Free Republic

Beauty in today’s culture is so often associated with perfection — to the point that magazines face criticism for airbrushed models and young women starve themselves in order to obtain the super-thin body necessary to make it big. But one beauty queen is set to show the world that perfection isn’t necessary to be a gorgeous beauty queen who has a chance to become Miss America. Over the weekend, Nicole Kelly was named Miss Iowa 2013 and now the blonde 23-year-old bombshell is headed to the national contest. That wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary, except Kelly was born...

The party has an outside chance of winning the five or six seats it needs to retake control, but needs to find top-tier recruits in several states and is running out of time to do so. ....Here are five states where the party needs to land strong candidates to broaden the battleground and have a hope of winning back the Senate. Michigan Iowa Montana Arkansas New Hampshire

When Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker visited Iowa recently to speak at a well-attended Republican dinner, only one national political reporter (NBC's Alex Moe) showed up. That just proves you don't need national press attention to make a strong start in the 2016 Republican presidential race. There's a Walker boom, or at least a boomlet, going on in the nation's first voting state. When you hear speculation about the '16 GOP field -- Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal and others -- it's rare to hear Walker's name included in the group. But keep an eye on him; politically-savvy...

CHICAGO, May 15, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A pro-life legal firm is speaking out against what it perceives as blatant bias by the Internal Revenue Service. ... In one case, the IRS withheld approval of an application for tax exempt status for Coalition for Life of Iowa. In a phone call to Coalition for Life of Iowa leaders on June 6, 2009, the IRS agent “Ms. Richards” told the group to send a letter to the IRS with the entire board’s signatures stating that, under perjury of the law, they do not picket/protest or organize groups to picket or protest outside...

...Who will run for Iowa's Open US Senate Seat on the GOP-e "side"?

Democratic senator Max Baucus is retiring because he is “fed up” with the Affordable Care Act, according to his Republican colleague Chuck Grassley. Speaking at Friday night’s Lincoln Day dinner in Iowa, Grassley told the audience the Montana senator is leaving office ”because he’s so fed up with the possibility of the implementation of Obamacare being a train wreck.” Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, played a key role in writing the 2010 law. Grassley said that dissatisfaction with the health-care bill exists across party lines, describing a “bipartisan coalition in Washington” that considers the implementation of the...

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) --- Recalling the devastating consequences suffered by workers and families affected by a 2008 immigration raid at a kosher slaughterhouse in Iowa

Noah Crooks, 14, admitted to shooting his mother more than 20 times and trying to rape her while on the phone with the 911 dispatcher on March 24, 2012. His father, William Crooks, testified on Friday that he didn't take the text seriously. The father of an Iowa teen accused of murdering his mother thought the text was a joke. William Crooks, 41, testified on Friday about a text he received from his son on March 24, 2012 that said "Dad this is Noah. I killed Mom accidentally. I regret it. Come home now please." Fourteen-year-old Noah Crooks faces charges...

Iowa Congressman Steve King sent an email to supporters Friday night announcing he would not seek the state’s open U.S. Senate seat in 2014. The announcement is not unexpected. King said in February that he was leaning toward running. However, as he struggled with the decision for three months, it became less likely that he would enter the fray. King would have been an overwhelming favorite in a Republican primary. His decision not to run opens the field for other candidates to enter. Former U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker has stated he would run for the seat if King opted not...

My congressman, Steve King, announced to supporters tonight via email that he will not be seeking the Iowa U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Tom Harkin in 2014.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Republicans are struggling to recruit strong U.S. Senate candidates in states where the party has the best chances to reclaim the majority in Washington. It's a potentially troubling sign that the GOP's post-2012 soul-searching could spill over into next year's congressional elections. The vote is more than 18 months away, so it's early. But candidate recruitment efforts are well underway, and thus far Republicans have been unable to field a top-tier candidate in Iowa or Michigan. In those two Mideast swing states, the GOP hopes to make a play for seats left open by the...

The hospital "doesn't really want Mexicans," he said in a telephone interview with the AP. "They wanted to disconnect me so I could die. They said I couldn't survive, that I wouldn't live."

