Free Republic

It is unlikely that any of the protesters clogging the streets of New York, Washington, and other cities this weekend over alleged police abuse would sympathize with Nancy Genovese, but I do. The New York Post reports (hat tips: Instapundit, Breitbart and iOTW Report: A Long Island mother of three arrested for taking pictures of an Air National Guard base in the Hamptons ​– ​while ​armed to the teeth with a licensed assault rifle in her car — has been awarded ​$1.12 million​ by a federal jury over her false prosecution by Suffolk County authorities.  As Breitbart noted, “armed...

Midway through the last game of the 2013 Carolina League season, after he’d swept peanut shells and mopped soda off the concourse, Ed Green lumbered upstairs to the box seats to dump the garbage. Green was already 12 hours into his workday. He rose at dawn to lay tar on the highway. As the sun sank, he switched uniforms and drove to BB&T Ballpark, where he runs the custodial crew for a minor-league baseball team. Now it was dark and his radio was crackling. It was his boss, asking him to head back downstairs. Green walked onto the first-base line...

Just when shippers thought things could not get any worse with the West Coast port labor “slowdown,” dockworkers proved them wrong. The latest tactic employed by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has been to cease contract negotiations for next 12 days. “We have made it abundantly clear that we believe these negotiations are of the utmost importance and should continue at full strength until the Thanksgiving holiday,” said Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) spokesman Wade Gates. “We are disappointed the Union is not showing the same urgency to resolve the issues between us.” Three weeks after initiating a coordinated...

The suspected jihadist holding up to 15 people hostage in a Sydney cafe is an Iranian murder and sex assault suspect known for sending hate mail to the families of Australian soldiers killed overseas, police confirmed. As the standoff entered its 15th hour, with police and news crews surrounding the shop as frightened hostages looked out through the front window, police identified Man Haron Monis as the gunman holding captives inside Lindt Chocolat Cafe. His identity was known early on to police and media alike, but was only released for the record by police sources as night fell on Sydney...

The most important characteristic of the U.S. oil industry is inertia - or to put it another way, drilling and production respond sluggishly even to a large change in prices. Since 1974, there have been four episodes in which oil prices declined sharply over a relatively short time (ignoring the brief price spike and equally rapid reversal in 1990 associated with preparations for the first war between the United States and Iraq). These price slumps occurred between (1) December 1985 and July 1986; (2) January 1997 and December 1998; (3) November 2000 and December 2001; and (4) July 2008 and...

The so-called cromnibus bill funding the federal government through this fiscal year was passed over the objections of (some) House conservatives and (some) self-proclaimed progressives, for familiar reasons: Conservatives, eager that the Republicans should begin governing like they have a majority in Congress before they actually have a majority in Congress, argued that the bill locked in long-term support for too many of Barack Obama’s priorities — to hell with an amnesty fight in February or gutting Obamacare after the new majority is seated, they cannot wait to start scrapping. The Democrats’ left flank, led by Nancy Pelosi right up...

Myles Udland December 15, 2014Industrial production had a huge rebound in November. Industrial production rose 1.3% in November according to the latest report from the Federal Reserve. Expectations were for the report to show industrial production rose by 0.7% in November, better than October's 0.1% contraction. October's number was revised up to 0.1% from -0.1%. Capacity utilization also rose sharply, to 80.1% from a revised reading of 79.3%. Capacity utilization was expected to rise, to 79.4% from 78.9%. This rate of capacity utilization is now equal to its long-run average spanning 1972-2013 and hit its highest level since March 2008....

Parties and protests don’t typically overlap, but the “Selma” cast made an exception and a statement on Sunday night following the film’s Manhattan premiere. At one point during the otherwise splashy festivities, director Ava DuVernay took to the steps of the New York Public Library with actors David Oyelowo, E. Roger Mitchell, Wendell Pierce, Omar Dorsey, John Lavelle, Stephan James, Kent Faulcon, Lorraine Toussaint, Andre Holland, Tessa Thompson and Colman Domingo, donning “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirts over their partywear and raising their arms in the “don’t shoot” pose. It was not just an unusually sobering photo op, but also a...

Another attack on a Bosnian woman – this one occurred in south St. Louis County around 10 p.m. Friday. According to St. Louis County police, the unidentified woman was walking near the corner of Lemay Ferry Road and Lindbergh when she was approached by two black males. They demanded her wallet, and when she handed it over and there was no money in it, they attacked her, knocking her to the pavement and and then running off.

U.S. energy major Chevron plans to withdraw from a $10 billion shale gas deal with Kiev, a senior Ukrainian presidential official said on Monday. Ukraine signed a shale gas production-sharing agreement with Chevron amid great fanfare in November 2013, just months before mass protests in Kiev ousted former president Viktor Yanukovich, plunging the country into a major crisis with Russia. "There is information that they (Chevron) are planning this decision," Valeriy Chaliy told journalists, referring to a report by local media that Chevron had told the government it was pulling out of the deal. Chaliy declined to give further details....

