Free Republic

Congressional Republicans say they reached agreement on a final tax bill that will provide a new 20-percent deduction for pass-through income from farms and small businesses. The agreement, which the House and Senate are expected to take up early next week, also calls for doubling the estate tax exemption and will include key expensing provisions that farm groups sought to preserve and expand, lawmakers said. They said the agreement also would allow deduction of state and local taxes, including income and property taxes, up to $10,000, a concession to lawmakers in high-tax states that could also benefit farmers. Senate Agriculture...

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, posted to Facebook her call on Franken to resign Click here to see the list of Senators calling on Franken to resign. A top Senate Dem says he expects Franken to resign Thursday shortly after Franken’s office said he would be making an announcement Thursday. Democrat Senator Ron Wyden tweeted,”I expect that Senator Franken will announce his resignation tomorrow. It is the right thing to do given this series of serious allegations.”

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — More than a dozen states banded together Monday to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to block a California law requiring any eggs sold there to come from hens that have space to stretch out in their cages. In a lawsuit filed directly to the high court, the states allege that California's law has cost consumers nationwide up to $350 million annually because of higher egg prices since it took effect in 2015. The lawsuit argues that California's requirements violate the U.S. Constitution's interstate commerce clause and are pre-empted by federal law. A federal appeals court...

An eco-terrorist responsible for sabotaging an oil pipeline in North Dakota suggested Saturday that shutting down the multi-billion dollar line was necessary to defuse the ticking time bomb of man-made global warming.Temporarily taking offline a pair of pipelines in Minnesota earlier this year was part of an effort to save the world from fossil fuels, Seattle activist and poet Emily Johnston wrote in an editorial for The Guardian. A judge is allowing her to use a “necessity defense” to justify her actions last year against the Enbridge pipeline.“As recent months have made clear, climate change is not only an imminent...

Recently, President Donald J. Trump joined Energy Industry Executives, members of Congress, and Cabinet Officials at the Department of Energy to deliver remarks on unleashing America’s boundless capacity for energy production. “We’re here today to usher in a new American energy policy,” he declared. The President explained that his focus isn’t so much on “energy independence,” but rather dominance. In fact, the program is being called “American Energy Domination.”

Edgeley landowner Gene Hanson has received media attention in the past for his messages plowed in his fields. Hanson says it started with "Happy Mother's Day" and "Happy Easter" sentiments, but his messages took a political turn in recent years. Most recently, Hanson plowed the message "We Stand For The National Anthem" in a bean field. The message even garnered the attention of President Donald Trump, who has been critical of NFL players who take a knee in protest during the national anthem. Trump took to social media to recognize Hanson: "Thank you Gene Hanson — a GREAT American (and...

Miss North Dakota, a 23-year-old who said President Donald Trump was wrong to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord, was named Miss America 2018 Sunday night in Atlantic City. Cara Mund topped a field of 51 contestants to win the crowd in the New Jersey seaside resort, where most of the 97 Miss Americas have been selected. In one of her onstage interviews, Mund said Trump was wrong to withdraw the U.S. from the climate accord aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. Multiple questions revolved around the political climate and President...

North Dakota's Cara Mund claimed the crown as Miss America 2018 during Sunday night's competition at Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall. Miss America 2017, Savvy Shields, former Miss Arkansas, placed the crown on the 23-year-old teary-eyed successor's head as the new Miss America accepted applause and cheers from the audience and judges. Miss North Dakota emerged victorious through a series of swimsuit and talent contests, onstage speeches and two rounds of interviews by judges. In one of her onstage interviews, Mund said President Trump, a Republican, was wrong to withdraw the U.S. from the climate accord aimed at reducing greenhouse gas...

This is not a story you'd expect to read in 2017, but it happened: President Trump went to North Dakota on Wednesday and praised its Democratic senator, who is up for reelection next year, as a “good woman." "Come on up, senator," Trump told a crowd at an oil refinery in Mandan, as he had a called up some of the state's elected officials, all of them Republican, save Sen. Heidi Heitkamp. "These are great people. They work hard. They’re for you 100 percent."

President Donald Trump held a rally in North Dakota on Wednesday in support of tax reform. Liberal Senator Heidi Heidkamp flew with the Republican president to North Dakota for the event. President Trump won North Dakota in November 2016 by 36 points. At today’s tax reform rally President Trump called up the North Dakota lawmakers on stage and liberal Senator Heidkamp in a gesture of their support for tax reform. Trump said he hopes to have her support on tax reform.