Days after they were badly hurt in a car accident, Jacinto Cruz and Jose Rodriguez-Saldana lay unconscious in an Iowa hospital while the American health care system weighed what to do with the two immigrants from Mexico. The men had health insurance from jobs at one of the nation's largest pork producers. But neither had legal permission to live in the U.S., nor was it clear whether their insurance would pay for the long-term rehabilitation they needed. So Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines took matters into its own hands: After consulting with the patients' families, it quietly loaded...

2014 retirements: Dems heading for the hills By: Alexander Burns April 23, 2013 04:49 PM EDT Doesn’t anyone want to run for Senate in 2014? Midway through candidate recruitment season, the bad news for Democrats is this: They are watching a generation of talent leave the Senate and head for retirement. The less-bad news: So far, few marquee-name Republicans are interested in these seats either. When Montana Sen. Max Baucus called it quits on Tuesday, he became the latest in a long series of senior legislators to announce that they’ve had quite enough of life on the Hill. National Democrats...

Probably the most bracing aspect of Ira Katznelson's new history of the New Deal, Fear Itself, is his portrait of the marriage of progressive domestic policy and white supremacy. I knew the outlines of this stuff, but for a flaming commie like me, the extent of the embrace is hard to take: Far more enduring was the New Deal's intimate partnership with those in the South who preached white supremacy. For this whole period -- the last in American history when public racism was legitimate in speech and action -- southern representatives acted not on the fringes but as an...

Representative Steve King of Iowa, a prominent House conservative, says Congress should be cautious about rushing immigration reform, especially after Monday’s bombing in Boston, where three people were killed. “Some of the speculation that has come out is that yes, it was a foreign national and, speculating here, that it was potentially a person on a student visa,” King says. “If that’s the case, then we need to take a look at the big picture.” On immigration, King says national security should be the focus now, and any talk about a path to legalization should be put on hold. “We...

Earlier this week I wrote letting you know that over 700 retired Special Forces signed an open letter to the United States House of Representatives demanding that there be a select committee be formed by Congress to investigate the attack that took place on September 11, 2012 in Benghazi, Libya. Well, here’s something. Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) put forth a House Resolution to that effect back on January 18, 2013 and do you know where it’s gotten since that time? It’s languishing in committee. Rep. Wolf introduced H. Res 36, establishing a select committee to investigate and report on the...

During a gun control speech in Colorado on Wednesday, President Obama said first lady Michelle Obama told him while they were campaigning in Iowa that she’d want a gun for self-protection if she lived in a rural area: “The first conversation was when Michelle came back from doing some campaigning out in rural Iowa. And we were sitting at dinner, and she had been to a big county, a lot of driving out there, a lot of farmland. “And she said, if I was living out in a farm in Iowa, I’d probably want a gun, too"....

The Next Wedding I PerformOne of the neat things that we pastors get to do is to perform weddings. What a thrill it is to see a young couple declare their love before the world and to be part of their special day! And so it’s with great excitement and emotion that I will be performing a wedding this weekend. I have been asked to do the honors for a young couple I know up in Iowa, friends of the family. Steven and his partner Adam have been in a loving, committed relationship for over three months now, and since...

A group of nearly two dozen Republican lawmakers is threatening to pull state funding from an Iowa community college unless they defund an anti-bullying program that the lawmakers say bullies Christians and conservatives. The Des Moines Area Community College is one of several sponsors of the Iowa Governors Conference on LGBTQ Youth – scheduled to be held next week. The program was founded by Iowa Safe Schools. The college’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter filed a Freedom of Information Act request and discovered that tax and tuition dollars were being used to cover the costs. “It’s outrageous,” said Jake...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Two more people face charges as Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz's crackdown on voter fraud continues. A Melbourne man is charged with election misconduct and fraudulent practice. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation says 53-year-old Nickie Dean Perkins -snip- Authorities also have charged 64-year-old Jesus Castorena, of Hampton, with perjury for claiming on 2010 driver's license and voter registration applications he was U.S. citizen. He had been deported to Mexico in 2007.

A Young Americans for Freedom chapter is demanding its school to pull funding from an upcoming LGBT conference, claiming a bias against conservatives and Christians. Des Moines Community College student Jake Dagel, who chairs the school's Young Americans for Freedom chapter, is opposing the 8th Annual Governor’s Conference on LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning) Youth and is calling for the school to pull its $1,000 sponsorship during a press conference announcing his chapter's position. Dagel claims that conservatives and Christians will be bullied at the event. “Any conference or event that attacks individuals for their beliefs is not...

Iowa's biggest newspaper is under fire after publishing a map that showed which public school districts have police or security -- and which ones don't. Critics said the Des Moines Register, which quickly pulled the interactive map off of its website, was making it easy for a deranged killer to know where to launch a Sandy Hook-style attack. "What they did yesterday was provide a shopping list for every nut job in Iowa," WHO radio host Simon Conway, who said his phone lines "blew up" as soon as he began discussing the map with his audience, told Fox News Channel....

On Wednesday afternoon, the Des Moines Register published a map that shows which public schools in Iowa have no security. (See Link for Map) The graphic is also interactive. When you click on a specific dot, you are given very detailed information about the location of the school and if it has a security office on campus.

When you’ve got loons the likes of Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin fluttering about, I suppose it’s easy not to seem like such a wacko bird yourself. Is that why Rand Paul is flying high right now? Or is it because he followed his 13-hour_filibuster — that knee-defeating, bladder-defying moment in the Senate sun — by showing a few of his less florid feathers? Either way, he has managed, with remarkable speed, to migrate to the foreground of Republican politics. You could almost lose sight of what an albatross he really is. Today he’s singing the moderate song of immigration...

Federal investigators are probing allegations that Rep. Michele Bachmann, or members of her staff, inappropriately used money raised during her presidential campaign, her lawyer and former campaign staffers said today. Bachmann has not been formally accused of any wrong doing, but staffers said they had been questioned by federal authorities. The investigators are working on behalf of the Office of Congressional Ethics. Bachmann's attorney confirmed to ABC News.com that Bachmann was being probed by the OCE, but denied any wrongdoing. "There are no allegations that the congresswoman engaged in any wrongdoing," campaign lawyer William McGinley told ABCNews.com in a statement....

I’m in Baltimore today, speaking to a group of young 40 Days for Life volunteers. I just got back from a visit to Connecticut. —————————————————– BRIDGEPORT, CONNECTICUT —————————————————– When I spoke at the Bridgeport vigil, I noticed that some of the abortion facility workers came out to listen to what I was saying. Since we are in the last week of the campaign, I talked about how the abortion workers who leave their jobs during 40 Days for Life usually do so during the last part of the campaign. I also shared how we are there for these workers …...

St. Paul’s 6th graders made it to Washington DC. Speaker John Boehner gave the kids a special tour of the US Capitol while they were in town. But, the kids didn’t make it inside the White House. Access Denied–

They didn’t get the White House tour they had hoped for, but the group of Iowa students who are pushing the White House to reopen tours to the public made it to the White House gates Saturday morning. The 6th graders from St. Paul’s Lutheran School in Waverly, Iowa posed for photos outside the White House while holding individual paper signs spelling out the phrase, “The White House is our house! Please let us visit!” Onlookers cheered the kids in the efforts, with one may saying, “Way to go kids!” “It’s kind of disappointing, but it’s still kind of fun...

The phrase "jumping the shark" describes that gimmicky moment when something once considered significant is exposed as ludicrous. This is the week the White House jumped the sequester. The precise moment came Tuesday, when the administration announced that it was canceling public tours of the White House, blaming budget cuts. The Sequesterer in Chief has insisted that cutting even $44 billion from this fiscal year will cause agonizing pain—airport security snarls, uninspected meat, uneducated children. Since none of those things has come to pass, the White House decided it needed an immediate and high-profile way of making its point. Ergo,...

WASHINGTON — Don't take Steve King lightly. That's the warning from Sen. Tom Harkin for his fellow Iowa Democrats itching for King to jump into a statewide race. “I've never underestimated Steve King,” Harkin told The World-Herald. “He is a smart guy. He is a tough campaigner.” Harkin is retiring after five terms in the U.S. Senate, and the race to succeed him in 2014 could help determine the body's balance of power. The race is viewed as a toss-up at this very early stage, before the candidates have been determined.

House majority leader Eric Cantor is increasingly frustrated with a group of House Republicans who are working against the leadership, and he’s not afraid of voicing his dismay. In a closed-door conference meeting on Wednesday, Cantor told one GOP member that if they blocked the Senate-passed Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) from coming to the floor, they’d cause “civil war” in the ranks. Cantor’s comment irked some Republican aides, who told National Review Online that such strong language is inappropriate. In recent days, some conservatives have been upset about the Senate’s version of VAWA, saying that parts of the bill...

