Free Republic

In a test of labor’s ability to expand its reach in the South, workers at a Nissan plant in Mississippi have overwhelmingly rejected a bid to unionize. Out of roughly 3,500 employees at the Canton-based plant who voted Thursday and Friday, more than 60 percent opposed the union. It was an emphatic coda to a yearslong organizing effort underwritten by the United Automobile Workers, which has been repeatedly frustrated in its efforts to organize major auto plants in the region.

The American Center for Law and Justice filed a FOIA request for information surrounding the infamous 2016 Arizona “Tarmac Meeting” between Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch during the ongoing Hillary Clinton investigation. The ACLJ has a summary of their initial review –SEE HERE– However, various internet researchers who have reviewed the initial 413 pages (pdf embed below) have discovered something very interesting. It appears Attorney General Loretta Lynch used an email alias in her communication to disguise her identity. Lynch’s alias appears to be “Elizabeth Carlisle“.

The immigration reform bill that Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue introduced Wednesday — the RAISE Act — won’t become law anytime soon. But it’s a milestone that’s going to change the way we think about immigration, and will be the biggest issue in 2018 and 2020. There are two simple principles behind the bill. We’re going to admit people on the basis that they’ll make Americans better off. And amnesty is off the table. The bill would reduce the number of family-preference immigrants, people who come here because they have an immediate relative in the country. Right now two-thirds...

NEW YORK (AP) -- A liberal advocacy group that targeted Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly for advertiser boycotts in the past now has its sights set on Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity. Media Matters for America said Friday it will begin asking Hannity's advertisers to shun him and will ask thousands of its members to also contact companies. The group is setting up a stophannity.com website and plans to hire a plane to carry an anti-Hannity banner in the New York area. His Fox show "really has moved beyond just being a conservative viewpoint to state-aligned disinformation and propaganda," said...

China mulling 'small scale military ops' against India: Expert Press Trust of India | Beijing August 5, 2017 Last Updated at 10:22 IST China is planning a "small scale military operation" to "expel" Indian troops from the Doklam area "within two weeks", an article in a state-run daily here said today. India and China have been locked in a prolonged standoff in the area in the Sikkim sector since June 16 after Chinese troops began constructing a road near the Bhutan trijunction. Bhutan has protested to China, saying the area belonged to it and accused Beijing of violating agreements that...

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley is structuring a U.N. Security Council resolution toward North Korea by targeting a ban on DPRK exports. This approach is in line with the larger Trump strategy to leverage economic sanctions as pressure on North Korea to stop advancing military expansion and nuclear weapons. However, how President Trump has set Nikki Haley up for success on this resolution is something for the history books to write about: First: A review of the possible enhanced sanctions against N-Korea should be incorporated with the larger issue of policy toward the DPRK’s enabler, China. President Trump, Secretary Mnuchin and...

Indrek Wichman, a mechanical engineer professor at Michigan State University, has eyed a troubling trend of social justice warriors making their way through the humanities and social sciences and, to his despair, they now have their sights set on leveling their destruction on engineering. WichmanHaving spent 30 years teaching mechanical engineering, Wichman acknowledges things have changed dramatically and is concerned that “feelings” and “micro-aggressions” have taken a predominant role, much to the detriment of the hard sciences. “The world we engineers envisioned as young students is not quite as simple and straightforward as we had wished,” he states in a...

Rosenstein's authorization memo appointing Mueller does not state the grounds for the authorization: • what violation(s) of law are suspected • what evidence exists to support those suspicions • a time limit for the conduct of the investigation Instead the authorization memo grants an unlimited amount of time to investigate any individual associated with the campaign and any "link" they may have with the Russian government - or - any matter that arises during the investigation. It is a completely wide open investigation yet no violation of law is alleged. The U.S. Code of Federal Regulations requires that a special...

“It gives the prosecutor the power to indict in the District of Columbia, which is a district that is heavily Democratic, and would have a jury pool very unfavorable to Trump and the Trump Administration,” said Dershowitz, a Democrat who has at times defended Trump against what he sees as an overzealous collusion investigation. “It gives the prosecutor a tremendous tactical advantage,” he continued, asserting that the District of Columbia “is always solidly Democratic and has an ethnic and racial composition that might be very unfavorable to the Trump Administration.” “So I see the significance not so much that he...

