Free Republic

A new Trump administration rule regarding immigrants' use of federal benefits could have an indirect but significant impact on schools if it deters families from seeking assistance under certain programs, education advocates warn. The administration has released its final rule for what's known as "public charge." This is the process by which the U.S. government determines if an immigrant seeking to become a permanent resident or extend a visa is likely to become "primarily dependent" on federal benefits—such a determination can lead the government to deny permanent residency or the visa. Previously, benefits that were factors in this process included...

While some have been standing for decades, other college football traditions are just getting started. No matter what, it's these wacky and wild rituals and customs that make the game that much more fun to watch. In honor of the 150th anniversary of college football, we ranked the sport's greatest traditions.

Under Schumer’s measure, those who aren’t law enforcement would need to get a green light from the FBI to get body armor– and show a reason why they need it. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)Legislation promised in the U.S. Senate would make the legal sale of body armor a “may issue” process signed off on by federal law enforcement. U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, announced his legislation on Sunday to require FBI permission before anyone except law enforcement could buy what he termed “sophisticated body armor,” setting a bar that would require a clear purpose, such as an occupational requirement, for the...

People of faith have as much, but no more, right as other people to engage in public deliberation on matters of law or ethics. As a Uniting church minister and teacher of ethics, I support the move from criminalisation to reproductive justice because it separates divisive questions of moral justification (for or against) from the law that applies to all citizens whatever their religious or ethical beliefs. The ethical debates are undoubtedly divisive. Philosophers, religious leaders, lawyers, bioethicists, and feminist theorists debate the status of the foetus vis-a-vis a woman’s right to bodily integrity and self-determination. Meanwhile, moral decision-making is...

VIDEO Brian Craig, co-host of the Steve Kane radio show, came up with a brilliant idea this morning about who should lead the investigation into the "suicide" of Jeffrey Epstein: Mark Fuhrman. Since few would trust an investigation by an FBI that has been compromised by the likes of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and Peter Strzok, the one person the public would trust to conduct an honest investigation would be Mark Fuhrman. Please be sure to check out the full Steve Kane show at the link below especially starting a little after the 4:30 mark when co-host Brian Craig discusses...

Trade, immigration, health-care policy, jobs and the economy — these are the political issues over which elections are often decided. But as of now, policy is taking a backseat to personality. President Donald Trump is the biggest 2020 election issue for small business owners across the U.S., according to the CNBC|SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey for the third quarter 2019. A combined 53% of small businesses see the election as a referendum on Trump. Twenty-nine percent of business owners said “keeping President Trump in office” was their No. 1 election issue. Twenty-four percent said “voting President Trump out of office” was...

The autopsy of registered sex offender and multimillionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein has been completed, though most details of the report remain undisclosed. The alleged pedophile's cause of death, according to an announcement from the New York City medical examiner late on Sunday, "is pending further information," a common determination. Current Time 0:08 Duration 0:46 Report: Jeffrey Epstein Commits Suicide According to a report from The Daily Beast, Chief Medical Examiner Barbara Sampson said Epstein's representatives hired celebrity pathologist Michael Baden "to conduct an independent autopsy and they were allowed to observe the autopsy." Baden is known as the "Death Correspondent"...

According to a former Metropolitan Correction Center (MCC) inmate, there is "no way" registered sex offender and millionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein could have pulled off killing himself in the Manhattan facility. Current Time 0:06 Duration 0:47 Report: Jeffrey Epstein Commits Suicide "There's no way that man could have killed himself. I've done too much time in those units. It's an impossibility," the former inmate told The New York Post's Brad Hamilton and Bruce Golding on the condition of anonymity. Epstein was found to have apparently hanged himself on Saturday morning at the MCC facility and was transferred to a hospital...

"O Beautiful, For Spacious Skies, For Amber Waves of Grain ..." Almost chosen as the National Anthem in 1926, "America the Beautiful" was written by Katherine Lee Bates, born AUGUST 12, 1859. Daughter of a Congregational minister, Katherine Lee Bates taught high school, then English literature at Wellesley College. She hosted gatherings at her home for students and literary guests, including Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg and William Butler Yeats. Of her 1893 Colorado journey, Katherine Lee Bates wrote: "Some of the other teachers and I decided to go on a trip to 14,000-foot Pikes Peak. We hired a prairie wagon....

Police have warned social media users they could face arrest if they "troll" a wanted drug dealer by mocking his distinctive hairstyle. An online appeal to catch the criminal has resulted in tens of thousands of people posting joke comments. Jermaine Taylor, 21, is wanted for breaching his licence conditions after being released from prison in December 2018. Gwent Police launched the social media appeal to find the convicted drug dealer, but it backfired when people began making jokes about his hairstyle, with one saying it had been "pushed back more times than Brexit". The picture shows Taylor with a...

