Free Republic

In every major city that is increasing the minimum wage (Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles), labor unions have been at the forefront of the change. For example, in an op-ed for the Huffington Post titled “Raise Los Angeles’ Minimum Wage and Enforce It1,” Rusty Hicks, a labor leader in L.A. who represents over 300 unions, wrote: It’s no secret that we believe the minimum wage must be raised in order to lift working families out of poverty. Most voters and many members of the city council and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agree with us. But we believe...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The 83-vote margin holds in the Republican race for Kentucky governor. A second look at voting machine totals and absentee ballots Thursday revealed no change in the results of the May 19 primary. Matt Bevin finished ahead of state Agriculture Commissioner James Comer by 83 votes. The Comer campaign says he is in Florida, and will issue a statement on his next steps Friday afternoon. WDRB caught up with Bevin as he arrived at his campaign headquarters moments after the results of the recanvass were announced. He says the result was not unexpected, but he won't...

Mosby appeared on Judge Judy when she was a college student.Fifteen years before standing in front of reporters announcing the indictment of six Baltimore cops charged in the death of Freddie Gray, Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby was standing in front of Judge Judith Sheindlin. The then-20-year-old college student appeared on Judge Judy after her Tuskegee, Ala., apartment was ransacked by neighbor Ryan Johnson while she was away on summer vacation. Known as Marilyn James back then, the future state’s attorney brought her legal-acumen A-game to the hearing. Not only did James have proof that her neighbor had destroyed...

WMATA has submitted to the assassin’s veto.Following the cowardly policy change for the New York MTA, the Washington MTA has suspended all issue-oriented ads through the end of year after we submitted our free speech ad.Oh, the irony.This is an end run around the first amendment.These cowards may claim that they are making people safer, but I submit to you the opposite. They are making it far more dangerous for Americans everywhere. Rewarding terror with submission is defeat. Absolute and complete defeat.More demands, more violence will certainly follow. The message is that terror works.This is sharia in America.The only upside...

The arrest of two southern California men last week who were planning to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State brings the number of U.S.-based individuals involved in international terror-related cases this year to 40. (UPDATE: with the arrest of Houston-area Asher Abid Khan late Monday for supporting ISIS, the tally is now 41.)This number highlights the metastasizing Islamic terror threat in the American homeland. At the current pace, by the end of June — halfway through 2015 — the number of cases will exceed the number from the past two years combined (48). <-- PJM_300_by_250_middle --> The Islamic...

Standing before a Kerman High School class on Wednesday, Raj Sra talked about being the only Punjabi kid at his Tulare schools growing up. He was called many names. “Everything you can imagine: raghead, camel jockey,” Sra said, who now works as an information systems and technology administrator for the Fresno County Office of Education. “People had no idea where India was. They thought anybody with a turban was Muslim or from Arabia. It was just some far-off place.” Fresno County school officials, in partnership with local Sikh leaders, are working to change that skewed perception. Together, they produced a...

As the debate over First Amendment Freedom of Religion laws raged back in May with Republican Governors backing down under business pressure in Indiana and Arkansas, the Republican governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory, said his state didn't need such a law. The legislature has been acting, though, the House passing a bill to allow government officials to object to gay marriage, the bill now in the Senate as Senate Bill 2. But today Governor McCrory says he will veto the bill. A news release describing it is headlined "Governor McCrory defends Constitution". McCrory speaks of 'sincerely held religious beliefs...

Nebraska has abolished the death penalty in a landmark veto-override vote backed by a coalition of conservatives who oppose capital punishment. North Platte Senator Mike Groene stood with 18 others as an advocate to keep the death penalty. But that just wasn't enough as 30 other senators decided to over ride Governor Pete Ricketts' veto and abolish the death penalty. He voted to keep the death penalty and uphold the governor's veto. "I believe in the death penalty in a civil society, we do not tolerate evil," Senator Groene said. State Senators voted 30-19 on Wednesday to override Gov. Pete...

A new Quinnipiac University national poll shows there’s still only one clear leader in the Republican presidential primary race: Undecided. The poll, released Thursday, reports that 20 percent of registered Republican and Republican-leaning voters around the country don’t know or declined to answer whom they would vote for in their state's Republican primary. This is double the proportion any candidate received: The five candidates with the highest percentages all struggled to reach double digits, with a mere 10 percent each. Those candidates are former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, retired physician Ben Carson, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Florida Sen. Marco...