Imagine this scenario. German police investigating a press leak descend on Deutsche Bank headquarters in Frankfurt. They serve a warrant to seize a bundle of private letters a US reporter is storing in a safe deposit box at a bank branch in Manhattan. The bank complies and orders the branch manager to open the reporter’s box and fax the private letters to the Stadtpolizei. Uproar! The US would be outraged at the bypassing of bilateral agreements and flouting of its citizen’s rights. And yet this is exactly what the US government is ordering Microsoft to do, according to the software...

Moscow (CNN) -- Russia looks richer in the snow. Muscovites, as they always have, stroll the main boulevard, Tverskaya Street, in their fur coats and hats on snowy evenings, basking in the holiday lights and decorations, their capital transformed into an icy wonderland. Moscow's coffee shops are full of young Russians still willing to pay 300 to 400 rubles for a latte. But the foreign currency exchange shops I pass are an ominous sign. Just a few weeks ago, 300 rubles was worth about $10. Now, it's about half that. Thursday, I exchange dollars for rubles and get a rate...

The United States of America are in a bad way. All around us we are seeing the fruits of a people who have forgotten the first principles that gave our nation that it had originally. We were founded as a constitutional republic. What this means is that our entire political system, in which we participate indirectly, is supposed to be governed by the Constitution. Yet, we have strayed from this, and many, many people in this nation do not even really understand either the purpose or the workings of that document, because they have never learned them, nor even thought...

On Nov. 20, President Obama announced an executive action on immigration to provide temporary protection (“deferred action”) from deportation and permission to work for some parents of United States citizens and legal permanent residents. The order also expands the existing “DACA” program benefiting the so-called DREAMers — high achieving young people brought to the United States as children. These two programs could affect up to 5 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States. The outcry from Republicans over Obama’s plans has been deafening. Congressional Republicans responded by holding a hearing to rail against the program. They’ve threatened a range...

A law firm representing the families of nine of the 26 people killed and a teacher injured at the Sandy Hook Elementary School says it has filed a lawsuit against the manufacturer, distributor and seller of the rifle used in the shooting. The negligence and wrongful death lawsuit asserts that the Bushmaster AR-15 rifle should not have been made publicly available because it is a military weapon unsuited for civilian use.

There’s nothing like freshly popped popcorn, especially when popped in one of those hand-cracked poppers with coconut oil. A lot of folks like to nuke their popcorn, and that’s where they could be running into some real trouble. Here’s the deal. Some researchers at the University of Minnesota discovered that the stuff that gives buttery flavor to microwave popcorn could trigger Alzheimer’s disease. They say the chemical diacetyl causes certain proteins to clump together in the brain, which, they say is a sure sign of Alzheimer’s. But wait, there’s more. Diacetyl also contributes to popcorn lung. Diacetyl is the stuff...

The power plant in Luoyang, central Henan Province, is burning old and damaged banknotes instead of coal - the first time this has been done in China, the official Xinhua news agency reports. The plant says one tonne of notes can generate more than 600 kWh of electricity, and is better for the environment than burning coal. The country's central bank, the People's Bank of China, has given permission for the notes to be burned, and says it's an efficient way to make electricity. With the province's unused paper money the company "can help generate 1.32 million kWh of electricity...

Late Saturday night, while few Americans were paying attention, the GOP establishment abrogated the last distinguishing factor that existed between the two parties. The GOP elites in the Senate joined Democrats in declaring our Constitution null and void. Not only were Senate Republicans planning to rubber stamp the Cromnibus/amnesty bill – the worst and most consequential single piece of legislation since Obamacare – they wanted to get it done without compelling Democrats to take a tough vote defending Obama’s illegal actions. After forcing the poor senators to work over the weekend, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) finally leveraged Harry Reid into...

Radical Muslim cleric Sheik Man Haron Monis has been revealed to be the ringleader in the Sydney cafe siege that has seen up to 30 people held hostage for more than 10 hours. Monis was born Manteghi Bourjerdi and fled from Iran to Australia in 1996 where he changed his name to Man Haron Monis and assuming the title of Sheik Haron. He has gained media attention in the past for a "hate mail" campaign, protesting the presence of Australian troops in Afghanistan. The campaign saw him and his partner Amirah Droudis post hate-filled letters to the families of dead...

Moscow, December 15, Interfax - The Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society (IOPS) has announced the creation of a White Book on crimes against Christians in the Middle East, which will be presented at the United Nations Human Rights Council in February 2015. "We are working to compile the so-called White Book, containing a sorrowful list of names of the slain and tortured Christians, instances of churches and shrines being destroyed, and eyewitness accounts. We would like to present this book at the UN HRC at its next session in late February - early March," IOPS Vice President Yelena Agapova told a...