Free Republic

In response to this weekend’s slaying of two police officers in Hattiesburg, Miss., U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch issued a statement expressing grief over their loss and reassuring law enforcement nationwide that the Department of Justice “stands in solidarity” with them. Officers Benjamin Deen and Liquori Tate were shot and killed during a routine traffic stop late Saturday night. Marvin Banks and Joanie Calloway were charged with two counts of capital murder. Two others were arrested and charged over the weekend in relation to the shooting: Curtis Banks for being “accessory after the fact” and Cornelius Clark for obstruction of

The Obama administration on Monday ordered all insurers to provide IUDs, the contraceptive patch and other birth control free of out-of-pocket charge to all women, rewriting the rules after reports that some insurance carriers were refusing to cover all types of contraceptives. Insurers must cover at least one brand of contraception in each of 18 different methods outlined by the Food and Drug Administration, such as oral contraceptive pills, the emergency contraceptive morning-after pill and intrauterine devices. Insurers can in some cases still impose costs to prod women to use generics rather than brand-name drugs, under the new guidance —...

The year is 2023, and President Ted Cruz is ending the second of his contentious terms in the Oval Office. While his policies have been controversial — for example, undoing major social legislation (Obamacare) without a single Democratic vote — his administration’s continual expressions of hostility toward dissent have finally proved intolerable to millions of Americans. Liberal grievances date back to 2017, the first year of Cruz’s administration, when his Department of Homeland Security issued a report declaring that fears about economic stagnation and inequality combined with liberal hatred of a conservative Latino could foster left-wing extremism. Specifically, failure to...

RUSH: This is from the "Monkey Cage" section of the Washington Post: "Blacks Die Sooner than Whites. How Many Votes Has This Cost Democrats?" This is an honest-to-God story by Dean Robinson. "Black people in the United States continue to be sicker and die sooner than whites. ... [T]hey suffer from 'excess mortality' -- that is, black deaths that would not have occurred had the death rate among blacks been the same as that among whites." So we have here, as now documented in the Washington Post, yet another terrible inequity that is distinctly American: The death rate inequality. So...

Franklin Graham, one of the world’s best-known Christian evangelists and the head of the nonprofit Samaritan’s Purse, said in a Wednesday morning Fox & Friends interview the “folks in Garland were wrong” to hold their “Draw Muhammad” event. ” As a Christian, I don’t like it when people mock my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” he said. “What this event was doing in Texas was mocking Islam. I disagree with [them].” Graham said today’s society is lacking in civility and the “folks in Garland were wrong” to further that tone. “I think we need to show respect and civility,” he...

Education advocates on Monday called on Gov. Larry Hogan and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to increase funding for the city's schools, arguing the recent rioting in Baltimore shows the money is desperately needed. Without the funds, city schools will be forced to cut teachers, critical programs and student services, the advocates said. "Baltimore is not getting sufficient education funding to provide for all of our children's needs," said Bebe Verdery, education reform director at the ACLU of Maryland. The coalition includes the city's parent-teacher association and the city's charter schools organization, among other groups.

Adam Schefter @AdamSchefter · 2m 2 minutes ago Filed to ESPN: Tom Brady suspended four games, Pats lose 1st round pick in 2016 and a 4th in 2017, and team fined $1 million, per source:

Fort Huachuca, Arizona – It’s the beginning of the end of an era at Fort Huachuca. On April 27, National Morse Code Day, the last Manual Morse Code class begins here. In the future, the course will be taught by the Air Force at Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas. National Morse Code Day is celebrated on what would have been Morse’s 224th birthday. On May 24, 1844, Samuel F. B. Morse dispatched the first telegraph message in Morse code, the message, “What Hath God Wrought?” sent from the U.S. Capitol to Alfred Vail at a railroad station in Baltimore, Maryland....

Over the course of 2014 and the months leading into 2015, the issue of alleged police brutality from Ferguson to Baltimore has been a hot topic of news cycles, race baiters like Al Sharpton and advocacy groups. But despite what many in the media would have us believe, police are human beings too and they get up everyday to do a dangerous job not many thank them for. They too deserve justice when things go wrong and especially when they lose their lives. According to new statistics and data released today by the FBI, police shootings were up 89 percent...

