Free Republic

An historic Northern California oyster farm along Point Reyes National Seashore will be shut down and the site converted to a wilderness area, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced on Thursday. Salazar said he will not renew the Drakes Bay Oyster Co. lease that expires Friday. The move will bring a close to a yearslong environmental battle over the site.

Community College of Allegheny County will trim hours for about 400 of its part-time workers to avoid having to provide them with health insurance coverage, the school's president, Alex Johnson, said Thursday. Mr. Johnson told members of Allegheny County Council that complying with the requirements of the federal Affordable Care Act, informally known as Obamacare, would have cost CCAC $6 million annually for part-timers who have been working at least 30 hours per week. Affected employees include both adjunct faculty and maintenance workers. CCAC has an annual operating budget of about $110 million and is facing reductions in county support...

CREWS: Homosexuals in the military demand special privileges Toleration doesn’t cut both waysThe American armed forces exist to defend our nation, not to conduct social science lab experiments in which our troops serve as human subjects. Try telling that to this administration. The first anniversary of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Sept. 20, has come and gone. Now, there is mounting evidence that proves our warnings were not idle chatter. The threat to freedom posed by this radical sexual experiment on our military is real: It is grave and it is growing. Activists inside and outside our...

Explanation: It's not every day that a space shuttle lands at LAX. Although this was a first for the major Los Angeles airport hub, it was a last for the space shuttle Endeavour, as it completed its tour of California skies and landed, albeit atop a 747, for the last time. During its last flight the iconic shuttle and its chase planes were photographed near several of California's own icons including the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the Hollywood Sign, and the skyline of Los Angeles. Previously, in May, the space shuttle Enterprise was captured passing behind several of...

More than any Democratic president since Franklin Roosevelt, Barack Obama in his writings and speeches has worked out an impressive interpretation of American history that culminates in modern liberalism. It also culminates, not incidentally, in him. As a writer, Obama’s strength is telling tales, and his story of America mixes together social, intellectual, and political history. It begins and keeps contending with the Founding– with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He tries to tell a new story about the country that acknowledges, and then contextualizes, traditional views in ways that are meant to be reassuring but that point...

Medical care is going to get worse under Obamacare. Robert S. Dotson, M.D. tells us why: As income reductions are being imposed on private practice, costs are being driven up by exploding regulations. In addition, the plethora of new mandates and laws have increasingly criminalized every aspect of the practice of medicine and created vast new armies of armed bureaucrats whose sole aim is to impose civil and criminal penalties on any provider unlucky enough to be singled out for attention... New restrictions, rules, and regulations on healthcare – on providers and patients alike – have imposed legal constraints with...

In the wake of the recent memo from the Obama administration which announced “prosecutorial discretion” in dealing with illegal aliens, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents across the country have been speaking out what many of them are calling a “backdoor amnesty.” On Wednesday, ICE Union president Chris Crane told PRNewswire:“Any American concerned about immigration needs to brace themselves for what's coming. This is just one of many new ICE policies in queue aimed at stopping the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws in the United States. Unable to pass its immigration agenda through legislation, the Administration is now implementing it through...

During my book "tour," radio hosts are forever asking me whether I believe that Obama is intentionally attempting to destroy America. It's a fair question, especially given the title of my book and because so many people legitimately believe he is. I have never been too receptive to conspiracy theories, and I'm not particularly enamored of ones circulating about Obama. But unlike many other such theories, this one is about a truly unprecedented assault on the American idea and on those first principles that have made America the unique experiment in constitutional governance that it has been. Ordinary people --...

Young US households — those aged 35-to-44 — lost a stunning 59 percent of their wealth during the recession, a government report released yesterday revealed. That’s the stiffest hit of any age group, said the report from the US Census Bureau. The age group — typically struggling with mortgages, tuition bills and rising tax bills — makes up the backbone of America’s middle class. The losses were mainly due to the drop in the value of their homes during the 2005 through 2010 period, the report said

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I watched something fascinating last night. You know, my brother has got a book out. The name of the book is The Great Destroyer. And it is a compendium of virtually everything Obama has done and said that gives away who he is and what's ahead and in store for us if he's reelected. David was to appear on Hannity last night, which he did. But Hannity led off with a focus group from somewhere in Wisconsin with Frank Luntz. And I watched that with my mouth wide open. Did you see that? Any of you see...