Free Republic

It’s hard to imagine that it’s been one year since the tragic events that befell attendants at Pulse, a gay bar in Orlando, where a disturbed individual and terrorist opened fire upon patrons, killing 49 people and then himself. I, as a gay man, was shocked at the sheer carnage of the incident and believed it was a personal attack upon me and my people.... The time for a respectable, adult discussion for combatting gun violence has long since passed. Let us not wait for the next Orlando or Dallas before we start this whole cycle over again."

BISMARCK, N.D. – Federal and state officials announced plans Wednesday to accelerate cleanup at a camp in southern North Dakota that has housed hundreds and sometimes thousands of Dakota Access pipeline opponents. Officials fear the camp near the Cannonball River will soon flood due to warm weather and rapid snowmelt. They worry trash and debris left behind by people who have left in recent weeks might pollute the Missouri River and other nearby waterways. “With the amount of people that have been out there and the amount of estimated waste and trash out there, there is a good chance it...

I subscribe to Meetup to see what groups are meeting in my area. I received a company email that stated: Meetup has always served as an organizing platform for a wide range of political views, welcoming everyone from the Howard Deaniacs to the Tea Party. Meetup will always welcome people with different beliefs. But after the recent executive order aimed to block people on the basis of nationality and religion, a line was crossed. At a time when core democratic ideals feel under attack, we feel a duty to spark more civic participation. Last week, we created 1,000+ #Resist Meetup...

"According to the Marxist conception, one's social condition determines one's way of thought. His membership of a social class decides what views a writer will express. He is not able to grow out of his class or free his thoughts from the prescriptions of this class interests. Thus the possibility of a general science which is valid for all men, whatever their class, is contested. It was only another stop for Dietzgen to proceed to the construction of a special proletarian logic. But truth lies with the proletarian science only: 'the ideas of proletarian logic are not party ideas, but...

Reuters) - A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal filed by pharmacists in Washington state who objected on religious grounds to providing emergency contraceptives to women. The justices, with three conservatives dissenting, left in place a July ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld a state regulation that requires pharmacies to deliver all prescribed medicines in a timely manner. Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote a dissenting opinion saying the court's decision not to hear the case is "an ominous sign." In Washington,...

The Missouri Senate has passed a proposal creating religious protections for those objecting to gay marriage. The Republican-led Senate voted 23-7 Thursday for the proposed constitutional amendment after this week halting a Democratic filibuster that lasted 37 hours. The measure would prohibit government penalties against those who cite religious beliefs while declining to provide wedding-related services to same-sex couples. The religious protections would apply to clergy, religious organizations and some businesses such as florists and photographers. Senate Democrats criticized the proposal as discriminatory against same-sex couples.

Yet another study showing why the “renewables,” in this case wind are not a viable source of electricity. Here it is in raw numbers, the variability, low reliability and nondispactibility that are the hallmarks of renewable energy. what doesn’t appear on this report are the consequences, in lost business and higher electric rates.

Hundreds of deported migrants with mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder may qualify to return to the U.S. It’s the result of a settlement finalized in U.S. District Court last week between the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Those migrants can apply to have their immigration cases reopened if they represented themselves during their removal proceedings and were detained in the states of California, Arizona or Washington after Nov. 21, 2011.

From Socialism, by Ludwig von Mises (1951, Originally written in German, 1932) Part V, Deconstructionism, Chapter I, The Motive Powers of Desconstructionism, Section 1, The nature of deconstructionism. To the socialist, the coming of Socialism means a transition from an irrational to a rational economy. Under Socialism, planned management of economic life takes the place of anarchy of production; society, which is conceived as the incarnation of reason, takes the place of the conflicting aims of unreasonable and self-interested individuals. A just distribution replaces an unjust distribution of goods. Want and misery vanish and there is wealth for all-- so...

I see that Apple CEO Tim Cook has announced that he is gay and thanks God for this gift. In a separate story, I see that he is widely quoted in the business press as anticipating an "iPad Christmas". I also notice a picture of a Christmas tree at Apple Headquarters in an insider newsletter. Recall earlier this year that Brenden Eich was forced to resign as CEO of Mozilla because it was revealed that he had donated to a ballot initiative that opposed same-sex marriage. It was claimed that his donation showed that he deserved to lose his job...

