Free Republic

A Russian beverage company said on Thursday that it was acquiring the Pabst Brewing Company, which makes the Pabst Blue Ribbon beer popular with barflies and hipsters alike and other brands like Colt 45 and Old Milwaukee. [snip] The buyer is Oasis Beverages, a Russian brewer and beverages distributor. Backing Oasis is TSG Consumer Partners, an American private equity firm focused on consumer goods, which will take a minority stake. “Pabst Blue Ribbon is the quintessential American brand – it represents individualism, egalitarianism and freedom of expression – all the things that make this country great,” Eugene Kashper, the chairman...

A United Methodist pastor from central Pennsylvania who was defrocked after officiating his son’s gay wedding was invited by a California Methodist bishop to serve in her region in yet another sign of a split in the nation’s largest mainline Protestant denomination. Frank Schaefer said he is deciding whether to accept the offer from Bishop Minerva G. Carcano to join the California-Pacific Annual Conference. The region includes California, Hawaii, and the Pacific Islands. “I’m actually leaning toward it right now, but I can’t make that decision myself because it involves my entire family,” Schaefer said. “We are considering it very,...

A Pennsylvania pastor charged under United Methodist law with officiating his son's same-sex marriage is scheduled to go on trial. The Rev. Frank Schaefer, 51, could be defrocked.... "Public opinion has changed very rapidly," said the pastor's son.... ...Schaefer could have avoided a trial if he had agreed never again to perform a same-gender wedding, but he declined because three of his four children are gay.

Conservatives have long told anecdotes about the outrageous behavior of some liberal university professors, but now there is video to prove it. After getting a tip from a Louisiana State University student, a web-based organization called Campus Reform sent a cameraman into Professor Bradley E. Schaefer's freshman Astronomy 1101 class. The course description says the class is about "fundamental principles of the solar system," but on this particular day the topic was U.S. policy on global warming. Students were asked to sit in sections according to what they think the U.S. should do about global warming, with choices including do...

(07-27) 16:22 PDT SAN QUENTIN STATE PRISON -- A man newly arrived at San Quentin State Prison after being convicted of murder and drunken driving in the death of a 9-year-old Novato girl was fatally stabbed by another inmate, authorities said Tuesday. Edward John Schaefer, 44, of Novato was stabbed in the chest and neck at about 10:35 a.m. Monday in the prison's reception center yard and died that night, said Lt. Sam Robinson, prison spokesman.

Dan Schaefer DENVER (AP) - Former GOP Rep. Dan Schaefer, who represented Colorado in Congress for 14 years until retiring in 1998, died Sunday. He was 70. Schaefer won a special election in 1983 to fill a vacancy caused by the death of congressman-elect John Swigert, an Apollo 13 astronaut who died before he could take office. A moderate Republican who liked backpacking and bow hunting, Schaefer served on the House Commerce Committee and was the senior member of the state's congressional delegation when he stepped down. State Rep. Matt Knoedler, a Republican from Lakewood who worked for Schaefer when...

Up to now it's just been a war of words, but now Governor Glendening is upping the ante in his feud with Comptroller William Donald Schaefer. Glendening is giving Secretary of State John Willis $25,000 in campaign money he doesn't need anymore to use for radio ads in his uphill battle to unseat Shaefer. The ads will run in the Washington area where Schaefer isn't as popular as he is around Baltimore. Glendening says he's doing it because of what he calls Schaefer's "lack of respect" for the citizens of Maryland. Schaefer's opponents say he has made derogatory remarks about...