Free Republic

Twelve states filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration on Friday seeking to block an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to regulate coal-fired power plants in an effort to stem climate change. The plaintiffs are led by West Virginia and include states that are home to some of the largest producers of coal and consumers of coal-fired electricity. The suit was filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The other plaintiffs are Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming. The E.P.A. rule, announced by President Obama on June...

Some of the immigrant children crossing the border say they are being subjected to abusive and inhumane treatment in U.S. Border Patrol stations in South Texas. This includes frigid holding rooms, sleep deprivation, verbal and psychological abuse, inadequate food and water, denial of medical care, and worse. Dozens of children have come forward to make complaints against Customs and Border Protection officers. The agency responds that any complaints are the result not of mistreatment, but of its stations being overwhelmed by the surge of minors.Inside 'Las Hieleras' The complaints center on what happens inside the group holding cells that immigrants...

A relative of an elderly Omaha woman who was raped and killed last year said Saturday that the brutal crime may have been prevented if the United States strictly enforced immigration laws. “What we’d like to have is the federal government to secure our borders,” said Bill Hartzell, 60, of Council Bluffs. “There’s a chance my grandmother would be still alive if our borders were secured.” Hartzell is the husband of Teresa Hartzell, a granddaughter of 93-year-old Louise Sollowin. Sollowin died three days after Sergio Martinez- Perez, a Mexico native in the U.S. illegally, broke into her South Omaha home,...

Sen. Deb Fischer supports increased sanctions against Russia in wake of the downing of a Malaysian commercial flight over Ukraine. Fischer acknowledges much isn’t yet known about the doomed flight, except that it was shot down by a missile fired from territory occupied by pro-Russia separatists. Fischer says the U.S. must go beyond sanctions and lend support to Ukraine. “I believe our goal must be to help the Ukrainians regain control of their country and that means providing them with assistance and holding Russia accountable for its actions,” Fischer tells Nebraska reporters during a conference call. Accident investigators have yet...

To help handle a recent spike in migrant traffic on the Southwest border, federal immigration officials are stepping up transfers of detainees to some jails farther inland, including Nebraska. On June 30, for example, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement chartered a flight from San Antonio for 73 people taken into custody at the border. Their destination: Omaha — specifically, the Douglas County Correctional Center downtown.

LINCOLN, Neb. (CBSDC/AP) — Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman believes federal authorities are conducting secret operations by sending immigrant children into states without the knowledge of state officials. Heineman told Fox News he learned from Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., that 200 unaccompanied immigrant children were placed with relatives or sponsors in the state. Heineman says no federal officials notified them that would be happening. “We want to know the names of those individuals, who their sponsor is. Is their sponsor legal? What communities did you send them to? Why are they conducting a secret operation, essentially, transporting them all over the...

This is heinous— a betrayal so blatant of American values so fundamental I have trouble wrapping my mind around it: The U.S. Department of Justice has joined the discussions over a controversial float in the Norfolk Independence Day parade. The department sent a member of its Community Relations Service team, which gets involved in discrimination disputes, to a Thursday meeting about the issue. Also at the meeting were the NAACP,

Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman (R) pressed the Obama administration Monday to give him the names of nearly 200 children in his state who had been apprehended entering the country illegally. "We want to know the names of those individuals, who their sponsor is, is their sponsor legal, what communities did you send them to," Heineman said. "Why are they conducting a secret operation essentially — transporting them all over the country, and now we learn to Nebraska, and the federal government won't tell us what is going on." The governor said on "Fox and Friends" that he learned from Nebraska...

A man who spent nearly 20 years locked in a state psychiatric ward in Lincoln is suing doctors for malpractice, saying he was never mentally ill during his time there. He was sent to the Lincoln Regional Center that year. For the next 20 years, regional center doctors and others involved in Montin's treatment relied on information from initial police reports that said Montin was delusional, rather than court records that showed otherwise. But last year, a regional center psychiatrist found that it was medicine Montin had taken for his injured back that had led to a medication-induced psychosis. When...

Four representatives of the NAACP and the U.S. Department of Justice met with Norfolk Mayor Sue Fuchtman Thursday to talk about a controversial float in the Fourth of July parade. The meeting included the mayor, city administrator Shane Weidner and members of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, which organized the parade. The Justice Department official is a member of the Community Relations Service team that handles discrimination disputes. The float in question depicted a distraught looking mannequin in overalls in front of an outhouse with the words Obama Presidential Library on the side. "The state area NAACP has received...

