Free Republic

The Senate today confirmed Brian Buescher, President Trump’s nominee to the U.S. District Court in Nebraska. Readers may recall that Senate Democrats attacked Buescher for his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic service organization. I wrote about this here. Sen. Kamala Harris was one of the Senators who led the charge against Buescher during his Committee hearing. His other main adversary was Sen. Mazie Hirono, one of the Senate’s dimmest members. Harris isn’t dim, but she’s a hard core leftist and an incorrigible opportunist. Thus, her suggestion that Buescher’s membership in the Knights of Columbus makes him unfit...

The rise of so-called “abortion reversal” bills has alarmed leading medical groups that say such legislation forces physicians to give misleading, unscientific and potentially dangerous advice to women, undermining the trusted doctor-patient relationship. So far this year, five states ― North Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Arkansas — have passed legislation mandating that physicians counsel women that a medication abortion, a safe and common method for ending a pregnancy before 10 weeks, can be reversed. Similar laws are already on the books in South Dakota, Utah and Idaho. Arkansas expanded an existing law.

Dear Amy: This week, I discovered that my intelligent, hard-working, responsible 24-year-old daughter (who lives with me) is a gun owner! And it’s not a normal gun, either — it is a 40-caliber semi-automatic, and she has hollow-point bullets to go with it. Amy, this is the kind of weapon a criminal would possess! She says it is for emergencies. There have only been two home invasions in our neighborhood in the last 11 years. I’ve given her three choices: She can either give her weapon to me, sell it or move out in three weeks. I love my daughter...

Chupacabra, like Bigfoot, is a fabled creature that Animal Planet describes as “a mix of vampire and marauding, furry lizard” first reported in Chile. Knowledge of the dog-like beast has spread in the United States via the nation’s growing South and Central American immigrant population. “No one has ever caught a Chupacabra, though plenty of eyewitnesses claim to have seen one,” Animal Planet says. Photos of the mysterious creature allegedly found in Ponca State Park began showing up June 4 on The Adventures Of Country Hunting & Fishing Facebook page. The post, which has gotten nearly 4,000 reactions, concluded by...

NEW YORK - Every hour that one of The Advance Group’s trucks is stuck in highway or bridge traffic, it costs the moving company around $200. And with 40 trucks trying to get into Manhattan daily and contending with the New York metro area’s deteriorating infrastructure, the price of lost time runs up quickly. “Getting to and from a job site is not really billable to a client,” says Anthony Parziale, president of The Advance Group, based in the suburb of Farmingdale.

LINCOLN, Neb. - A not-so-swift-minded suspect gave authorities a pseudonym Tuesday, forgetting he was wearing a lanyard with his real name on it, police said. Officers responded to a domestic assault call at 10:30 p.m. knowing they would be contacting Markel Towner, 26, who has two warrants for his arrest, police said. When investigators arrived, they found Towner seated in a vehicle out front of the house they were called to. When an officer asked his name he replied, “Deangelo Towns” although a lanyard around his neck read “Markel Towner.” After a brief struggle, Towner was taken into custody.

These Senate offices include Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX), who is up for re-election in Texas in 2020; Tom Cotton (R-AR), Susan Collins (R-ME), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Jim Risch (R-ID). Not one of those senators would publicly stand by Burr on Wednesday evening, when asked where they stand both on the subpoena and on whether Burr should remain chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Not only has the entire Senate Intelligence Committee GOP membership basically abandoned defending Burr publicly, it appears no Republicans anywhere have his back on this. What’s more, while Burr himself...

David’s family’s 80 acres of land was sold to a distant relative and the family’s property was gone. What they had spent decades building vanished in a split-second bank interaction. Throughout his life, David dreamed of somehow getting back the family’s land and rebuild their business. Several years after losing the family land, it suddenly appeared on auction. David and his father decided they would do their best to collect whatever modest means they had to try to get it back, reports goodnewsnetwork.com. They spent many days and sleepless nights trying to come up with every possible way to acquire...

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said in a recent appearance that he does not think religious beliefs interfere with a judge’s job, and criticized attempts by Democrats to impose “religious tests” on judicial nominees. Thomas, in remarks last week that were first reported by The Daily Caller, was asked about the 2017 confirmation hearing of Amy Coney Barrett where Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told the Catholic: “The dogma lives loudly within you and that’s a concern.” He was asked if religious convictions should be taken into consideration when lawmakers were considering a judicial pick. “I thought we got away from...

(WASHINGTON, D.C. – April 8, 2019) Tomorrow the House Oversight Committee, led by Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD), will conduct hearings on the interconnected challenges of solving climate change and protecting national security. With the Trump administration ignoring longstanding warnings from the military about the impact of a changing climate on defense infrastructure and the dangers of increased instability, it is a critically important area for investigation for the Congress. The hearing follows a letter by fifty-eight senior national security officials warning about the dangers of climate change. "For more than a decade, the Department of Defense has warned presidents from...

