Free Republic

Obama quietly signs bill shielding airlines from carbon fees in EuropeBy Keith Laing - 11/27/12 02:02 PM ET President Obama has signed into law a bill that requires U.S. airlines be excluded from European carbon emissions fees. Environmentalists had framed the bill as the first test of the president's commitment to fighting climate change in his second term and urged him to veto it. Obama quietly signed it Tuesday over their objections. "The Obama administration is firmly committed to reducing harmful carbon pollution from civil aviation both domestically and internationally, but, as we have said on many occasions, the application...

Former Sen. Larry Pressler (R-SD), a Vietnam veteran who served in Congress for more than two decades, said Tuesday on Current TV that the movement for marriage equality is much like the movement for racial equality, and confidently declared that the Republican Party is now in the process of making the right to marry “the new conservative position.” “The main thing that caused me to change my mind was my work with veterans groups,” he told “Viewpoint” host John Fugelsang, explaining that he’s worked with a gay couple who want to marry and have a family. “It’s something like in...

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson, a South Dakota Democrat, does not plan to run for re-election when his current term ends in 2014, sources close to the matter and key Capitol Hill staffers said on Monday. Johnson, 66, joined the Senate in 1997 and has been widely expected to retire at the end of his term. He plans to make the announcement on Tuesday, the sources said. Johnson's staff said that he will hold a press conference at the University of South Dakota on Tuesday. His retirement would leave a vacant seat in a conservative-leaning state that could be...

US House Energy and Commerce Committee members released a discussion draft of legislation designed to jump-start approval of the proposed Keystone XL crude oil pipeline project. The draft bill by Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) would eliminate the need for a presidential permit and find that the Aug. 26, 2011, final environmental impact statement issued by Sec. of State Hillary Clinton satisfied all National Environmental Policy Act requirements. Reps. Jim Matheson (D-Utah) and John Barrow (D-Ga.) cosponsored the proposal, which also would limit legal challenges to the project so it would not be delayed further. Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred...

To think that Boris and Natasha lived right here in South Dakota, and we didn't even know it! Recently, Walter Kendall Myers and Gwendolyn Steingraber-Trebilcock-Myers - a couple who once lived in Aberdeen - were arrested for spying. The news rocked the nation. Well, actually, the nation immediately forgot the story. Still, South Dakota hasn't forgotten. It's not every day suspected spies are found traipsing through your own neighborhood. The espionage likely started after they left Aberdeen, but you still wonder if that abandoned shopping cart you saw in aisle 8 of Kessler's might have contained a coded message. The...

For Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and his top lieutenants, the challenges of balancing the 2014 Senate map and President Barack Obama’s second-term agenda could cause as many headaches as anything Republicans throw at them. Overall, 20 Democratic-held Senate seats are up for grabs next year, versus 13 for Republicans. Democratic incumbents face reelection in solidly red states like Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana and South Dakota, all of which Obama lost by double-digit margins in November. A little more than a year after Obama is sworn in to another term, there will be high-profile Senate races in swing states...

“I think you need to put everything on the table,” Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D, told ABC News‘ George Stephanopoulos this past Sunday, “but what I hear from the administration – and if the Washington Post is to be believed – that’s way, way in extreme of what I think is necessary or even should be talked about. And it’s not going to pass.” The Washington Post article Heitkamp was referring to, reported that President Obama would soon seek to pass legislation “that would require universal background checks for firearm buyers, track the movement and sale of weapons through a national...

After horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing cracked open the Bakken formation and exposed hundreds of barrels of oil per day, the appeal of oil is growing across the country. South Dakota is one state that believes it may have an oil formation, so a state geologist is trying to attract companies to travel south. South Dakota wants more than four famous faces. The state geologist believes they may have undiscovered oil. "We are looking at the old historic data and were seeing these reports of tight formations that had oil in them, but they blew them off as not being...

When South Dakota’s former two-term Gov. Mike Rounds made it official last week that he would seek the Republican nomination for U.S. Senator in 2014, it was national news. After an election year in which Republicans began with high hopes of winning a majority in the Senate only to end with a net loss of two seats from their ranks, news that Rounds was poised to challenge Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson was truly something to cheer for the dispirited GOP. “Instantly competitive,” is how the Hill characterized the likely contest between conservative Rounds and two-term liberal Democrat Johnson (lifetime American...

    ~The FReeper Canteen Presents~ Road Trip: Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota Ellsworth Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base near Rapid City in Meade County and Pennington County, South Dakota, United States. It is home to the 28th Bomb Wing of the Air Combat Command (ACC), operating the B-1B Lancer.As host wing, the 28th Bomb Wing includes an operations group, a maintenance group, a mission support group, and a medical group. The base controls all air space 40 miles (64 km) around its area, including all landings at nearby Rapid City Regional Airport,...

