Free Republic

INDIANAPOLIS – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has set up a campaign operation in Indiana ahead of the state's May 3 primary election. Rex Early, a former Indiana Republican Party chairman, has been named chairman of Trump's campaign in the Hoosier State. The Trump campaign also appointed Suzanne Jaworowski as its Indiana director and Tony Samuel as a vice chairman. Jaworowski had worked on Carly Fiorina's presidential campaign until Fiorina quit the race in February. Samuel runs a consulting and public relations firm. Samuel said at a Wednesday news conference in Indianapolis that Trump and his campaign "are taking Indiana...

Republican lawmakers upset about the Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage have advanced measures in about a dozen states this year that could strengthen protections for those who refuse on religious grounds to provide services to same-sex couples. The bills could benefit court clerks, photographers, florists, bakers, wedding-hall operators and others who say gay matrimony goes against their beliefs. For a party already being torn apart by the presidential contest, the state legislative efforts have exposed deep rifts between the GOP’s social conservatives and its pro-business wing. Business leaders worry that such measures will allow discrimination and scare away companies...

Pro-abortion activists aren’t taking too kindly to Governor Mike Pence signing of Indiana’s new law which bans abortions for genetic abnormalities, race, or sex. It also requires ultrasounds before abortions, admitting privileges for abortionists, and requires that aborted babies be either buried or cremated. So they’ve come up with a novel way of expressing their displeasure—and by “novel,” I of course mean gross, juvenile, and ignorant… Fertilized eggs can be expelled during a woman’s period without a woman even knowing that she might have had the potential blastocyst in her. Therefore, any period could potentially be a miscarriage without knowledge....

Rumors of a klansman on campus have proven false after a priest innocently made his way through Bloomington. Last night around 9:15 PM, social media became a furious storm of confusion regarding a man in white robes roaming along 10th St. and purportedly armed with a whip. Students thought the white robes indicated Klu Klux Klan affiliation. In the spirit of Hoosiers helping Hoosiers, students were quick to look out for each other by spreading word of this potential safety risk. For instance, Eigenmann RA Ethan Gill notified his residents via email of the perceived threat in interest of their...

On Monday, students at Indiana University Bloomington mistook a priest for a Klu Klux Klan member, taking to social media to express their fear of the alleged Klansman, who they claimed was carrying a whip, and dressed in “white robes.”

Marlin Stutzman is a rare breed. It was January 5, 2015, the day before the Inauguration of the 114th U.S. Congress. U.S. Congressman Marlin Stutzman and I were in Marlin’s D.C. office when another U.S. Congressman came to get Marlin to change his vote on the reelection of John Boehner as U.S. Speaker of the House. This Congressman knew we Republican Hoosiers were not happy with John Boehner. Even though voters had given Speaker Boehner and the U.S. House an uninterrupted Republican majority since 2010, President Obama’s radical leftist agenda was still steamrolling through the country. Time and time again,...

The fourth Islamic Awareness Day will be held at Indiana University of Pennsylvania on Thursday starting at 5:15 p.m. in the Eberly College of Business and Information Technology auditorium. It is sponsored by the IUP Muslim Student Association. The theme of this year's program is "Islam as a Way of Life" and will feature Sheikh Yusuf Estes, a Muslim-American preacher. All events are free and open to the community. The program begins with a Quran recitation at 5:15 and introduction at 5:20 p.m. The keynote speaker will begin his presentation at 5:25 p.m., which will be followed by a question...

A Mexican man who was injured on the job may be out of luck when it comes to recovering lost income. A panel of the Indiana Court of Appeals voted 2-to-1 against Noe Escamilla (no-AY es-kuh-MEE-ya). He was permanently disabled after a construction accident at Wabash College in Crawfordsville. Escamilla had worked for Masonry by Mohler of Indianapolis for two years even though he had come to the country illegally as a teenager and used someone else's social security number to get his job. The company had never checked his immigration status. Escamilla sued Shiel Sexton, Masonry by Mohler's general...

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A woman went to a 15-year-old’s house and challenged her to a fight.The fight was over a video game.The woman, Taneysh Bass, accused 15-year-old Dasiah Smith of taking a video game from her home in Chicago.Bass drove from Chicago to confront the girl and retrieve the video game.Police say Bass kicked in the front door of a home in the 1900 block of North Medford Avenue. She then challenged Smith to a fight.Smith accepted.As they fought, Bass punched Smith in the head and face. The fight started on the second floor of the home and continued down...