On Saturday's CNN Newsroom, during an interview with former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, CNN host Ana Cabrera failed to inform viewers of some very important facts as she discussed the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate's successes in passing gun control in his home state in 2013. As the CNN host asked the Democratic presidential candidate about the issue of how to get at least some Republicans to go along with such measures, she failed to note that violent crime has increased substantially in Colorado every year since the passage of more gun control in 2013. What's more, violent crime had been...

Turns out, some lefties do lose their jobs over blackface incidents. Sure, they’re not politicians -- the media/Democrats don’t give up power that easily. But it’s still kind of fun to see cracks in the not-as-I-do hypocrisy that protects liberals from having to live by their own ever-changing rules. Comic and progressive zealot Sarah Silverman “was recently fired from a film after producers unearthed a still of her in 2007 wearing blackface for a comedy sketch.,” reported the Guardian August 12. Silverman related the story on the The Bill Simmons Podcast, saying that, “at 11pm the night before” she was...

Senior Trump administration official Ken Cuccinelli said Monday he doesn't think President Trump sent the wrong message by giving his first prison commutation to a man who was one of the nation's largest employers of illegal immigrants. The acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a hardliner on immigration policy, said the Trump administration's message is one of toughness, not leniency, after raids this month of seven food processing plants in Mississippi resulted in 680 arrests. "I don't think so," Cuccinelli said, regarding whether the 2017 release of Sholom Rubashkin sent the wrong message. The former Iowa meatpacking executive...

This could be the biggest display of chutzpah since the guy convicted of offing his parents pleaded for mercy on the basis of being an orphan. MSNBC's Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough had the gall Monday morning to condemn President Trump over an Epstein conspiracy theory, despite having floated a bizarre one himself. Shortly after the news of Epstein's death became public on Saturday morning, Scarborough took to Twitter: "A guy who had information that would have destroyed rich and powerful men’s lives ends up dead in his jail cell. How predictably ... Russian. He reportedly tried to kill himself...

August eight just came and went. Supposedly, now the date has significance to neo-Nazis. H is the eighth letter of the alphabet, and "Heil Hitler" is HH, or "88." The number has long been used as a neo-Nazi symbol. The link to August 8 is tenuous. Nevertheless, there is a leftist meme started on MSNBC that President Trump ordered the U.S. flag to be raised on August 8, following is lowering in response to last week's shootings, as a message to his neo-Nazi supporters. Despite Trump's support of Israel and Jews, or rather in part because of it, "progressives" regularly...

The sooner we face up to this unpleasant reality, the better off we'll be. Shed a single tear, if you haven’t gone entirely dry, for America’s beleaguered, struggling, and anxiety-ridden law-firm partners.Sara Randazzo, writing in the Wall Street Journal, chronicles the lamentations of the lawyers: “Being named a partner once meant joining a band of lawyers who jointly tended to longtime clients and took home comfortable, and roughly equal, paychecks. Job security was virtually guaranteed and partners rarely jumped ship. That model, and the culture that grew up around it, is all but dead. Law firms are now often partnerships...

President Trump is set to save American taxpayers billions of dollars as his administration announces a new rule on Monday that will essentially ban welfare-dependent legal immigrants from permanently resettling in the United States. A new regulation set to be published by the Trump administration will ensure that legal immigrants would be less likely to secure a permanent residency in the U.S. if they have used any forms of welfare in the past, including using subsidized healthcare services, food stamps, and public housing. The regulation will be a boon for American taxpayers in the form of an annual $57.4 billion...

Whether they are real-life animals or fake inanimate objects, mascots have become engrained in college football culture. In honor of the 150th anniversary of college football, herewith an all-time ranking of the best mascots in the sport.

<p>It seems that being thought Hispanic is an advantage, not a disadvantage.</p> <p>A great deal of controversy has continued the past few days over Robert Francis O’Rourke’s longtime use of a nickname given to him at birth (albeit temporarily jettisoned while in prep school) — especially in the wake of his recent sensational and unfounded charges that Donald Trump is directly responsible for the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and that white supremacy defines America, past and present, and explains Trump’s culpability.</p>

Morning "The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice." Psalm 97:1 Causes for disquietude there are none so long as this blessed sentence is true. On earth the Lord's power as readily controls the rage of the wicked as the rage of the sea; his love as easily refreshes the poor with mercy as the earth with showers. Majesty gleams in flashes of fire amid the tempest's horrors, and the glory of the Lord is seen in its grandeur in the fall of empires, and the crash of thrones. In all our conflicts and tribulations, we may behold the hand of...