President Donald Trump will speak Wednesday at a Mandan refinery, the White House said Monday. Trump’s speech, which is expected to be focused on tax reform, is scheduled for just after 3 p.m. Wednesday at the Andeavor refinery. Few other details about the president’s plans were known Monday. Air Force One is scheduled to arrive at Bismarck Municipal Airport at 2:40 p.m. Wednesday. The visit comes a week after the Republican president gave his first major speech on tax reform in Missouri, according to Reuters. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., who last week confirmed Trump’s visit, said the president is making...

There are new Senate ratings in five states. Updated bottom lines for these races are below. Our full ratings chart can be found here. 

As bad as things are for the GOP right now, remember that it’s even worse for Democrats. Case in point, the Cook Political Report just moved 4 2018 Senate races in the GOP’s direction:

North Dakota state Sen. Tom Campbell has decided to challenge Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp for her Senate seat, the state lawmaker confirmed Wednesday.  Campbell said he made his decision after months of consideration and traveling the state. “I just want to basically go to Washington and fight just like my dad did so my grandkids and kids can have the American Dream too,” Campbell said in a brief phone interview. He said his father was a pilot in World War II. Heitkamp, who was first elected in 2012, is one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats this cycle. President Donald Trump won her state by...

The father of a North Dakota man who marched in a white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, this past weekend has denounced his son's behavior, saying he "is not welcome at our family gatherings any longer." "I, along with all of his siblings and his entire family, wish to loudly repudiate my son's vile, hateful, and racist rhetoric and actions," Pearce Tefft, the father of Peter Tefft, wrote in a letter to the Fargo newspaper The Forum. "We do not know specifically where he learned these beliefs. He did not learn them at home."

A North Dakota woman has apologized after she berated three Somali women on camera, saying, “we’re going to kill every one of you Muslims.” Amber Hensley of Mapleton, N.D., was captured on camera Tuesday launching a verbal attack on a trio of Somali women who she claims parked their car too close to hers at Walmart. The video shows Hensley, a white woman, shout, “We’re going to kill you. We’re going to kill all of you f---ing Muslims.” “You’re a racist person, and I am not going back to my country,” Sarah Hassan, the woman filming, says. Finsbury Park van...

Two men who got into a heated confrontation during a North Dakota town hall for Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer had to be escorted from the event Thursday afternoon. Mr. Cramer faced a hostile crowd in Mandan during a question-and-answer session largely focused on his support for the American Health Care Act. Video from the event showed one man, identified by The Bismarck Tribune as Hazen resident Mike Quinn, angrily approaching Mr. Cramer and trying to shove a wad of bills into the congressman’s shirt collar. “If the health care is destroyed, do the rich get a tax break? Yes or...

Deer aren’t the slim, graceful vegans we thought they were. Scientists using field cameras have caught deer preying on nestling song birds. And it’s not just deer. Herbivores the world over may be supplementing their diets. When researchers in North Dakota set up “nest cams” over the nests of song birds, they expected to see a lot of nestlings and eggs get taken by ground squirrels, foxes, and badgers. Squirrels hit thirteen nests, but other meat-eaters made a poor showing. Foxes and weasels only took one nest each. Know what fearsome animal out-did either of those two sleek, resourceful predators?...

An American Muslim who open and concealed carries weapons got into trouble for a facebook live video.He filmed and posted the video outside of a Christian event that some called “anti-Muslim”. The event occurred on April 9th, 2017.Ehad Abdulmutta Jaber bought tickets for the event and was wearing the T-shirt pictured above. The Shirt says: I am an AmericanI am a MuslimI open carryI concealed carryI am only dangerousIf you are stupid. Ehad entered the event wearing the shirt and openly carrying a holstered pistol. He was concealed carrying another pistol in an ankle holster.  One account said he...

America's long war on fossil fuels is destroying the famed American prairie. According to a report by the Organic Consumers Association, 95% of the 240 million acres of prairie land that once blanketed the middle of our country, from Texas to North Dakota, already is gone. Only isolated pockets of prairie tall grass, some 35 million acres set aside for soil and wildlife conservation, remain. And that — largely in the Great Plains — is at risk of being destroyed. Among the factors most responsible for this tragic loss of our prairie heritage is the federal renewable fuel standard, a...