LINCOLN, Neb. — Nebraska Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Johanns said Thursday about 200 undocumented children have been placed in Nebraska after arriving at the U.S. Border, most of them from Central America. Johanns’ office said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials said during a June 27 conference call that a number of months ago, about 200 children were placed with families or sponsors in Nebraska, often after turning themselves into the U.S. Border Patrol and released under light supervision while awaiting deportation hearings. He said that number could be higher than 200, since it changes often.

Democrats in Nebraska say the Obama Outhouse float was disrespectful and racist. The popular depicted a figure standing outside an outhouse labeled the “Obama Presidential Library.” (Omaha.com) Angry Democrats in Nebraska said the Obama Outhouse float in the 4th of July parade may be racist. CBS News reported: A Fourth of July parade float in Nebraska that showed a dummy standing outside an outhouse labeled “Obama Presidential Library” is drawing cries of racism from local residents and the Nebraska Democratic Party. The float, in the annual Independence Day parade in Norfolk, Neb., was affixed to trailer being towed behind a...

A Fourth of July parade float that depicted a figure standing outside an outhouse labeled the “Obama Presidential Library” has created a stir on social media and is also receiving criticism in Norfolk, Nebraska. The float, in Norfolk’s annual Independence Day parade, was on a flatbed trailer being pulled by a blue pickup truck. The figure was dressed in overalls and standing next to a walker outside of the outhouse. The hands and head of the figure were greenish and appeared to be zombielike; the hands were pressed against the sides of the figure’s head. Miniature American flags were atop...

Daniel Freeman's Homestead certificate dated May 20, 1862. It's a task that would give even the most dedicated librarian gray hair: digitizing 30 million homesteading documents from 30 states.Where to start?How about Nebraska? Where 45 percent of all land was given to homesteaders -- the largest percentage of land distributed by any of the 30 states under the Homestead Act of 1862.A consortium including the Center for Great Plains Studies, Homestead National Monument of America, Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, National Archives and Records Administration, plus several private family history companies, began the daunting task five years ago.On...

Mississippi Tea Party dreams were extirpated last week when State Senator Chris McDaniel lost his Republican primary bid to unseat Senator Thad Cochran. Yet if some of Mr. McDaniel’s most outspoken contemporaries are any guide, he may actually have greater political influence as a loser. Mr. McDaniel made clear this week that he was not giving up the fight, dashing off fund-raising emails declaring Mississippi’s Republican Senate runoff “a sham, plain and simple,” and offering rewards to individuals who “provide evidence leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in voter fraud.” “Thanks to illegal voting from liberal Democrats,...

IOWA CITY (AP) — Two federal judges from Iowa have announced plans to retire next year, and outgoing U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin is calling for the White House to appoint their replacements “as quickly as possible,” the Democrat’s office said Monday.

Crescent Point’s Torquay Discovery Reignites Southeast Saskatchewan. Just when you thought The Bakken couldn’t get any better—it does. Oil producers are now “cracking the code” on the Torquay, or Three Forks formation below the Bakken, and coming up with incredible economics—these wells are paying back in only seven months. This news has completely re-invigorated the Canadian side of the Bakken. And on the US side, the Three Forks is causing industry to leap-frog estimates of the amount of recoverable oil available–by about 57%! It’s hard to imagine that the #1 oil play in all of North America could have such...

A photo snapped just minutes after two tornadoes wreaked havoc on Pilger, Nebraska, Monday has led to intense debate, causing some to wonder whether storm-chasing photojournalist Mark “Storm” Farnik acted unethically in photographing a little girl who was gravely injured. Calista Dixon, 5, was found crushed under the weight of her family’s mobile home. As Farnik watched paramedics carry her body on a stretcher as she barely clung to life, he snapped pictures, later selling one to the Associated Press (which published the picture), among other outlets (see the heartbreaking photo here). Farnik said Dixon looked as though she had...

PILGER, Neb. — Shock and grief gave way to hard work Wednesday in Pilger as crews began removing what the tornado left behind. Only about 350 people live in the town where an estimated 80 percent of buildings were leveled or damaged beyond repair Monday. But on Wednesday — the first day people other than residents were allowed into the affected areas — 1,800 people registered as volunteers and came to lend a hand. Some came with no connection to the town, but many others were family and friends of Pilger residents, or neighbors who had been spared.

The U.S. Senate Energy Committee advanced a bill on Wednesday that would force congressional approval of TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline project, but the measure seems unlikely to be taken up by the full Senate. The bill, the latest effort by lawmakers to breathe life into the long-delayed pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast, will languish without a commitment from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring it to a vote. The measure, from Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Republican Senators John Hoeven of North Dakota and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, would take a decision...