The University of Iowa may have broken federal guidelines by sharing with the local sheriff’s department private information about students who apply for campus gun permits. Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, public universities are required to keep secret personal information on students, such as their grades and addresses. But Iowa has been sending personal information regarding students who apply for campus gun permits to the sheriff’s office. That information includes whether students received bad grades, or were exhibiting signs of depression or anger. The policy dates back to a campus shooting in 1991, when a mentally disturbed...

The smell of bacon was in the air Saturday as thousands converged on Iowa's capital city for an increasingly popular festival celebrating all things connected with the meat. Some people wore Viking hats and others walked around with makeshift snouts for the Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival. The annual event featured more than 10,000 pounds of bacon served in unusual ways, such as chocolate-dipped bacon and bacon-flavored cupcakes and gelato. "I love bacon more than I love my job," said Katie Nordquist, who was dressed in a tuxedo T-shirt that looked like bacon Saturday for her first time at the festival.

A group of Republican legislators has introduced legislation that would make all abortions illegal in Iowa and any doctor who performs an abortion in Iowa would face murder charges. “What the bill does is it defines what a person is,” says Representative Tom Shaw, a Republican from Laurens who is the bill’s lead sponsor. “We put it right underneath our murder statute. This is in keeping with Roe v Wade where Justice Blackman said that if the state ever defined the fetus to be a person, then, of course, it would have all the protections of the 14th amendment. ...”...

Karl Rove versus Steve King. Rove was one of President Bush's top advisors, but now Iowa's open Senate seat has one of America's top Republican operatives gearing up to fight one of his own, vetting candidates who have a history of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. And, that apparently includes Congressman Steve King. Steven Law, the CEO of American Crossroads, told the New York Times: "We're concerned about Steve King's Todd Akin problem....All of the things he's said are going to be hung around his neck," says Law. Law is apparently referring to comments King made to...

WASHINGTON — Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, is assembling a mental list of the many pros and cons that come with a 2014 Senate bid. It's a tempting opportunity. Just consider: Sen. Tom Harkin's decision not to run for re-election means Iowa will have its first open Senate race in 40 years. King first must consider whether he can compete in a statewide race. His hard-line, take-no-prisoners conservative style on hot-button issues such as immigration made him a favorite of cable television programs and raised his national profile.

On paper, the third-ranked Iowa wrestling team had every bit a chance to win Friday night’s dual with Penn State as the top-ranked Nittany Lions. Both teams had top-ranked wrestlers and both had matches they should have won. The Hawkeyes took care of the matches they were favored in and did a little more as Tony Ramos earned a big win by fall at 133 and sophomore Mike Evans won the only true swing match of the night during a 22-16 victory over Penn State in front of a loud and crazy sold-out crowd of 15,077 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. The...

DES MOINES — His name graces the University of Iowa football stadium, was etched in the 1939 Heisman Trophy and was, apparently, scribbled on a football that, until this week, sat, forgotten, on a basement shelf in a West Des Moines home. Now, the football that includes Heisman winner Nile Kinnick’s name, along with the names of more than two dozen teammates and a record of the Hawkeyes’ 1939 football season sits in a bank lockbox while its owner figures out what to do next. How the ball got there is somewhat of a mystery, said Cindy Hahn, whose mother...

State Rep. Dan Muhlbauer's declaration that he stands firmly behind the U.S. Constitution's gun-rights amendment drew a strong challenge at the Carroll Chamber of Commerce's first legislative forum of the Legislature's 2013 session Saturday morning. Muhlbauer continues to draw heat for comments he made in an interview with the Times Herald soon after the shooting massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school in December. In that interview, Muhlbauer, D-Manilla, suggested strong gun-control measures, including possible confiscation of particularly high-powered weapons, and received nationwide media attention. At Saturday's forum attended by about 40 people in the New Hope activities building, Muhlbauer...

Credible sources are reporting this morning that Democrat U.S. Senator Tom Harkin will not seek reelection next year.

