Free Republic

A Lancashire man who posted offensive comments on Facebook about missing five-year-old April Jones has been jailed for 12 weeks. Matthew Woods, 20, made a number of derogatory posts about April and missing Madeline McCann. He appeared at Chorley Magistrates' Court where he admitted sending a grossly offensive public electronic communication. Woods, of Eaves Lane, Chorley, was handed the maximum sentence. Chairman of the bench, magistrate Bill Hudson, said his comments were so serious and "abhorrent" that he deserved the longest sentence they could pass, less a third to give credit for his early guilty plea. Mark Bridger, 46, appeared...

In Orlando Saturday, talk about Operation Fast and Furious is once again heating up with Friday’s revelation by CBS News that Capitol Hill investigators are looking at a subpoena for someone who declined to talk earlier, and a key whistleblower is demanding the retraction of a June 27 article published by Fortune Magazine. Fast and Furious was supposed to be just one of many issues discussed here at the 27th annual Gun Rights Policy Conference, but there are some people here who may make it a central topic. Prof. John Lott, who wrote a blistering rebuttal to the Fortune Magazine...

200 colored beads found in a bowl, and ostrich figures carved on a stone plate alongside animal figurines have been discovered on Sunday at the Ein Zippori national park, located in the Lower Galilee. Ahead of the widening of Highway 79, extensive archaeological excavations have been conducted by the Antiquities Authority. During the excavations, a variety of impressive prehistoric artifacts have been uncovered. Prehistoric settlement remains that range in date from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period (c. 10,000 years ago) to the Early Bronze Age (c. 5,000 years ago) are at the Ein Zippori site, which extends south of Ein Zippori...

Dick Morris is right.Here's his column on "Why the Polls Understate the Romney Vote."Here's something Dick Morris doesn't mention. And he's charitable.Remember when Jimmy Carter beat Ronald Reagan in 1980?That's right. Jimmy Carter beat Ronald Reagan in 1980.In a series of nine stories in 1980 on "Crucial States" -- battleground states as they are known today -- the New York Times repeatedly told readers then-President Carter was in a close and decidedly winnable race with the former California governor. And used polling data from the New York Times/CBS polls to back up its stories.Four years later, it was the Washington...

In response to incidents of violence and cultural misunderstandings that transgendered Americans face on a day -to-day basis, the nation’s capital rolled out their #TransRespect campaign, in print ads and on Twitter and Facebook. In Washington D.C., the transgendered population is making itself heard. Their message: We’re doing fine -- why not get to know us? In response to incidents of violence and cultural misunderstandings that transgendered Americans face on a daily basis, the nation’s capital rolled out their #TransRespect campaign, in print ads and on Twitter and Facebook. The fiveads, which will appear all over D.C. in the fall,...

$4 Billion in 4 Years: Federal Subsidies to Chicago Schools By Terence P. Jeffrey September 11, 2012 (CNSNews.com) - Taxpayers in places as divergent as Florida and Montana, Nevada and New Hampshire, Arizona and Maine--as well as their children who will eventually need to pay the interest on the federal government's growing debt--may not think they have a stake in the Chicago teachers strike, but in fact the budgets of the Chicago Public Schools show that American taxpayers everywhere have literally billions at stake in what goes on in this one city's public school system. Over the past four years,...

On 15-Jun-2012, a story appeared in the Columbus Dispatch, exposing an ongoing investigation from the State Auditor's office into corruption in the Columbus Public Schools. It seems that a creative way had been discovered to improve dramatically the alarming truancy rate in the Columbus school system. School officials found that by altering attendance records, they could stem the loss of state funding dollars by simply "adjusting" students' attendance data. What they were talking about was not a matter of simply fixing the problems of a few cronies' children. In fact, dogged research by a real auditor, who had been "warned...

Controversial anti-Obama billboards showing children giving the finger to President Barack Obama have sparked outrage among passing drivers. The three provocative campaign posters are on display outside a motorbike accessories store off Route 27 in Hanson, Massachusetts. One shows a little girl raising her middle finger next to the message: 'Thanks Obama. You’ve spent my lunch money, my allowance, my inheritance, 35 years of future paychecks and my retirement. You Jerk. Vote Mitt Romney For 2012!' Beneath the picture are the words: 'Somewhere in Kenya a village is missing its idiot. Obama – One Big A** Mistake America. Vote Mitt...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Alongside the replica London taxicab and a jar of candy on attorney Damien Schiff's desk, a blue trucker cap has a place of honor. The cap -- advertising "Sackett Contracting & Excavating" -- was a gift from clients Mike and Chantell Sackett after Schiff successfully argued on their behalf in a recent Supreme Court case. The resulting decision, Sackett v. EPA, was a crushing loss for U.S. EPA in the 32-year-old lawyer's first appearance before the high court (Greenwire, March 31). Since the March ruling, Schiff's star has risen. He's become a sought-after speaker at legal events....

