Free Republic

ST. LOUIS • A city police officer stationed at City Hall when protesters showed up Friday to protest police brutality drew the attention of demonstrators because the officer wore a “Wilson” name tag on his sleeve in a show of solidarity with former Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson. Now that officer also has his department’s attention. In an interview Friday, Chief Sam Dotson said the “officer clearly violated our policies and will be disciplined.” “I couldn’t be more disappointed,” Dotson said. “We spend a lot of time working on professionalism and building a bridge in the community.” The department’s policy on...

A thorough explanation of the origins of the rain storms hitting California. There is no tropical moisture involved. Systems coming in to west coast are all well north of Hawaii, which is dry. So the rain is a product of cold air off the Asian continent colliding with warm water off the west coast. Otherwise, Joe argues for a very snowy Christmas.

Protesters plan to converge on the nation's capital Saturday to help bring attention to the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police and call for legislative action. Civil rights organizations plan to hold a national march in Washington with the families of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, two unarmed black men who died in incidents with white police officers, to help bring attention to the issue of police brutality. Civil rights advocate The Rev. Al Sharpton also will be part of the march. Saturday's march against police violence — sponsored in part by the National Action Network,...

Which city is America's biggest hotbed for terrorists? If you're thinking New York or Los Angeles, you'd be mistaken. Think middle America. Dozens of young men and women have left Minneapolis-Saint Paul in recent years to join Islamic terrorist groups overseas. Most of these U.S. passport holders hail from the Twin Cities' large Somali Muslim community. Some have been suicide bombers. Others star in propaganda videos.

Reports state that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tried to force a quick Friday afternoon vote to send the CR-Omnibus budget to the President to be signed into law, but Republican Senators Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, and Jeff Sessions wanted Reid to agree to allow a vote to defund Obama's amnesty plans before they would agree to vote for the budget.

In Ireland, taking the name of Israel means becoming a war criminal. A popular Dublin restaurant, The Exchequer, no longer stocks Israeli goods. In the Irish town of Kinvara, retailers, restaurants and pharmacies operate a boycott of Israeli goods. The leading Irish supermarket chain SuperValu removed the Israeli carrots from its shelves. And I have mentioned just a few examples of the new Irish anti-Semitism. It is the same everywhere in Europe: Israel is disappearing from European shelves. Practically and symbolically. The material cancellation of Israeli goods from Europe's shelves anticipates Israel's physical suppression. The French city of Lille suspended...

New York police union tells Mayor Blasio he is BANNED from funerals of cops killed on duty - after he told officers they had to change in the wake of Garner chokehold death The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association posted a form on its website Allowed members to sign a letter barring the mayor and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito from their service Say it's because of their 'consistent refusal' to show officers respect Goes on to add that their attendance would be considered an 'insult' De Blasio prompted anger last week when he said his black son Dante should be 'wary'...

Will video kiosks work for $15.00 per hour?

Convicted terrorist and retired professor Bill Ayers sat down with Fars News, a state-controlled media outlet that serves the Islamic Republic of Iran, where he proclaimed that the United States is a “terrorist nation” that is the “greatest purveyor of violence on earth… and the foremost threat to world peace.”

"Rare warbirds to depart Edwards Ranch......inside Texan Wilson "Connie" Edwards' 100,000+ square foot hangar complex and its remarkable treasure trove of iconic warbirds......" scroll down for video .....HA-1112 Buchon

The international price of oil has dropped by more than 40 percent in the past six months. To put it lightly, this presents a major challenge to oil-exporting nations. Many analysts agree that, of all oil rich countries, Venezuela is the most vulnerable. A combination of persistent fiscal deficits, out-of-control inflation, and plunging public support for President Nicolás Maduro threatens to make the nation of 30 million ungovernable. What can Maduro do to survive? In order to answer this question, we must differentiate between what Maduro can do, and what he most likely will (or, rather, will not) do.

