Free Republic

On July 4, 1960, the Eugene (Ore.) Register-Guard rang in Independence Day with a dire Associated Press report by one Norma Gauhn headlined “American Dialects Disappearing.” The problem, according to “speech experts,” was the homogenizing effect of “mass communications, compulsory education, [and] the mobility of restless Americans.” These conformist pressures have only intensified in the half-century since the AP warned “that within four generations virtually all regional U.S. speech differences will be gone.” And so as we enter the predicted twilight of regional American English, it’s no surprise that publications as venerable as the Economist now confirm what our collective...

COLUMBUS — A motorist accused of striking and killing a road construction worker from Barnesville while driving on Interstate 70 in Franklin County last year was sentenced to five years in prison after entering an Alford plea to aggravated vehicular homicide and operating a vehicle while under the influence. Edward Torres, 31, of South Solon, was sentenced to five years on the aggravated vehicular homicide charge and 180 days on the OVI charge with the sentences to be served concurrently for a total of five years in prison. Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Charles Schneider also suspended Torres’ driver’s...

mass shooting of congressional Republicans... many lawmakers are mad, or frustrated, or saddened, at how quickly the story disappeared from the headlines given that the shooter, James T. Hodgkinson, targeted Republicans... Hodgkinson carried a list of names of lawmakers in his pocket: ... The list included their office numbers and short physical descriptions. He’d recorded video of the field in April of of that year — a sign, the prosecutor wrote in his official report, that Hodgkinson “had already selected Simpson field as a potential target as early as April 2017.” His social media was filled with Bernie and anti-Republican...

TOLEDO, Ohio — Fresh off a victory in Ohio’s primary election, the Democratic nominee for the state’s top office is reaching out to supporters of outgoing Republican Gov. John Kasich, whose policies have alienated many GOP supporters in recent years. Democrat Richard Cordray, who led the federal consumer protection bureau under President Barack Obama, pledged in a video his campaign released Friday that he’ll maintain Kasich’s expansion of Medicaid and the state’s privatized economic development office, which critics say lacks accountability. “Gov. Kasich recently said he’s worried about two issues: Medicaid expansion and JobsOhio. So this message is for Ohioans...

Protests by environmentalists against hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) have been going on for years now, along with the Hollywood efforts of serial fabulists such as Josh Fox. One of the biggest concerns surrounding the process is the possibility of contamination of groundwater. While a previous study in Pennsylvania by the state Department of Environmental Protection revealed zero instances of this happening (except for surface spills during transport of hydraulic fluids), critics discounted the study and the protests continued. Now a different study conducted in Ohio on the Utica shale play has been completed and published. They were looking for evidence...

The University of Cincinnati suspended a female student for allegedly engaging in nonconsensual sex with a male student who claimed he was too drunk at the time to approve the encounter. The fact that this case involves a male accuser ("John Doe") and a female aggressor ("Jane Roe") makes it unusual among Title IX complaints. (Title IX is the federal statute that forbids sex discrimination in schools.) But the female student's lawsuit against Cincinnati—which accuses the university of violating her due process rights—reveals something even odder: Roe had previously filed a sexual misconduct complaint against one of Doe's friends. Roe's...

Tuesday’s Republican and Democratic primaries in West Virginia, Indiana, Ohio and North Carolina provided some clues about what to expect in the upcoming November midterm elections – including warning signs for Democrats. In West Virginia, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey emerged as the Republican senatorial nominee in a contentious primary marked by the unusual candidacy of the controversial former coal executive Don Blankenship. Blankenship was convicted and sent to prison for a year for his role in a coal mine explosion that killed 29 workers in 2010. The surprising popularity of Blankenship in pre-election polling – despite his loss Tuesday –...

A former consumer watchdog under President Barack Obama pushed into the final days of an unexpectedly close Democratic gubernatorial primary in Ohio against an ex-congressman with a catchy populist slogan. In final ads headed into Tuesday’s primary, Democrat Richard Cordray used his wife, Peggy, to lovingly push back against the perception that he’s a bore. The spots emphasized the 59-year-old Cordray’s intellect and work for everyday Americans as head of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Ohio attorney general. Former U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, 71, has challenged Cordray for supporting gun rights and campaigned to his left on such...

SNIP Tuesday night’s primary election results in Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia provided a major lift to the GOP’s likelihood of maintaining the Senate. In Indiana, Mike Braun, a pro-Trump businessman, capitalized on his grassroots support to defeat two sitting U.S congressmen in order to challenge Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) in the fall. Congressman James Renacci (R) won his primary in Ohio in decisive fashion in order to take on Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). And perhaps most importantly, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey pulled off a major upset in a three-way race, defeating the ever-controversial Don Blankenship, guaranteeing a...

