Free Republic

It might be fun to poke fun at Texas Senator and GOP Presidential candidate Ted Cruz for signing up for Obamacare but he is far from alone. As a matter of fact some other top GOP candidates for the 2016 Republican nomination are right there with Cruz. In fact almost every member of the House and the Senate who have voted over 50 times to repeal Obamacare are enrolled in the plan. It is important to be clear there is no such thing as being “on Obamacare.” It’s not an insurance plan, or a single program like Medicare or Social...

MANCHESTER, UK – House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and a delegation of senior House lawmakers visited the North of England on Friday to meet with Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and discuss opportunities to deepen the economic and security ties between the US and the UK. Chancellor Osborne hosted the delegation for a working lunch at Peover Hall, which General George Patton and the Third Army used during World War II to plan and train for the Normandy breakout. There, participants had a fruitful discussion on the state of the British economy, our shared efforts to defeat ISIL, and...

Remember when a disagreement between Republicans on the budget was “cataclysmic” for GOP claims to governance? Democrats last passed a normal budget resolution six years ago, but Republicans went all of seven days before both chambers finally passed budget resolutions. Our long national nightmare, at least as envisioned by Politico, is over: The Senate passed a Republican-authored budget plan early on Friday that seeks $5.1 trillion in domestic spending cuts over 10 years while boosting military funding.The 52-46 vote on the non-binding budget resolution put Congress on a path to complete its first full budget in six years. It...

“I am a servant of the Lord. I am a servant of the Lord. He has opened doors all of my life. The Lord has. He has pushed me over the mountain this time. I don’t know why, but I have no doubt that he has.” Ted Cruz could not have said it better during the official launch of his presidential campaign on Monday. He could not have said it at all, in fact, because uttering those words would have made him guilty of plagiarism. They were spoken by Ohio Gov. John Kasich during his first inaugural address in 2011....

Speaker of the House says he received no information from Israel on nuclear talks as was suggested in 'Wall Street Journal' report. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Tuesday that he was "shocked" and "baffled" by a Wall Street Journal report published Tuesday morning that claimed Israel had spied on US nuclear talks with Iran, collecting information that was used to lobby him and his colleagues in Congress to drum up opposition to an emerging nuclear deal. "I'm not sure what the information was, but I'm baffled by it," Boehner told reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. "No information [was]...

The Ohio Senate just passed legislation that would require oversight and fee limitations when the state Attorney General hires private attorneys on contingency fee. Where other government-hired servicers are required to submit public proposals and bid for contracts, attorneys have long been able to sidestep this transparency and strike deals out of the public eye. The Ohio legislation, similar to the ALEC Private Attorney Retention Sunshine Act, would put an end to this discrepancy. Since the tobacco litigation of the 1990’s, private attorneys have brought innovative litigation to Attorneys General offices seeking to bring their lawsuits with state authority and...

Move to eliminate all U.S. funding for diplomacy with Iran Congressional leaders have begun pressuring their colleagues to cut off all U.S. funding for the ongoing talks with Iran over its contested nuclear program as the Obama administration rushes to hash out the details of a deal in the coming months, according to multiple sources and a letter that will be sent next week to appropriators in the House of Representatives. With the deadline approaching, congressional Republicans have been exasperated by the Obama administration’s efforts to prevent them from having any oversight over the deal.

New York City television anchor and Strongsville native Lisa Colagrossi died Friday after suffering a brain aneurysm a day earlier. Colagrossi, 49, who anchored weekend morning news for NBC station WKYC-TV (Channel 3) in Cleveland in the early 1990s, became ill while on a reporting assignment for WABC-TV. She was also a morning anchor for the station. The station confirmed her death early Saturday in a lengthy tribute. Earlier, a Twitter post by anchor Sade Baderinwa said "hearts are broken" at the station over Colagrossi's death.

House Speaker John Boehner showed up President Barack Obama earlier this month by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to urge Congress against a nuclear deal with Iran. Now, with negotiations stalling over the timing of sanctions relief and centrifuge development, the GOP leader is setting the stage to do it again. Boehner (R-Ohio) is expected lead a group of lawmakers to Israel at the end of March, a trip that could coincide with the March 31 deadline to get a framework agreement in place, according to reports. Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith confirmed the visit and said it was planned...

