Free Republic

The 15-year-old girl charged with brutally beating Kaylee Gain and leaving her in a coma will not be charged as an adult, a judge has ruled. The decision followed testimony from a juvenile officer earlier this month, who claimed that Gain, 16, was a serial bully who tormented her attacker, Maurnice Declue, 15. It was also alleged that Gain initiated the fight and threw the first punch, and was suspended for fighting another girl just the day prior. On Wednesday, a St. Louis judge followed the officer's recommendation and decided that the case will remain in the juvenile court system....

A Democratic candidate in West Virginia was an active leader in pagan witchcraft for years and instructed others. Lissa Lucas wrote two books on occult practices, including a how-to book for casting spells. Lucas... doesn’t think voters will care about her ‘spirituality’ because they’re not ‘religious bigots.’ A Democratic candidate for the West Virginia House of Delegates was an active leader in pagan witchcraft, Lucas’s campaign has raised more than five times as much money as her Republican opponent, thanks in part to national media attention that has left out Lucas’s witchcraft. She authored two books on casting pagan spells,...

MEMPHIS, TN (WMC) - Two sisters have been arrested after a Saturday night brawl at IHOP in Whitehaven. The fight happened at the IHOP near Southland Mall in Whitehaven. The General Manager told police that employee Janika Nellums and her sister Shanika Strickland got into a fight with other restaurant employees with a baby sitting just a few feet away. A video of the fight has been circulating around social media. You can watch it in the post below, but be warned the video does contain adult language.

The gates of a school in Malaysia's state of Kelantan, where students have been plauged by "mass hysteria", were closed to reporters on Sunday (April 17) - the day the school was set to reopen - but screams were heard coming from the classrooms. SMK Pengkalan Chepa 2 was shut down for three days last Thursday to allow bomohs, ustaz and Islamic traditional practitioners to rid the place of bad spirits. It does not seem to be working. ... The school administration has conducted a two-hour recital of Quranic verses and held prayers together with the students. It is learnt...

Two days ago President Obama authorized the deployment to Uganda of approximately 100 combat-equipped U.S. forces to help regional forces “remove from the battlefield” – meaning capture or kill – Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony and senior leaders of the LRA. The forces will ultimately go to Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with the permission of those countries. The president made this announcement in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Friday afternoon, saying that “deploying these U.S. Armed Forces furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and...

After a hard day of watching our government spend our future and enslave our great grandchildren, I wanted to pass on something a little light, to maybe....cheer us up. A new song by the LA Crooner Geoffrey Tozer, OogaBooga - the Banker's Lament. 02/10/09

December 05, 2008, 1:40 p.m. Enough with the Oogedy-BoogedyReligion, politics, and us. By Shannen W. Coffin Kathleen Parker’s war on religion in the Re-public-an square entered a new phase today. In her syndicated column, she nobly attempted to explain her use of the term “oogedy-boogedy” to describe religious conservatives. It’s not that she is “anti-God.” It’s just that God really shouldn’t be mentioned in polite company. Religion can inform our values (gee, thanks). But reason, not religion, should inform our public debates. I hadn’t realized religion and reason were mutually exclusive. It seems Pope Benedict hasn’t gotten the memo,...

June 24 is St. John's Day, named for St. John the Baptist, cousin of Jesus. It's also the holiest day of year for voodoo practitioners. Voodoo has long been accepted as part of New Orleans' culture, while in the rest of the country it remains misunderstood and often disparaged. St. John's Day, which falls every year around the summer solstice, is a celebration of growing and moving forward. Practitioners and curiosity-seekers alike gather and participate in various ceremonies. This year, the observance of St. John's Day is more important than ever. "This is a time when people can heal or...

Stone Age tribe kills fishermen who strayed on to island By Peter Foster in New Delhi (Filed: 08/02/2006) One of the world's last Stone Age tribes has murdered two fishermen whose boat drifted on to a desert island in the Indian Ocean. The Sentinelese, thought to number between 50 and 200, have rebuffed all contact with the modern world, firing a shower of arrows at anyone who comes within range. Sentinelese tribesmen prepare to fire arrows at the coastguard helicopter after the fishermen's murder They are believed to be the last pre-Neolithic tribe in the world to remain isolated and...