Free Republic

A proposal to build a pipeline from the fracking fields of Pennsylvania to eastern Massachusetts by late 2018 is sparking concern among many property owners in the path of the pipe. But there’s a twist to this evolving story: a proposed surcharge added to electric bills that would force every ratepayer in New England to help pay for the interstate pipeline, which is expected to cost $2 billion to $6 billion. The route proposed for the pipeline’sMassachusetts segment runs through dense forests, wetlands and small towns in the northern tier of the state. Alternative routes, or modifications to the northern...

BOSTON —Anti-gambling activists are touting a major boost from Sen. Elizabeth Warren as their campaign to repeal the state's casino law heads into the final stretch. The first-term Democrat said Monday she'll likely vote in favor of repealing the 2011 state law that opened the door for Las Vegas-style gambling in Massachusetts. The group Repeal the Casino Deal hailed the remarks as a "bold stand" by one of the state's most prominent politicians. Warren has been mentioned as a possible candidate for president in 2016, even though she has said repeatedly she's not running.

Old Ironsides sailed through Boston Harbor Friday for the last time until 2018, as the 216-year-old warship prepares to undergo a three-year restoration beginning early next year. The USS Constitution has sailed unassisted by a tug boat only twice since 1881, in 1997 and 2012. This summer it sailed with the help of a tug, but still moved by its own power. Friday was the final unassisted sail until the ship has completed its restoration. Aside from making the usual repairs for wear and tear, the restoration aims to return Old Ironsides to an image of its 1812 self... ...For...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US lawmakers on Friday "strongly condemned" what they called Beijing's harsh pre-Olympic crackdown in China's Muslim-populated far northwest Xinjiang region. The bipartisan leadership of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in a statement cited "credible" reports about a July 9 conviction in a closed trial of 15 minority Muslim Uighurs on terrorism charges that led to "the immediate execution of two" of them. Three others were given suspended death sentences and the remaining 10 received life imprisonment, it said. These are "abuses of due process and rule of law," said caucus co-chairmen Democrat Jim McGovern and Republican Frank...

Labor Day used to be more than a summer-closing holiday; it was a celebration of labor unions and the American labor movement. That’s easy to forget these days because labor unions don’t have much to celebrate. At the height of their influence in the 1950s, labor unions could claim to represent about 1 of every 3 American workers. Today, it’s 1 in 9 — and falling. Some have seen the shrinking size and waning influence of labor unions as a sign that the US economy is growing more flexible and dynamic, but there’s mounting evidence that it is also contributing...

After this week’s dreary news out of Kansas, we owe Hot Air readers a pleasant surprise, and this may be it. Martha Coakley, who lost a special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by the death of Ted Kennedy four years ago despite the near-total grip Democrats have on Massachusetts, may be in the process of losing another election. Republican gubernatorial nominee Charlie Baker took his first lead in the Boston Globe poll series, edging Coakley barely, while neither candidate looks to be catching fire: Republican Charlie Baker has edged ahead of Democrat Martha Coakley in the race for...

ABC's Michele McPhee was with us to talk about the two fireman killed in a conflagration caused by two illegal alien workers illegaly welding in Back Bay. Have charges been brought against them you might ask? Not at present time because they have disappeared... (SNIP)

The sister of the Boston marathon bombing suspect was arrested in New York City Wednesday for allegedly making a bomb threat, police said. Ailina Tsarnaev, 24, sister of Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was charged with aggravated harassment after a bomb threat was made by phone to another woman on Monday. The recipient -- whose name was not released -- notified police of the threat, according to NYPD Lt. John Grimpel. Ailina Tsarnaev, a resident of North Bergen, New Jersey, turned herself in to authorities on Wednesday.

The uproar over Arthur T. Demoulas' firing prompted massive protest rallies outside the company's Tewksbury headquarters. After the company fired eight supervisors who helped organize the revolt, public support for the workers intensified. Thousands of customers, as well as more than 160 mayors and legislators in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, signed petitions agreeing to boycott Market Basket. The chain has about 25,000 employees and 71 stores in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. The stores, usually jam-packed with shoppers attracted by the chain's low prices, have had only a trickle of customers for weeks. Business analysts said the worker revolt was...

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's sister has been arrested for allegedly threatening to bomb a New York City woman. Police say Ailina Tsarnaeva, 24, made the threat via telephone Monday and turned herself in earlier today. She is charged with aggravated harassment targeting a woman from Harlem. Police say the North Bergen, New Jersey, resident is due in court September 30.

