Free Republic

Jon Stewart: Cheating teachers go to jail. Cheating Wall Streeters don’t. What’s up with that? This is one of those videos that make you want to laugh and cry at the same time. I you didn’t watch it, take a few minutes, and if you did see it, watch it again and see what you missed amid the layers of deep analysis for which “The Daily Show” is known. Jon Stewart on Wednesday night made the inevitable comparison between the former teachers and administrators in Atlanta who were sentenced for cheating on standardized tests — a few for as much...

A 17-year-old Cupertino boy who had been missing and returned to his family on Thursday night, hid on his high school campus over the last four days and ate fruit to survive, according to the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office. Sgt. James Jensen told NBC Bay Area on Friday morning that Connor Sullivan had hidden for a portion of the time at Monta Vista High School, where he had last been seen Monday morning after his first class. Jensen said he also used portable toilets on campus as scores of deputies and volunteers had fanned the South Bay looking for...

Congratulations to Jake Tapper! The host of CNN's The Lead has today been named as the new host of the Sunday morning news show, State of the Union. Whatever his personal political proclivities might be, Tapper has proven himself to be a generally honest reporter. It is hard to imagine him acting in such a blatantly political manner as previous State of the Union host, Candy Crowley, did when she acted as an Obama enabler when she moderated a 2012 presidential debate.Congratulations to Jake Tapper! The host of CNN's The Lead has today been named as the new host of the Sunday...

The Statue of Liberty and Liberty Island were both being evacuated Friday afternoon after parks police received a report of a suspicious package, law enforcement sources tell NBC 4 New York. Tourists were ferried off of the island after parks police patrolling with dogs near a visitors' locker area picked up the scent of a suspicious package shortly before 1 p.m, sources say. The NYPD's bomb squad was called to the scene, along with EMS workers. A security sweep of the island is also being conducted. Tourists visiting the site tweeted photos of hundreds of people waiting for ferries at...

Oil executives have been making headlines recently, due to large purchases of their own company’s stock. In fact, insider buying in the oil industry is higher than any other industry, except the machinery industry. Who’s buying? Major insider purchases for the month of March were made by Kinder Morgan (NYSE: KMI) and Diamond Offshore Drilling (NYSE: DO). Diamond Offshore Drilling’s CEO, Corp Loews, purchased 685,373 shares on the open market, and Rich Kinder, CEO of Kinder Morgan, purchased 100,000 shares of Kinder Morgan. In March, Rich Kinder and Corp Loews weren’t the only executives buying company stock. The Director of...

The Senate narrowly confirmed Loretta Lynch as the next attorney general today, 166 days after she was first nominated for the post. The Senate approved Lynch’s nomination with a vote of 56 to 43. Stay tuned for updates. UPDATE: The following Senate Republicans voted 'aye' (via TPM): In an unexpected turn, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) voted with the Democratic caucus to confirm Lynch after slow-walking her nomination. The other Republicans who voted for Lynch were Sens. Orrin Hatch (UT), Lindsey Graham (SC), Jeff Flake (AZ), Thad Cochran (MS), Susan Collins (ME), Mark Kirk (IL), Kelly Ayotte (NH), Ron...

Hillary Clinton’s rotten, stinking criminal corruption disqualifies her even from a prison work-release job scrubbing toilets at a truckstop. But what difference does it make? She’s running for president again, and this time her campaign says they plan to raise and spend $2.5 billion. That’s 2.5 billion dollars. Billion, with a B. It’s the end of the world as we know it. Who the hell has ever heard of such a thing, spending two and a half billion dollars on one candidate’s presidential campaign? Whatever the racket raised, democrats will eventually have to come to grips with the fact that...

Dr. Adam Kotsko, an assistant professor at Shimer College in Chicago, Illinois, believes that there is no such thing as sexism against men and that Christianity is just another way to say "White Supremacy." Voicing his opinion on twitter, Dr. Kotsko has repeatedly slammed Christianity, going so far as calling it another name for "White Supremacist Patriarchy." Here is just a small sample of his tweets and retweets on the subject:

Mountain lions have been spotted roaming around, even eating deer, prompting officials to warn people not to approach the wild animals, especially when they are feeding or with their offspring. On Friday, the San Mateo County Alert System notified residents that a mountain lion was located in a driveway on the 1100 block of Westridge Drive in Portola Valley. Authorities believed the deer was killed by a mountain lion. Earlier this week, a NBC Bay Area viewer captured a mountain lion eating a deer in Soquel on April 18, near the Santa Cruz mountains. Authorities offer a few tips on...

