Free Republic

Guess What Makes The Cut As A 'Smart Snack' In Schools? Hot Cheetos Flamin' Hot Cheetos might conjure a lot of descriptors: spicy, crunchy, unnaturally fiery red. But it's a good bet that "healthy" didn't exactly spring to mind. Yet it turns out that those fiery Cheetos beloved by school children (some kids even made an epic rap paean to Hot Cheetos a few years ago) actually qualify as a "Smart Snack" under revised federal nutrition guidelines for schools. The Obama administration rolled out the new guidelines last year in a bid to limit the amount of junk food kids...

Long before Ted Cruz was a big-name senator and conservative rock star, wowing the crowd at Liberty University in the early days of his presidential bid, he was just another lawyer toiling away in virtual anonymity under George W. Bush. While Cruz’s time in the Senate is best known for fiery speeches and high-profile gestures like his 21-hour filibuster, in his earlier time in Washington he demonstrated a wonkish eye for detail and an eagerness to take on powerful industry groups that he saw as stifling competition. Though his efforts ultimately succeeded on a much smaller scale than he’d initially...

Politicians frequently claim they’ve been misquoted or misunderstood by reporters. See Scott Walker’s spokeswoman’s response to a Wall Street Journal report about his position on amnesty. But there’s a sure way to avoid that: Keep reporters out of the room. The Phoenix Business Journal reports that’s what Gov. Walker did when he spoke this week to the Arizona Chamber of Commerce. It was part of a series featuring presidential contenders. “I’d love to tell you what he had to say that was important enough for him to travel thousands of miles from home, but I can’t,” Travis Arbon writes. “The...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)For many conservatives, the fight against Obamacare has been the defining battle of President Obama's years in the White House. For them, and probably a majority of the Republican base, fighting first against the passage of the Affordable Care Act and later pressing to repeal it have been so important because: A) they strongly oppose the substance of the law, and B) they see opposition to Obamacare as the best way to resist the president's overall expansion of government. That the struggle has so far been a losing one has not changed the fact that conservatives require their presidential candidates...

Tea Party Republicans get their wish in a Ted Cruz presidential run, but business owners need to think twice.The Tea Party got at least one wish on Monday, with Ted Cruz throwing his hat in the ring for a presidential run in 2016, the first contender to formally announce. Although it's unlikely the junior Senator from Texas--also the first Hispanic senator from the Lone Star State--is likely to secure the nomination, he'll surely help define the debate and possibly push it further to the right, policy analysts say. Discussion topics on the table for Cruz, which may be of interest...

DES MOINES — Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz risked the ire of Iowa farmers by staking out free-market positions on two federal policies favored by agribusiness at a summit Saturday. The two likely Republican presidential candidates opposed an ethanol requirement favored by corn farmers as well as a wind tax credit in a state where more than a quarter of electricity is generated by wind. They were speaking at the Iowa Ag Summit, which was organized by the state’s largest Republican donor, Bruce Rastetter, at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines. Most of the...

If you picked up a Star Tribune last weekend, you might have read two seemingly unrelated stories. On Saturday, news of a $1.9 billion surplus, with the state budget growing to $42.5 billion for the next two years (“Surging surplus raises the stakes, Feb. 28). On Sunday, a solid piece of investigative journalism about political cronyism on the Iron Range (“Range agency deep into DFL politics, pockets,” March 1). What if these two stories were related? Researchers at Indiana University published a study last year that explored the impact of public officials’ corruption on the size and allocation of state...

recently, came to my attention after filing a police report, whereby the city manager granted special provisions to his insurance carrier whom was in violation of a zoning ordinance. the zoning ordinance is specific and the city manager allowed the zoning ordinance infraction to be overlooked, a multi-vehicle accident whereby serious injuries ensued. The city manager is claiming doing nothing wrong, but the emails claim otherwise

In an interview with Ezra Klein of Vox, President Obama said traditional market forces that used to redistribute income are failing and the time for government to do it instead has arrived. The interview, which ran today, was conducted January 23. Touting what he referred to as inclusive capitalism, Obama made the case for what actually sounds a lot like socialism. So part of our job is, what can government do directly through tax policy? What we’ve proposed, for example, in terms of capital gains — that would make a big difference in our capacity to give a tax break...

Until very recently, Minnesota law capped the salary for commissioners of state departments at 85 or 95 percent of the governor’s salary. A law passed in 2013 changed that cap to 133 percent, and now Gov. Mark Dayton has used that change to raise the salaries of most of his cabinet. Overall, the higher salaries will cost taxpayers an additional $802,990 per year for the 27 affected positions. Dayton’s 2015 salary is $123,912, meaning the new maximum is $164,803. None of Dayton’s commissioners are earning that maximum, even after this year’s raises. The previous highest salary earned by a commissioner...