Trip was arranged before election but is likely to be a 'victory celebration' for Netanyahu and Obama's arch rival. Speaker of the United States House of Representatives John Boehner is expected to visit Israel in about a week. Boehner, a member of the Republican Party, is U.S. President Barack Obama’s arch rival and the man who invited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make his controversial speech in Congress. Senior Israeli officials who asked to remain anonymous said Boehner will begin his visit, which has not yet been announced publicly, on March 31, heading a delegation of Republican Congress members. The...

COLLEGE HILL, OH - A College Hill, Ohio woman is accused of beheading her infant daughter, a source close to the investigation told WCPO. Deasia Watkins, 20, is charged with aggravated murder in connection with the death of her 3-month-old girl, according to police.

DAYTON -- Imagine never knowing who your biological parents are, or where you came from. That is the reality for 400K people born in Ohio from the mid 1960's until 1996. Their birth records have been sealed, until this Friday. The law originally passed in 1963 was designed to give birth parents some protection, and it was heavily supported by the adoptive parents. But fast forward 50 years, and attitudes have changed. "I've always known that I was adopted... and I've always known that I wanted to find my birth parents," said Beth Miller who described her childhood as ordinary...

If two people are equally unable to give consent, but have sex anyway, should either be charged with a crime? It's a question that many college administrators wrestle with when drugs and alcohol are factors in sexual assault disputes. The verdict often seems to be that male students are uniquely responsible for ascertaining that their sexual partners are in a state of mind to consent, even when the female is the initiator and both are intoxicated.

WICKLIFFE, Ohio -- A 17-year-old Euclid boy used a toy gun to try to rob a woman delivering the mail Tuesday morning, police said. The boy approached the mail carrier near the corner of Bryn Mawr Avenue and Parkwood Drive about 10:20 a.m., pulled out what appeared to be a revolver and demanded money, according to a police report. A passerby who didn't realize the teen was trying to rob the mail carrier approached the woman to give her a letter, according to the report. The passerby scared the teen, and the boy fled. The mail carrier told a 911...

Forty-three years ago, in 1972, the Ohio state government imposed a progressive personal income tax. This move was an ill-conceived plan that intended to pay for capital projects and education and shifted income tax burden away from business and onto individuals. The reasoning was that reducing the income tax burden on the business community would forestall the migration of businesses out of the state. However, reality proved otherwise, with billions of dollars and thousands of residents leaving the Buckeye State for more promising environments. Governor John Kasich will attempt to stem this outbound tide, and his tax plan makes clear...

Forty-seven Senate Republicans are signaling in an open letter to Iran and the White House that a deal over Tehran’s nuclear program will be at risk once President Obama leaves office. “It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system,” the senators wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Bloomberg. “Thus, we are writing to bring to your attention two features of our Constitution — the power to make binding international agreements and the different character of federal offices — which you should seriously...

I thought FReepers might want to see these tests for themselves. The link and instructions are in the first comment. I also included the link to Ohio's AIR social studies and science tests. Freshmen have missed seven school days to take these tests, and they will miss more for final testing the end of April and the beginning of May.

A question I often am asked is: "Who would you bet on to win the presidency?" Personally, I don't bet on politics, but here's my current take on the 2016 presidential race—with, of course, the caveat that we don't know which campaigns will turn out the best in terms of organization, strategy, tactics, or execution, much less which candidates will step on land mines along the way. The Democratic nomination appears fairly straightforward. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is now the prohibitive favorite. If her early stumbles during her book tour, or remarks like the one she made about...

By Joel Leyden Israel News AgencyJerusalem, Israel — March 7, 2015 … US President Barack Obama spoke today in Selma, Alabama. Obama marked 50 years since 600 protesters speaking out against discrimination and demanding greater freedom and security faced off with Alabama state police . The same Barack Obama used every PR asset in his office to silence Jews who arrived in Washington 4 days ago. Jews who came to protest against a terror state – Iran – which is developing a nuclear weapon. Iran which has vowed to annihilate every Jew in Israel. Obama called upon his Vice President...

A man accused of plotting to attack the U.S. Capitol called a television station from jail and said if he hadn’t been arrested, he would have gone to Washington and shot President Barack Obama in the head. WXIX-TV in Cincinnati said Christopher Lee Cornell called it from the Kentucky jail where he’s being held, confessed to being a supporter of the Islamic State group and said he planned to kill government officials in retaliation for U.S. strikes on the militant organization. […] Cornell, asked by the interviewer what he would have done had he not been arrested in January, said...