The mayor of Lynn, Mass. says that some of the illegal aliens from Guatemala who are enrolled in her city’s public schools are adults with graying hair and “more wrinkles than I have.” “They are not all children,” Judith Flanagan Kennedy told reporters at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. “One of the things that we did notice when we were processing some of these students coming in was that they were adults,” she said. She added that the federal government will not allow school officials to verify their ages even though one...

Among 400 Massachusetts Democrats polled, 55 percent said they would vote for Clinton while just 17.25 percent would pick Warren. Vice President Biden, who also has an eye on the 2016 race, would get just 7.75 percent of the vote.

The Harvard Law professor who mentored President Obama and the first lady during their time in Cambridge has compared the Aug. 9 shooting of Michael Brown to the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Speaking with MSNBC’s Alex Wagner, Charles Ogletree also compared the police shooting of 18-year-old Brown to the 1955 killing of Emmett Till. “Looking at what’s happened, this is just like the assassination of Dr. King in 1968, when everybody was very upset trying to figure out what was going to happen,” he said. “It’s like the killing of Trayvon Martin two years ago. “This is...

President Obama returned to the golf course on Saturday amid mounting Republican criticism that he is spending too much time hitting the links during several international and domestic crises. Obama departed Saturday morning for Farm Neck golf club on Martha’s Vineyard, where he is vacationing with his family. He is playing his latest round of golf with a foursome that includes former NBA player Alonzo Mourning, White House Deputy Political Strategy and Outreach Director Joe Paulsen and long-time friend Cy Walker. Republicans have accused Obama of being insensitive for golfing during his vacation while tensions mount in Iraq following the...

The beheading of any American should send every American into orbit from outrage. That includes the beheading of James Foley. What must be made known, however, is that evidence suggests Foley was sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood’s cause and may have been a liberal. If that’s true, why would ISIS behead him? The answer is strangely simple. ISIS beheads liberals too, in much the same way that the Tsarnaev brothers set off pressure cooker bombs in a predominantly liberal city – Boston. Foley Betrayed by those he supported. A look at Foley’s twitter feed from 2012 indicates he was a...

Saying that the civil unrest that has followed the recent fatal shooting of an unarmed black teen by a white police officer, in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Mo., "could happen" in Springfield as well as Holyoke, the Rev. Talbert W. Swan II, president of the Greater Springfield NAACP, has requested that the mayors of these two cities establish a commission in each city to address issues that could prove "a powder keg." "Holyoke and Springfield are two urban centers that have a large population of persons of color," Swan said. "They are also two cities with a sordid...

ADAMS, Mass. – Vandals struck an Adams church Saturday painting graffiti on the walls, including swastikas. A door at First Baptist Church in Adams, Mass. would always be left open for the organist, Larry Bishop. But Saturday night Bishop realized he wasn't alone. Bishop has been the organist at First Baptist for 15 years. He said he went to the church late Saturday night to practice when he heard two people talking upstairs. “I heard one of the voices say to the other, ‘Wow, there's a lot of good stuff here,'” he described. “And I'm thinking, well, that doesn't sound...

Recent news about Obamacare hasn't exactly been good, but the press has been pretty effective in keeping it quiet. To name just a few items, Enrollment is shrinking, because perhaps as many as 20 percent of enrollees aren't keeping up with their premiums. Rising costs have moved insurers to beg for bailouts, which appear to be forthcoming. Then there's this: Just last week in Massachusetts, where the state-run health insurance got its start under Republican Governor Mitt Romney eight years ago, the state's exchange announced that everyone currently enrolled in 2014 or who should have enrolled and didn't is going...

Slip of the tongue? Yesterday on CNN’s “The Situation Room” Hillary Clinton spoke about what she would do about licensing illegal immigrants when she is president again. Watch:

Hillary Clinton called President Barack Obama on Tuesday to “make sure he knows that nothing she said was an attempt to attack him” when she recently discussed her views on foreign policy in an interview with The Atlantic, according to a statement from a Clinton spokesman. The statement comes amid tension between the Clinton and Obama camps in the wake of the interview. It also comes as Obama and Clinton, his former secretary of state, are due to cross paths at a social gathering Wednesday night in Martha’s Vineyard. In the interview, Clinton dismissed the Obama administration’s self-described foreign policy...