Free Republic

A week after Warner Bros. announced it would halt the production of all merchandise featuring the Confederate flag on General Lee, the iconic car from The Dukes of Hazzard, the show has inexplicably disappeared from TV Land’s lineup. WB announced the move as major retailers Walmart, Amazon, eBay, and Sears all introduced bans on the sale of Confederate flag merchandise in the wake of Dylann Roof’s Charleston, SC shooting rampage at a black church. “Warner Bros. Consumer Products has one licensee producing die-cast replicas and vehicle model kits featuring the General Lee with the confederate flag on its roof —...

After tapping into solar, wind, geothermal and now natural gas resources on post, Fort Knox has become the first U.S. military installation to go “off the grid.” The installation announced Wednesday it added 28 natural gas wells to its arsenal of energy-creating sources which already includes almost 6,000 geothermal wells, two wind turbines and 3.59 megawatts of solar panels. With the additions, Fort Knox will be able to produce more energy than it needs — about 44 megawatts a day. It typically uses about 20 daily, but has approached 50 before, officials said. With that kind of power, when Hardin...

Obama sent his chief of staff, Denis McDonough, to J Street where he brought the crowd to their feet when he said this: “An occupation that has lasted more than 50 years must end.” Mark Levin was right. Obama is definitely going full Mussolini and he’s using Netanyahu’s campaign rhetoric as the excuse to couch it in. POLITICO – White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough made clear in a speech to a left-leaning Israel advocacy group that President Barack Obama isn’t letting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu off the hook for his dismissal of a two-state solution. That stance,...

THE POLITICO reports that President Obama, during his State of the Union address on Tuesday, gave shout outs to a number of American companies in an effort to highlight the strength of the U.S. economy. Nearly all of those companies, it turns out, are big political spenders and have contributed heavily to Democrats. One of those companies was eBay, which Obama cited as an example of how “millions of Americans [are working] in jobs that didn’t even exist 10 or 20 years ago.” That now seems like an unfortunate choice, because less than 24 hours after Obama’s speech, eBay announced

The layoffs come three weeks after some of the sub shop's employees protested for better wages and benefits. BY MEG GRAHAM A River North sandwich shop gave its employees an unwelcome Christmas surprise on Sunday night, firing them all by email. The 20 employees of Snarf’s Sub Shop at 600 W. Chicago Ave. received the email last night around 5 p.m. Grid obtained it this morning. It reads as follows. 1. Due to increased competition and losses, ownership has decided to consider remodeling and reconcepting the store at 600 West Chicago Ave. 2. The store is closing, effective tomorrow, December...

According to Senate President Stephen Sweeney, the right to purchase a firearm under the new card could be electronically switched off by local police “if they have a suspicion or concern.” Under current law, Second Amendment rights can only be suspended after conviction of a serious crime – not based on mere “suspicion or concern.” The new approach turns the presumption of innocence on its head and violates due process.

Vice President Joe Biden had this to say today about whether there's a "depression" in America: "The unemployed are in real trouble," Biden said. "My grandpa used to say, from Scranton, he’d say, ‘Joe, when the guy in Dunmore - the next town over – when the guy in Dunmore is out of work, it’s an economic slowdown. When your brother-in-law is out of work, it’s a recession. When you’re out of work, it’s a depression. It’s a depression for millions and millions of Americans." But the last bit is particularly curious since it sounds an awful lot like something...

SAN DIEGO -- Imagine joining the Navy ten years ago with a career in mind. Now, sailors with that career plan are getting pink slips as the military looks for places to save money. Since June, 16,000 mid-career sailors have been waiting to find out if they will be forced out early. Last week, the Navy began its layoffs when the first of two rounds of personnel cuts were announced. Read the original story at nbcsandiego.com "Nobody ever wants to pass this sort of bad news to somebody," said Captain Winton Smith, Naval Station San Diego's commanding officer. "It's a...

The Ministry of Defence is investigating claims that a soldier sliced fingers off dead Taliban fighters to keep as souvenirs.

In March 2010, Nancy Pelosi warned us that we had to pass ObamaCare to “find out what’s in it.” What is in it is jobs for China. What’s not in it is jobs for Americans, as the Boston Globe reports today (via NewsAlert): Boston Scientific Corp. said yesterday that it plans to eliminate 1,200 to 1,400 jobs worldwide during the next 2 1/2 years to free money for new investments, the Natick medical device maker’s second major round of cuts since last year. The company would not say how many jobs will be lost in Massachusetts, where fewer than 2,000...

