Free Republic

New York Gov. (Andrew Cuomo) urged private businesses on Aug. 2 to institute “vaccine-only” admission in order to incentivize getting vaccinated against COVID-19.“Private businesses, bars, restaurants: go to a vaccine-only admission. … I believe it’s in your business interest to run a vaccine-only establishment,” he said, without elaborating.

Every dollar Terry Rolin had saved over a lifetime was stacked in a large Tupperware container: $82,373. At 79, he was aging and worried about keeping so much cash on hand, his daughter said, so during one of her visits he asked her to open a joint bank account. Rebecca Brown was catching a flight home from the Pittsburgh airport early the next day and said she didn’t have time to stop at a bank. She confirmed on a government website that it’s legal to carry any amount of cash on a domestic flight and tucked the money in her...

After years of concern about the number of traffic accidents that occur in road construction zones, Pennsylvania is doing something about it. Beginning Jan. 4, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Pennsylvania Turnpike will begin a 60-day pilot program to formally test what’s called the Automated Work Zone Speed Enforcement program. The program is designed to cause drivers to slow down in construction areas by setting up speed monitoring equipment in work areas. After the pilot program is finished, the two state agencies expect to deploy private contractors in white Jeep Cherokee SUVs at various sites throughout the state to...

Companies endorse liberal causes at seemingly every turn, virtue-signaling their way to what they hope are greater profits. Some companies get rich off their wokeness, while others falter as a result. Read the 50 times corporations attempted to capitalize on left-wing politics. 1. Electronic Arts video game features disabled woman fighting in World War II. Electronic Arts’ 2018 game Battlefield V reenacts scenes from World War II with a twist: large amounts of the soldiers on the frontlines of battle are women. The trailer for the game features a woman with a hook for a hand killing soldiers. The words...

Other countries are taking steps to atone for their shameful past treatment of L.G.B.T. people. The United States should too. The New York Police Department apologized last week to the gay community for the 1969 raid of the Stonewall Inn, the fallout of which is widely credited with spurring the contemporary gay rights movement at home and abroad. Timed to coincide with Stonewall’s 50th anniversary, the statement by Commissioner James P. O’Neill said in part: “The actions taken by the N.Y.P.D. were wrong — plain and simple” and “the actions and the laws were discriminatory and oppressive, and for that,...

Other countries are taking steps to atone for their shameful past treatment of L.G.B.T. people. The United States should too. The New York Police Department apologized last week to the gay community for the 1969 raid of the Stonewall Inn, the fallout of which is widely credited with spurring the contemporary gay rights movement at home and abroad. Timed to coincide with Stonewall’s 50th anniversary, the statement by Commissioner James P. O’Neill said in part: “The actions taken by the N.Y.P.D. were wrong — plain and simple” and “the actions and the laws were discriminatory and oppressive, and for that,...

Last week, virtually every serious 2020 Democratic presidential candidate spent an unserious period of time embarrassingly kissing the ring of race-baiter extraordinaire Al Sharpton at his National Action Network conference.Sharpton’s burning question for each of them? Would they support H.R. 40, a bill originally introduced in 1989, probably as a joke, by former Democratic Michigan Rep. John Conyers, but reintroduced in today’s beyond-absurd political climate by Democratic Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. If passed, and I’m not kidding, it would create a “Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans to examine slavery and discrimination in the colonies and...

Amid a departure of top executives at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a new report details allegations of sexual misconduct and racial discrimination against those very individuals at the progressive nonprofit which frequently has targeted conservative groups. A report from the New York Times on Monday detailed several complaints by both current and former employees that indicated a “climate of intolerance” in the workplace -- complaints including sexual harassment and a lack of diversity based on race and gender. **SNIP** On Friday, SPLC President Richard Cohen announced he would be stepping down from the civil rights organization amid the...

The head of the Southern Poverty Law Center on Friday announced that he is stepping down, the latest high-profile departure from the watchdog organization best known for its work monitoring extremist groups. Southern Poverty Law Center President Richard Cohen sent an email to staff saying that he would be stepping down from his leadership role at the organization. The organization last week fired founder and prominent civil rights attorney Morris Dees for unspecified reasons. “Whatever problems exist at the SPLC happened on my watch, so I take responsibility for them,” Cohen wrote. […] Last year, it agreed to pay a...