Unlike Obama, House Democrats will have trouble forging a majority without that demographic. Former House Speaker Tip O’Neill famously remarked that all politics is local. But this year, it’s the rhetoric of John Edwards that rings truer--in assessing the House race landscape, there are indeed two Americas. President Obama believes the way to win a second term is by rallying elements of the party base, but House Democrats trying to take back the majority face the added burden of winning the votes of increasingly disillusioned white working-class voters. When looking at why Republicans are likely to retain their 25-seat majority--The...

Who’s full of hot air? Mayor Bloomberg wants to maintain his politically correct credentials on global warming — but hates to get into a hot car when he leaves an air conditioned building. The solution his aides came up with could easily have doubled as a stunt on David Letterman’s show. In full view of bemused tourists and other passers-by, workers yesterday performed what looked like a comedy routine: They hoisted a standard room air conditioner to a side window of one of the mayor’s SUVs parked in the City Hall lot to see if it would fit... < snip...

Back in 2005, the dems and the MSM pilloried Bush and "Brownie" for alleged lackadaisical response to Katrina. The bad optics of Bush being at Crawford during an immense natural disaster caused his approval numbers to plummet, and the dems kept piling on, even as the the administration mounted one of the impressive air rescues in history. Now, the front range is alight and hundreds, maybe thousands of homes are being torched near Colorado Springs and elsewhere in the west while a fleet of air tankers seriously depleted by Odumbo (http://monkeywrenchingamerica.com/?p=1412) struggles to help contain the blazes and, meanwhile, Odumbo...

An Illinois gun range has been cited for “27 serious violations includ[ing] 13 for violating the lead standard” resulting in proposed fines of $111,000, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced in a news release earlier this week. Illinois Gun Works Ltd. was cited for “failing to implement engineering and work practice controls” following “a Jan. 21 inspection referred by the Illinois Department of Public Health.” The citation, issued on June 6, also included what OSHA defines as “serious violations” that “include failing to implement a hazard communication program, train workers on hazardous …label chemical bottles…administer an effective hearing conservation...

Myths have this habit of hanging around, growing and even be repeated and believed. Mitt Romney is the center of one of the biggest myths going around. What is the myth of Romney? The myth of Romney is that he is electable. It is right up there with the myth he is a conservative. The headlines for today by the Romney friendly media are that Romney one two states. As always the drive by media does not go into the story the way it should be delved into. Romney won Arizona handily. He took 47% to Santorum’s 26%, Gingrich’s 16%...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Have you heard, ladies and gentlemen, that President Obama has been asked (one might say demanded) to deliver the commencement speech at a women's college in New York? This is Barnard College. (I've never heard it pronounced; I'm deaf, so I have to guess at the pronunciation.) It's an all-women's college in New York. Obama will address the graduates at this year's commencement, May 14th. The White House called Barnard College in recent days and offered up Obama as the commencement speaker, and they promptly accepted, except they already had one. They already had one. Jill Abramson,...

At some point in this year’s presidential campaign, perhaps on a debate stage, President Obama is likely to repeat his claim that the Massachusetts health-care law signed by Gov. Mitt Romney in 2006 was the inspiration for the federal health-care plan that he himself signed in 2010. Obama knows that his signature legislative accomplishment remains unpopular. But he also knows that policy experts of various political stripes have claimed that Obamacare is essentially Romneycare taken national. If Romney is the Republican presidential nominee, as he seems likely to be, Obama will try to block him from taking advantage of his...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: So what do we do now, folks? That's the question. Everybody wants to know what do we do now? And what we do now is what we should have been doing all along. I'll give you an example. Obama's on TV this morning. He was in Falls Church, Virginia, doing a campaign speech. And in this appearance he announced yet another plan to bail out people who are underwater in their houses. I don't know what this is, HARP 2, HARP 3. We alluded to this a few weeks ago where Obama was gonna take people that...

The great British preacher John Newton had a friend, a poet by the name of William Cowper, who along with Newton wrote hymns which eventually were compiled in the Olney Hymnal. Cowper’s more noted contributions to this hymnal were “Oh, for a closer walk with God” and “There is a fountain filled with blood.”......Sadly, we find documented in Forbes Winslow’s Anatomy of Suicide (written in 1840) that Cowper has tried more than once to take his own life. As psychiatrist and Christian author John White puts it, “Here then we are presented with a gifted and Godly man, a man...

John King, CNN: "You make your case there passionately for President Obama. But also understand that this is a tough reelection climate for any president, Democrat or Republican in this economy. Because of your history with Speaker Gingrich, what goes through your mind when you think of the possibility, which is more real today than it was a week or a month ago, that he would be the Republican nominee and that you could come back here next January or next February with a President Gingrich?"

January 25, 2012 Gingrich, Romney in Dead Heat in New Florida Poll By Stephanie Condon Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich has erased the double-digit lead his GOP rival Mitt Romney once held in Florida, leaving the two candidates in a dead heat in the latest poll out of the Sunshine state. Romney leads with 36 percent among likely Republican primary voters in the new Quinnipiac poll, while Gingrich earns 34 percent. The poll, conducted January 19-23, has a margin of error of four points. Former Sen. Rick Santorum garnered 13 percent support while Rep. Ron Paul won 10 percent. The...