Free Republic

The Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Silver Spring, Maryland, permanently closed on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 2017, after the property’s management team realized that abortion is bad for business. Pro-life activists, led by Lauren Handy, persuaded the property management company not to renew Planned Parenthood’s lease using a narrowly-targeted educational campaign. Planned Parenthood had occupied the same office, located at 1400 Spring St. in Silver Spring, Maryland, for over 20 years, conducting surgical abortions.“The men and women who ministered at that Planned Parenthood for two decades deserve a lot of credit for their perseverance and tenacity,” said Troy Newman,...

It’s well beyond ideological tone deafness that leads the Maryland Democrat State Legislature to propose they become the first entire sanctuary state in the nation against the backdrop of a brutal rape of a 14-year-old freshman student by 17 and 18-yr-old illegal alien classmates. Just hours ago republican governor Larry Hogan posted this on his Facebook page:

New, brutal details emerged Monday in the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl at a Maryland high school by two male students, at least one of whom was in the country illegally.

Rockville, Md., the city home to the recent immigrant high school rape scandal, is considering declaring itself a sanctuary city to hide illegals. Although Rockville police have had a long-standing policy neither to question suspected illegals about their immigration status, or to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, the city is now considering the process of formalizing that informal standard by becoming a sanctuary city. Rockville City Councilmember Julie Palakovich Carr introduced an ordinance in early March in response to President Donald Trump’s pledge to beat back illegal immigration.

Two Maryland high school students – one of whom has an “alien removal” case pending – forced a 14-year-old female classmate into a bathroom stall on Thursday morning and viciously raped her, police said. The suspects, Henry E. Sanchez, 18, and Jose O. Montano, 17, are in ninth grade at Rockville High School. Both are recent arrivals to the U.S., Sanchez from Guatemala and Montano from El Salvador, WUSA9 reported. The pair appeared in court Friday and Montano is being charged as an adult, despite his age, due to the seriousness of the crime. Sanchez and Montano, charged with first-degree...

<p>A 14-year-old girl was pushed into a boys bathroom at Rockville High School on Thursday morning and raped by two other students during school hours, according to Montgomery County District Court records filed Friday.</p> <p>Police arrested two ninth-graders, Henry E. Sanchez, 18, and Jose O. Montano, 17, who appeared in court Friday and were ordered held without bond.</p>

In what could be one of the biggest counterterrorism seizures in U.S. history, federal prosecutors sought to take over four U.S. mosques and a New York City skyscraper owned by a Muslim organization suspected of being controlled by the Iranian government. Prosecutors on Thursday filed a civil complaint in federal court against the Alavi Foundation, seeking the forfeiture of more than $500 million in assets. The assets include bank accounts; Islamic centers consisting of schools and mosques in New York, Maryland, California and Houston; more than 100 acres in Virginia; and a 36-story Manhattan office tower. Confiscating the properties would...

Every once in a while — and perhaps especially now, if we’re really going to talk about a trillion-dollar infrastructure program — we need to revisit the basics: “This is probably a column-length question, but what are the solutions to traffic congestion in the D.C. region?” That reasonable question came in during the midst of last Monday’s online discussion about whether traffic conditions would be improved if everyone just went faster. (In fact, we would not all be better off if you’d just go as fast as the driver behind you wants.) What are we really hoping to achieve when...

(CNN)A federal judge in Maryland Thursday morning temporarily blocked the 90-day ban on immigration for citizens of six countries in President Donald Trump's...

Former presidential candidate Martin O’Malley is one of the first Democrats to begin the process of running for president in 2020, according to a Wednesday report from Politico. The former governor of Maryland commissioned a poll in Iowa, the site of the first caucus in presidential elections, revealing a huge show of interest. O’Malley fared well in the poll, earning 18 percent of voters. The poll included nine other potential candidates: Sens. Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, former Housing Sec. Julian Castro, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, state Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, as well as...

Welfare fraud is a bigger problem than liberals want you to believe. Food Stamp benefits costed $74.1 billion in 2014 and supplied roughly 46.5 million Americans with benefits, which comes out to an average of $125.35 for each person per month in food assistance. Even a fraud rate of under 5% amounts to billions in wasted funds. The most popular method of food stamp fraud isn’t fraudulently claiming benefits, it’s recipients trading in their cards for a fraction of their face value for cash. Luckily, the government has actually made some wise steps in counteracting that kind of fraud. Back...

