Free Republic

...This goes to show that Samuel Smith pubs are quite different to most drinking establishments: mobile phones, laptops, tablets, even Kindles are banned; payment in many pubs is by cash only; and the look and feel of the establishments is, in the words of its own website, “uncompromisingly Victorian”. And all this is down to one man, the reclusive Humphrey Smith, owner of the chain. ...More recently, in 2017, Smith banned swearing in his pubs. Last October he was said to have closed another establishment, The Fox and Goose in Worcestershire, after overhearing a customer swearing while carrying out one...

A second Fuller Theological Seminary student has filed a lawsuit against the Christian institution over its ban on noncelibate same-sex relationships. On Tuesday, Nathan Brittsan, a pastor and graduate student who is in a same-sex marriage, added his name to a lawsuit against the California-based nondenominational seminary. Brittsan is joining plaintiff Joanna Maxon, who was expelled by Fuller for being in a same-sex marriage. Her suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. “This is a civil rights case about two students who were expelled from their graduate program for one reason: they married someone...

Years ago, some sharp person here set me straight on how one gallon of fuel, approximately 8 lbs, could produce gases weighing more than the original fuel by combining with other atmospheric gases. Now I read CA wants to ban all gas-powered lawn tools to include golf courses and athletic fields as one mower produces more pollution than 43 new cars driven 12,000 miles a year (516,000 miles total). Most lawn mowers are single cylinder and most cars are 4 cylinders but a great many are 6 or 8 and car cylinders are a much larger displacement than lawnmowers and...

A U.K. regulatory agency is reviewing its decision to close a complaint against a Christian doctor accused of violating professional conduct by praying with his patients. As previously reported, Dr. Richard Scott of the Bethesda Medical Centre in Margate, Kent, faced the possibility of losing his medical license after a complaint was filed against him last year. Scott, a general practitioner, was subject to a fitness-to-practice inquiry from the General Medical Council after a complaint was filed by the National Secular Society, a British advocacy group promoting the strict interpretation of separation of church and state. The organization claimed that...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she will “soon” transmit the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, signaling a potential thaw in the standoff with Senate Republicans as she warned against rushing to an acquittal without a fair trial. Pelosi, D-Calif., faces mounting pressure from Republicans and some Democrats to quit delaying the president’s trial in the Senate, three weeks after the House Democrats impeached Trump on charges of abuse and obstruction. Republicans say Democrats are embarrassed by their vote. But Pelosi countered that Democrats are “proud” of upholding the Constitution and said she doubted that Senate Republicans will do...

We're less than two weeks into 2020, but we already have a statement that definitively sums up the current state of the Democratic Party.There is now evidence that the Ukrainian airliner that crashed in Tehran on Tuesday was shot down by a Russian-built surface-to-air missile, such as those used by Iran's anti-aircraft system. And guess whose fault that is, according to Mayor Pete? A candidate for president of the United States just blamed the United States for Iran shooting down a commercial airliner and killing dozens of civilians. Buttigieg could've just expressed his condolences. He could've said nothing at...

California certainly marches to the beat of a different drummer. They treat the federal government as a rival fiefdom, setting their own environmental laws, their own immigration laws, their own fuel standards -- as if the seat of power in the United States was in Sacramento.On Friday, Governor Gavin Newsom will present the state's budget for the next fiscal year. In it, he will propose that the state of California sell its own brand of prescription drugs in order to "increase competition in the generic drug marketplace and lower the cost of medications by having Sacramento contract drugmakers to...

Former stripper-turned-rap artist Cardi B has been talking about leaving the country in the wake of America’s current standoff with Iran. Calling President Trump’s bombing of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani his “dumbest” action yet, Ms. B took to Twitter to announce that she’s thinking about traveling to Nigeria. Good for her. Does anyone want to tell her that Nigeria isn’t necessarily a safer place to live, either? No? Oh, well. Cardi, the 27-year-old rap star from the Bronx, has no qualms about sharing her politics and absolute hatred of Donald Trump with the world. In an industry that revolves...

A Trump administration lawyer asked a federal appeals court in San Francisco on Thursday to allow enforcement of a ban on U.S. entry for hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants who lack private health insurance. But two of the three judges expressed doubt that President Trump was acting within his legal authority.

Here are some categories of human beings that allegedly exist in the multi-year augmented media reality that we call the Democratic presidential primary. First, the "candidates." These are people who, for whatever reason, think they deserve to be the commander-in-chief and have decided the best way of obtaining this position is by seeking the nomination of the major political party that does not happen to control the White House at the moment. This involves, among other things, making speeches and holding fundraisers and appearing at various events in a wide number of states. Which brings us to the "voters,"

Missiles? What missiles? The head of Iran’s civil aviation bureau claimed today that the cause of the explosion of a Ukrainian passenger jet and the deaths of 176 people on board is still not known. However, Ali Abedzadeh insisted that they definitely knew no missile hit the plane. “This claim,” Abedzadeh said, “was made by American politicians,” and challenged them to report their findings in public: Iran has strongly denied that a Ukraine International Airlines jetliner that crashed in Iran shortly after takeoff earlier this week, killing 176 people, was downed by an Iranian missile by mistake.“What is obvious...

