Free Republic

Patrol Officer Zach Ropos of Ohio spotted a little girl selling lemonade, and decided to grab a drink. He talked with the girl for a few minutes, heard what she had to say about why she was raising money, and went about his business. Ropos returned the very next day, and had this to say… “I talked to the little girl, gave her a speech about how courageous and admirable I think her efforts were to save up her money. I asked her how much she saved up, and she said she only had a few dollars.” Initially the girl...

To keep conservative rebels in check, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his allies have been doling out punishments at an aggressive clip in the 114th Congress. From kicking unruly members off the Rules Committee and GOP whip team to stripping a lawmaker of his subcommittee gavel, leadership has been growing more comfortable with taking retaliatory measures to try to enforce party discipline. But several Tea Party targets haven’t gone quietly. They’ve been fighting back with help from Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan’s conservative House Freedom Caucus, which successfully pressured leaders this week to return a subcommittee gavel to one of their...

Congressional Republicans say they are ready to welcome Pope Francis to Capitol Hill this fall — even if he uses part of his speech to challenge them on issues like climate change or income inequality.Francis’s climate change encyclical last week was just the latest example of his willingness to wade into contentious political debates, often with positions that seem to fall on the liberal side of the spectrum. ADVERTISEMENT The pope’s nods to progressive politics have put some Republicans in an awkward spot. While many are Catholic and conservative, they are loath to be seen as criticizing the head of...

House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) this past week again showed he will punish conservative House members for not supporting deals he strikes with President Obama and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). This does not bode well for the package of immigration bills to be debated on the House floor sometime after the July Fourth recess. House Republicans have been writing and “marking up” more than a dozen immigration bills over the past year, and Republican leaders have been promising a “package of little bills” as an alternative to the “comprehensive” bills favored by the amnesty lobby.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- An already long-shot effort to recall Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson was dealt a major blow on Wednesday after elections officials rejected more than 98 percent of the 12,887 signatures submitted by the group. Elections officials certified as valid only 260 signatures submitted by recall organizers on Saturday, the County Board of Elections said in a news release. The group needed 12,025 valid signatures from city residents who voted in the November 2013 election to force a recall election. The recall group, which calls itself the Cleveland: A Return to Excellence Committee, now has 20 days to attempt...

This is an interesting clip from Levin on ousting Boehner. Link to The Right Scoop

In what anti-abortion advocates called a “monumental” and “groundbreaking” move, Ohio’s Senate approved a bill Wednesday that would almost entirely ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy in a 23-9 vote. If the bill becomes law, the regulations would make Ohio one of the country’s strictest states for abortion access, abortion rights supporters say. “This is the most important piece of legislation Ohio Right to Life has passed in quite a long time,” the group’s President Mike Gonidakis said, adding he’d be “stunned” if the bill failed to pass the House. “This is a strategic step into hopefully some day...

For years, Chillicothe, Ohio, was known as just another notch on the Rust Belt, afflicted by the same old problems of drugs, poverty and unemployment. If the town ever made national news, it was because a presidential candidate stopped by vowing to fix things, only for those promises to evaporate after Election Day. But in the past couple of months, Chillicothe has crept back into headlines for something other than a stump speech. Something much darker. Something evil. Chillicothe is no longer just another Rust Belt town. Now it’s the place where women go missing and wash up dead. In...

Amir Said Abdul Rahman Al-Ghazi, previously known as Robert C. McCollum, was arrested by the FBI June 19 on charges that he supported ISIS, a terrorist organization. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Sheffield Lake man facing terrorism charges told a FBI informant that if war broke out in the U.S. between Muslims and non-Muslims, he would "cut off the head of his non-Muslim son if necessary," according to a criminal complaint. Amir Said Abdul Rahman Al-Ghazi's comment about his son is revealed in the 33-page complaint filed Friday by the FBI in U.S. District Court. The complaint also states that when...

Finding that the state had “exceeded its constitutional authority,” a Lucas County judge ruled Friday that Toledo’s only remaining abortion clinic may keep its doors open. Common Pleas Judge Myron Duhart found that Capital Care Network may continue to operate its West Toledo clinic, concluding that Ohio’s law requiring abortion clinics to have transfer agreements with “local” hospitals was unconstitutional. RELATED: Read the text of Judge Duhart’s ruling The 30-page ruling, which reversed a previous decision by the Ohio Department of Health to close the clinic, was hailed as a victory by abortion-rights advocates and attorneys for Capital Care. “They’re...