A religious-based charity has received nearly $18 million in federal grants to help refugees and immigrant children who entered the country illegally since Donald Trump was elected president.. The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) has received nine federally-funded awards since Nov. 8, all of which came from the the Department of Health and Human Services ... Seven of those – worth over $13 million – were awarded under the Unaccompanied Alien Children Program, and the remaining two – worth $4.5 million – were used to helped refugees. ... LIRS ultimately raked in $60 million total for fiscal 2016 –...

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) -- All expanded polystyrene products used for packaging food products, including foam carriers, could be banned from all Maryland food businesses if pending legislation is passed in the General Assembly this session. The legislation, sponsored in the House by Delegate Brooke Lierman, D-Baltimore, will prohibit a person or business from selling or providing food in an expanded polystyrene food service product beginning Jan. 1, according to a Department of Legislative Services fiscal analysis. The bill, which has also been cross-filed in the state Senate, also bans the sale and use of loose fill packaging.

Do you want unlimited Metro rides at the University of Maryland, or not? It doesn’t matter, because college is a “socialistic society,” so you’ll pay either way. That’s the curious rationalization for a $130 per-semester fee that the university’s Residence Hall Association wants to impose on all on-campus residents.

A Justice Department slush fund scheme under former resident Obama reportedly funneled billions of dollars to leftist activist groups in what Mike Huckabee said was “worse than a mafia shakedown.” ... The practice was widely abused under the Obama administration, with liberal groups like La Raza and the National Urban League receiving some of the slush fund money ... Virginia Congressman Robert Goodlatte and Sen. James Lankford, both Republicans, have sponsored legislation to end the practice, which investigators have found accounted for $3 billion paid to “non-victim entities

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — First Daughter Ivanka Trump took a break from her duties in the White House for some weekend mommy-and-me time with her 3-year-old Joseph in Charm City Sunday. The 35-year-old entrepreneur and mom of three spent time Sunday at the Monster Jam at Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore with her eldest son. Trump posted some photos on social media of her and Joseph enjoying the day at Royal Farms arena. The mother and son got to see shark monster truck and meet one of the drivers.

The 2017 Maryland General Assembly session recently started with several issues receiving the majority of attention. We have all heard about both medical marijuana and Gov. Larry Hogan's "road kill bill." As someone who has spent a lifetime involved in the highway industry, I would like to share my thoughts on the latter topic ("Hogan's 'road kill bill' lie," Jan. 5).We have all noticed the severe deterioration in our highway system, be it local, state or interstate. There are many reasons for this and I will share them all with you. However, the overriding principle is that our roads are...

The 4th Circuit's decision in Kolbe et al v. Maryland was a direct, if often legally incomprehensible attempt to greatly limit the Supreme Court's seminal decision in Heller and set the stage for a new national ban on semi-automatic rifles. Heller held that the 2nd Amendment confers an individual not a collective right to keep and bear arms. Kolbe, so long as it stands, says this individual right does not extend to any firearm with military utility, which is arguably pretty much every gun ever made.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao had been on the job only a few weeks when she took action on one of the region's most intractable problems and directed millions in federal transit dollars be withheld from the District, Maryland and Virginia until they create a safety agency to oversee D.C.'s subway, Metro. Chao was making good on a threat by her predecessor, Anthony Foxx, a move that surprised some local officials who had hoped that the jurisdictions had shown enough progress to stave off the action. It's too soon to say whether Chao's action is a sign she will continue...

Excessive penalties and poor customer service at the E-ZPass electronic toll collection system have put some Marylanders on the path to “toll bankruptcy,” Sen. Roger Manno told the Senate Finance Committee last week.“Folks [are] exasperated because they’ve been caught in a system that is not working,” Manno said.Broad enforcement powers enacted in 2013 to address toll violations have led to wage attachments, financial hardship and non-renewal of vehicle registrations at MVA, witnesses testified. Sen. Roger Manno “The penalty structure that we set several years ago in the General Assembly was not intended to be punitive,” Manno said. “It was not...