Bob Kerrey, the former Nebraska senator and governor, was always one of my favorite politicians in part because his politics weren’t perfectly polished. Among other free-wheeling moments, he called fellow Democrat Bill Clinton an “uncommonly good liar” and said a requirement for becoming president is that you must “want it more than life itself.” Kerrey moved on to academia and now to an investment bank, but hasn’t lost the willingness to break ranks with his party. The habit surfaces in a withering criticism of current Democrats, where he says they are suffering from two major “delusions.” “The first,” he writes...

Kathy Gonzalez knows that many people across the cornfields and cattle ranches of eastern Nebraska believe she is a murderer. It doesn’t change the fact that they owe her millions of dollars. Ms. Gonzalez was one of six innocent people who collectively spent 77 years in prison for the murder of a 68-year-old woman named Helen Wilson, whose death haunted this rural county for decades. Now, years after DNA evidence exonerated the defendants, they are about to collect a $28 million civil rights judgment against Gage County, which prosecuted them based on false confessions. But because the county has limited...

It would be no surprise that as a birth photographer, you’d be used to being a part of highly emotional moments in people’s lives. But the birth of little Uma Louise Dougherty-Eledge left one seasoned photographer an absolute mess — and the incredible images and the story behind them have since gone viral around the globe. “Being a part of this incredible journey has been one of the most magical experiences,” photographer Ariel Panowicz told Yahoo. Uma Louise was born Monday morning at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha to proud dads Matthew Eledge and Elliot Dougherty, who are married....

Kaya Jones, a former member of the Pussycat Dolls, claimed in a March 1 tweet that “every single Democrat that voted against the born alive bill received money from Planned Parenthood.” Verdict: True Of the 44 senators who voted against ending debate and proceeding to a vote on the Born Alive bill, 42 were Democrats – all of whom received funding from Planned Parenthood during their latest election cycle. Fact Check: The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act was introduced to the Senate on Jan. 31 by Republican Sen. Ben Sasse. The legislation came after a Virginia delegate faced backlash for...

WINSLOW, Neb./CHICAGO (Reuters) - Midwestern farmers have been gambling they could ride out the U.S.-China trade war by storing their corn and soybeans anywhere they could - in bins, plastic tubes, in barns or even outside. Now, the unthinkable has happened. Record floods have devastated a wide swath of the Farm Belt across Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and several other states. Early estimates of lost crops and livestock are approaching $1 billion in Nebraska alone. With more flooding expected, damages are expected to climb much higher for the region.

It may be one of the most important Air Force installations in the continental United States, but Offutt Air Force Base has proven no match for the full fury of the Missouri River.As record flooding swept through towns across the Midwest, floodwaters had swallowed at least thirty buildings at Offutt as of Sunday and damaged another 30, the 55th Wing announced, including the headquarters of the 55th Wing, 55th Security Forces Squadron, 97th Intelligence Squadron, and 343rd Reconnaissance SquadronAnd while the 55th Wing said that Air Force personnel worked round-the-clock to shore up facilities with 235,000 sandbags and 460 flood...

LINCOLN, Neb. -- NEMA said that the current public impact of flooding in Nebraska is $205,494,325 and the private impact is $59,745,590. There are also three known fatalities, according to the agency. One being the farmer who was killed trying to help someone, another from someone who was carried away after they drove into high water, an 80-year-old woman who couldn't be rescued and another person is missing from the Spencer Dam. The agency said there has also been a $400 million impact to livestock. This does not account for future losses because of delayed or canceled planting. FEMA individual...

There was no let up in sight for devastating floods across the U.S. Central Plains states that have already killed two people, torn apart homes and businesses and cut off small towns, forecasters said on Sunday. Water levels were expected to rise through the week, according to the National Weather Service, prompting evacuations in communities along the Missouri River on the Nebraska and Iowa border, as well as the Elkhorn and Platte rivers in Nebraska. “We’re looking at widespread flooding that continues until at least early next week in the Plains and Midwest region,” said meteorologist Marc Chenard with the...

As floodwaters continued to devastate parts of the state on Friday, communities north and northwest of the Omaha metro area have braced for more damage. Flooding has already been blamed for at least one death and two people are believed to be missing as of Friday afternoon. About a dozen injuries have been reported, including to first responders. Homes are underwater and roads impassable. People displaced by the waters have taken shelter in hospitals, schools and other community buildings. Residents across the region are being evacuated as levees break or rivers overflow their banks. Rita Argintean was one of many...

Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Kamala Harris (Calif.) have doubled down on their extreme stance on abortion, and Warren in particular has outright defended her vote against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which was defeated in the Senate on Monday in a 53-44 vote. The bill, sponsored by Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.), needed 60 votes to pass. “I think it’s up to a woman to make that decision, and I will always stand by that,” Harris told the Daily Caller on Wednesday, when asked if she believes abortion is immoral. “I think she needs to make that...