Free Republic

MACKINAC ISLAND, MI — Rand Paul won the presidential preference straw poll this weekend at the Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference, a biennial gather of more than 2,000 Michigan Republicans. With 785 attendees voting, the U.S. Senator from Kentucky received 22 percent of the vote in the MIRS/Detroit News straw poll. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina finished second at 15 percent. Each of the top five vote-getters spoke at the island event, including Ohio Gov. John Kasich (13.7 percent), Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas (13 percent) and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (9.7 percent). John Yob, national political director and Michigan...

12:00PM – 1:30PM Lunch ProgramFeaturing: Senator Ted Cruz and Governor John Kasich Live Stream

A Michigan state lawmaker who resigned from office after admitting an affair with a colleague and then launching a bizarre coverup said Friday that he plans to seek his old seat because voters should be able to decide whether he deserves to be in the legislature, not his fellow legislators. "I think voters should be able to weigh in. It shouldn't be that legislators who have a political axe to grind can get together and decide they want to get rid of a member who's been a problem for them," said former state Rep. Todd Courser in an interview with...

LANSING, MI — A political outsider leads a new Michigan poll of Republican presidential candidates — but it's not brash businessman Donald Trump. Ben Carson, a Detroit native and retired neurosurgeon, led the field in a poll of 600 likely voters, including 221 who said they would definitely vote in the GOP primary, conducted last week by the Lansing-based Marketing Resource Group ahead of tonight's CNN debate.

A Methodist pastor who was told to resign from his Michigan church because of his sexuality visited the Bay Area to share his story. Rev. Benjamin Hutchinson spoke to the Twin Towers Methodist Church in Alameda on Friday and discussed the life-changing moment when he was told to resign because he is gay. He said he has decided to take his story on the road and change minds along the way. Hutchinson said he was forced to resign from Cassopolis United Methodist Church after he told the bishop about his gay partner. According to the United Methodist Church's guidelines, that...

We've been ranking America's most dangerous cities for several years, and there's one city that keeps making the top of the list — Flint, Michigan. Flint had 66 homicides in 2012, tying a record it hit two years ago. Forbes has also ranked Flint as one of most dangerous places for women. The most striking attack of 2012 occurred when an 87-year-old woman was raped outside her home in broad daylight. She decided to leave Flint. The city has probably changed a lot in that woman's lifetime. Flint hasn't always been this dangerous or depressing. Flint had a booming auto...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and California officials say some 482,000 Volkswagen and Audi diesels were engineered to falsify their emissions for federal tests—a violation that opens the German automaker to a theoretical fine totaling $18 billion. The EPA and California Air Resources Board say the affected models had software in its computer engine controls that could sense exactly when it was being tested for emissions quality. At all other times, it would run the diesels in a different mode with illegal levels of pollution; for example, spewing up to 40 times more nitrogen oxide, a key component of smog,...

MACKINAC ISLAND, Mich. — A Grand Rapids political consultant, now director and chief strategist for the national Rand Paul campaign, claims a top official for the Marco Rubio campaign punched him Thursday night at a bar on the island, which is hosting the biennial GOP Leadership Conference. John Yob, the national political director for the Rand Paul campaign, posted on Facebook early Friday morning he’d been punched in the face inside the bar by a man he said is the deputy campaign manager for Rubio, a Florida senator.

Detained for 6 months while criminal illegals allowed to stay. More than half of the 27 Iraqi Christians the Obama administration has been holding for the past six months at an ICE detention center in Otay Mesa, California, are set to be deported in coming weeks. ... Iraq is home to one of the most ancient Christian communities, evangelized by the Apostle Thomas not long after the time of Jesus. ... Many of Iraq’s historic churches, some dating back to the second and third century after Christ, have been destroyed or converted to mosques. Others sit empty. ... Thousands of...

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said Wednesday that he hopes Donald Trump can win the presidency, hours before Trump was set to participate in the second Republican debate. The Super Bowl MVP, whose four-game suspension for using deflated footballs was recently overturned by a judge, grinned broadly as he talked about his golf partner. "I hope so," he said. "It would be great. There would be a putting green on the White House lawn, I'm sure of that." Brady's locker sported a "Make America Great Again" red hat sent to him by Trump. "It was...

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) - New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady threw his support behind presidential candidate Donald Trump Wednesday, hours before the second Republican debate. The Super Bowl MVP, whose four-game suspension for using deflated footballs was recently overturned by a judge, says he thinks his golf partner can win. "I hope so," he said. "It would be great. There would be a putting green on the White House lawn, I can tell you that."

