Free Republic

On Monday, Native Americans conducted a forgiveness ceremony with U.S. veterans at the Standing Rock casino, giving the veterans an opportunity to atone for military actions conducted against Natives throughout history. In celebration of Standing Rock protesters’ victory Sunday in halting construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline, Leonard Crow Dog formally forgave Wes Clark Jr., the son of retired U.S. Army general and former supreme commander at NATO, Wesley Clark Sr. This was a historically symbolic gesture forgiving centuries of oppression against Natives and honoring their partnership in defending the land from the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Tension is brewing within the Dakota Access protest as complaints grow about outside activists trashing the camps, mooching off donations, and treating the anti-pipeline demonstration like a Burning Man-style festival for hippies. “Need to get something off my chest that I witnessed and found very disturbing in my brief time there that I believe many others have started to speak up about as well. White people colonizing the camps,” said Alicia Smith on Facebook. “They are coming in, taking food, clothing etc and occupying space without any desire to participate in camp maintenance and without respect of tribal protocols,” she...

PIERRE | A Republican state lawmaker plans to sponsor a bill in the upcoming legislative session that would allow people who can legally carry a concealed handgun in South Dakota to do so without a permit. Right now, it's a misdemeanor under state law for someone to carry a concealed pistol or to have one concealed in a vehicle without a permit. Rep. Lynne DiSanto said Monday that her bill is about personal protection. "I just hope this opens the door to people considering being gun owners and having the opportunity to protect themselves and their families as it was...

Tear gas, freezing cold water and rubber bullets were used to disperse a crowd of 400 protesters at the Dakota Access Pipeline in clashes late Sunday and early Monday that left more than 150 activists and one law enforcement officer injured.

On the ballot Tuesday in two states (Washington and South Dakota) voters will find deceptive initiatives to vote on. Both were concocted by the forces of Big Labor for the purpose of getting and keeping more money from workers who don’t want to pay them. Businesses that operate in a competitive market under the rule of law need to persuade consumers to buy whatever goods and services they offer. That’s good: consumers get to decide what’s worth parting with their money and what isn’t. Also, buyers are free to stop buying any time they become dissatisfied or discover better uses...

The Clinton campaign debated whether to come out against the Keystone XL pipeline in August 2015 as a way to turn attention away from her secret email server and the bad press she was generating, according to messages hacked from her campaign chairman’s account and released Monday by WikiLeaks. ... The campaign’s willingness to use Keystone to shift attention from Mrs. Clinton’s troubles over her secret email server is a signal of just how troublesome those emails were.

Emphasizing the need for congressional action, farm groups renewed their call for reform of Clean Water Act enforcement, following release of a report documenting how federal agencies overreach their authority to regulate farmland. The report, issued last week by the majority staff of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, describes numerous incidents in which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency have tried to expand their authority to regulate what crops farmers grow and how they grow them, based on the agencies' interpretation of the act.

In a nine-word per curiam decision, eight justices of the United States Supreme Court have revealed they are deadlocked in a 4 to 4 divide on the new immigration procedures of the Obama administration, with its executive decision to not deport the immigrant parents of children born in the United States (thus citizens) and give them legal status but less than citizenship in the process. The State of Texas, joined by 25 others states, filed a lawsuit to block this executive action, which affects between 4 and 5 million immigrants in the United States. The case was before the Supreme...

You know the deal. Every amendment that adds significant border security to the Gang of Eight bill threatens to scare Democratic votes away, and Rubio, McCain, Graham, and Flake have decided that they’d rather have the bad bill they wrote pass than no bill at all. Four votes against the fence, just as Conn Carroll predicted this morning: Senators on Tuesday rejected building the 700 miles of double-tier border fencing Congress authorized just seven years ago, with a majority of the Senate saying they didn’t want to delay granting illegal immigrants legal status while the fence was being built. The...

Thursday during debate on the Senate floor about an amendment offered by Republican Senator John Thune requiring 350 miles of double-layer fencing along the southern border, Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu called the fence "dumb" and claimed South Dakota is a border state. Thune's amendment backs up the 2006 Secure Fence Act (which Landrieu voted for) requiring 700 miles of double layer fence along the southwest border with Mexico, of which only 36 miles have been completed. I’m going to speak about this amendment for just a minute, but I’ld like to respond to Senator Thune, and I wish that we...

