Free Republic

David McGee, an attorney with Beggs & Lane, is the man the Florida Republican named during an appearance Tuesday evening on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show in which he responded to reports that he is under federal investigation over a former relationship. McGee served for six years as the first assistant at the U.S. Attorney’s Office and for seven years as the lead attorney for a Justice Department's Organized Crime Task Force, according to his biography on the website of his law firm, which is based in Pensacola, Florida. (Cut) The New York Times reported Gaetz, 38, is being looked...

The end of televised cigarette ads changed everything from the entertainment industry to advertising itself. Tyler SageAt 11:50 PM on Jan. 1, 1971, the last television ad for cigarettes ran on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, signaling the end of an era and shifting the media world in ways that are still being felt today. You can see the minute-long spot below. It features Virginia Slims' controversial attempt to cash in on the women's liberation movement with the tag line "You've come a long way, baby." Tobacco has played a role in American life for almost as long as...

Robert Levinson, a former FBI special agent who disappeared while traveling on Iran’s Kush Island in 2007, has “died while in Iranian custody,” his family announced Wednesday. ---SNIP--- “Those who are responsible for what happened to Bob Levinson, including those in the U.S. government who for many years repeatedly left him behind, will ultimately receive justice for what they have done,” the announcement said. That’s a reference to President Barack Obama’s administration, which did not secure Levinson’s release despite years of negotiating with Tehran in the lead-up to the implementation of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

A record-breaking ruling for the family of Bob Levinson, a former FBI Agent who vanished while in Iran 13-years ago. Thursday, a U.S. judge ruled Iran must pay Levinson's family $1.46 billion, the largest judgement for a case of this kind... Levinson disappeared in 2007 while working as a CIA contractor in Iran. His family immediately called on (Atty. David) McGee, who was Levinson's friend, to help bring him home... Earlier this year, Levinson's family announced they were convinced the husband and father of seven was dead. In a statement, they said the judgement was the "the first step in...

The ban - part of a European Union initiative to discourage young people from taking up smoking - will come into effect on Wednesday, May 20Menthol cigarettes will be banned in the United Kingdom from next week in a bid to discourage young people from taking up smoking. The ban - part of a European Union initiative - will come into effect on Wednesday, May 20. Under the new directive, flavoured rolling tobacco and "skinny" cigarettes will be outlawed. Experts believe youngsters use flavoured cigarettes as they relax airways and lower the severity of smoke. While it is commonly believed...

Zoo animals have been unable to kick their tobacco habit as the killer pandemic sweeps the globeStressed-out primates have taken to chain smoking cigarettes as the coronavirus crisis rages across the globe. Monkeys and chimps have failed to kick the habit as entertained visitors are seen to laugh as the animals spark up amid the pandemic. In Cambodia, one man took to social media to share a video, titled ‘By 2020 even monkeys can smoke’, which shows a tiny macaque in a pen smoking a cig as another looks on. The animal is seen to take repeated drags while...

Robert Norris, known as the original 'Marlboro Man' used in ads for the cigarette brand, has died at age 90. Norris passed away at his ranch in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Sunday. He is survived by his two sons and two daughters, 13 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren. For 12 years, Norris graced billboards and magazines as the Marlboro Man, a rugged man wearing a cowboy hat in wild terrain - with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth or in his hand. But despite him pictured holding cigarettes for more than a decade, Norris never smoked and he eventually quit...

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — More than two dozen people were arrested last week in connection with a $12 million cigarette smuggling operation based in Fayetteville, authorities said Monday. U.S. Attorney Robert Higdon said Justin Brent Freeman and his wholesale business, FreeCo Inc., at 231 Williams St., served as a hub for the illegal operation. People would pay cash for large quantities of cigarettes at FreeCo and other retailers in North Carolina, including Sam's Club stores in Raleigh, Fayetteville and Goldsboro, and would then pack the cigarettes into rental cars for shipment to Virginia, Higdon said. In Richmond or Alexandria, Va., the...

Sen. Mitt Romney is pushing legislation to raise the federal legal age to buy tobacco to 21, an effort backed by the tobacco industry and that health advocates hope will curtail younger Americans from smoking. Romney, a Utah Republican, said the bill was the first step in addressing an avoidable health crisis of young Americans taking up e-cigarettes as well as traditional tobacco products. The legislation would raise the age to buy any tobacco product to 21 as well as allow the Health and Human Services Department to conduct undercover compliance checks, retail inspections and enforce the law with fines.