In a room full of non-native speakers, 'there isn't any chance of understanding'. It might be their language, but the message is often lost. Editor's Note (29 December 2016): Through the end of the year, BBC Capital is bringing back some of your favourite stories from 2016. It was just one word in one email, but it triggered huge financial losses for a multinational company. The message, written in English, was sent by a native speaker to a colleague for whom English was a second language. Unsure of the word, the recipient found two contradictory meanings in his dictionary. He...

Republican Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake’s approval rating is at a drastically low number in his home state after he has continued to bash President Donald Trump according to a new Democratic Poll. The left leaning polling group, Public Policy Polling (PPP) found only 18 percent approve of the job Flake is doing. Meanwhile 62 percent disapprove and 19 percent are not sure how they feel about him. These numbers come after Flake has continued to criticize Trump throughout his presidency and refused to endorse him during the 2016 presidential campaign. If the 2018 mid-term election were held today, just 31...

With “Wonder Woman” and “Girls Trip” riding a wave of critical and commercial success at the box office this summer, it can be tempting to think that diversity in Hollywood is on an upswing. But these high-profile examples are not a sign of greater representation in films over all. A new study from the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering found that films were likely to contain fewer women and minority characters than white men, and when they did appear, these characters were portrayed in ways that reinforced stereotypes. And female characters, in particular, were generally less central...

August 5, 2017 Saturday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Lv 25:1, 8-17The LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai,"Seven weeks of years shall you count–seven times seven years–so that the seven cycles amount to forty-nine years.Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month, let the trumpet resound;on this, the Day of Atonement, the trumpet blast shall re-echothroughout your land.This fiftieth year you shall make sacredby proclaiming liberty in the land for all its inhabitants.It shall be a jubilee for you,when every one of you shall return to his own property,every one to his own...

A Mexican federal court has made an unusual ruling that bans the import of U.S. potatoes on the grounds the imports violate Mexicans’ right to food sovereignty and a healthy environment. A group of Mexican potato growers had sought a constitutional injunction on the imports, claiming they threaten to spread agricultural diseases. The court said Mexican agricultural authorities had failed to use methods like radiation treatment of imports to prevent diseases. But because federal injunctions are intended only to protect constitutional rights, the ruling had to break some new ground. The court ruled the ban must be implemented to preserve...

After spending 72 hours looking specifically at the motives of those pushing almost identical paragraphs including the catchphrases: “holdovers”, “purging loyalists“, “unfettered access” and “Caroline Glick“; it comes as no surprise to hear the administration perceives the anti-McMasters crowd as having “jumped the shark”… “reached too far”, and “exposed their agenda” etc. Ironically HR McMaster appears to be safer than ever in his position as National Security Adviser not specifically because of anything he has done, but as an actual outcome of the piranha approach taken by his detractors. The severity of his opposition’s group-think actually exposed the common denominator....

The bill to curb immigration supported by President Donald Trump would add to the wealth of Americans. Trump on Wednesday announced his support for legislation proposed by Senators Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and David Perdue, R-Ga., that would cut legal immigration into the United States by half and grant entry based on education, the ability to speak English, and jobs skills. While reducing immigration would cut overall U.S. economic growth by reducing population growth, gross domestic product per U.S. resident would grow, according to an analysis of census and economic data by Breitbart News. Immigrants are responsible for about half of...