Hillary Clinton has relaunched her campaign on Roosevelt Island with a 4,687-word speech. But it's not clear whether she and her husband, Bill Clinton, can win four presidential elections as Franklin D. Roosevelt did. Negative news for Clinton's prospects comes in the latest Quinnipiac polls in the key mega-states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In each of them, she leads or ties Republican opponents, though in many cases not by statistically significant margins. But she also is running under 50 percent of the vote in every pairing, averaging 47 percent against six different Republicans in Florida, 44 percent against seven...

Two Republican presidential candidates will campaign in Northwest Iowa through Friday. Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, has set Thursday events at a Rock Rapids bank at 8 a.m. and a Sioux Center business at 9:30 a.m. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas will be in Sheldon and Pierson on Friday. Cruz will hold a traditional town hall meeting at 1 p.m. at the Sheldon Community Services Center. The 7 p.m. event will be more folksy, with a preceding suppertime pork picnic and live band at the Pierson city park and ball field. State Sen. Bill Anderson will participate in that...

Ohio Governor John Kasich is still officially unofficially running for President, at least until next month when he plans on making it officially official. But in the intervening time, it seems that he’s running into some headwinds when it comes to donors who have long since committed their resources to one of the candidates who got into the starting blocks early. (In the case of Kasich, he’s looking mostly to tap Jeb Bush’s donor pool.) And with the lack of results has come what appears to be a sense of desperation. (Politico) Sensing the window of opportunity is closing, John...

(Cincinnati, OH)--A man who told police he "hates white people" is accused of pushing a female jogger into traffic and pulling a knife on her.

Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the funding arm of the political network backed by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, wants a lot more hard information from the crowded field of presidential contenders before deciding what to do with its considerable resources. The group is pressing every 2016 candidate to detail on the record their plans for economic growth, deficit reduction, entitlement reform, criminal justice and even foreign policy. The tax-exempt entity, a key node in a constellation of conservative entities that aims to spend $889 million before the next White House election, distributed a detailed survey Thursday to...

Donald Trump, the bombastic builder of Trump towers and Trump gambling casinos, is moving from his reality TV show to the theater of presidential elections. If he survives the first three months of mass media drubbing him and his notorious affliction of ‘leaving no impulsive opinion behind,’ he’s going to be trouble for the other fifteen or so Republican presidential candidates. Already the commentators have derided his massive egotitis – he said “I” 195 times in his announcement speech, not counting the 28 times he said “my” or “mine” or the 22 mentions of “me.” But Trump revels in self-promotion...

Karen Finley, former CEO of the Phoenix-based Redflex Traffic Systems, pleaded guilty today in federal court to an eight-year bribery-and-fraud scheme that helped the company retain photo-enforcement contracts with two Ohio cities. Finley, 55, of Cave Creek, pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Terence P. Kemp of the Southern District of Ohio to a charge of "conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery and honest services wire and mail fraud," the U.S. Department of Justice announced this morning. She resigned from the company in 2013 after the corruption scheme was alleged by a whistle-blower. Top executives in Redflex's Australian-based parent company,...

<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tensions are building inside and outside the white marble facade of the U.S. Supreme Court building as the nine justices prepare to issue major rulings on gay marriage and President Barack Obama's healthcare law by the end of the month.</p>

FAIRFIELD —Two adults and two youths have been cited after an incident Tuesday evening at the Fairfield Aquatic Center. Fairfield police declined to discuss the incident on camera, but according to a report obtained by WLWT, the incident started when aquatic center employees asked some children to leave the pool because of their behavior. The children told the park ranger their mom said they didn't have to leave, the report states. Police said that is when one of the mothers aggressively confronted the ranger and then pushed an officer. Police wrote in the report, that another adult then began striking...

While friends were commenting on his last ever Facebook post Friday, Trepierre Hummons called 911 -- then waited with a gun for officers to arrive, Cincinnati police said. In his bid to commit suicide by cop, he fatally shot Officer Sonny Kim, 48, a husband and father of three, police said. Then he opened fire on two more officers, said Police Chief Jeffery Blackwell. When Hummons, 21, called the emergency operator, he didn't let on what he was planning. Instead he pretended to be a concerned witness who saw a man acting erratically with a gun, according to 911 and...