Sen. Ted Cruz (D-Texas) blasted the $1.1 trillion "cromnibus" spending bill, saying it was full of presents for lobbyists.“It’s full of Christmas presents for the lobbyists and special interests in Washington,” Cruz said on the Senate floor Friday. “I know it’s Christmas time, but it’s not our job to play Santa to K Street.”The Senate is considering the trillion-dollar package that would fund most of the government through September, avoiding a government shutdown. House Republicans only funded the Department of Homeland Security through February as protest to President Obama’s executive order on immigration.But Cruz said that wasn’t good enough. He...

One day in 1967, Bob Thompson sprayed foam on a hunk of metal in a cavernous factory south of Los Angeles. And then another day, not too long after, he sat at a long wood bar with a black-and-white television hanging over it, and he watched that hunk of metal land a man on the moon. On July 20, 1969 — the day of the landing — Thompson sipped his Budweiser and thought about all the people who had ever stared at that moon. Kings and queens and Jesus Christ himself. He marveled at how when it came time to...

Sen. Ted Cruz, the firebrand conservative freshman from Texas, has blown up the Senate leadership’s plans to have a peaceful weekend by forcing round-the-clock votes on President Obama’s nominees and the $1.1 trillion omnibus.Cruz took to the floor late Friday to castigate congressional leaders for trying to pass the 1,600-page spending bill after only a few hours of debate and questioned the resolve of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to fight Obama’s executive order protecting five million illegal immigrants from deportation.“Even though millions of voters rose up just one month ago to protest how...

Two men were killed and 13 other people, including a 15-year-old boy, were wounded since Friday in separate shootings on the city's Far South and West sides, said police. Around 7:03 p.m., a 28-year-old man was fatally shot while he sat in a vehicle on the 1300 block of North Springfield Avenue. The man was in the vehicle with a female child when someone came up to the vehicle and began shooting. According to WGN TV, the man had a 3-year-old girl who was possibly his daughter on his lap at the time. The man was shot in the head...

Thousands of demonstrators were expected in Washington and New York on Saturday to protest the killings of unarmed black men by U.S. police and to urge Congress to protect citizens. Organizers said the protests would be among the largest over police tactics and the killings of black males by officers in New York, Cleveland and Ferguson, Missouri. The lack of criminal charges from grand juries in the New York and Ferguson cases have galvanized protests around the United States. "We need more than just talk; we need legislative action that will shift things both on the books and in the...

Germans take to the streets to protest against 'Islamisation' Anti-immigrant protests claim to want to preserve Judeo-Christian culture as critics accuse it of harbouring neo-Nazi elements By Justin Huggler, Berlin 6:51PM GMT 08 Dec 2014 A new type of anti-immigration protest is sweeping across Germany, as thousands take to the streets against what they say is the growing “Islamisation” of the country. The new protests, which began in the city of Dresden in the former East Germany, feature no neo-Nazi slogans and have nothing to do with the traditional far right. Instead the demonstrators have adopted the old rallying call...

EXCERPT Gruber was hired by the Department of Health and Human Services for a one-year contract to provide “technical assistance in evaluating options for national healthcare reform,” as a Feb. 25, 2009, federal job posting indicates. The posting said he was uniquely qualified for the position not only because of his expertise in health economics but his “proprietary statistically sophisticated micro-simulation model” that could determine the impact of changes in health care policy. Gruber’s consultancy work wasn’t made public until it was reported in early January 2010. Fox News then reported that Gruber was paid almost $400,000 for the contract,...

Climate talks in Lima ran into extra time amid rising frustration from developing countries at the “ridiculously low” commitments from rich countries to help pay for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. The talks were designed to draft a blueprint for a global deal to fight climate change, due to be adopted in Paris late next year. But developing countries argued that before signing on they needed to see greater commitments that the industrialised countries would keep to their end of a bargain to provide the money needed to fight climate change. Countries are also divided over the initial commitments countries...

...its lowest levels against the dollar for almost a year, amid investor nervousness about emerging markets. By evening trade in Istanbul the currency had fallen beyond TL2.30 to the US dollar, more than 1 per cent down on the day and the weakest level since January, when the Turkish central bank moved to increase interest rates -- a dramatic shift in policy that at the time halted a precipitous drop in its value. ...Turkey is far from alone in being affected by strong US economic data that has heightened expectations of a US Federal Reserve interest rate rise and so...