Free Republic

There are laws in Michigan pertaining to reproaching someone for not accepting a duel, the playing of the national anthem and using indecent, immoral, obscene, vulgar, or insulting language in the presence of women and children. Now there’s a package of bills that would put some of these kinds of obsolete and largely unenforced statutes out to pasture. “I believe it is time to identify and repeal unnecessary criminal statutes and burdens currently in state law that result in over-criminalization and over-penalization of Michigan citizens,” said Rep. Chris Afendoulis, R-Grand Rapids, the sponsor of House Bill 4248, the lead bill...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said Saturday that he asked the Pentagon for answers about Jade Helm 15, a military training program that has sparked conspiracy theories about a possible military takeover of Texas, Bloomberg Politics reported. The 2016 presidential candidate told Bloomberg during the South Carolina Republican Party's annual convention that his office had been "assured that it is a military training exercise." But, he added, he also gets where the conspiracy theorists are coming from. "You know I understand the concern that's been raised by a lot of citizens about Jade Helm," Cruz told Bloomberg. "It's a question I'm...

Isis has officially claimed responsibility for the attack in Texas: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/05/isis-claims-attack-in-texas.html But some journalists are expressing skepticism, wondering how a person who has never been to Iraq, can be a member of Isis. The answer is simple - Internet recruitment. Many Muslims from Europe have left the continent, to go and fight for Isis in Iraq. These Muslims did not become Isis members when they reached Iraqi territory, but were already Isis members before making their travel plans to Iraq. It is possible that some American Muslims may have been recruited in a similar manner. It is not necessary for...

The Islamic State is continuing to wipe out the Yazidi religious minority in northern Iraq – by means of rape: Those women who survive are rejected by their families. Some commit suicide. The tragedy that has befallen the Yazidis is far from over. Last week, it was reported that the extremist Islamic organization had recently murdered 300 Yazidis and that thousands of women are still being held captive and are serving as bargaining chips. Recently, ISIS released several of these women, who then found shelter in refugee camps in the Kurdish-held enclave in Iraq. They described some of the tribulations...

An international team of astronomers led by Yale University and the University of California-Santa Cruz have pushed back the cosmic frontier of galaxy exploration to a time when the universe was only 5% of its present age. The team discovered an exceptionally luminous galaxy more than 13 billion years in the past and determined its exact distance from Earth using the powerful MOSFIRE instrument on the W.M. Keck Observatory's 10-meter telescope, in Hawaii. It is the most distant galaxy currently measured. The galaxy, EGS-zs8-1, was originally identified based on its particular colors in images from NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space...

As online chatter about a Muhammad cartoon contest began to escalate last week, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a Joint Intelligence Bulletin last Thursday. The bulletin acknowledged the potential threat, but downplayed the possibility of any violence targeting the event. The bulletin concluded that while the event could inspire violence abroad by contributing to terrorist messaging, it was “unlikely” that such violence would happen in the United States. A copy of the FBI/DHS bulletin is provided exclusively by PJ Media below. On Sunday night, two men – Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, roommates from Phoenix —...

At first glance, George Miller’s upcoming film Mad Max: Fury Road seems to share a few standard themes with its three Max franchise predecessors, and while the thriller is sure to be (and looks) action-packed, an Esquire interview with female co-star Rosie Huntington-Whiteley reveals the introduction of a new element: feminism. According to Huntington-Whiteley, who is playing one of several female characters to be rescued by legendary rogue enforcer Max Rockatansky, Fury Road will be less of a story about damsels in distress, and more about the empowerment of female survivors, thanks to Vagina Monologues author and feminine activist Eve...

“If you haven’t heard about Operation Jade Helm 15, you need to,” says noted actor, martial artist and Internet meme Chuck Norris.It’s a training exercise planned for this summer involving four branches of the military and seven southwest states. According to the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, the operation is routine (though extensive) and will have little to no impact on civilians.But Norris, and a handful of of other conspiracy-minded critics of President Barack Obama, don’t buy it. And Norris doesn’t think you should either.“The U.S. government says, ‘It’s just a training exercise.’ But I’m not sure the term ‘just’...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a likely candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, speaks Spanish in a new video celebrating Cinco de Mayo. The video was released by Bush's political action committee, which described it as "a message for the entire Hispanic population in the United States, but especially those of Mexican origin." Bush is fluent in Spanish. "Cinco de Mayo is an honorable date when Mexico, our neighbor, bravely defended itself against a foreign intervention," Bush said. "Here in the U.S., Cinco de Mayo has become a day where we celebrate our ties with Mexico and the great...

Open letter to conservative talk show hostsI’m disappointed with conservative talk radio. I really can’t understand why our media giants, such as Rush Limbaugh , Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin, are not actively pushing for Ted Cruz….Conservative pundits have attributed the 2012 debacle, to the inability for conservatives to unite behind one strong conservative. YET WE’RE DOING IT AGAIN!?!While we’re window shopping, the other team lost no time with scorn, and vilification; ignoring and misrepresenting anything Cruz.Coalescing behind one guy, won’t happen by itself. Nor will the liberal leaning media help us in this regard. Conservative talk show hosts-the “editorial...

