Free Republic

When it comes to dogs, do you think they prefer a nice belly rub or a delicious treat? While the dog from the Beggin' Strips commercial is always thrilled about devouring his treat, chances are he actually would have preferred a nice pat on the head, according to new research. Scientists at Emory University wanted to see if dogs value human companionship more than food. This led them to conduct brain scans of 15 dogs while presenting objects paired with rewards. For example, after the dogs were shown a toy car, their owners would praise them....

Just lovely people. If you’re a political observer, you know Huma Abedin as the ethically-challenged friend, confidant, and stalwart supporter of Hillary Clinton. She is, quite literally, the shoulder upon which the elderly candidate leans. However, her husband, Anthony Weiner (aka “Carlos Danger”) is desperately trying to make sure you know Abedin as something else. Apparently, some of you have forgotten that she’s also “Mrs. Carlos Danger,” so Carlos has decided to remind you.

Hillary's whole plan: Shift the subject. Ignore the facts. Name call. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has resorted to S.I.N. on steroids! What’s that, you ask? Shift the subject. Ignore the facts. Name call. Hillary does not want to answer questions about the Clinton Foundation, the e-mail scandal, Benghazi, the economy or ObamaCare, so she keeps her press conferences to a minimum. Even members of her adoring news corps get candy treats instead of answers from Hillary.

The state’s largest 100 municipalities owe more than $4.2 billion in unfunded pension benefits to their employees, and Michigan’s 83 counties add another $2.5 billion to the total. Wayne County’s experience shows how this underfunding arose, while Oakland County shows the way out. Most Wayne County communities run a defined benefit pension plan for their employees, and most of them are significantly underfunded. Detroit was allowed to keep enrolling new employees in a smaller defined benefit plan after it left bankruptcy court and received a state bailout. Foreseeing such problems, in 1994 Oakland County closed its defined benefit pensions to...

] Colin Kaepernick is certainly an articulate young man. That was obvious from his interaction with the press in the locker room where he faced a phalanx of reporters asking him about his decision to sit through the national anthem to bring attention to the "oppression" of black men. Given that this is the first year he has sat through the national anthem he was asked how his position has evolved over the years. He answered: “It's something that I've seen, I've felt, wasn't quite sure how to deal with originally. And it is something that's evolved. It's something that...

Anyone seen Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds where they used a pistol mounted glove to elminate a couple of German guards? Guess what?, in the real world U.S. military did manufactured some in small numbers. Originally it was designed for the U.S. Navy made by RF Sedgley company. The pistol is a single shot .38 S&W barrel mounted alongside a plunger, that extends beyond the muzzle of the barrel. The entire thing is riveted to a heavy glove. It’s designed when the person makes a fist, the plunger and muzzle are left slightly in front of the knuckles. Upon impact while...

Iraqi media are reporting that ISIS militants have opened the taps of an oil pipeline in the town of Qayyarah, in northern Iraq. Crude is flowing in the streets, as images from Qayyarah show, and people are worried about what will happen if someone decides to set the crude on fire. Iraqi News notes that this is not the first time that the ISIS militants have resorted to this response: before Qayyarah was liberated by the Iraqi army and the U.S.-led coalition forces, the terrorist group spilled crude from the local pipeline into the Tigris River, which runs through the...

I think it’s been hard for people to understand how Islam can be a good religion, and yet the Islamists are evil. Those of us who have had experience with Islam understand this, just as we understand the difference between snake handlers and people going to church on Sunday morning.—P. J. O’Rourke In one of the most contemptible acts of the year, the California Legislature passed a House Resolution to create and celebrate “Muslim Appreciation and Awareness Month,” while at the same time passing legislation to strike down religious freedoms for Christians. Yes, this is what California has become under...

The nation's fiscal house is collapsing, but we're talking about this crap I don’t think he deserves the attention that a column about him brings, but Colin Kaepernick’s stunt this past weekend of refusing to stand for the national anthem in a preseason game did generate a couple of thoughts I wanted to share. One concerns the increasingly commonplace (and thus, increasingly meaningless) use of gestures like this by athletes to showboat about issues they really don’t understand. The other concerns the growing inclination of normal Americans to proceed into histrionics about people not standing, not saluting, not putting their...

HOLA! bill. That’s HOLA as in Hidden Outlay for Left’s Amnesty The Shannon family’s latest unexpected encounter with federal immigration policy couldn’t have come at a more inconvenient time. Here it is almost tax day and my daughter is hit with an unexpected HOLA! bill. That’s HOLA as in Hidden Outlay for Left’s Amnesty. My daughter is driving along in Dallas and as she proceeds through an intersection, her car is T–boned by a red–light–running illegal alien who’s here to cause the car crashes Americans don’t want to cause.