<p>CUMMING (AP) - Iowa Senator Tom Harkin said he will not seek re-election in 2014.</p> <p>The 73-year-old told The Associated Press in an interview, "It's just time to step aside."</p> <p>By the time Harkin would finish a sixth term, he would be 81 years old.</p>

DES MOINES — A state senator will push for public hearings on the death penalty in the Iowa Senate and House of Representatives as he files legislation to bring capital punishment back to Iowa. Sen. Kent Sorenson, R-Milo, has championed the idea of reintroducing the death penalty in Iowa since the abduction and killing of Elizabeth Collins, 8, and Lyric Cook, 10, this summer in Evansdale. Elizabeth’s parents joined Sorenson and parents of other missing and murdered children at a Capitol news conference, where the senator outlined five pieces of legislation he plans to introduce this session. Iowa abolished the...

Police in one Iowa city could soon be buying their own assault rifles to carry in squad cars to ensure they aren't outgunned by criminals in the wake of several high-profile shootings involving semi-automatic AR-15s, FoxNews.com has learned. Half of the 50-member force in Marion, Iowa, will take part in the upgrade, paying for the $2,000 guns in installments deducted from their paychecks, according to Police Chief Harry Daugherty. He said the proposal, expected to be approved by the city’s seven-member City Council late Thursday, will mean initial responders will have enough firepower to deal with heavily armed suspects. Currently,...

Joe Biden summoned more than 200 Democratic insiders to the vice presidential residence Sunday night to chat about the 2012 triumph — but many walked away convinced his rising 2016 ambitions were the real intent of the long, intimate night. “I took a look at who was there,” said longtime New Hampshire state Sen. Lou D’Allesandro, “and said to myself, ‘There’s no question he’s thinking about the future.’” He’s right. Biden, according to a number of advisers and Democrats who have spoken to him in recent months, wants to run, or at least be well positioned to run, if and...

The board of education says it has looked into the concerns surrounding two cases of possible plagiarism by Superintendent of Schools Carolyn R. Koos, and is "satisfied that she understands her mistake and will not repeat it," board president Louis Casella said in a statement. "The board has fully expressed and discussed its concerns with the superintendent," Casella said. "Superintendent Koos has apologized for any adverse effect this may have had on the district." NJ.com first reported the possible plagiarism Jan. 10, when a letter sent to the district appeared to be a near word-for-word copy of a Nov. 27...

Sen. Chuck Grassley, a conservative Republican from Iowa, suggested Friday he may be open to a limited form of gun control - restricting the size of gun magazines - if that legislation does not violate the Constitutional protection of gun rights. "I think that's a whole different issue and it can maybe be dealt with without violating the Second Amendment, but I want to see the legislation," Grassley told Iowa Public Television in an interview Friday. But he reaffirmed his opposition to reinstating the assault weapons ban that Congress passed in 1994. Asked if he would support limiting the capacity...

In an interview with the Daily Times Herald in Carroll, Iowa, state Rep. Dan Muhlbauer said governments should start confiscating semi-automatic rifles and other firearms. Muhlbauer, a Democrat from the western Iowa town of Manilla, is a cattleman and farmer. The newspaper reported that he owns a .410 shotgun, a .22 rifle and a .22 pistol. “We cannot have big guns out here as far as the big guns that are out here, the semi-automatics and all of them,” Muhlbauer told the newspaper during a December 19 audiotaped interview. “We can’t have those running around out here. Those are not...

A Democratic legislator in Iowa is startling citizens with his most recent proposal: ban the sale of semi-automatic weapons, and confiscate them from existing gun owners if need be. Here is an excerpt from Iowa’s Daily Times Herald, which conducted the interview with State Rep. Dan Muhlbauer: In an interview, a fiery Muhlbauer said it is time to act with “radical changes” on gun laws and other issues to protect schoolchildren from shooting sprees like the one last week in Newtown, Conn. “We cannot have big guns out here as far as the big guns that are out here, the...

Floyd Teske, the oldest veteran in Iowa and a resident at the Iowa Veterans Home, died at the facility Monday at the age of 106. "He had a huge impact on the people here," said Michael Hines, staff assistant to the commandant at IVH. "At 106 years old, he lived a full life." Teske was born July 10, 1906 and is a native of Decorah. In a previous interview with the Times-Republican, Teske said he remembered when World War I ended when he was 12 years old. "Early one morning the fire whistle in Decorah sounded for a long period,"...