and a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Banks of Minneapolis, discussed why at an Issues & Ideas lecture entitled, “Our Guild-Ridden Labor Market:...

America needs a cheerleader who loves Americans, someone who believes in American potential and fights for it - not the hater-in-chief we have now, or a Hillary presidency with lectures (given with much relish) on how corporations and businesses don't create jobs and that we must respect and empathize with our enemies. We need a cheerLEADER like Gov. Rick Perry, a man who wants to unleash the American economy - open up jobs and prosperity for all. The Economic Legacy of Governor Rick Perry