Free Republic

People close to Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder have formed a fund allowing him to travel the country to more aggressively tell of the state’s rebound under his watch, raising the prospect of a potential Republican presidential bid. A spokesman for the governor told The Associated Press on Friday that a 501(c)(4) group, Making Government Accountable, was established within the past month. “Once we get into May, the governor will travel more out of the state and promote Michigan, particularly the remarkable economic comeback,” Jarrod Agen said. An aide close to the governor said Snyder is considering a presidential run and...

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A 150-mile stretch of Interstate 80 between Cheyenne and Rawlins, Wyoming, remained closed Friday afternoon, more than 20 hours after major wrecks involving dozens of semi trucks forced police to close it down. Blinding, blowing snow hit southern Wyoming Thursday, creating impossible driving conditions that police say likely led to a series of three wrecks along the interstate. More than 30 commercial vehicles and 12 passenger cars were involved. Photos show the semi trucks piled up on one another. No one was killed, but about a dozen people were hospitalized.  Poor weather continued to hammer the area into Friday, complicating...

In the latest part of the outrage parade, a 16 year old Hunger Games star has declared the use of certain hair styles as racist. According to Amandla Stenberg, non-blacks wearing cornrows represent ‘cultural appropriation’ and slammed popular public figures for using the style in their fame. [video in link] Buzzfeed has a particularly bizarre article relating to the video. In it, it shows stills and gifs of Stenberg’s rant. In part, Stenberg declared that the rise of white rappers Macklemore and Iggy Azalea have been tied to their ‘appropriation’ of black culture. She states that their increased popularity has...

Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder expressing deep concerns over Veterans Affairs evaluations classifying veterans as "mentally defective" and banning them in the federal background check system from purchasing or owning a firearm. According to Grassley's office, the VA "reports individuals to the gun ban list if an individual merely needs financial assistance managing VA benefits," keeping them from exercising their Second Amendment rights. (Bolding is mine) "The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is effectively a national gun ban list and placement on the list precludes...

Opponents of Houston's non-discrimination ordinance failed to gather enough valid signatures to force a repeal referendum, a state district judge ruled Friday, validating city officials' decision to toss out the petition foes submitted last summer. After separate rulings from both a jury and state District Judge Robert Schaffer, attorneys for both sides entered dueling counts of the valid signatures, adding and subtracting voters as Schaffer responded to motions. By early this week, the counts were closer together than ever before, fewer than 1,000 signatures apart. Ultimately, Schaffer on Friday ruled the final count of valid signatures was 16,684, leaving opponents...

The King Abdullah Economic City, or KAEC (pronounced ‘cake’), will be slightly larger than Washington DC and home to approximately two million residents. Covering 70 square miles, the metropolis is costing £67 billion ($100 billion) and lies 100km from Jeddah, the commercial hub of the kingdom, near the Red Sea. The late king had pinned his hopes for his country’s future on the new-build, although at the moment it resembles a dusty building site dotted with cranes and work is not likely to be completed for ten years, at least. So far 15 per cent has been built, as public...

Archaeologists working at the Rising Whale site at Cape Espenberg, Alaska, have discovered several artifacts that were imported from East Asia. Bronze artifacts discovered in a 1,000-year-old house in Alaska suggest trade was occurring between East Asia and the New World centuries before the voyages of Columbus.

Republican Carly Fiorina took a step closer to running for president, revealing Thursday that she is near a decision while blasting Hillary Clinton's policies as "crushing the middle class.""I am giving serious consideration to becoming a candidate for the presidency because I think our nation is at a pivotal point," said the former Hewlett-Packard and one-time California Senate candidate. "I think our government has grown so large, so powerful, so costly, so complex, so corrupt in fact that we are crushing the potential for the nation," she added.

Carly Fiorina, CPAC 2015 [Photo Credit: Katie Frates, The Daily Caller] Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO and a potential GOP presidential candidate, said on Friday that she is not as wealthy as Hillary Clinton and that unlike the likely Democratic nominee, she drives a car, does her own laundry, goes grocery shopping and tips at Chipotle.Fiorina, who is in New Hampshire as part of the GOP Leadership Summit, shared details of her anti-Clintonian lifestyle in an interview on The Howie Carr Show.Asked whether she thinks Clinton’s campaign strategy of trying to repackage herself as an “everyday American” will prove...

