Free Republic

NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is seriously considering abandoning efforts to remake the nation’s biofuel laws after wading deep into an issue that divides some of his core constituencies, according to three sources familiar with the administration’s thinking. Advisers have urged Trump to instead let Congress tackle the biofuel reforms, but use the threat of administrative action to help rival lawmakers come together and solve the intractable issue. The U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) has created reliable demand for corn farmers in the nation’s heartland, but merchant refiners like Valero Energy Corp say the costs to comply with...

As a fiscal watchdog elected to Congress on the promise to rein in Washington’s out of control spending habits, this omnibus bill represents politics as usual in Washington. The text was not released until the night before the vote, effectively giving Members of Congress seven waking hours to read the 2,232 page bill — the equivalent length of two Bibles. It is problematic voting on any legislation that I cannot study first in its entirety, and to skim this bill would have been impossible, let alone read and internalize everything it does. Fundamentally, the “omnibus” is not an effective way...

In a lengthy letter to the inspector general of the Department of Justice (DOJ), two key senators demanded answers on whether anti-Trump dossier author Christopher Steele was ever paid by the Russian government or other Russian sources. The letter from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) asked Michael E. Horowitz, the DOJ inspector general, for answers to 31 sets of detailed questions related to DOJ’s handling of various Russia-related probes in 2016 and 2017. “What connections are there between Mr. Steele and the Russian government or Russian intelligence community?” the senators asked. “Has Mr. Steele ever been...

An expedition in the South Pacific ocean funded by Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul Allen has discovered the wreckage of a famous US warship that was attacked by the Japanese during the second world war, claiming more than 600 lives. The billionaire’s personal search team located the remains of the USS Juneau off the coast of the Solomon Islands on St Patrick’s Day. The Juneau was sunk by Japanese torpedoes in November 1942, claiming the lives of 687 men, including five brothers known as the Sullivans from Waterloo, Iowa. The men became navy heroes and had a destroyer named after...

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) told Breitbart News Sunday hosts Matthew Boyle and Amanda House that Congress should fund the wall in the ensuing omnibus spending battle, saying, “Let’s fund the whole wall and let’s build it all.” Rep. King told Breitbart News Sunday about the incoming omnibus spending bill that Congress has to pass before this Friday. King declared: Well, this method of governing is just so messy that it puts any member of Congress in a position where maybe you can pick one thing and then beat the drum to try to keep that from getting slipped in there....

A plan of action for how a second special counsel can investigate the FBI and Justice Department is spelled out in a point-by-point letter submitted by two Republican senators. They specifically want to know whether former FBI Director James B. Comey lied to them and had a plan to double-cross President Trump. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina sent a letter last week to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. They and two other Republicans want a special counsel with the powers of the Trump-Russia probe’s Robert Mueller to investigate suspected Justice...

KNOXVILLE, Iowa — As Democrats have fled rural America — or rural America has fled Democrats — many of them, living in cities, are left without an understanding of rural culture and its core values. If it isn’t on abortion, our deepest cultural divide might be on guns. The guns issue also has a profound political dimension, reliably driving rural Americans into Republican arms. It’s been many years since I hunted squirrels and rabbits with my Grandpa Leonard. I grew up around guns and remember the pride I had when I completed my N.R.A.-sponsored gun safety training in Boy Scouts,...

President Trump’s proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports horrify Republican leaders in Congress — but they could yet pay political dividends. Trump’s move, cast by the White House as an effort to protect American manufacturing, has significant appeal in the Rust Belt states that were pivotal to his shock 2016 election win. Some Democrats in the region worry that senior figures in their party, especially those whose bases are in affluent coastal cities, are underestimating the political potency of Trump’s announcement. “It worries me as a Democrat that the national Democrats don’t see that Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and...

A lawyer for Susan Rice said in a letter Friday that the former national security adviser sent herself an email on her last day in office documenting a meeting with President Obama and his top national security advisers about sharing intelligence with the incoming Trump administration in order to create a “permanent record” of the discussion. Kathryn H. Ruemmler of Latham & Watkins LLP wrote: Given the importance and sensitivity of the subject matter, and upon the advice of the White House Counsel’s Office, Ambassador Rice created a permanent record of the discussion. Ambassador Rice memorialized the discussion on January...

Scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have discovered a chemical reaction to turn CO2 into ethanol, potentially creating a new technology to help avert climate change. Their findings were published in the journal ChemistrySelect. The researchers were attempting to find a series of chemical reactions that could turn CO2 into a useful fuel, when they realized the first step in their process managed to do it all by itself. The reaction turns CO2 into ethanol, which could in turn be used to power generators and vehicles.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz was in Philadelphia yesterday, but he wasn’t there for the cheesesteaks. He was holding a rally at Philadelphia Energy Solutions, the owners of a major northeastern refinery which the EPA managed to bankrupt this winter. Arguing on behalf of those who are being put out of work because of EPA mandates, particularly the Renewable Fuel Standard, Cruz made the case for less government licensing and more flexibility in U.S. energy development, leaving some to wonder if this was actually a campaign stop for an upcoming election bid. (Dallas News) Texas Sen. Ted Cruz led a...

More than two dozen Senate Republicans are urging President Trump to re-engage in Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. The 25 GOP lawmakers sent a letter to Trump on Friday saying they support his recent comments that he may consider U.S. participation if the 11-nation Asia-Pacific pact is improved.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) announced Thursday he is willing to sit down and discuss gun control legislation with Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and John Cornyn (R-TX). This is the second time in four months he has agreed to talk to about gun control proposals. On November 8, 2017, Breitbart News reported that he had agreed “to allow a Judiciary Committee hearing on bump stock gun control.” Ironically, two of the key proponents of those hearings were Feinstein and Cornyn. Additionally, Feinstein had put forth a bill to ban bump stocks altogether. Fast forward to February 2018 and CBS News reports...

After House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., sent his memo laying out potential abuses of the FISA process by the FBI to the White House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., demanded that he be removed as chairman. Nunes was “deliberately dishonest” in pushing to release a “bogus memo,” Pelosi declared, and had “disgraced the House Intelligence Committee” with his “partisan effort to distort intelligence.” But Democrats can’t so easily dismiss the far more detailed declassified criminal referral written by two respected Republican senators — Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, and Lindsey O. Graham, R-S.C. — which confirms the claims raised in...

Congressional Republicans threw fiscal sanity out the window last week, so it comes as no surprise that the immigration bill introduced in the Senate Wednesday comes with an eye-popping price tag of nearly $100 billion. But what may surprise conservatives who believe in President Trump’s America First campaign message is that this bill spends twice as much on foreign aid as it does on border security. The Trump-endorsed plan proposed by Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, includes $25 billion for a “Border Security Enforcement Fund,” $18 billion of which is appropriated for “tactical infrastructure.” But in a section titled “Foreign Migration...

A group of GOP senators are preparing to introduce an immigration plan that lines up with President Trump's framework as the Senate barrels toward a heated debate over the issue. Seven GOP senators, led by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), will file the bill, known as the Secure and Succeed Act, on Monday. "Our proposal is supported by the President, who’s come a long way to reach a compromise. This is the only Senate proposal that has any chance of passing the House and being signed into law," Grassley said in a statement. The legislation mirrors Trump's framework by offering a...

It’s not enough for the University of Iowa to host “black-theme events” that are open to everyone. According to Daily Iowan columnist Wylliam Smith, the taxpayer-funded institution should exclude non-black people from certain events on campus – a sort of permanent, location-specific day of absence.

FULL TITLE: Senator Mark Warner and Entire Senate Intelligence Committee Compromised, Corrupt and Finally Exposed Tonight Fox News is reporting on the efforts of Senator Mark Warner to make secret and off-the-record contact with Christopher Steele in March of 2017. Warner, a rabidly partisan Democrat, is the minority Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Majority Chairman is Richard Burr (R-NC) and also corrupt as hell. Not surprisingly, Burr is covering for Warner. –You can read the STORY HERE– Throughout the entire story-line behind the ongoing conspiracy to destabilize the presidency of Donald Trump we have pointed out that Mark...

Here is the video--6 minutes long of a 50-70 car pileup on I-35 near Ames, Iowa. First minute is a little slow. At about 4:30 in, it starts getting "wow".

On both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, former British MI-6 Intelligence Officer Christopher Steele is going to extremes to avoiding answering questions from the United States Congress, while at the same time avoiding being videotaped and deposed in a multi-million dollar libel case brought against Buzzfeed. The media outlet published the unverified Trump dossier just over a year ago, setting off an international firestorm. Steele was a no-show Monday for a long-requested deposition in London, Fox News has learned. The news comes as Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have announced a criminal referral...