　 Is this stunning bracelet made by Paleolithic man for his favourite woman really 70,000 years old? By The Siberian Times reporter 02 August 2017 Startling new scientific evidence is to be reviewed by international experts which - if true - would transform our knowledge of the skills and sophistication of early man. A stunning discovery by team of Novosibirsk Institute of Archeology and Ethnography. Picture: Anatoly Derevyanko It is already known as the oldest stone bracelet in the world, believed to have been made not by ancient Homo sapiens but the extinct Denisovan species of early humans,  and previously  dated as being between 40,000 - 50,000 years old. The bracelet was found in 2008 in so-called Stratum 11 of world famous Denisova cave in the Altai region of Siberia. New findings suggest it could be 65,000 to 70,000 years old, long before ancient people were believed to capable of making such remarkable objects. Maksim Kozlikin, a researcher form the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography, Novosibirsk, indicated Australian specialists were among those to obtain exceptional results on the bracelet's age.  'Preliminary results have been received to date Stratum 11 where the bracelet was found to 65,000-to-70,000 years,' he said.  'So it all goes towards changing the dating of the find to more ancient.' It is understood that further checks were made, and the results were 'verified and verified again', according to one Russian report, citing scientists involved with the bracelet.  'Scientists are certain that multiple big headlines are coming up,' reported Novosibirsk TV Channel 10. This month experts from Russia will meet scientists from the University of Wollongong in Australia, and University of Oxford in the UK.  Professor Mikhail Shunkov, director of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography, said: 'Our colleagues from Australia and Oxford are coming here in August, we will be discussing the dating then.' 'The bracelet is stunning - in bright sunlight it reflects the sun rays, at night by the fire it casts a deep shade of green'. Pictures: Anatoly Derevyanko, Konstantin Tynayev The bracelet was exhibited in Paris this year, carrying a label showing it to be 50,000 years old with the approval of scientists. 'Made 50,000 ago, for this kind of object and with the (known) level of technologies... this is (already) a world-level phenomenon,' said Dr Shunkov.  He said consensus on the age would be announced after the experts had discussed the dating, and that a major scientific journal study was expected. 'Until then, I will refrain saying anything,' he said, adding that some data was 'ambiguous' and required clarification. 'If or when we agree, we will have to prepare a publication first,' he said. Dr Shunkov and Denisova Cave in The Altai Mountains. Pictures: The Siberian Times  Efforts by The Siberian Times to reach the Australian scientists on their dating work were unsuccessful.  The bracelet is thought to have adorned a very important woman or child on only special occasions.  Scientists conclude it was made by our prehistoric human ancestors, the Denisovans, and shows them to have been far more advanced than ever realised. 'The bracelet is stunning - in bright sunlight it reflects the sun rays, at night by the fire it casts a deep shade of green,' said Professor Anatoly Derevyanko, the institute's former director.  'It is unlikely it was used as an everyday jewellery piece. I believe this beautiful and very fragile bracelet was worn only for some exceptional moments,' he said.  What made the discovery especially striking was that the manufacturing technology is more common to a much later period, such as the Neolithic era. Picture: Konstantin Tynayev The bracelet was found inside the famous Denisova Cave, in the Altai Mountains, which is renowned for its palaeontological finds dating back to the Denisovans, known as homo altaiensis, an extinct species of humans genetically distinct from Neanderthals and modern humans. Made of chlorite, the bracelet was found in the same layer as the remains of some of the prehistoric people and is thought to belong to them. What made the discovery especially striking was that the manufacturing technology is more common to a much later period, such as the Neolithic era.  Indeed, it is not clear yet how the Denisovans could have made the bracelet with the skills they had.  'Next to the hole on the outer surface of the bracelet can be seen clearly a limited polished zone of intensive contact with some soft organic material,' said Dr Derevyanko. Pictures: Anatoly Derevyanko Writing in the Novosibirsk magazine, Science First Hand, Dr Derevyanko said: 'Two fragments of the bracelet of a width of 2.7cm and a thickness of 0.9 cm were found. The estimated diameter of the find was 7cm.  'Near one of the cracks was a drilled hole with a diameter of about 0.8 cm. Studying them, scientists found out that the speed of rotation of the drill was rather high, fluctuations minimal, and that was there was applied drilling with an implement - technology that is common for more recent times. 