The boutique Avanti Hotel is known for its poolside, dog-friendly rooms. Yet its website uses the valuable opening page not to highlight the Palm Springs inn’s amenities, but to explain, in stark black letters on a plain white background, that the Avanti violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Motel 6 will pay up to $7.6 million to Hispanic guests to settle a proposed class-action lawsuit claiming that it violated their privacy by regularly providing guest lists to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) filed the lawsuit after the Phoenix New Times said ICE agents had arrested 20 people over six months at Motel 6s in Arizona, using guest lists to target people by national origin. “Motel 6 fully recognizes the seriousness of the situation and accepts full responsibility for both compensating those who were harmed and taking the...

So you can imagine how upsetting it was for me when Chick-fil-A’s president, Dan Cathy, proudly came out as a homophobe in 2012 by claiming, “We are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, ‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage,’ and I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about.” Even worse, the company put its money where Cathy’s vile mouth was by donating millions of dollars each year...

Staring down the prospect of a public relations crisis — boycott threats and "die-in" protests included — over its donations to Republican gubernatorial hopeful Adam Putnam, Publix said Friday it has halted all corporate political contributions. The supermarket giant made the announcement moments before a "die-in" protest planned by David Hogg, a vocal Parkland school shooting survivor and gun control activist. Despite the news, Hogg and dozens of protestors sprawled on the floor of a Coral Springs Publix for 12 minutes clutching sunflowers and signs that read "No NRA Money." Hogg and other students began their influential movement for gun...

Attorneys who filed one of the first lawsuits after the Oct. 1 mass shooting that killed 58 concert-goers and left hundreds injured on the Las Vegas Strip filed four new negligence cases Monday on behalf of more than 450 victims. This time, however, Houston-based lawyers Chad Pinkerton and Mo Aziz filed the cases in Los Angeles against companies including MGM Resorts International, the corporate owner of both the Mandalay Bay resort and the Route 91 Harvest Festival concert venue. Pinkerton said the intent was to get the cases before a jury less likely to be influenced by the size and...

Customer says she feels 'poisoned' after discovering meat in vegetarian meal ordered at a local eatery A Jewish woman from Michigan is suing a restaurant for serving her bacon in an omelet that was supposed be meatless. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories FREE SIGN UP That lawsuit was filed on behalf of Angela Montgomery, 30, of Sterling Heights by her attorney Majed Moughni, the Detroit Free Press reported Monday. Montgomery is seeking monetary damages for emotional and physical distress caused by eating the bacon. She alleged breach of contract and...

LOS ANGELES (FOX 11 / CNS) - The City Council on Wednesday approved a $650,000 payout for a man who successfully fought how the city of Los Angeles processes challenges to parking tickets. Cody Weiss, who sued the city in 2014 after he received a parking ticket, argued that the city unlawfully allows a private for-profit company to process challenges to tickets. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled in his favor last year, and the decision was upheld by the Second District Court of Appeal. City Attorney Mike Feuer petitioned the California Supreme Court to review the appellate decision,...

Major U.S. corporations and leading business figures are raising an eleventh-hour appeal to President Donald Trump, urging him to not pull the country out of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. ....

Joel Ramer and his girlfriend got stuck off-roading this old Jeep Cherokee on a powerline road in Walpole, Massachusetts last week. Seems egregious that he was arrested for trespassing and disturbing the peace, but the $48,000 recovery charge is downright offensive. It’s unclear whether Ramer got slapped with a trespassing charge after calling for help, or if somebody spotted and busted him while he was screwing around in the mud. And yeah, you can be jailed for that in Massachusetts. But after Walpole PD rolled up on him Fox25 says the cops called what is presumably their go-to recovery outfit,...

SEATTLE -- Panhandlers carry them. Protestors call them essential. But one Seattle man's sign -- warning of a speed trap -- has been dubbed illegal and could end up costing him $138. "I thought it was nonsense," said Daniel Gehlke, who made the handwritten sign "Cops Ahead! Stop at sign and light!" with a marker and a Rubbermaid top. "I am a believer that the Constitution, the Bill of Rights are there specifically so they can't be modified or restricted. This clearly is not a stop sign." Gehlke was holding the sign near 14th Avenue S. and S. Washington Street...

Karen Finley, former CEO of the Phoenix-based Redflex Traffic Systems, pleaded guilty today in federal court to an eight-year bribery-and-fraud scheme that helped the company retain photo-enforcement contracts with two Ohio cities. Finley, 55, of Cave Creek, pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Terence P. Kemp of the Southern District of Ohio to a charge of "conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery and honest services wire and mail fraud," the U.S. Department of Justice announced this morning. She resigned from the company in 2013 after the corruption scheme was alleged by a whistle-blower. Top executives in Redflex's Australian-based parent company,...