It might just be a bunch of bottles and cans, but when you get enough recyclables together it can mean a hefty wad of cash. California authorities say a group involved in an alleged illegal recycling scheme was flush with $14 million in refunds after trucking roughly 250 million cans and bottles from out of state and redeeming them. A grand jury indicted five California residents on charges including grand theft and recycling fraud in March, reports the Associated Press, but the details of the case were just announced Thursday by California’s Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, or CalRecycle.

From contraception to colonoscopies, the Obama administration Monday closed a series of insurance loopholes on coverage of preventive care. The department of Health and Human Services said insurers must cover at least one birth control option under each of 18 methods approved by the FDA — without copays. Also, insurers can't charge patients for anesthesia services in connection with colonoscopies. Other services covered without copays or cost-sharing include: - Preventive screening, genetic counseling and BRCA genetic testing for women at increased risk for having a potentially harmful mutation in genes that suppress cancerous tumors. - Prenatal care and other services...

New York’s current “Wheel of Fortune” branded instant lottery game seems pretty fun: you scratch off letters and reveal which are or aren’t on the game board. These words are supposed to be randomly generated, but one gambler is really upset at the state lottery after scratching off the words, “YOU/ELMIRA/TRASH.” You can probably guess where he lives.

International trade is a job creation engine that supports more than one in five jobs nationwide. Every state benefits from exports, and Texas, California and New York have the highest export revenues. Even states earning less than the top three states receive billions of export dollars. The United States is in the midst of negotiating three major trade frameworks (Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP], Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership [TTIP] and Trade and Investment Services Agreement [TISA]) that will be difficult to conclude without trade promotion authority (TPA). Trade Promotion Authority – The States Are Stakeholders provides background on TPA and the...

By BI: “Soon you will see how we control your electronic world… Today the electronic fields witness on our victory… Soon you won’t have any control over the internet.” Love, ISIS!

RUSH: Now, the tradition and institution, the next one under assault... I know you're gonna laugh, but don't because it's in the Washington Post. Here's the headline: "Flowers May Be Nice for Mom, But They're Terrible for Mother Earth." "Jennifer Grayson, an environmental journalist, is writing 'Unlatched,' a book about the breastfeeding controversy," and has a piece in the Washington Post saying we need to get rid of the entire industry of flowers on Valentine's Day and for Mother's Day or any other occasion because flowers are contributing to climate change. "How's this as a gesture of love for the...

Jeb Bush said in an interview that he would not immediately move to repeal President Obama’s executive order on immigration — suggesting he would instead wait for a new law to be passed addressing the matter. In an interview with Megyn Kelly that is to be shown Monday night on Fox News, Mr. Bush said that rather than overturning the order, he believed in “passing meaningful reform of immigration and make it part of it.” The president’s executive order seeks to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation. Most presidential candidates in the Republican field either oppose Mr. Obama’s order...

Powerful explosions rocked Yemen's capital on Monday as warplanes from the Saudi-led coalition targeted a rebel arms depot, with medics reporting five dead and 20 wounded in twin strikes. The raid on the depot in the Mount Noqum area on the eastern outskirts of Sanaa triggered several blasts, an AFP correspondent and witnesses said. ... Monday's attack came a day ahead of a hoped-for five-day humanitarian truce proposed by the Saudi-led coalition which launched strikes against rebels in late March in support of exiled President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi. The huge explosions sent artillery pieces flying, with one crashing into the...

Deuteronomy 33:26,27 There is None like unto the God of Jeshurun, Who Rideth upon the Heaven in thy Help, And in His Excellency on the Sky. The Eternal God is thy Refuge, and Underneath are the Everlasting Arms: And He shall Thrust Out the Enemy from before thee; and shall Say, Destroy them.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Monday put health insurance companies on notice that they must cover all forms of female contraception, including the patch and intrauterine devices, without imposing co-payments or other charges. In the last month, the National Women’s Law Center and the Kaiser Family Foundation issued separate reports that found that insurers often flouted a federal requirement to provide free coverage of birth control for women under President Obama’s health care law.

On Friday, the Pentagon raised the threat level across all military bases and compounds within the United States to “Force Protection Bravo” in response to the “increased and predictable threat of terrorism”, announced Captain Jeff Davis of U.S. Northern Command. The threat level was raised after FBI Director James Comey admitted that ISIS has thousands of sympathizers currently living inside the country ready to wage jihad. The FBI has also ordered agents to put under 24/7 surveillance more than one hundred U.S. residents that are considered possible terror threats. Officials from the FBI told ABC News that agents have been...