'The ancient master was skilled in techniques previously considered not characteristic for the Paleolithic era, such as drilling with an implement, boring tool type rasp, grinding and polishing with a leather and skins of varying degrees of tanning.' Сonsensus on the age would be announced after the experts had discussed the dating, and that a major scientific journal study was expected. Pictures: Konstantin Tynayev  Chlorite was not found in the vicinity of the cave, and is thought to have come from a distance of at least 200km, showing how valued the material was at the time. Dr Derevyanko said the bracelet had suffered damage, including visible scratches and bumps although it looked as if some of the scratches had been sanded down. Experts also believe that the piece of jewellery had other adornments to make it more beautiful. 'Next to the hole on the outer surface of the bracelet can be seen clearly a limited polished zone of intensive contact with some soft organic material,' said Dr Derevyanko.  'Scientists have suggested that it was a leather strap with some charm, and this charm was rather heavy. 'The location of the polished section made it possible to identify the 'top' and 'bottom' of the bracelet and to establish that it was worn on the right hand.' Professor Anatoly Derevyanko, former director of Novosibirsk Institute of Archeology and Ethnography Redating the age of the bracelet would also mean other items found in the same layer were also older. A striking example is a Paleolithic needle now dated at 50,000 years. This is also seen as be made by the extinct Denisovans. Located some 150 km south of Barnaul, the the cave has immense palaeontological importance.  Over the years a number of remains have been found there, including some of extinct animals such as the woolly mammoth. In total evidence of 66 different types of mammals have been discovered inside, and 50 bird species. The most exciting discovery was the remains of the Denisovans, a species of early humans that dated back as early as 600,000 years ago and were different to both Neanderthals and modern man. In 2000 a tooth from a young adult was found in the cave and in 2008, when the bracelet was found, archaeologists discovered the finger bone of a juvenile Denisovan hominin, whom they dubbed the 'X woman'.  Further examination of the site found other artifacts dating as far back as 125,000 years. Dr Shunkov has suggested that the bracelet indicates the Denisovans - though now extinct - were more advanced than Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. 'In the same layer, where we found a Denisovan bone, we found interesting things; until then it was believed these the hallmark of the emergence of Homo sapiens,' he said.  'First of all, there were symbolic items, such as jewellery - including the stone bracelet as well as a ring, carved out of marble.' 'These finds were made using technological methods - boring stone, drilling with an implement, grinding - that are traditionally considered typical for a later time, and nowhere in the world they were used so early, in the paleolithic era. At first, we connected the finds with a progressive form of modern human, and now it turned out that this was fundamentally wrong.  'Obviously it was  Denisovans, who left these things.' The 7 centimetre (2 3/4 inch) needle was made and used by our long extinct Denisovan ancestors This indicated that 'the most progressive of the triad' (Homo sapiens, Homo Neanderthals and Denisovans) were Denisovans, who according to their genetic and morphological characters were much more archaic than Neanderthals and modern human.'  But could this modern-looking bracelet have been buried with older remains, perhaps dug into the cave floor in a later era to hide it? The experts considered this possibility but rejected it, saying they believe the layers were uncontaminated by human interference from a later period. The soil around the bracelet was also dated using oxygen isotopic analysis. The unique bracelet is now held by the Museum of History and Culture of the Peoples of Siberia and the Far East in Novosibirsk.  Irina Salnikova, head the museum, said of the bracelet: 'I love this find. The skills of its creator were perfect. Initially we thought that it was made by Neanderthals or modern humans, but it turned out that the master was Denisovan, at least in our opinion.'   　 

Following a series of condemnations from American officials over its latest missile test–and a bizarre affirmation that “we are not your enemy” from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson–the North Korean government has responded in its state media, demanding America keep its “stinky face” out of Asia.

SAN FRANCISCO - First a Chinatown gangster dubbed Shrimp Boy and state Senator Leland Yee were both nabbed in a federal corruption sting. Now three others who were also targets of that undercover operation may be going to trial on corruption charges. That's exactly what the judge in this case has to decide - whether or not there's enough evidence and probable cause to go to trial. The three are accused of four counts of bribery and one count of money laundering. All three were high profile city officials. The three defendants are former city Human Rights Commissioner Nazly Mohajer,...

Days after announcing his support to a merit-based immigration system, President Donald Trump has said that migrants will not get welfare in the first five years after they arrive in the US. "You cannot get welfare for five years when you come into our country. You can't just come in, like in past weeks, years and decades--you come in, immediately start picking up welfare," Trump said in his weekly web and radio address to the nation....