Stopping veteran Dem retirements is top priority for Reid, SchumerBy Alexander Bolton - 11/25/12 06:00 AM ET One of the highest immediate political priorities for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Democratic political guru Charles Schumer (N.Y.) is to persuade veteran colleagues not to retire in 2014. Democratic sources identify four senators as most likely to retire: Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). Another possible veteran retirement is Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who has yet to announce his decision. But Democratic aides expect him to run...

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — George S. McGovern, a proud liberal who argued fervently against the Vietnam War as a senator from South Dakota and suffered one of the most crushing defeats in presidential election history against Richard Nixon in 1972, died before dawn Sunday. He was 90. A spokesman for McGovern's family, Steve Hildebrand, told The Associated Press by telephone that McGovern died at 5:15 a.m. Sunday at a hospice in Sioux Falls, surrounded by family and lifelong friends.

April 14, 1999, Wednesday COMMITTEE HEARING SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS: SUBCOMMITTEE ON NEAR EASTERN AND SOUTH U.S. SENATOR SAM BROWNBACK (R-KS) HOLDS HEARING ON THE CRISIS IN AFGANISTAN  WASHINGTON, D.C. SPEAKERS: U.S. SENATOR SAM BROWNBACK (R-KS), CHAIRMAN U.S. SENATOR JOHN ASHCROFT (R-MO) U.S. SENATOR GORDON H. SMITH (R-OR) U.S. SENATOR ROD GRAMS (R-MN) U.S. SENATOR CRAIG THOMAS (R-WY) U.S. SENATOR PAUL DAVID WELLSTONE (D-MN), RANKING MEMBER U.S. SENATOR ROBERT G. TORRICELLI (D-NJ) U.S. SENATOR PAUL S. SARBANES (D-MD) U.S. SENATOR CHRISTOPHER J. DODD (D-CT) U.S. REPRESENTATIVE DANA ROHRABACHER (R-CA) THE HONORABLE KARL F. INDERFURTH ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SOUTH ...

South Dakota is doing everything it can to let downtrodden pregnant women know there are better, healthier options than abortion. In March 2011, South Dakota’s Gov. Dennis Daugaard signed the Abortion Informed Consent Statute into law. Although the constitutionality of the law was immediately challenged, and Planned Parenthood recoiled at the thought of mothers being informed of all the dangers abortion poses for them (in addition to the child), the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that all major provisions of the law can stand. Generally speaking, this means that women seeking an abortion in South Dakota’s only abortion...

SIOUX FALLS, SD, July 24, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – South Dakota won a critical legal battle today, as the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the last contested portion of a 2005 pro-life law. The law, H.B. 1166, requires that women considering abortion be told critical biological information and directed to alternate means of help before undergoing an abortion. By a 7-4 vote, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a portion of the law that tells women abortion leads to an increased risk of depression and suicide. “On its face, the suicide advisory presents neither an undue burden on abortion...

Every single one of [the 17 states that elected a tea party-supported governor in 2010] has seen its unemployment rate decline since January 2011. Three of them have had unemployment drop by more than 2% (Michigan, Florida, and Nevada). The average drop in the unemployment rate in these states was 1.35%. For a comparison, in January 2011 the U.S. national unemployment rate stood at 9.1%. It is currently 8.2%, meaning that the national unemployment rate has declined by just 0.9% since then. Based on these percentages, it can be said that the job market in states with new Republican governors...

SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA, May 29, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – A PR hand for Planned Parenthood, who is running as a Democratic candidate for state legislature, has been cited for DUI and Careless Driving after police say she collided with a seven-year-old girl who was riding her bike through a crosswalk. Carmen Toft, 32, is the South Dakota Public Affairs Manager at Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota (PPMNNDSD). She is also running for the Democratic nomination in the state House of Representatives in District 10. The accident occurred last Tuesday at the corner of Eighth Street and North Chicago...

This column originally appeared in THE DAILY BEAST. In looking ahead toward the November election, Republican strategists should take proactive steps to avoid a damaging, dangerous conclusion to the presidential race and to prevent the very real chance that Mitt Romney will win the Electoral College even while losing the popular vote badly to Barack Obama. The problem stems from the lopsided margins President Obama will surely pile up in a few uncontested states with big populations, including California, New York, Illinois and Massachusetts. Mr. Romney, meanwhile, will prevail by comparable margins in only relatively small states: Utah, Idaho, the...

A UN human official is urging the U.S. to turn over control of lands considered to be sacred to Native Americans, including the site of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, unveiled his recommendations in Geneva on Friday after completing a 12-day visit to the U.S. where he met with representatives of indigenous peoples in six states. The fact-finder also had a chance to meet members of the Obama administration and briefed the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, but no member of Congress agreed to meet with him....

The Constitution of South Dakota says, in Section 24 of Article VI, the following: The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state shall not be denied. The language is plain, with perhaps the only confusion being that of the word ‘shall.’ The word itself is nearly synonymous with ‘will,’ except that when used in a sentence in the 2ND or 3RD person it implies authority, command, threat, promise, determination, and/or inevitability. By its usage in the above cited constitutional section its meaning can be discerned obviously as being a command, and being...