The smoke hasn’t cleared yet, but Beverly Hills is poised to become the first U.S. city to end most tobacco sales. The City Council in the world-renowned enclave of the rich and famous unanimously indicated Tuesday that it’s ready to snuff out most sales when it meets again on May 21. The proposal currently contains a loophole allowing cigarette-loving tourists to obtain smokes at hotels. Three plush cigar lounges would also be exempt from the ordinance. The city “has always taken the lead when it’s come to restricting smoking,” Mayor John Mirisch said. “Let us try to be a light...

We are just over a month into the new Disney/Fox status quo. The Mouse House has become the industry’s first mega-studio by absorbing one of its biggest competitors in a deal that has had massive repercussions, already, with thousands losing jobs and films suddenly finding themselves without a studio. But there is a lot more at play in the merger than what many were probably considering, such as Disney’s morals. Everyone knows that Disney doesn’t make films the same way that everyone else does. The films under the Disney banner have a certain limit on how far they can go....

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to introduce legislation raising the minimum age to purchase tobacco products to 21 from 18, a move that public-health advocates and tobacco companies hope would curb the use of e-cigarettes among youths. More than a dozen states have passed or enacted laws raising the minimum age to 21 and others are considering doing so. Sen. McConnell’s announcement Thursday follows the introduction earlier this month of similar bills in the House. Altria Group Inc. and British American Tobacco PLC, the two biggest U.S. cigarette manufacturers, both support an increase of the minimum age to 21,...

(CNN)"The legislature finds that the cigarette is considered the deadliest artifact in human history." So begins the text of a new bill introduced in Hawaii's State House, calling for a phased ban on cigarette sales in the state by 2024. Hawaii has some of the most restrictive cigarette laws in the nation. In 2016, it became the first state to raise the age to buy cigarettes to 21. Now, its new bill calls for raising the cigarette-buying age to 30 by next year, up to 40, 50 and 60 in each subsequent year, and up to 100 by 2024. That...

Missing American Feared a Victim of 'Dirty War' April 13, 2007 The Financial Times Guy Dinmore in Washington and Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran Just why Robert Levinson, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and now private investigator, should venture into Iran to meet a American fugitive wanted for murder in the US remains a mystery that the highest Bush administration authorities are trying to unravel. As the Financial Times revealed this week, Mr Levinson disappeared on March 8 after a six-hour meeting on the Iranian island of Kish with Dawud Salahuddin, an American who converted to Islam and was...

According to a press release sent out by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, nine individuals have been charged "with a dozen felony counts for allegedly offering money and cigarettes to homeless people on Skid Row in exchange for false and forged signatures on ballot petitions and voter registration forms." "The defendants are accused of engaging in the solicitation of hundreds of false and/or forged signatures on state ballot petitions and voter registration forms by allegedly offering homeless people $1 and/or cigarettes for their participation, prosecutors said. The alleged offenses occurred during the 2016 and 2018 election cycles," the release...

Complete Headline: 'Cigarettes, beer and junk food ... the essentials': Thousands of Wilmington residents overcrowd supermarket open amid hurricane chaos and COPS have to help with crowd control As the Hurricane Florence clean-up efforts were under way residents turned out to hunt for snacks Cops were called and the lines were said to take up to four hours to get served Shoppers were looking for 'cigarettes, beer and junk food' Thousands remain without power across the state as the storm continues Stores elsewhere in the city are expected to be able to reopen Sunday The residents of Hurricane Florence-stricken Wilmington,...

...In 2009, when Mueller ran the FBI, the bureau asked Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to spend millions of his own dollars funding an FBI-supervised operation to rescue a retired FBI agent, Robert Levinson, captured in Iran while working for the CIA in 2007.

On his visit to Albania, the Orthodox patriarch of Moscow invoked the unity of the Christian Churches to disarm religious radicalism. On the same day, his closest collaborator, Hilarion, pulled the breaks on ecumenical leaps. Between Catholics and Orthodox there is a common faith, but too many "contradictions and misunderstandings", such as the work of Card. Stepinac and that of the Greek-Catholics (uniates).Moscow (AsiaNews) - The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill (Gundjaev), went on an official visit to Albania from April 28 to 30, where he was welcomed by the Archbishop of Tirana Anastas (Janullatos), leader of...

Unreal! Snowflakes need to be warned that a movie set in the Sixties has scenes with characters smoking cigarettes?

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday took the first step in creating a new rule to reduce the level of nicotine allowed in cigarettes to nonaddictive levels. In an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking, FDA asked the public to submit comments over the next 90 days on the impact of a product standard for the maximum nicotine level in cigarettes. “Tobacco use causes a tremendous toll of death and disease every year and these effects are ultimately the result of addiction to the nicotine contained in combustible cigarettes, leading to repeated exposure to toxicants from such cigarettes,” the...