A former Republican senator is endorsing Hillary Clinton for president after the mass shooting in Orlando, citing her support for gun control. Former Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.) called for universal background checks on all gun sales and an assault weapons ban Monday in the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. "I can't believe I'm endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, but I am," said Pressler, who spoke with The Hill on Monday after endorsing Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, in a statement issued over the weekend.... He said he feels disenfranchised by Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican...

Just 712 Democratic officials will decide whether Clinton or Sanders wins the nomination. Documents show that's what the party planned all along. This post originally appeared at In These Times. Since its launch, a specter has haunted Bernie Sanders’ run for the Democratic nomination. It’s not his age, though at 74 he would be the oldest president in American history. And it’s not that he’s an avowed socialist, the label that a mere eight years ago was used to smear Barack Obama as a sinister, alien threat to the American way of life. Rather, it has been the so-called superdelegates...

A former Republican senator is endorsing Hillary Clinton for president after the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla., citing her support for gun control. Former Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.) called for universal background checks on all gun sales and an assault weapons ban Monday in the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. “I can’t believe I’m endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, but I am,” said Pressler, who spoke with The Hill on Monday after endorsing Clinton in a statement issued over the weekend. “This morning, I woke up and told my wife, ‘Did I really do that?’” he...

On Tuesday Donald Trump closed the door on the Republican nomination for President by winning all five of the remaining primaries — New Jersey, South Dakota, Montana, New Mexico and California. Trump won the last 16 Republican contests. Trump has 1,536 delegates and counting. Trump may also be the first candidate in the modern era to have funded his campaign by himself during the primary season. Although his results are much more impressive, he only spent a quarter the amount of money as Democrats Clinton and Sanders. He proved to be the real capitalist in the primary while Clinton and...

Trump closed out the primary election season with wins in South Dakota, New Mexico, New Jersey, Montana, and California. While Sen. Bernie Sanders remains actively campaigning for the Democratic nomination against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Trump became the GOP’s presumptive nominee shortly after winning Indiana’s May 3 primary election. The American businessman surpassed 2012 nominee Mitt Romney’s and 2008 nominee John McCain’s primary election vote totals by late in April according to Politico calculations. Previous record holder George W. Bush received just 10.8 million votes in 2000, a number far surpassed by Trump’s over 13 million votes with...

Tuesday, June 7th primaries California – 546 delegates Montana – 27 delegates New Jersey – 142 delegates New Mexico – 43 delegates South Dakota – 25 delegates North Dakota – D Caucus – 25 D delegates

You are cordially invited to attend a post-election press conference with Donald J. Trump When: Tuesday, June 7, 2016 @ 9PM EDT Where: Trump National Golf Club Westchester in Westchester, NY Attire: PJs (Black Tie Optional) Dom Perignon and a selection of appetizers and French pastries with be served. R.S.V.P @ nikos1121

Hillary Clinton is on the cusp of clinching the Democratic presidential nomination, and could move closer as Puerto Rico's primary results are announced Sunday night. The former secretary of state is competing with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to win a majority of Puerto Rico's 60 delegates. Clinton began the day 60 delegates shy of the 2,383 she needs to win the Democratic nomination -- with 1,776 pledged delegates and another 547 superdelegates. Sanders, meanwhile, started Sunday with 1,547 delegates total: 1,501 pledged delegates and another 46 superdelegates. Clinton is closing in on a historic nomination as the first female presidential...

Montana and five other states say resident Barack Obama overstepped his power by rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline, whose developers are now suing four presidential cabinet members. The states along the pipeline’s route filed a friend-of-the-court brief this week arguing that Congress, not the executive, has the right to regulate interstate and international commerce. The pipeline, which would have crossed the Canadian border, was being developed by TransCanada, which is now suing the government. Because of the resident’s representations to the rest of the world that America would lead in reducing its carbon footprint, that that was the sole reason...

Oil and gas industry groups on Thursday sued federal agencies over revisions to land management plans in Colorado and other western states to protect the greater sage-grouse. The Western Energy Alliance and the North Dakota Petroleum Council filed the suit in North Dakota, saying the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service failed to follow proper procedures for public involvement in adopting the land use plan amendments. They also say the plans ignore sound science and will hurt western economies. Plan revisions being challenged include ones in northwest Colorado, where greater sage-grouse habitat substantially overlaps with oil and gas...