.... LINKED TO LA RAZA The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judge who previously dismissed terror charges against one of the Garland, Texas shooters has a connection to the controversial activist group, National Council of La Raza. Judge Mary Murguia, appointed by President Clinton and considered a potential nominee to the Supreme Court by President Obama, was the judge who dismissed government charges against Elton Simpson for suspected terrorism in 2011. On Sunday, Simpson attacked a free speech event in Garland, Texas depicting the Prophet Muhammad in cartoons. Daniel Greenfield cites evidence from the 2011 case: The FBI knew...

New carbon emissions standards that were proposed last year for coal-fired power plants in the United States would substantially improve human health and prevent more than 3,000 premature deaths per year, according to a new study. The study, led by researchers at Syracuse and Harvard Universities, used modeling to predict the effect on human health of changes to national carbon standards for power plants. Researchers calculated that the changes in the E.P.A. rule could prevent 3,500 premature deaths a year and more than 1,000 heart attacks and hospitalizations from air-pollution-related illness. Charles T. Driscoll, a professor of environmental systems engineering...

Officials with the Crane Independent School District are meeting to discuss their sex education program after nearly two dozen cases of Chlamydia were reported among the high school student body. KOSA-TV reported the Crane Independent School District sent a letter to parents last week regarding 20 cases of chlamydia among the Crane High School student population, which totals about 300 students. Those letters were sent to the parents of both senior and junior students as a precaution. The Texas Department of State Health Services notified both Crane and Upton County officials after a significant numbers of cases were identified. The...

Conservative radio host Glenn Beck has taken to his blog to clarify comments about 2016 presidential candidate Ted Cruz he made on Monday’s show. The comments came amid a discussion about who Beck thought would be the right fit for the White House in 2016. This led to the surprising quote where Beck said of Sen. Cruz, “I’m not sure he could govern.” Of course, Beck has long been a supporter of Cruz, so he wrote a clarification Tuesday morning entitled “Shocker: Media takes Glenn’s comments about Ted Cruz completely out of context.” Here’s a quick excerpt: As we were...

The test flight – called the Pad Abort Test – is slated for the early morning hours of Wednesday, May 6, if all goes well. The key facts and a timeline of the test events are outlined herein. The test vehicle will reach roughly a mile in altitude (5000 feet, 1500 meters) and last only about 90 seconds in duration from beginning to end. It constitutes a crucial first test of the crew capsule escape system that will save astronauts lives in a split second in the unlikely event of a catastrophic launch pad failure with the Falcon 9 rocket....

Brothers and Sisters: Peace be with you. Frequently, Internet atheistic aces challenge me to provide evidence and/or proof for the existence of God. Almost all the time the proof they demand is, on its face, absurd because it is empirical in way or the other and God, if they only knew what the word "God" is, lies beyond any empirical proof. No matter, they keep insisting and the silence of the impossible experiment is proof enough for them. This post is not address to those narrow, sterile minds because they've closed themselves within and become impermeable to any argument....

The Republican Party has a whole new debate problem in 2016. After suffering through a seemingly endless and unwieldy stream of 23 debates in the 2012 cycle, the Republican National Committee took control of the process, marshaling networks and candidates to agree to a framework where they only participate in fewer than a dozen sanctioned debates. But now the national party and networks face the new challenge of arranging as many as 17 candidates on a single televised stage. Largely out of view, executives and journalists from Fox and CNN, with input from the national party, are weighing the entrance...

Today's Ted Cruz news: "On a day of dueling presidential announcements, conservative neurosurgeon Ben Carson was the clear winner in Facebook engagement, driving nearly three times the traffic of former Hewlett-Packard executive Carly Fiorina. ... In relation to other GOP contenders, both fall on the lower end of engagement. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio got about 1.3 million interactions from 695,000 people, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul got about 1.9 million interactions from 865,000 people, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz came out on top with 5.5 million interactions generated by 2.1 million people." Read more from CBS News. Cruz has assembled his...

SEVERAL PUBLISHERS in Western countries have disgraced themselves in recent years with self-censorship to avoid being targeted by Islamic militants. The French newspaper Charlie Hebdo did the opposite: Even after its offices were firebombed in 2011, and even after its editor was put on an al-Qaeda wanted list, it continued to courageously publish cartoons and articles lampooning Islam — as well as Christianity, Judaism and established religion in general. snip Equally important is that media across the West refuse to be cowed by violence. The attack in Paris comes after a year in which two U.S. journalists who traveled to...

The lies don’t really matter. There are no spontaneous demonstrations anymore; just anarchistic attacks on society which are managed and orchestrated to appear spontaneous. The spirit of America has been infected and degraded by a president who hates us and loves seeing the agony we are in as we try to prove a negative. That negative is, “There is no systematic police brutality.” There is no systematic “police brutality” in America. There are occasional bad acting cops who become the center of claims that the whole American system of policing is corrupt and rotten, but no evidence of systematic police...