Free Republic

The Alabama Senate special election certainly isn’t a toss-up, but the possibility that former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore might become the Republican nominee creates the potential for a Democratic upset.

Diane Hendricks and her late husband saw opportunity in Beloit, a decaying industrial town. Now, she dreams of turning it into a mecca for start-ups. When Diane Hendricks sees something she doesn’t like here, she buys it. A bankrupt country club. A half-empty mall. Abandoned buildings. The rusting foundry down by the river. Beloit used to be a town that made papermaking machines and diesel engines. Ms. Hendricks thinks it can be a place where start-ups create the next billion-dollar idea, and she is remaking the town to fit her vision. She can do so because she is the second-richest...

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Bragging about keeping his promises on immigration, the economy, the environment and crime, President Trump celebrated on Thursday with a raucous West Virginia crowd as the state’s Democratic governor announced that he will switch to the Republican Party. With Gov. Jim Justice by his side, Mr. Trump hailed stock market records and the growth of coal income in West Virginia. And he delivered a lengthy critique of the federal investigations of his campaign’s ties to Russia, calling the matter “a fake story that is demeaning to all of us.”

Far be it from us to throw shade on your home sweet home, but the data does not lie. The Quality of Life category in our annual America's Top States for Business study ranks all 50 states on overall livability based on metrics, including crime rate, attractions, air quality, health and health care and legal protections against discrimination... 10. KENTUCKY.. More than a quarter of adults are regular smokers in Kentucky, the highest rate in the country. The state also has the nation's highest rate of cancer deaths and one of the highest rates of cardiovascular deaths... 9. (tie) NEW...

After six months of the most biased and dishonest liberal media attacks in US history President Donald Trump still stands at 50% or higher in the US counties that fueled his win in 2016. A recent Harvard study found the liberal media gave Trump the most negative coverage of any president. And this poll was published by the highly flawed and biased NBC News! President Donald Trump’s job approval rating in the American counties that fueled his 2016 victory stands at 50 percent, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll of these “Trump counties.” Fifty percent of adults...

It’s been a recurring theme of my columns that liberals are out of touch with what the average American believes and cares about. Since the 2016 election results were such a shock to their system, even the left is beginning to recognize flyover country isn’t interested in its snake oil anymore. No group was hit harder than the left-wing media. As such, one outlet has decided to hit the road to see how the other half lives and why it has so roundly rejected them. It won’t end well. The Huffington Post, now calling itself “HuffPo” after jettisoning its founder...

Idaho achieved a notable distinction last year: It became one of the hardest places in America for someone to quit a job for a better one. The state did this by making it easier for companies to enforce noncompete agreements, which prevent employees from leaving their company for a competitor. While its economy is known for agriculture — potatoes are among the state’s biggest exports — Idaho has a long history as a technology hub. And the new law landed in the middle of the tech world, causing a clash between hungry start-ups looking to poach employees and more established...

Idaho achieved a notable distinction last year: It became one of the hardest places in America for someone to quit a job for a better one. The state did this by making it easier for companies to enforce noncompete agreements, which prevent employees from leaving their company for a competitor. While its economy is known for agriculture — potatoes are among the state’s biggest exports — Idaho has a long history as a technology hub. And the new law landed in the middle of the tech world, causing a clash between hungry start-ups looking to poach employees and more established...

...... beyond the beltway, no one cares. Russia is not the top concern, with many noting that Team Clinton was probably looking for opposition research on Trump. Of course, they were—and they were looking abroad for it as well. If anything, the Russian collusion narrative that’s filled the Washington bubble has only emboldened the president’s supporters. Moreover, you also get why they’re sticking with Trump and why Democrats flipped for him: the lackluster economy under Obama and health care. For some in rural America, they don’t qualify for Medicaid, they can’t afford the Obamacare plans, and the Democrats don’t want...

What else can possibly go wrong with our great country, the former “shining city on the hill,” that is being tarnished day by day by influential anti-American groups with huge coffers? Liberals from California and smaller blue states are exerting their influence on the electoral process in red states, determined to flip them to blue, and, by and large, are succeeding with the exception of the most recent election in Georgia’s 6th district where Democrats spent over $23 million, the most in the history of the House of Representative elections ever. I’m still scratching my head trying to understand the...