ABSTRACT New results are presented from an extended experimental investigation of anomalous heat production in a special type of reactor tube operating at high temperatures. The reactor, named E-Cat, is charged with a small amount of hydrogen-loaded nickel powder plus some additives, mainly Lithium. The reaction is primarily initiated by heat from resistor coils around the reactor tube. Measurements of the radiated power from the reactor were performed with high- resolution thermal imaging cameras. The measurements of electrical power input were performed with a large bandwidth three-phase power analyzer. Data were collected during 32 days of running in March 2014....

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, part of the Department of Transportation, published last week an "advanced notice of proposed rulemaking" on "vehicle-to-vehicle communications." What NHTSA is proposing could begin a transformation in the American transportation system that makes our lives better and freer — or gives government more power over where we go and when.

... The Federal Reserve is the most important economic planning agency in the world. It's charged with promoting full employment, stabilizing prices, and overseeing the financial sector. So the new chair's theoretical views, management style, and personality quirks could affect trillions of dollars of economic activity. Is it wise to hand such extraordinary power to an elite cadre of economists and bureaucrats? The pretenses of top-down planning have been debunked by history. Throughout the last century, every nation that adopted central planning had its economy flounder. Even at the microeconomic level, the limits of top-down planning are increasingly obvious.

The National Park Service began enforcing a policy recently that required churches to obtain special use permits in order to baptize in public waters. As part of the same permit process, the NPS also mandated that churches give the Park Service 48 hours advance notice of pending baptisms. But as any Baptist or Pentecostal in good standing knows – that’s a problem. “If the Holy Spirit is working on Sunday morning, you’re going to baptize Sunday afternoon,” Dennis Purcell told The Salem News. “You may not know ahead of time.” Many Christians believe that the Bible commands new followers of...

WASHINGTON — Just a quarter of this year's high school graduates who took the ACT tests have the reading, math, English and science skills they need to succeed in college or a career, according to data the testing company released Wednesday. The numbers are even worse for black high school graduates: Only 5 percent are fully ready for life after high school. The results, part of ACT's annual report, indicate thousands of students graduate from high schools without the knowledge necessary for the next steps in life. The data also show a downturn in overall student scores, although company officials...

Today (Tuesday, July 2nd) the Fayetteville Public School District (Arkansas) publicly announced that it was outsourcing all Substitute Teacher jobs because of Obamacare. Substitute teachers will have their work hours cut to keep them under the threshold that triggers mandatory insurance benefits. The outsourcing of Substitutes will go to a private contractor who will bear the burden of keeping all Substitute Teachers on a half-time basis.

On the 17th the bank issued three values of bullion: 31.1g silver pieces with a 3RUB face value 7.78g gold pieces with 50RUB face 15.55g gold pieces with a 100RUB face value These bullion pieces are legal tender in the Russian Federation. The announcement on the Central Bank of Russia’s website is, of course, in Russian. However, if you trust Google Translator, below is an English summary of the announcement.... In English... The coins are legal tender cash payment in the Russian Federation and must be accepted at face value in all kinds of payments without any restrictions.

(AINA) -- During the demonstration which was held in front of the American Embassy in Cairo on Tuesday, 9/11, a Muslim cleric named Abu Islam tore and burned the Holy Bible in front of thousands of Muslims. His action was met with applause and anti-Christian cheers from the demonstrators. Before leaving the demonstration and getting into his car, he told the crowds "next time I will urinate on it."

In following up on some research into anarcho-capitalism (how a society with a free-market economy can function with little or no government), I ran across this paper that contains some interesting facts that might provide useful references and quotes. As usual, the facts are quite at odds with what is commonly held to be true. From: An American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism: the Not So Wild, Wild, West by Terry L. Anderson and P.J. Hill, Department of Economics, Montana State University PDF of article: http://mises.org/journals/jls/3_1/3_1_2.pdf from page 6: In his book, Frontier Violence: Another Look, W. Eugene Hollon stated that the...

Lawmakers are scrambling to save the summer concert season from federal agents poised to seize the instruments of rock and country stars because the wood used to make them may have been illegally harvested–and without their knowledge. “I don’t want the musicians from Nashville who are flying to Canada to perform this summer to worry about the government seizing their guitars,” said Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander.