Free Republic

The GOP tax plan was passed through the Senate Friday night in a 51-49 vote. There are a number of things included in the last-minute text, including a provision by Sen. Gardner of Colorado that exempts Kombucha, a fermented tea drink, from alcoholic taxes and regulations. Why it matters: These are small examples of what got slipped in the bill last-minute as the Senate vote neared, and reveals some of the senators' pet projects back in their home states. Odd amendments included in the tax plan: Sen. Orrin Hatch Prohibit things like cash and gift cards to be given as...

Former Alaskan Governor and Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin says the illegal alien acquitted of fatally shooting 32-year-old Kate Steinle in the sanctuary city of San Francisco, California, in 2015, was given “more rights, grace and favor” than his victim and her family. ....In an interview with a local news station in 2015, Lopez-Sanchez confessed that he sought out San Francisco because it was a sanctuary city that would not deport him from the U.S. “Sanchez said he knew San Francisco was a sanctuary city where he would not be pursued by immigration officials,” the local report added. Members...

A controversial bill is currently working its way through city hall designed to regulate 'stop and go' liquor stores. One part of the bill would force business owners to take down bulletproof glass inside their stores. But at what cost to their safety? Broad Deli sits on the corner of the 2200 block of North Broad, inside a wall of bulletproof glass separates customers from workers.  "The most important thing is safety and the public's safety," owner Rich Kim said. Rich Kim's family has run the deli, which sells soda, snacks, meals and beer by the can for 20 years.  He says the glass...

Philadelphia, PA - Philadelphia councilwoman Cindy Bass has introduced a controversial bill that would require business owners to take down any bulletproof glass they have in their businesses, and not allow future installation. The bill, known as the Stop and Go bill, is moving through city hall, and reads "No establishment shall erect or maintain a physical barrier." Broad Deli is a local business on the corner of the 2200 block of North Broad. It has a wall of bulletproof glass separating its employees from customers. "The most important thing is safety and the public's safety," Rich Kim, the owner...

Controversial bill would force business owners to take down bulletproof glass controversial bill is currently working its way through city hall designed to regulate 'stop and go' liquor stores. One part of the bill would force business owners to take down bulletproof glass inside their stores. But at what cost to their safety? Broad Deli sits on the corner of the 2200 block of North Broad, inside a wall of bulletproof glass separates customers from workers. "The most important thing is safety and the public's safety," owner Rich Kim said. Rich Kim's family has run the deli, which sells soda,...

Philadelphia City Councilwoman Cindy Bass is pushing a controversial bill which would force business owners within the city to take down plexiglass from their establishments, Fox 29 reported. The bill is specifically designed to target convenient stores. Bass said this bill is about giving her constituents "dignity." According to Rich Kim, whose family has owned a deli in the area for the last 20 years, the plexiglass is about safety. "The most important thing is safety and the public's safety," Kim told Fox 29. "If the glass comes down, the crime rate will rise and there will be lots of...

(Spring Run) -- A construction worker was killed when his backhoe was struck by a car on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Fannett Township at 4:15 a.m. Oct. 10, according to Pennsylvania State Police in Newville. Police said Robert W. Marchetti, 63, of Drums, was driving the backhoe loader from the median to the south berm, at mile marker 197.4 between the Willow Hill and Blue Mountain interchanges, when the rear bucket was struck by a 2007 Volkswagen traveling east in the left lane. The driver of the car, Peter J. Awadallah, 21, of Jackson, N.J., and a passenger, were both...

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission authorized nearly $34 million in final design contracts Tuesday for an eight-mile stretch of the Mon-Fayette Expressway from Jefferson Hills to Duquesne. If final design goes as expected, construction could begin in 2022 for the first of three remaining segments needed to finish the last 14 miles of the highway from Jefferson Hills to the Parkway East in Monroeville at a projected cost of $2.1 billion. That’s more than the $1.68 billion cost of the first 60 miles of the highway, started more than 40 years ago in northern West Virginia. The commission’s action Tuesday increased...

Records shed more light on Elizabeth Warren’s minority status By Noah Bierman, Globe Staff A second law school, the University of Pennsylvania, has touted Elizabeth Warren as a minority faculty member in an official school publication, according to an online document obtained by the Globe. The University of Pennsylvania, where Warren taught at the law school from 1987 through 1995, listed her as a minority in a “Minority Equity Report” posted on its website. The report, published in 2005, well after her departure, included her as the winner of a faculty award in 1994. Her name was highlighted in bold,...

After two successful efforts to replace small bridges in 55 hours over one weekend, the Pennsylvania Turnpike says it is looking for more opportunities to use the fast-replacement approach. In late September, the turnpike was closed for a weekend between Cranberry and Beaver Valley to replace a bridge in New Sewickley Township. Crews built the new bridge directly beside the existing structure, demolished the old bridge and used paraffin to slide the new bridge across beams into place. Earlier this month, it replaced another bridge on the Northeast Extension in Lehigh County. In that case, sections of the new bridge...