After spending millions of dollars to help elect a Republican House and Senate, Capitol Hill sources report Las Vegas gambling mogul Sheldon Adelson received a private briefing with Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee in the second week of January. The meeting sends a strong signal that the billionaire, who is one of the most generous contributors to Republican candidates and campaigns—ever, will not retreat away from his desire to outlaw legal and regulated Internet gaming by the states. Sources familiar with Adelson's lobbying describe the meeting as both a strategy session and an update for the gambling mogul....

Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene, who made his fortune by betting against homeowners in the mortgage and credit crisis, has been mouthing off about the lifestyle that the rest of us enjoy. He thinks it’s too much — even though he owns America’s most expensive single-family house! The former U.S. Senate wannabe took advantage of his presence at the Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland to tell a worldwide audience via Bloomberg News that we, the common people, need to have fewer things. ... Greene is also known in these parts for making contractors who work on his $36 million-,...

On Tuesday night, Senator Ted Cruz appeared on Fox News to respond to the State of the Union address — and talked about how the US economy was only working for the "top 1 percent," who he said have gotten "fat and happy" under Obama's administration.(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Cruz's rhetorical move is unusual for a prominent Republican, particularly a presidential contender. This emphasis on the "the 1 percent" has long been condemned by many in the party as class warfare. For instance, Sen. Marco Rubio said in 2012 that "convincing one group that their life isn't doing better because another is doing too...

The US Postal Service plans to sell 56 buildings — so it can lease space more expensively — and the real estate company of the California senator’s husband, Richard Blum, is set to pocket about $1 billion in commissions. Blum’s company, CBRE, was selected in March 2011 as the sole real estate agent on sales expected to fetch $19 billion.

Gas prices are plunging across the country, a product of surging U.S. energy production that has put the country in the same company as Saudi Arabia and Russia. However, in a strange twist of fate, that same dynamic is bringing to the fore a topic once thought to be anathema, especially in a Republican-dominated Congress: higher gas taxes. The drop in fuel prices has occurred for a record 102 consecutive days, according to the AAA, putting more than $14 billion of disposable income in consumers' pockets. However, the federal gas tax has been lodged at 18.4 cents for more than...

While Miami-Dade residents were strike recently with new, rare fee hikes on vital east-west arteries, Gov. Rick Scott was rewarding his farming regressive supporters with $9 million to build and urge their toll-free roads. So while down south we compensate a way, a folks adult north who minister reduction to state revenues get a giveaway ride. Poor timing? Irony? A giggle to go with a slap to a pockets of Miami-Dade’s toll-payers? The governor’s proclamation from Tallahassee was all those things — and came by approach of press releases finished with difference of regard from a prolonged register of who’s...

After a week of passionate debate and late night votes, the Senate passed a $1.1 trillion spending bill this Saturday that will keep the entire federal government, except the Department of Homeland Security, funded through September 2015. Here are three lessons conservatives should take away from the ordeal: 1.Corporatism is King - Money talks and activists walk. That is the sad lesson from a $1.1 trillion spending bill that included huge payoffs to Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Citibank, and corporations that use taxpayer subsidized loans to invest overseas. Meanwhile, House leaders did nothing to stop President Obama's executive amnesty other than...

Mark Levin ripped Republicans a new one tonight as he opened his show tonight, saying that he is one inch away from leaving the Republican Party. He starts in hard, asking Republicans if they think this is a joke, if they think they can just lie to Republicans and conservatives with impunity about defunding Obamacare and fighting Obama’s illegal amnesty. He points out that Republicans go on and on about an imperial president and his illegal amnesty and they can’t even vote on a point of order challenging Obama. Levin says the Constitution is in tatters and that the Republican...

As they're sorting through requests for more funding from programs and agencies next legislative session, state lawmakers are likely to be asked to help out a huge New York City-based nonprofit: the National Football League. 2015 is the year when any additional tax exemptions for the league related to the 2018 Super Bowl would likely be passed, and stadium officials have confirmed they will be making requests. The question of what exactly Minnesota taxpayers would be giving the NFL as part of hosting the game has been in limbo since Minneapolis' bid was accepted by league owners in May. As...

We shall see. Gruber has had plenty of help. The President, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Kathleen Sebelius are more to blame for Obamacare’s troubles than Mr. Gruber even if he is the program’s “architect.”Jonathan Gruber in his now famous panel discussion at Penn simply told the truth as he saw it. A key reason, the key reason, Obamacare limped its way across the finish line was because of the deception employed by its champions. The ignorance of the American people, Gruber explained, was to be manipulated for their own good, and it was. And truly, from start to finish...