.DEVELOPING… The Fox News Decision Desk can now project that Ohio Congressman Jim Renacci, who has been endorsed by President Trump, will defeat businessman Mike Gibbons in the Buckeye State’s Republican Senate Primary. Renacci will advance to challenge incumbent Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown in November.

Keep checking back here for the results of the races you care about. Remember, you won't start seeing election results until the polls close at 7:30 PM on Tuesday, May 8th. Use the search bar below to filter results.

The founding document of Alcoholics, Anonymous, known to adherents as the "Big Book," sold at auction Saturday for $2.4 million to billionaire and Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay. The auction house Profiles in History announced the sale of the manuscript with handwritten notes from the group's founding fathers. Irsay told The Associated Press he plans to build a special display for the manuscript and display it for several months a year at Alcoholics Anonymous' headquarters in New York. He says he attempted to buy the manuscript when it was up for auction several years ago, and he is thrilled at...

President Donald Trump said Saturday “we want to make everything here” as he promoted his “America First” agenda during an appearance in Cleveland, days before the state’s primary election. Trump spent several hours in Ohio meeting with supporters and participating in a roundtable designed to highlight the benefits of the new Republican tax law. Striking a celebratory tone, Trump listed his poll numbers and recounted the successes of his first year in office. He also looked ahead to his meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. “We have the time and place all finished,” Trump said, but he wouldn’t predict...

The head of a government ethics organization accused House Republican Jim Jordan of Urbana of helping President Donald Trump “thwart” Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether Trump aides in 2016 colluded with Russian officials to damage the presidential campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21 in Washington, charged that by threatening articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for refusing to turn over to Congress documents about the investigation, Jordan, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-S.C., and Trump are “colluding to obstruct and potentially give” the White House control of the probe. Melika...

When this election cycle began, handicappers repeatedly pointed out that 10 Democratic Senate incumbents from states carried by Donald Trump would be on the ballot in 2018. That count was accurate, and the point behind it obvious — Republicans had a long list of opportunities. But now even the most partisan Republicans are acknowledging that the list of serious targets is shrinking to five or six states. Indiana, Missouri, West Virginia, North Dakota and Florida are certainly in play, but how are the other competitive Senate races holding up?

Mike DeWine, a GOP primary candidate for the Ohio gubernatorial race, agreed to attend a 2006 fundraiser with members of a local mosque that was tightly tied to a militant Egypt-born Islamic cleric. Internet archives show that the Noor Islamic Culture Center in Dublin, Ohio, said on its website: On Teusady, April 18Th, Senator Mike DeWine had the opportunity to meet with rpresentative members of NOOR community. They discussed several issues that interst our community. The archives show that the mosque’s website posted several pictures of the fundraiser:

“Heart of Nuba” is a critically acclaimed film documenting in microcosm the horrific – but largely unremarked – outrage of our time: the brutal persecution of an estimated 215 million Christians around the world. The film reveals the plight of the people of the Nuba Mountains in Sudan and American Dr. Tom Catena who has, for over a decade, been heroically caring for these latest victims of genocidal attacks by the Sharia-supremacist Sudanese government of Omar al-Bashir. There’s a screening of Heart of Nuba in Washington, D.C. tonight. It would be good if former House Speaker John Boehner would attend....

Richard Cordray speaks softly and carries a big stack: lime-green index cards, pressed into his shirt pocket, near enough for any sudden onset of note-taking. A former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, he has been endorsed in his bid for Ohio governor by Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has told him he needs to learn how to brag more. “I am pretty good at getting back people’s money,” Mr. Cordray managed before an outdoor crowd of dozens here recently. Polite applause followed. He is trying. Dennis Kucinich speaks until someone interrupts him — and even this is often insufficient...

Sunday on MSNBC’s “Kasie DC,” Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) left the door open on another run for president. “[A]ll of my options are on the table,” Kasich said of a potential 2020 run. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I have no clue. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I current job.” Kasich ran in 2016 for the Republican nod but came up short in that bid to eventual President Donald Trump.

Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich expressed frustration with the current state of the Republican and Democratic parties Sunday amid rumors that he could pursue a 2020 presidential run. "I'm still a Republican. I didn't leave the Republican Party. The Republican Party left me," Kasich said on CNN's "State of the Union." "In my state we have balanced budgets, surplus, we're up half a million jobs and then people say, 'Well Kasich's not a conservative.' What does that mean?" "Come home to where we basically live," the 2016 presidential candidate added. "We should care about people from top to bottom, not...