If Democrats can't stop howling that President Trump's killing of Iranian terrorist chieftain Qassem Soleimani was some kind of failure that would mean war, maybe they should ask the terrorists on the ground over in Iraq. If they can find them. Turns out they're running for their lives. Sara Carter has an important bit of news about how they're taking it: U.S. officials have intercepted chatter and received confirmation that terrorist leaders in Iraq have been fleeing the region and have gone into hiding fearing United States intelligence capabilities after the successful airstrike that killed Iranian Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani, according to...

Even if you agree with Tucker Carlson and Ann Coulter that America should get out of the Middle East, it's still hard to understand their immediate and very negative reactions to Trump's fatal air strike on Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. Some of the doom and gloom may come from paying too much attention to retroactive justifications and not enough to antecedent provocations.  Hearing that Soleimani was killed pre-emptively because he was plotting some unspecified mayhem is bound to elicit an "oh, please" from anyone who remembers Saddam Hussein and his dangerous but ultimately nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.  The resulting disastrous...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said President Trump’s speech on Iran will be a highlight of his presidency, comparing it to former President Reagan's 1987 speech in Berlin urging Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall." The Wednesday night remarks on Fox News by Graham, who frequently offers public praise of Trump, were ridiculed as hyperbolic by critics. “This speech will be talked about long after his second term,” Graham said. “This is on par with Reagan's ‘tear down this wall’ speech.”

Concern mounted Thursday in Iran over the fate of the Islamic republic’s only woman to have won an Olympic medal, who is believed to want to settle in The Netherlands. Kimia Alizadeh clinched a taekwondo bronze medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016, drawing praise from her compatriots including the country’s President Hassan Rouhani and even conservatives in the Islamic Republic. In keeping with Iran’s strict Muslim custom, Alizadeh, then 18, competed wearing a head scarf over her taekwondo uniform and protective gear. There were high hopes she would compete at the Tokyo Olympics later this year and bring home...

The release of a batch of internal messages has raised more questions about the safety of Boeing's 737 Max. In one of the communications, an employee said the plane was "designed by clowns". The planemaker described the communications as "completely unacceptable". The 737 Max was grounded in March 2019 after two fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, which killed almost 350 people in total. Boeing said it had released the hundreds of redacted messages as part of its commitment to transparency. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and US Congress were given unredacted versions of the communications last month. "These communications...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Boeing Co has released hundreds of internal messages that contained harshly critical comments about the development of the 737 MAX, including one that said the plane was “designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys”. The messages, disclosed on Thursday, show attempts to duck regulatory scrutiny with employees disparaging the plane, the company, the Federal Aviation Administration and foreign aviation regulators. In an instant messaging exchange on Feb. 8, 2018 - when the plane was in the air and eight months before the first of two fatal crashes, an employee asks another: “Would you put...

As a Reagan Republican, I am an unlikely and probably unwelcome source of ideas about how a Democrat can win the presidency in 2020. But precisely because I am a Reagan Republican, I do not support Donald Trump and do not wish to see him elected to a second term. I worked for President Reagan for many years: initially in his 1980 campaign, then in the White House, and finally in his post-presidency office in Los Angeles. I knew him well. And I am absolutely certain he would be appalled by how Donald Trump conducts himself in the presidency.

VALE – More than a dozen police officers were searching for an armed man in the high desert hills on the Harney-Malheur County line Tuesday afternoon after a theft at a local ranch went awry. Travis Johnson, Malheur County undersheriff, said deputies from the Harney County Sheriff’s Office and the Malheur County Sheriff’s Office along with the Oregon State Police are pursuing an unidentified man who stole a tractor and a side-by-side recreational vehicle from a ranch north of Harper early Tuesday morning. Johnson said the incident began at about 3:40 a.m. when a man driving a stolen pickup truck...

* Fewer suicides occur when minimum wages are higher during periods of elevated unemployment, according to a new study. * Every $1 increase in the minimum wage is associated with a 6% reduction in suicide for high school grads. * Boosting the minimum wage by $1 could have saved 27,550 lives from 1990 to 2015, the study says. Raising the federal minimum wage, which hasn't increased in more than a decade, might accomplish far more than simply offering U.S. workers a boost in pay. New research suggests that lifting the baseline wage could also stop thousands of Americans from killing...