William Shatner’s $30 Billion Kickstarter Campaign to Save California David Pogue April 17, 2015 William Shatner. Wow. He’s 84 years old, looks 65, and juggles a schedule that would exhaust a team of 10. Book projects, TV projects, tech projects, horse-riding projects, charity projects. And his willingness to embrace the tech world is impressive; he’s got YouTube channels, he’s conducted Kickstarter projects, and he has a huge Twitter presence: more than 2 million followers. (He’s tweeted 30,000 times so far — and yes, it’s really him.) The hour he spent with me in a Yahoo Tech Mix interview wasn’t even...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was in New Hampshire today, speaking at the state’s Republican Leadership Summit.

Rick Perry may run for president again, and he made the case at a Republican dinner last night that Americans are ready to move past a “young, very attractive” President Obama. According to NBCDFW, Perry made the case for a Republican president (not necessarily him) who’s more than just a “critic-in-chief,” but also a “tested, results-oriented executive who has a record of accomplishment.” And just like in past years, Perry brought up the critique of Obama that he lacked any executive experience before he became president. Perry told the Republican crowd the country is ready to move past “eight...

Ben Affleck asked the producers of PBS’ Finding Your Roots television show to edit out details of an ancestor who owned slaves, according to a Sony internal email exchange leaked this week. In an email sent to Sony CEO Michael Lynton shortly before the show’s second season premiere, Harvard professor and Finding Your Roots host Henry Louis Gates Jr. wrote that an unnamed “megastar” had asked producers to “edit out something about one of his ancestors – the fact that he owned slaves.”

Glenn Beck on Tuesday said the tax reform plan proposed by Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is “bizarre” and an “absolute jobs killer.” Rubio announced he will be running for president in 2016, and Beck said his tax plan is so bad, Americans may as well “just vote for Barack Obama again.” According to Politico, Rubio’s plan is designed to “reward families with children while slashing levies on business and investment income but keeping a top rate personal income rate of 35 percent, far higher than many Republicans would like.” Though 35 percent is a slight cut from the current top...

One of music artist John Mayer's signature songs is “Daughters,” a sweet and simple tribute to the importance of parents' influence on their little girls. Here's the refrain: “So fathers, be good to your daughters, Daughters will love like you do. Girls become lovers who turn into mothers, So mothers, be good to your daughters too.” But when John Mayer isn't crooning about your beautiful daughters, he's looking at naked pictures of them, sometimes hundreds at a time before he gets out of bed in the morning. In fact, he often prefers that to an actual human being, according to...

I understand that to many people who work at the New York Times, guns are frightening animistic objects. But Andrew Rosenthal, the editorial page editor of the Times, just took the following swipe at Ted Cruz, under the headline "Ted Cruz’s Strange Gun Argument," and it is his argument, not Ted Cruz's, that is strange to say the least: Americans who believe the Second Amendment gives them an individual right to own guns (as opposed to a more general right to bear arms, as our editorial board argues) often make cogent arguments for their position. I believe that allowing people...

(WXYZ) - A new homeschool bill was introduced this morning after a young brother and sister were found dead in their mother's freezer last month. If passed it would require every child being homeschooled to be registered with their school district. The schooling would be able to take place at any appropriate location. "I believe this bill not only will have a part in monitoring children's education. ..in some cases, save lives," said Stephen Berry and Stoni Blair's grandfather John Blair. John was standing with family members and state and local leaders outside of the Spirit of Detroit Statue at...

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — State Rep. Jim Lucas is known for his defense of gun ownership and gun rights. Nevertheless, the Seymour Republican raised some eyebrows with comments made on the House floor Thursday. Every week this session, someone in the House presents a domestic violence fact in the effort to increase awareness regarding domestic abuse. Thursday, Lucas felt the need to react. Watch his statement in the video player above by clicking the play button. “There are options out there for women,” he said. “Applications for a license to carry a handgun are up significantly in the state of Indiana...

She Rides By Van: The Hillary Clinton Launch By Charles Krauthammer April 16 See Hillary ride in a van! Watch her meet everyday Americans! Witness her ordering a burrito bowl at Chipotle! Which she did wearing shades, as did her chief aide Huma Abedin, yielding security-camera pictures that made them look (to borrow from Karl Rove) like fugitives on the lam, wanted in seven states for a failed foreign policy. There’s something surreal about Hillary Clinton’s Marie Antoinette tour, sampling cake and commoners. But what else can she do? After Barack Obama, she’s the best-known political figure in America. She...