Leaders with the Student Government Association at Youngstown State University said they decided to act quickly this week when posters showed up on campus promoting “Straight Pride” week next month. The posters contained profanity, which our station has blurred for viewers. The posters promote the event as a way of not showing the differences between students. Campus leaders said while they believe the posters were meant more as satire, especially since no names were associated with them, they determined the flyers went too far with their message.

Another dimension: Professor Marc in het Panhuis and PhD student Shannon Bakarich are building objects using 4-D printing, where time is the fourth dimension. 4D printing is unfolding as technology that takes 3D printing to an entirely new level. The fourth dimension is time, shape shifting in fact, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) at the University of Wollongong is helping to set the pace in the next revolution in additive manufacturing. Just as the extraordinary capabilities of 3D printing have begun to infiltrate industry and the family home, researchers have started to develop 3D...

A new study based on 1,000 years of temperature records suggests global warming is not progressing as fast as it would under the most severe emissions scenarios outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). "Based on our analysis, a middle-of-the-road warming scenario is more likely, at least for now," said Patrick T. Brown, a doctoral student in climatology at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment. "But this could change."

NEW YORK — Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton took a feminist tone on Thursday. She told attendees at the sixth annual Women in The World Summit that “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed” for the sake of giving women access to “reproductive health care and safe childbirth.” “Far too many women are denied access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth, and laws don’t count for much if they’re not enforced. Rights have to exist in practice — not just on paper,” Clinton said.

One of the inherent rights of owning a vehicle is the ability to get on one’s backside — a wrench in one hand and a grease rag in the other, and just tinker to your little heart’s desire. Since the vehicle was invented, it’s been an important facet within the community of gearheads. General Motors — the same company responsible for 87 deaths related to faulty ignition switches, FYI — wants to take that right away from you citing safety and security issues. Along with a few other big names. It’s called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). It’s been around...

... [Jake] LaMotta has been the subject of several books, a film considered one of the greatest in American cinema, and a failed stage show called "Lady and the Champ." Now there's a second feature film about his life, this one titled "LaMotta: The Bronx Bull." LaMotta will be in Orange County on Saturday when the new movie, produced by Irvine-based Main Street Films, premieres as part of the Newport Beach Film Festival ...

As tourists stroll between Yellowstone's 300 active geysers, taking selfies in front of thousands of bubbling, boiling mud pots and hissing steam vents, they are treading on one of the planet's greatest time bombs. The park is a supervolcano so enormous, it has puzzled geophysicists for decades, but now a research group, using seismic technology to scan its depths, have made a bombshell discovery. Yellowstone's magma reserves are many magnitudes greater than previously thought, say scientists from the University of Utah. Underneath the national park's attractions and walking paths is enough hot rock to fill the Grand Canyon nearly 14...

The number of legally married same-sex couples in the United States has tripled in the last year, according to a new poll released today by Gallup that was co-authored by Gary J. Gates, Blachford-Cooper Distinguished Scholar and Research Director at the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, and Frank Newport, editor in chief of Gallup. The new estimate suggests that 390,000 out of nearly 1 million same-sex couples in the U.S. are married. Estimates from the 2013 National Health Interview Survey had the figure at 130,000. "As the Supreme Court considers on Tuesday if same-sex couples have a constitutional...

The sudden outburst of weepiness for convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is truly stomach turning. As a jury decides his sentence, this is a bad time for Beantown’s storied liberalism to rear its soft head. Only 26 percent of Bostonians would like to see the Chechen immigrant put to death; 61 percent would give him life in prison. For both justice and national security, Dzhokhar deserves death. Even as a model prisoner, Tsarnaev could become swap bait: Terrorists might kidnap innocent people and try to trade them for Tsarnaev. By swapping accused Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl for five top...

Astronomers find runaway galaxies 21 hours ago Enlarge This schematic illustrates the creation of a runaway galaxy. In the first panel, an "intruder" spiral galaxy approaches a galaxy cluster center, where a compact elliptical galaxy (cE) already revolves around a massive central elliptical galaxy. In the second panel, a close encounter occurs and the compact elliptical receives a gravitational kick from the intruder. In the third panel, the compact elliptical escapes the galaxy cluster while the intruder is devoured by the giant elliptical galaxy in the cluster center. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-04-astronomers-runaway-galaxies.html#jCp We know of about two dozen runaway stars,...

Health officials are warning New Jerseyans about a street drug that has sent about 30 people to emergency rooms throughout the state. Authorities have issued the warning for synthetic marijuana, commonly known as spice or K2, which can cause severe agitation, seizures and renal failure. No one has died in New Jersey as a result of the drug. But a 22-year-old South Brunswick woman apparently suffered an adverse reaction on Tuesday.