Finding a pay phone along the Pennsylvania Turnpike is no easy task, with fewer than three dozen spread over the 360-mile span, plus its extensions. Soon, it will be impossible. “Slowly, we have been eliminating the pay phones as construction work takes place at the interchanges,” said Renee Colborn, a turnpike spokeswoman. “Approximately 15 pay phones have been eliminated this year, which leaves a total of 28 pay phones at various locations.”The culprit behind the pay phone's demise along the turnpike is the same as elsewhere: the cellphone. For that same reason, turnpike officials in September began removing more than...

Almost no matter what you build in Western Pennsylvania, you have to consider the possibility that in previous generations the site had been mined for coal. That’s especially true for the next leg of the Southern Expressway, a 13-mile, $700 million section being built along part of the Pittsburgh coal seam between Route 22 and Interstate 79 in western Allegheny and northern Washington counties. In the area around McDonald alone, where the highway will pass over Route 980 just outside the borough, at least 10 mines operated within two square miles between the mid-1860s and mid-1930s. Particularly in Western Pennsylvania,...

Philadelphia Democratic Mayor Jim Kenney said “so what” if a “clean” DREAM Act gives DREAMers the opportunity to provide their undocumented immediate relatives with a path to U.S. citizenship. ---SNIP--- Kenney said Rep. Pat Meehan (R-Pa.) and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) should vote for a clean DREAM Act as Irish-Americans. When President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals was rescinded in September, Toomey said, "Congress needs to pass legislation to accommodate these young people while simultaneously addressing the other challenges within our deeply broken immigration system, including stopping dangerous sanctuary cities, strengthening border security, and cracking down on companies that...

It has been 24 hours since news broke that Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Bob Brady is under FBI investigation for allegedly paying his primary opponent to drop out of the race, but CNN has published zero articles and devoted zero airtime to the story. The FBI was granted a search warrant for Brady’s campaign email, BobCongress@Aol.com, as part of its investigation into payments Brady’s campaign allegedly made to 2012 primary opponent Jimmie Moore. Two of Brady’s political consultants have already been charged in connection with the investigation. A search of CNN’s website shows the news outlet has yet to publish an...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The FBI has reason to believe U.S. Rep. Bob Brady unlawfully concealed a $90,000 payment made by his campaign to get an opponent to quit a 2012 primary race, according to court documents that confirm the Philadelphia Democrat is under investigation in a widening campaign finance probe. In unsealed court documents made public Monday, the FBI requested a search warrant and has obtained data from an email account belonging to Brady. The FBI agent who filed the warrant wrote that there is probable cause Brady violated contribution limits and produced false documents, and there is evidence that...

The Little Sisters of the Poor, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, asked the 19th Circuit Court of Appeals Monday to prevent California and Pennsylvania in their attempt to roll back President Trump’s October 6th broadening of religious exemptions for groups, like the Little Sisters, with religious and moral objections to covering contraception.California Attorney General Xavier Becerra sued the Trump administration immediately following the new religious exemptions to the Obamacare contraceptive mandate. The lawsuit claimed the rule change was unconstitutional because it targets and harms women by denying their Fifth Amendment rights to equal protection under the law...

Take a look at the picture at the start of this article. The one on the left is good ol' cannabis, the plant we know and love. The one on the right is kenaf hibiscus, a plant which is not marijuana. Could you tell the difference? Well, a Nationwide Insurance agent couldn't - or didn't want to. What followed was an arrest and a lawsuit. On Oct. 5, the agent spotted the hibiscus plants while investigating a fallen tree on the property of Buffalo Township, PA couple Edward and Audrey Cramer. He then told police they had marijuana on their...

A Buffalo Township couple is suing the township police and the Nationwide Insurance Co. after, their lawsuit says, hibiscus plants growing in their backyard were mistaken for marijuana plants. In a lawsuit, Edward Cramer, 69, and his wife, Audrey Cramer, 66, claim that Buffalo Township police handcuffed them both and made them sit in the back of a police car for hours last month as police ransacked their house looking for marijuana. But rather than running a pot-growing operation, the Cramers say they grow flowering hibiscus in their backyard. The Cramers were not charged. They filed a civil lawsuit Thursday...

Hey, Republicans! Did you enjoy Election Night last week? Get ready for a lot more nights like that as immigration turns every last corner of the country blue. When Ed Gillespie lost in Virginia, liberals crowed about how they're winning the war of ideas. The country has thoroughly, emphatically rejected Trumpism! Republicans, being idiots, played along, arguing only about whether Gillespie's problem was that he didn't embrace Trump enough or embraced him too much. Gillespie's campaign was fine. No cleverer arguments, community outreach or perfectly timed mailings would have changed the result. Contrary to The New York Times' celebratory article...

The presidents of three Pennsylvania colleges recently sent a letter to Congress criticizing the Republican tax reform plans, and one even called on students and faculty to do the same. The “tri-co” system is made up of three liberal arts colleges South of Philadelphia—Swarthmore College, Haverford College, and Bryn Mawr College. In their “letter to our elected officials in Washington,” the presidents of the three colleges argue that several provisions included in the House and Senate would “harm higher education in this country” by scaling back tax benefits.