Free Republic

Hold up, diet soda drinkers. Regular consumption of soft drinks — both sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened — was associated with a greater risk of all causes of death, according to research published this week in JAMA Internal Medicine. Participants who drank two or more glasses of soft drinks per day had a higher risk of mortality than those who consumed less than one glass per month.

Massachusetts mayor arrested for extorting marijuana vendors for 6-figure bribes Jasiel Correia II, the already embattled mayor of Fall River, Massachusetts, was arrested Friday on new federal extortion charges for allegedly operating a scheme to help marijuana vendors get approval to operate in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. Prosecutors say Correia agreed to sign non-opposition letters in return for significant six-figure payments from four marijuana vendors looking to open businesses in the city of nearly 90,000 about an hour’s drive south of Boston. The letters are required to obtain a license to operate a marijuana business...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one...

Joe Biden in New Hampshire: “I guarantee you we’re going to end fossil fuel” …Idiot Leftists Clap Like Monkeys (Video)

Sweden has been on the receiving end from some negative press and even a controversial tweet from Donald Trump. Since loosening their immigration restrictions nearly a decade ago, then assuming a leadership role in opening their doors to migrants in the 2015 ‘Refugee’ Crisis; Sweden has, consequently, witnessed some undesirable side effects. Sexual assault, robberies, bombings, explosions, violent crime, gang-related murders, etc, have all increased in recent years. Their politically correct approach to collecting crime data has left some superficial bafflement in ascertaining causal factors explain the uptick in crime. PeterSweden ✔ @PeterSweden7 · Aug 25, 2019 So this is...

Isn’t it ironic that in order to take away guns from non-violent people, violent people must use guns to do so? It’s hard to believe this escapes the minds of far too many people on this earth. Soros and people in the ruling class certainly want all the control in every situation and it’s much easy to enslave an unarmed populace. This is nothing less than an attempt at complete domination over everyone they think is beneath them. According to a report by the Free Beacon, liberal billionaire George Soros’s advocacy organizations are lobbying lawmakers on Capitol Hill to repeal...

What to expect if your town opens a Chick-Fil-A:Everyone with a gripe against the imperfect world - drag queens, animal rights “activists” and pretty much every other leftist identity group – will show up with “Cluck Off” signs, make a spectacle of themselves while marching and lying on the ground  shouting "Shame! Shame! Shame!"Toronto’s die-in – which somebody pointed out was just a huge fake, as every single one of them got up and walked away unharmed at the end of the protest - was led by drag queens and animal activists. “Get a closeup already, I’ve got another gig...

In 2019, more and more cities across America are encouraging their residents to commute by bicycle. Cycling, of course, is good for the environment in terms of reducing pollution from car-dominant streets, and it’s a healthier way to travel. But cities gaining new cyclists are quickly, tragically finding that they do not have the proper infrastructure to keep them safe. Cyclist fatalities have gone up 25 percent across the U.S. since 2010, and up 10 percent in 2018 itself, while all other traffic fatalities have decreased. And it matters where you live: 75 percent of these cyclist deaths occur in...

The Duchess of Sussex is said to have told her new PR company that she wants to 'break the internet'. Meghan Markle reportedly made the statement during a meeting with the company, Sunshine Sachs. This comes amid claims from royal sources that the former actress and mother-of-one is 'more concerned about the U.S media than the British.'

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a Democratic presidential candidate, said he supports a woman's right to an abortion, in part, because it helps combat the effects of climate change. Sanders was responding to an audience member at CNN's climate town hall who asked if he supports curbing population growth as a way to "address climate catastrophe." "The answer is yes and the answer has everything to do with the fact that women in the United States of America, by the way, have a right to control their own bodies and make reproductive decisions," he said on Wednesday evening. "And the Mexico...

The recent announcement by James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) that he would not seek re-election in 2020 sparked new worries among the GOP that retaking the House in 2020 might be nearly impossible. Although Sensenbrenner's district should be "safe" (as should about half of the more than a dozen seats in districts where Republicans are retiring), it never helps to lose an incumbent. That said, in 2020, the control of the House may be well near irrelevant. Over time, the House has had one major constitutional duty: the budget. All spending and taxation bills must originate in the House. But in all...

