Free Republic

Congress is more unpopular than ever, but some Members are better than its reputation. One of them is Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who announced on Friday that he'll leave the Senate at the end of this year. Mr. Coburn's second term doesn't officially end until 2016, but he is battling a recurrence of prostate cancer and said he felt he could "best serve my own children and grandchildren by shifting my focus elsewhere" than Congress. Mr. Coburn's tenure on Capitol Hill has been notable for his convictions on behalf of limited government combined with a determination to do more...

DETROIT -- Plans for a new bridge connecting the U.S. and Canada are moving more slowly than anticipated, partly because Washington doesn't seem to want to pay for a customs plaza on the American side of the span, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said. The bridge, one of Snyder's most significant public projects since he took office in 2011, would compete with the privately owned Ambassador Bridge and take vehicles between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. The Canadian government, which believes another bridge would improve trade, has agreed to pay for most of it and recoup money later through tolls. But the...

Governor Palin claimed today on the Fox Business Network that her e-mails validate her assertion that she opposed and killed the bridge to nowhere. Her e-mails do indeed validate her assertion. Notice that she has never denied that she changed her opinion on the bridge from her 2006 campaign. Here is what the Governor wrote in her e-mails about the Bridge: "We can't afford it , the Feds won’t pay for it, the general populace isn’t placing it as a high priority" "I hope folks know my intention is to continue to NOT support the nonsensical notion that the state...

In the week of March 7, the House will take up bills addressing the U.S. housing crisis, while the Senate will resume debate on reforming U.S. procedures for awarding patents. HOUSE HIGHWAY, MASS-TRANSIT PROJECTS: Voting 421-4, the House sent the Senate a bill (HR 662) to provide billions of dollars in funding for road and bridge construction, mass transit, and highway safety from March 4 through Sept. 30. A yes vote was to pass the bill. Judy Biggert: Yes Randy Hultgren: Yes “BRIDGE TO NOWHERE”: Voting 181-246, the House defeated a Democratic bid to strip HR 662 (above) of funds...

The takeover of the U.S. House by Republicans could prompt a revival of the fight for additional funding for the Marietta-built F-22 stealth fighter, U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey said Friday. U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey, a Republican from Marietta. AJC file “This isn’t just for the sake of home-cooking, but also for the sake of the country,” Gingrey said in a telephone interview. But Gingrey conceded that concerns over spending and the federal deficit could make the funding battle a difficult one. The planes have a price tag of $120 million each. “We would have to look at it with a...

NEWARK, N.J. – New Jersey's governor wants to kill a $9 billion-plus train tunnel to New York City because of runaway costs. Six thousand miles away, Hawaii's outgoing governor is having second thoughts about a proposed $5.5 billion rail line in Honolulu. In many of the 48 states in between, infrastructure projects are languishing on the drawing board, awaiting the right mix of creative financing, political arm-twisting and timing to move forward. And a struggling economy and a surge of political candidates opposed to big spending could make it a long wait. Has the nation that built the Hoover Dam,...

Did you realize the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" was to Murkowski's mother's family land on Gravina Island that would have greatly increased in value had the bridge been built? The funds for that bridge were re-located to other highway projects which benefited more Alaskans. http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/11/7/142633.shtml http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravina_Island_Bridge .

THE WIDER VIEW: Taking shape, the new bridge at the Hoover Dam 04th July 2009 Creeping closer inch by inch – 900ft above the mighty Colorado River – the two sides of a £160million bridge at the Hoover Dam in America slowly take shape. The bridge will carry a new section of US Route 93 past the bottleneck of the old road which can be seen twisting and winding around and across the dam itself. When complete, it will provide a new link between the states of Nevada and Arizona. In an incredible feat of engineering, the road will be...

A three-lane bridge, envisioned as the centerpiece of a $54 million highway project, is sitting between a cow pasture and a mesa as the state struggles to get rights of way to connect it to actual roads. Residents here, who are waging a war of words in local letters to the editor, call it the "Bridge to Nowhere." "We all have to wonder why they did this like this," said Doug Ervin, whose home lies in sight of the bridge to the north. "There is a lot of taxpayer money at risk here." Under the Colorado Department of Transportation's preferred...

Here is video of Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, claiming to announce the first project in America funded by the $787 Billion Obama Stimulus Bill - a new rural bridge over a Missouri River tributary about 30 miles from the state Capital of Jefferson City . . . . . . (Watch Video)So the spending begins! Once all this money is spent, it will be interesting to see what of lasting value really remains. The more important question will be, will what remains really have been worth mortgaging our children's futures, and fundamentally changing our nation from free market...

Just saw a headline that a town of 174 people wants $275 million from the "stimulus package". And isn't a lot of it to go for "infrastructure" such as roads and bridges? Oh, and the porn industry wants a "stimulus" that's a good one. Every democrat city and state wants a chunk of this. How is this not the case of that one Alaskan bridge to nowhere, only on a much larger scale? I guess if we fund every liberal bridge to nowhere, every democrat financial rat hole, somehow this is different. Obama isn't even being smart about his own...

Last night, Biden had a snide "bridge" comment.....somebody needs to bring this up! Biden, Obama helped keep ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ alive Joe Biden, Barack Obama voted to kill a Senate amendment diverting bridge funding Both voted for final transportation bill that included the $223 million bridge earmark http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/23/biden.earmarks/index.html

Valerie Biden Owens isn't a candidate in this year's presidential election, but those who came to hear her speak in Altoona Thursday didn't mind. Owens stopped by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's local office to campaign for Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, her older brother. "I'm OK with either," Tyler Mentzer of Duncansville said, of seeing the candidates or surrogates. "I'd love to see Obama and Biden." Mentzer said he already knew the ticket's issues; he liked Owens' personality and lightheartedness. "I think we need more of that," he said. It was standing room only as more than...

DEWEY BEACH, Delaware (CNN) -- Although Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden routinely mocks his Republican counterpart, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, for her onetime support of the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere," Biden and his running mate voted to keep the project alive twice. Both Biden and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama voted to kill a Senate amendment that would have diverted federal funding for the bridge to repair a Louisiana span badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina, Senate records show. And both voted for the final transportation bill that included the $223 million earmark for the Alaska project. An amendment offered...

Although Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden routinely mocks his Republican counterpart, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, for her onetime support of the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere," Biden and his running mate voted to keep the project alive twice.

DEWEY BEACH, Delaware (CNN) -- Although Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden routinely mocks his Republican counterpart, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, for her onetime support of the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere," Biden and his running mate voted to keep the project alive twice. Both Biden and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama voted to kill a Senate amendment that would have diverted federal funding for the bridge to repair a Louisiana span badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina, Senate records show. And both voted for the final transportation bill that included the $223 million earmark for the Alaska project. An amendment offered...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., says Republican U.S. vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin deserves credit for sinking Alaska's infamous "bridge to nowhere." Coburn, who first publicized the earmark from Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, as an example of pork-barrel congressional spending, said Palin was instrumental in scuttling the project as Alaska's governor, The Washington Times reported Saturday. "The bridge didn't get built because Sarah Palin had the guts to say it wasn't going to get built," Coburn told the newspaper. Palin has been under attack by Democratic critics for initially supporting Stevens' earmark for the bridge in...

Obama voted AGAINST Katrina Aid http://paganpower.wordpress.com/2008/09/13/obama-voted-against-katrina-aid/

Charlie Gibson attempts to trip Sarah Palin up on a question about the “Bridge To Nowhere.” It didn’t work. She handled Gibson well.