Free Republic

Americans are consuming more and more stuff. Now that other countries won’t take our papers and plastics, they’re ending up in the trash. After decades of earnest public-information campaigns, Americans are finally recycling. Airports, malls, schools, and office buildings across the country have bins for plastic bottles and aluminum cans and newspapers. In some cities, you can be fined if inspectors discover you haven’t recycled appropriately. But now, much of that carefully sorted recycling is ending up in the trash. For decades, we were sending the bulk of our recycling to China—tons and tons of it, sent over on ships...

Last week I wrote about the SNC-Lavalin scandal in Canada which has engulfed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s administration. If you missed that, the very brief version is that Trudeau’s former Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould, has accused him of leading a campaign to prevent the prosecution of an engineering company in Montreal called SNC-Lavalin. This campaign included 10 phone calls and 10 personal meetings urging the AG to intervene in the case. Many of those contacts, including the one with the PM himself, mentioned that it would be bad news for the party if SNC-Lavalin were to be prosecuted just...

The Alameda County District Attorney’s office has filed criminal felony charges against a software engineer who allegedly attacked a conservative activist at the University of California, Berkeley campus on Feb. 19. The charges against Zachary Greenberg, 28, include three felony counts and one misdemeanor count, according to a criminal complaint obtained by Fox News. The felony counts relate to assault and causing, or intending to cause, bodily injury, and criminal threats. A misdemeanor count is related to vandalism, the complaint shows.The charges come five days after police arrested Greenberg for allegedly attacking Hayden Williams, who is 26 and not a student, while he...

A Marion, Indiana, man was seriously injured after he accidentally shot himself in the groin with a gun he did not have a license to possess, authorities say. Mark Anthony Jones, 46, was out for a walk early on Feb. 28 with an unholstered Hi-Point 9mm handgun in his waistband when the weapon began to slip from its position, according to a police report. When Jones went to adjust the handgun, he accidentally discharged it, shooting himself in the genitals.

The Senate voted Tuesday to confirm Allison Jones Rushing, 37, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, making her the youngest federal judge in the country. The Senate voted 53-44 to put Rushing into the lifetime court seat. Every Republican present voted for her. Every Democrat present opposed her.

House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said Monday that Ivanka Trump and other associates of the president could "quite conceivably" hear from his committee, despite being left off an initial round of document requests. "I'm not going to answer why any particular person is or isn't on it. We think that anybody on it has information of use to the committee in establishing things," Nadler said on CNN's "Outfront." Nadler said the 81 people and entities identified in a list released earlier in the day have previously provided information to the special counsel's office, the Southern District New York or...

Hillary Rodham Clinton still cannot let 2016 go—and that goes for her supporters as well. The entire Democratic establishment is still seething over her epic loss to President Donald J. Trump. They all read FiveThirtyEight and the Huffington Post’s polls. It had her chances of winning at 90+ percent. Then, they all got punched in the mouth. Trump won. We won, you lost, and the country soldiers on. But as with all losers, especially high-profile ones like Clinton, there’s the book deal, the tour, and the endless interviews of who’s to blame. For Hillary, it was everyone, but her that...

The federal government recorded a budget surplus in January. But so far for this fiscal year starting Oct. 1, the total deficit is 77 percent higher than it was for the same period a year ago. The Treasury Department said Tuesday the deficit for the first four months of fiscal 2019 totaled $310.3 billion. That's up from $175.7 billion in the same period a year ago -- and that includes the January surplus of $8.7 billion.

TIMOTHY BUSCH IS A WEALTHY MAN with big ambitions. His version of the prosperity gospel, Catholic in content and on steroids, is a hybrid of traditionalist pieties wrapped in American-style excess and positioned most conspicuously in service of free market capitalism. Busch’s organization, the Napa Institute, and its corresponding foundation are among the most prominent of a growing number of right-wing Catholic nonprofits with political motivations. Such groups, some more extreme than others and all on the right to far-right side of the political and ecclesial spectrum, have in recent years muscled in on territory that previously was the largely...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) just said the most hideous thing you can think of in regards to the travesty that occurred during the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Roughly 18-years-ago, we lost thousands of lives as the Twin Towers in New York City crumbled.[snip]The attack abruptly stole the lives from 2,996 of our fellow Americans and many others years later due to the aftereffects, but she wouldn’t want any military force to help with revenge? This wasn’t a little incident. This was major and retaliation was not a question of if, but when, where, and how.