A blind man was forced to carry his disabled adult son on his shoulders in chin-deep water as Hurricane Dorian tore apart their home in the Bahamas. Brent Lowe, 49, rushed to save his 24-year-old son who has cerebral palsy when the deadly hurricane bore down on their home in the Abaco Islands on Sunday with 220 mph winds. Lowe, who has been blind for 11 years, told the New York Times that there were eight people sheltering in his cement home when the hurricane first made landfall. They were huddling together in the bathroom when the storm tore the...

Former secretary of defense James Mattis repeatedly refused MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell's invitations to criticize President Donald Trump in an interview Thursday. Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general, resigned in December over policy differences with Trump, specifically the president's decision to withdraw American troops from Syria. Mattis, an advocate of cultivating alliances and American engagement, said he had "no choice" but to depart. Mitchell quoted a portion of Mattis's new book Call Sign Chaos that criticized the Obama administration—including former vice president and 2020 candidate Joe Biden—for leaving the Middle East in "disarray" and "our friends confused." "Aren't we at...

The White House is considering a plan that would keep most refugees who are fleeing war, persecution and famine out of the United States, significantly cutting back a decades-old program, according to current and former administration officials. One option that top officials are weighing would cut refugee admissions by half or more, to 10,000 to 15,000 people, but reserve most of those spots for people from a few countries or from groups with special status, such as Iraqis and Afghans who work alongside American troops, diplomats and intelligence operatives abroad. Another option, proposed by a top administration official, would reduce...

Colorado's experiment with marijuana legalization has been an epic disaster, according to one doctor seeing its effects on the front lines. Dr. Karen Randall, an emergency room physician certified in "cannabis science and medicine," said the legalization of marijuana has damaged, rather than helped, her home state. Randall, who spoke alongside former White House drug czar John Walters at the right-leaning Hudson Institute on Friday, said the public is being misled about the effects of recreational marijuana. "I think the public needs to know that we are not okay," Randall said. "The grand experiment is not going so well. I...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit will have a different makeup by March 2020, when Judge Stanley Marcus will have become a senior judge—along with the circuit’s longest-serving active judge, Gerald Bard Tjoflat. The change means President Donald Trump will select two new judges for lifetime appointments. Tradition dictates that they should come from Florida, where Marcus and Tjoflat are based. With two more appointments, Trump will have named five judges who will serve on the Eleventh Circuit for decades to come. That’s almost half of the court’s active bench, which will be made up of seven...

During former Defense Secretary James Mattis's MSNBC interview with Andrea Mitchell, he refused to criticize President Trump, even though she pressed him firmly to do so on various issues. Mitchell tried to get Mattis to say Thursday if he thinks he is "normalizing" decisions Trump makes by not saying how he truly feels about them, such as when former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was fired via Twitter. Each time, Mattis maintained that it is inappropriate for former military men and administration officials to undermine the current commander in chief. "Your personal library has thousands, thousands, 7,000 books in it....

The Mexican government announced Friday that the number of migrants coming to its border with the U.S. had dropped by 56 percent over the past three months as the country tries to avert President Trump's threatened tariffs on Mexico's exports to its northern neighbor. Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard, citing data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said the number of migrants apprehended at the frontier in August was 63,989 in August, down from 146,266 in May. Those numbers included people who presented themselves at U.S. ports of entry and were deemed inadmissible. The Mexican government has deployed more than...

An image of a man standing on a plane as his supposed wife reclines across three seats has provoked outrage online. A tweet shared on Thursday by Courtney Lee Johnson, a life coach from Indiana, claimed that an unidentified man had stood in the aisle of the cabin while his wife slept for a full six hours during a long-haul flight. The scenario has drawn heated criticism from social media users who say the man is 'whipped' and the woman is 'selfish' - while some are questioning the validity of the tweet altogether.

This will be a weekly post. Count remains at 144 judges confirmed. 99 District Court judges 43 Circuit Court judges 2 Supreme Court justices This week two judges on the 11th circuit announced their retirement. The 11th circuit is currently even with six Republican appointees and six Democrat appointees. So Trump will be able to flip this circuit to majority-republican. The retirees are Clinton and Ford nominees so a couple of young Florida conservatives would be good.