The midterm election next year holds the potential for the Republican Party to expand its slender 2-vote majority in the Senate, despite the historical pattern of such elections punishing the party holding the White House. With 25 Democrat senators up for re-election, versus on 9 Republicans, the opportunities for pick-ups are there. But elections are fought one seat at a time. One Democrat incumbent senator got some really terrible news yesterday, as Curt Anderson and Terry Spencer of the Associated Press report: A prominent Florida eye doctor accused of political corruption was convicted of Medicare fraud Friday, increasing the odds...

JW: You wrote Listen, Liberal before the 2016 election. In it, you argued that the Democrats had detached themselves from their historic constituency: ordinary, working-class Americans. Your recent tour took you through the red states—you went to Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis— TF: You want to know the biggest lesson I learned touring Trumpland? People hated Hillary Clinton. To a degree that even I, with my cynicism, did not understand. I did not hate Hillary Clinton. I voted for her, and I agreed with Obama that she was very qualified. She deserved to be president. I didn’t think she’d be a...

America's long war on fossil fuels is destroying the famed American prairie. According to a report by the Organic Consumers Association, 95% of the 240 million acres of prairie land that once blanketed the middle of our country, from Texas to North Dakota, already is gone. Only isolated pockets of prairie tall grass, some 35 million acres set aside for soil and wildlife conservation, remain. And that — largely in the Great Plains — is at risk of being destroyed. Among the factors most responsible for this tragic loss of our prairie heritage is the federal renewable fuel standard, a...

Some advocates of rural America have suggested that improved technology and telecommuting will allow more highly educated Americans to live and work in rural areas. Marre says the report doesn't have data on the extent, if any, to which that's happening. Marre says he doesn't have published material on regional differences in educational attainment. But he provides Census Bureau information for the Midwest — a 12-state area that includes North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota — that shows: • Rural Midwest residents are, on balance, better educated than rural residents nationwide. For example, 88.7 percent of rural Midwest residents have...

Representatives from 13 states including 12 state attorneys general and one governor filed a motion in support of President Trump’s temporary travel ban. From the Dallas Morning News: Attorney General Ken Paxton on Monday led a coalition of 13 states in filing a brief with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals defending President Donald Trump’s revised immigration order.In the brief, Paxton and representatives from 12 other states argue that the Trump administration’s new order is legal and falls under the president’s power over foreign affairs and national security. Those joining the brief included Paxton plus AG’s in the...

It was a rural uprising—and it looks like it will remain that way for now. We have yet to see the consequences that Republicans will have to deal with concerning their retreat from their promise to repeal and replace Obamacare, but that’s for another day. Out of the 100 fastest growing counties in the country, based on U.S. Census data, 93 broke for Trump. The counties that are usually Democratic bastions have seen a sharp decrease in their populations. Moreover, even in blue states, the fastest growing counties are firmly in the Trump columns. One might say this development...

President Donald J. Trump will hold a rally at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Freedom Hall. RSBN will be on hand at the rally with a full crew to bring you live coverage beginning at 3:30 PM ET.    LIVE Stream: President Donald Trump Holds Rally in Louisville, KY 3/20/17   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrR7Fq5OQa0  

Based on the results of this year's study, if all Medicare inpatients received the same level of care as those treated in the award-winning facilities: Nearly than 89,000 additional lives could be saved; Over 61,000 additional patients could be complication free; Over $5.6 billion in inpatient costs could be saved; The average patient stay would decrease by half a day; Over 300,000 fewer discharged patients would be readmitted within 30 days; Patients would spend nine minutes less in hospital emergency departments per visit. If the same standards were applied to all inpatient care, the impact would be even greater.

Town halls centered around rowdy crowds disrupting Republican members of Congress grabbed headlines recently, but certain Senate Democrats facing tough reelection races next year have avoided in-person town halls in their own states all together. The Associated Press reported Friday Democratic Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Bill Nelson of Florida, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Joe Manchin West Virginia all decided against going to town halls to speak to and answer questions from their constituents, preferring to communicate through tele-town halls, e-mail opinion surveys, social media and speeches.

From Day 1, Donald Trump’s presidency has roiled Austin. But on a gorgeous February day barely an hour northwest of the Texas capital in bucolic Burnet County, habitués of the Blue Bonnet Cafe were savoring the first two weeks of the Trump presidency like a slice of the timeless eatery’s best-selling coconut cream pie. “Love him,” said Dan Ross, who lives in Cottonwood Shores and is a police officer in Horseshoe Bay. “Think he’s doing great” “I see the confidence,” said Ross, 59, who was having breakfast with his wife, Sharon Ross, 57. “Everybody I talk to, they are more...