Dan Benishek announced Tuesday that he will not seek re-election in 2016, stating he will retire at the end of his term. “Serving the 1st district in Congress has been a privilege and an opportunity that I will be forever grateful for. I am proud to be able to represent the people of Northern Michigan," Benishek said in a released statement. “Today I’m announcing that I won’t seek re-election next year, which will allow me to focus my time and attention on helping our veterans and working to make things better for the families and workers throughout Northern Michigan, and...

The United Auto Workers union will accelerate its bargaining efforts with Fiat Chrysler Automobile in the hopes of hammering out a template for a new labor contract the other two Detroit auto makers will match. The choice of Fiat Chrysler's FCA US unit as the target company for shaping the new contract, disclosed by the union on Sunday, kicks off an intense negotiating period expected in part to focus on a two-tier wage system that has financially benefited auto makers but rankled workers. The UAW's current contract with Fiat Chrysler, General Motors and Ford Motor expires on Monday, but labor...

The Michigan lawmakers at the center of a sex scandal at the Statehouse were forced out by angry colleagues early Friday morning, following hours of heated debate. Rep. Todd Courser resigned his House seat at 3:12 a.m., according to the Detroit Free-Press, and one hour later Rep. Cindy Gamrat, his colleague with whom he reportedly had an affair, was expelled by the legislature on a 91-12 vote. The moves came just a day after Courser apologized for the affair, as a 90-minute recording was played for lawmakers in which he asked his staffer to concoct a bizarre cover-up story alleging...

LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- Police in Michigan have arrested the driver of a pickup truck who they believe intentionally struck a firefighter standing in a roadway collecting money for charity, killing him. [Snip] The 35-year-old Rodeman, who also served in the U.S. Marines in Iraq ... [was] participating in an annual fundraising campaign for the Muscular Dystrophy Association and the International Association of Fire Fighters, authorities said. [Snip] Rodeman was married two months ago, and he and his wife were expecting their first child, Fire Chief Randy Talifarro said.

PONTIAC, Mich. — A 25-year-old man told police that he was stabbed after finding his wife in bed with her own father, WWJ reports. It happened just after 3:30 a.m. Saturday when the man arrived at his home on West Rundell Avenue to find his wife, completely naked, in bed with her father, police say. The man then reportedly woke his father-in-law up and the two began to fight. Police say the father-in-law, identified by authorities as Henry Allen Michael of Detroit, allegedly stabbed the younger man in his back with a knife. He then fled the scene in the...

Between social media posts excoriating those he feels have a romanticized view of the lion recently killed in Africa by an American hunter, outspoken musician Ted Nugent this week weighed in again on the 2016 presidential primary. At this point, he told radio host Rita Cosby, he has a clear early favorite. "I think Donald Trump,” he said, “if he stays on course, he’s gonna be the next president of the United States.” He offered many of the same attributes other Trump supporters mentioned when asked why he supports the brash billionaire. Nugent said he appreciates the candidate’s “bold, brazen,...

Proposed Mosque In Detroit Suburb Draws Sharp Opposition September 8, 2015 by Steve Friess STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich. — The nation’s largest concentration of Iraqi Christians, many driven from their homeland by persecution at the hands of Muslim groups, is mounting an intensive campaign to block a proposed mosque in Sterling Heights, Michigan — sometimes by deploying public anti-Islam invective unusual in its bluntness even in this post-9/11 era. The 20,500-square-foot mosque, to be built on four acres by the American Islamic Community Center (AICC), is to stand 60 feet tall along a major thoroughfare in a middle-class neighborhood if the...

WASHINGTON, DC – On Wednesday September 9, the President will travel with Dr. Jill Biden to Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan to deliver remarks on the importance of investing in skills and growing the economy. The arrival and departure of Air Force One in Warren, MI are open to pre-credentialed media, but closed to the public. The President’s remarks at Macomb Community College are open to pre-credentialed media. The President’s remarks will also be streamed live at whitehouse.gov/live. Members of the media who wish to cover the arrival and departure of Air Force One in Warren, MI on Wednesday,...

LAS VEGAS – The U.S. Air Force is giving an ultimatum to owners of a remote Nevada property that over time has been surrounded by a vast bombing range including the super-secret Area 51. They're being told to take a $5.2 million "last best offer" for their property by Thursday -- or the government will seize it through condemnation. The owners include descendants of a couple who lost their hardscrabble mining enterprise after the Air Force moved in in the 1940s. Nuclear tests then began in 1951, their mine mill mysteriously exploded in 1954 and they ran out of money...