In a 1972 essay, presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) opined that men fantasized about women being abused. He also claimed that women fantasized about being gang raped. In an article entitled "Men-And-Women," published in an alternative newspaper called the "Vermont Freeman" Sanders shared his thoughts on male and female sexuality in ways that would cause a media firestorm if it had been penned by any current GOP candidate. Even one with as little chance at grabbing his party's nomination as Sanders currently has. "A man goes home and masturbates his typical fantasy," wrote Sanders. "A woman on her knees....

Rick Santorum has decided to inflict himself, yet again, on our fair nation, running for President a third (I think) time. Now, while I'm not entirely certain what America did to deserve such an honor, clearly God is trying to punish us for some string of transgressions, because otherwise, His chosen candidate, Santorum, would have long ago retired to head up a DC-based family-focused think tank or sell panini presses on late night television. Not that I begrudge Rick his chance. Although he's not very attractive as a candidate, he did do well last time around, and he has, at...

LEXINGTON — After coming up well short of knocking off U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell in 2014, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes is looking at her re-election bid as an interview for the job, and not a personal contest. Grimes faces GOP nominee Steve Knipper in the fall Election and she says she will rely on her experience in the office and focus on jobs in the General Election campaign. “It’s an office where I have a record of success,” Grimes told Pure Politics in Lexington on Wednesday. “Whether it be helping to have started over 100,000 new businesses since...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers followed through with the finalization of a rule regulating waterways of the United States, which some in the GOP fear could turn into a land grab. In Kentucky, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and GOP candidates running for statewide office have voiced concerns with the proposed rule and the harm it may pose to farmers in the state. ... According to The Hill, EPA head Gina McCarthy said those fears are unfounded under the finalized rule announced Wednesday. ... Rep. Ryan Quarles, R-Georgetown, is running against Jean Marie Lawson Spann in...

The Maine Senate has passed a "Constitutional Carry" bill with a vote of 21-14. The bill would permit gun owners to legally carry their weapons concealed without a permit. This is the second time in two years that the Senate has considered this type of bill. While the votes were mostly split along party lines, three Democrats sided with the Republicans in voting for the measure. The Senate voted 21-14 to approve the bill, L.D. 652, a heavily lobbied measure that pits gun rights activists against groups seeking more oversight over individuals who carry firearms. Three Democrats joined the Republican...

The combination of stronger storms and rising seas from a warming planet have the potential to wreak havoc on America's coastlines, President Obama said Thursday during his visit to the National Hurricane Center in Florida. Obama received the annual briefing on hurricane preparedness from federal science agencies ahead of hurricane season, and stressed the importance of preparing the country's infrastructure for the impacts of climate change. "The best climate scientists in the world are telling us that extreme weather events like hurricanes are likely to become more powerful," Obama said. "When you combine stronger storms with rising seas, that's a...

PINEVILLE, La. — Somewhere among the thousands beneath a grassy hill here lies the body of Amédé Ardoin. He was singular in life: one of the greatest accordion players ever to come out of south Louisiana. A Creole prodigy who traveled the countryside playing his bluesy two-steps and waltzes, he changed Cajun music and laid down the roots for zydeco. At his death at the age of 44 in 1942, he was Case No.13387 in the state psychiatric hospital, destined for an anonymous burial. Years of attempts to recover the body of Amédé, as he is widely known, have come...

Dozens of congressional Democrats are joining Republicans to back legislation blocking the Obama administration’s new rule to redefine its jurisdiction over the nation’s waterways. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers made the regulation final Wednesday in an attempt to clarify that small streams, wetlands, headwaters and tributaries are covered by the Clean Water Act and the rules that go along with it. Opponents labeled the rule as a massive “power grab” by the Obama administration that could give federal officials authority over every creek and puddle. Three moderate Democrats in the Senate and 24 in...

Marco Rubio skidded. Jeb Bush slid. Ben Carson zoomed. Mike Huckabee bounced. Scott Walker stayed steady. And that’s how you end up with a five-way tie for first place in the latest Quinnipiac University national poll on the GOP Sixteeners. Put another way: With five candidates evenly dividing half of the vote, there is no first place. While Rubio lost a third of his support and Bush continued to droop, losing three points for the second month in a row, all five can say with confidence that they will meet the polling criterion for the first GOP debate, hosted by...

Columnist and author of “Adios, America” Ann Coulter argued current immigration policy is “100%” about trying to change the US ” into a direction that is more favorably disposed to vote for the Democrats” on Wednesday’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel. Coulter began by praising Fusion anchor Jorge Ramos for debating her on his show and doing a “fantastic job” with the interview, something that she said no one else will do. ... Coulter also stated that she thinks current immigration policy is “100%” about importing voters and said of Republicans who oppose closing the border, “They are looking...

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