Rep. Todd Young has won the backing of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in his Indiana Senate bid, representing the business lobby's first entry into a Republican Senate primary this cycle. The Chamber announced Monday that it had cut an ad for Young, a three-term congressman representing Indiana's 9th District in the southern part of the state. Young faces another member of Indiana's delegation, fellow three-term Rep. Marlin Stutzman, in the GOP primary. Stutzman has the backing of the Club for Growth, a group that favors fiscally conservative candidates in Republican primaries, as well as other conservative groups. The 30-second...

mayor of San Francisco has banned all publicly-funded city employees from traveling to North Carolina. The NFL is threatening to block Atlanta, Georgia from hosting a future Super Bowl. The NBA is threatening to relocate next year’s All Star game from Charlotte, North Carolina to another city. Corporate giants like American Airlines and Hollywood giants like Disney are threatening action against Georgia and North Carolina. Why? It is because North Carolina has passed a bill requiring people to use the public bathroom or locker room that corresponds to their birth certificate gender and because Georgia has enacted legislation (yet to...

For those hoping to block Mr Trump, Mr Cruz's triumph in Utah is a rare fillip. He had been expected to win the state; it was unclear that he would pass the 50% threshold required to take all its delegates—in particular because of uncertainty over the effect of Mr Kasich in splitting the anti-Trump vote. The trouble for Mr Cruz, who has now won eight states to Mr Trump's 21, is that he only seems able to win in places, such as Utah, with rare concentrations of evangelicals, Mormons or the otherwise ultraconservative. And there are not many such places...

GRIFFITH, Ind. (AP) — Ministers have organized a prayer vigil for Indiana high school basketball players and coaches injured in a bus crash. Griffith School District spokeswoman Katy Dowling says the vigil is planned for Sunday afternoon in Central Park in Griffith. Superintendent Pete Morikis will provide an update on the incident at the service. A bus carrying 27 members of the Griffith High School boys basketball team and their coaches was headed to a state tournament game Saturday when it was sideswiped by a car and rolled over in a ditch on Interstate 65.

On March 4, the world of pop culture mourned the passing of Joey Feek. She was a country duet singer with her husband Rory, a TV and radio host, a mother of a child with Down syndrome, and, a woman who just gave the world an unforgettable lesson about the love of family, and death with true dignity. Married in 2006, Rory and Joey achieved fame on the Country Music Television singing competition “Can You Duet?” in 2008. Their first album, topped the Billboard Top Country Albums chart in March. The Feeks earned three nominations, including new artist of the...

KOKOMO, Ind. - Kokomo has become the latest Indiana community to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Council members voted 5-4 in favor of an ordinance protecting members of the LGBT community after what has been a contentious debate. Mayor Greg Goodnight signed the ordinance early Tuesday. The overflow crowd tested the capacity of Kokomo's council chambers. By fire code, only 157 could fit inside. Police estimated 300 to 400 more people had to stand outside and await the final vote on the human rights ordinance. The measure protects lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens from discrimination....

Sometimes the two parties just aren’t that far apart during campaign season, and in a populist moment such as the one we’re experiencing right now that axiom is being proven true on the subject of free trade and job outsourcing. Currently, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders seem to be in a battle to see which one of them can sound the most like Donald Trump when it comes to offshoring American jobs, but Clinton is being hit with yet another vignette from her long history of paid speeches. Fox News dredged up an old clip of her from 2005 speaking...

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Ohio lost 112,500 jobs in 2015 resulting from the United States' trade deficit with countries that are part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. That places Ohio sixth, in terms of the percentage of jobs lost to trade with TPP countries, among the 50 states and the District of Columbia ranked in the report released Thursday by the liberal Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The lost jobs represent nearly 2.2 percent of employment in Ohio, according to the analysis. The total number of lost jobs includes those directly and indirectly impacted...

South Bend, Indiana, home of Notre Dame University, will become abortion free next week as the Women’s Pavilion in South Bend will officially close. The abortion center stopped doing abortions back in November — it has continued to refer women for abortions since then — and now it will close up shop for good. The closing comes after the state refused to renew its operating license following a host of problems. The clinic’s troubled owner, abortionist Ulrich Klopfer, will surrender his facility license now that he has dropped his appeal of a decision issued in June by the Indiana State...

If Donald Trump wins the Republican Party nomination, his path to the White House will run through this working-class city with a knack for picking presidents. No Republican has ever won the White House without Ohio. And nowhere better reflects the challenges and opportunities Trump faces in his 2016 presidential quest than Canton, a once-booming industrial city that, like Ohio and the rest of America’s rust belt, is going through profound economic and demographic change. Canton, a gritty northeastern Ohio city where the once-dominant steel industry has been in decline for 20 years, is the heart of Stark County, a...

NDIANAPOLIS – Female legislators dominated an emotional discussion on new Indiana abortion restrictions Wednesday but couldn’t stop the male-dominated body from voting 60-40 in favor of the controversial bill. Women in Indiana would not be allowed to get an abortion if her motivation is solely because of the fetus’ race, sex or disability, under the measure. It is aimed directly at people terminating pregnancies after a diagnosis of Down syndrome or other significant disabilities. “I implore you to have the courage to say no,” said Rep. Wendy McNamara, R-Mount Vernon. “(Political) mailers will probably be sent out against you –...