In 2013 the Chicago Police Department began a predictive policing program for the expressed purpose of reducing the amount of gun violence in the city. The principal component of the program was the Strategic Subjects List (SSL), a “…list of individuals who are either prone to be shot, to being a shooter, or having some sort of inclination toward violent crime.” The list was created by city employees via the use of an algorithm designed to predict “…who is most likely to be involved in a shooting – either as the shooter or victim – by analyzing data such as...

Hillary Clinton is trying to smear Donald Trump with a faked charge that he is connected to the Klu Klux Klan. This is clearly a panicked response to how well Trump is doing with Black voters. It is exactly the kind of insulting trash Democrats think they can use to fool people, both Black and White. As usual the Democrat is lying. It is Hillary Clinton who accepted a $20,000 donation from the Klu Klux Klan, not Trump. Recently leaked DNC Emails reveal the Democrat hierarchy plotted to destroy the candidacy of Bernie Sanders by, among other things using his...

A conservative savior would have been perfect, but SAVIOR is the bottom line here It’s going to take a miracle to pull America back from the brink; to get it back to what it was before an undistinguished senator came strutting into what Utopia believers were sure was the twilight. Night was falling, but millions who saw it coming, made it home before dark back in 2008.

GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's bid to woo black votes by persuading them that Democratic policies have ruined their lives was denounced by rival candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a major policy speech she gave in Reno, Nevada this week. "Democrats and blacks have been together for a long time," Clinton told a crowd that easily surpassed double digits. "It's kind of like we have a 'common law marriage.' It's outrageous for an outsider like Trump to try to alienate our mutual affections. Sure there have been some rough patches. Every marriage has rough patches. Bill and...

I am nobody, and I have no power, money, or access to an audience. I'm just a plain old Citizen. But even so, I'd like to plant a mustard seed (let him who has ears, hear) and in some tiny way strike a blow to save my country -- which is in need of saving before it's too late.

Kansas City, Mo – Kansas City Police Officers had just shot an armed suspect on Sunday morning when a crowd began to gather around them. Gunshots started getting fired at the officers, who were forced to take cover with the man that the officers had just shot. The incident happened early Sunday morning in a parking lot at 72nd Street and Wabash Avenue. Officers were on patrol when they heard gunshots and observed a large crowd in the parking lot. Officers approached and confronted a man who was armed with a handgun. There aren’t many details about the confrontation, but...

While away from Washington on August recess, House Freedom Caucus members are rethinking their relationship with the Republican Study Committee. Some are considering whether to call it quits and cancel their membership. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., confirmed the possibility of the breakup, telling The Daily Signal that as many as 20 members could allow their committee memberships to lapse. “There’s no big policy disagreement or major falling out as much as there is just a logistical concern,” said Meadows, a founding member of the Freedom Caucus. “It’s just become a function of how much are you going to invest in...

The fake pollsters are in a panic over the terrible support numbers Hillary Clinton is getting with Black voters. The truth is either being erased and smothered or nuanced into unrecognizable pap. The party line is that Donald Trump gets between 5% and ZERO yes ZERO percent of the Black vote and these statements reek of fear and panic. The truth is found in a growing number of honest polls showing Trump gets between 20% and 32% of the Black vote – yes 32%. Last week yet another poll from Florida gave Trump a small overall edge but reported him...

A recent study by an Oklahoma think tank found that teachers’ salaries in Michigan are the highest in the nation when adjusted for the lower cost of living here. When salaries are adjusted to reflect the difference between prices here and the national average, Michigan teachers on average earned the equivalent of $69,888 in the 2015-16 school year. The study was authored by Byron Schlomach of the Oklahoma-based 1889 Institute, a free-market think tank. Schlomach said in an email he used salary data from a National Education Association survey. Michigan’s average teacher salary when unadjusted is $63,878, ranking 10th nationally....

Remember when Zimbabwe used to be Rhodesia?There’s a lesson, or two, in here somewhere: ‘No One Is Safe’: Zimbabwe Threatens to Seize Farms of Party Defectors. That’s right: first they came for the white men’s farms:And the blacks didn’t object because, well, they weren’t white. Now they’re coming for the farms of black-men-who-disagree-with-the-government-policies. That’s how it always goes.And as pointed out by the Instapundit: Hey, it was over a decade ago when Nick Kristof reported that Zimbabweans were nostalgic for the days of white rule: An elderly peasant in another village, Makupila Muzamba, said that hunger today is worse than...