What are you afraid of, Mr. President? I know it must be tough dragging yourself to these glitzy fund-raisers and mingling with rich people who shower you with money and affection. Who needs an unfriendly reporter shouting an unscripted question at you, or checking to see whether any of the guests are getting government contracts? We all know Obama has an aversion to tough questions. During the campaign, he would refuse to engage with most local media, and reporters who camped out at the rope line got a stern talking-to from a campaign staffer. But using the White House press...

Malaria mosquitoes utilize CO2 from exhaled air to localize humans from afar. In the vicinity of their preferred host, they alter their course towards the human feet. Researcher Remco Suer discovered how female malaria mosquitoes use foot odors in the last meters to guide them to their favoured biting place. Suer, who is defending his doctoral thesis May 9 at Wageningen University, part of Wageningen UR, sees possibilities to disrupt the host seeking behaviour of the malaria mosquito. African malaria mosquitoes, Anopheles gambiae, use their olfactory organs, two antennae, two mouthparts (maxillary palps) and the proboscis, to search for their...

Reality must be setting in for the Egyptian people, as a new article in the New York Times is reporting that “the jokes have stalled, another sign that Egypt’s revolution has too.” Glenn gave his reaction on radio. “When punch line is no longer a lifeline for Egyptians. It’s a story that talks about how the Egyptians have used humor to get through, you know, dark periods for a very, very long time and they were doing that with, you know, with the revolution,” Glenn said.

The U.S. Socialist Workers Party is sending cadre fresh from the battlefields of Madison, Wisconsin, to Cairo, to peddle Marxist literature to the Egyptian masses. From the Militant “I just returned from Madison, Wisconsin, this past weekend, meeting and talking to working people involved in the fight there, introducing them to the Militant,” said Dan Fein, a worker at a pharmaceutical plant in New York. “Soon, I’ll be doing the same thing in Cairo.” Fein is part of a team of socialist workers from the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom who will travel to Egypt to participate in the...

President Obama's propaganda priorities are becoming clearer. Does the community activist-in-chief care about a billion Chinese and what they know about their dictatorial government? Community organizers are supposed to speak truth to power. How can the Chinese people speak truth to power when they are cut off from learning the truth? Bill Gertz of the Washington Times reports: The Obama administration will cancel shortwave radio broadcasts by Voice of America into China this year, as Beijing is expanding its propaganda operations in the United States and around the world. Critics of the broadcasting cuts, announced Monday, said major reductions in...

FORT WAYNE, Ind. — A former Indiana mayor who won four terms in the 1930s and 1950s is proving less popular with modern-day city leaders, who say they probably won't name a new government center for him because of the jokes his moniker could inspire. Harry Baals is the runaway favorite in online voting to name the new building in Fort Wayne, about 120 miles northeast of Indianapolis. But Deputy Mayor Beth Malloy said that probably won't be enough to put the name of the city's longest-tenured mayor on the center. The issue is pronunciation. The former mayor pronounced his...

(Reuters) - Oil slipped on Thursday as markets weighed disappointing U.S. jobless claims data and the prospect OPEC would raise output should prices break above $100 a barrel for an extended period. A delegate from a Gulf OPEC member state said OPEC will only hold an emergency meeting if oil bursts into triple digits and stays there, although the group's Gulf members could informally add supply if needed. Brent crude rallied to near $99 a barrel earlier this week, raising concerns it could break past $100, driving up fuel costs and threatening the fragile economic recovery. U.S. weekly initial unemployment...

Texas woman, 24, receives “nominal” settlement over incident JANUARY 13--The woman who sued the Transportation Security Administration after her breasts were exposed during a frisking at a Texas airport will receive a “nominal” payment from the government as part of a legal settlement, The Smoking Gun has learned. The settlement was disclosed in documents filed last week in U.S. District Court in Amarillo, where Lynsie Murley last year filed a lawsuit accusing the TSA of negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress in connection with the May 2008 incident at the Corpus Christi airport. Murley’s lawyer, Jerry McLaughlin, declined to...

A flotilla of ships titled the "Viva Palestina" convoy, hailed by organizers as the largest convoy to break the Gaza embargo, is set to depart this weekend, organizers announced Thursday. The flotilla has been cleared to sail from Syria to the Egyptian port of Al-Arish, from where it will make its way into Gaza. The Egyptian government announced that it will allow the aid convoy to dock at Al-Arish seaport while en route to Gaza. Hussam Zaki of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry confirmed that the convoy will be allowed access to Gaza however he insisted George Galloway, the British ex-parliamentarian

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The presidential seal has fallen off President Barack Obama's podium and clattered to the stage as Obama delivered a speech to a women's conference. The president was joking with the audience and getting some laughs when he realized what happened. "All of you know who I am," he quipped. Obama told the audience that somebody in the back was really nervous, referring to the staffer who hung the seal on the front of the lectern so precariously.