This is one way to get yourself launched out of the airport. A Florida man was caught at Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley International Airport on Monday trying to bring a military-grade rocket-propelled grenade launcher – grenade included – onto the flight in his checked bag. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checked the bag after it triggered an alarm and discovered the unassembled parts of the weapon — barrel, trigger, sights and grenade, a press release reported.

<p>A Florida man tried to drown a toddler in an apartment complex swimming pool Monday before family members and bystanders swooped in for the rescue, officials said.</p> <p>Wilkens Ordena, who is related to the infant, is now facing charges including attempted first-degree murder and fleeing and eluding law enforcement, according to the Orlando Sentinel.</p>

Their rescue was described as a "miracle," but two girls who were lost in the Northern California forest over the weekend said Monday that they depended on each other to survive and had faith that their daddy was coming to save them. Leia Carrico, 8, and her 5-year-old sister, Caroline, spoke publicly for the first time, described how they got lost while walking on a deer trail and wandered past a fallen tree on their family's 80-acre property that their father, Travis Carrico, warned them never to go beyond. "Leia wanted a little, tiny more adventure. But I wanted more,"...

<p>A university dean resigned after her school doubled down on their ban of Chick-fil-A over its Christian values.</p> <p>Rider University students voted to bring Chick-fil-A, one of the most popular fast food restaurants in the nation, to their New Jersey campus, but the private university nixed the proposal because of the chain's perceived "opposition to the LGBTQ+ community."</p>

The House Intelligence Committee has hired former NBC News legal analyst Daniel Goldman -- an outspoken critic of President Trump -- as senior adviser and director of investigations, Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff announced on Tuesday. Goldman was an assistant United States attorney in the Southern District of New York from 2007 to 2017, where he prosecuted everyone from Russian mobsters to Las Vegas sports bettors. He also has deep ties to NBC, having worked at the Peacock Network as a researcher during the 2000, 2002 and 2004 Olympics before becoming a federal prosecutor – long before his recent stint as...

Tuesday on CNN’s “New Day,” host John Berman asked former National Intelligence Director James Clapper about The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald saying he lied to Congress about the NSA program used to spy on Americans’ phone records.

Shortened title. Full title: Loretta Lynch Contradicts Herself – Tells GOP Lawmakers She “Can’t Recall” Anything Regarding Carter Page FISA Warrants Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch told GOP lawmakers in a closed-door testimony in December that she couldn’t recall anything about the Carter Page FISA warrant and three subsequent renewals despite the fact that the DOJ has to approve the warrants. Loretta Lynch “appeared to have amnesia” during her Congressional testimony in December one official told investigative reporter Sara Carter. It appears Loretta Lynch is suffering from the same kind of selective amnesia Hillary Clinton suffers from which is why...

State officials in New York have subpoenaed the longtime insurer for the Trump Organization, Aon, over claims that the Trump Organization and President Trump himself were involved in efforts to inflate the company's assets for insurance purposes. The New York Times reports that AON received a subpoena Monday, a sign of a state investigation into Trump's business ties. The New York State Department of Financial Services, which has no prosecutorial power of its own but can refer potential instances of illegality to state attorneys, is reportedly overseeing the investigation. The Trump Organization did not immediately return a request for comment...

President Donald Trump’s effort to defund the abortion giant Planned Parenthood is being challenged by 22 states in a series of lawsuits announced Monday. The first lawsuit, filed by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, asks the U.S. District Court in San Francisco to block the new Title X rule before it goes into effect, the Washington Post reports. A second lawsuit, representing 21 states including Oregon, is expected Tuesday, according to The Hill. Title X funds help low-income women and men receive birth control, cancer screenings and other health care services. While the tax money cannot be used to pay...

The Colorado Civil Rights Commission on Tuesday dropped its latest case against Christian cakeshop owner Jack Phillips, handing him a second victory against state officials over his refusal to create cakes for certain LGBT events. Mr. Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, agreed in exchange to drop his lawsuit against the state, which he filed last year after the commission took action against him for declining to make a blue-and-pink cake to celebrate a transgender transition. Kristen Waggoner, who represents Mr. Phillips as Alliance Defending Freedom senior vice president, called the outcome “great news for everyone.” “We’re pleased...