Free Republic

When Congress left town for the August recess, it did so without coming to an agreement on a long-term transportation bill. Instead, the president signed a three-month extension that set the stage for another showdown this fall. More than 30 such temporary extensions have passed since the last multi-year transportation bill expired in 2011. The inability of Congress to come together to pass a transportation package has frustrated the myriad special interests whose lobbyists want assurances that the dollars will keep flowing for years, and not just months, to come. And the media, which seldom miss an opportunity to push...

Obama insists that DEMOCRATS are the future of America saying that the Republican party is 'outdated.' In reality, Obama is dead wrong. More Republicans are making massive gains at the state and local levels. Take the victory of the governor elect Matt Bevin in Kentucky recently! Bevin, a Tea Party favorite became only the second Republican in four decades to win Kentucky’s governorship! The Washington Post reports: With Matt Bevin’s win in Kentucky on Tuesday night, Republicans now hold 32 of the nation’s governorships — 64 percent of all the governors mansions in the country. (One race, in Louisiana, won’t...

The Center for Public Integrity has issued a report that shows tht only three states recieved a grade of better than "D+."  The investigation "found that in state after state, open records laws are laced with exemptions and part-time legislators and agency officials engage in glaring conflicts of interests and cozy relationships with lobbyists. Meanwhile, feckless, understaffed watchdogs struggle to enforce laws as porous as honeycombs." That's pulling no punches. After describing disturbing practices in several states, the report says: These are among the practices illuminated by the State Integrity Investigation, which measured hundreds of variables to compile transparency and...

For the most part, Republicans trounced Democrats in state and local races across the country. It was a great night for the GOP, especially Matt Bevin's surprise win in Kentucky. Most had written him off in the weeks prior to Election Day, citing the inability for both him and his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Jack Conway, from getting any sort of traction with the electorate. In the end, Bevin beat Conway by almost ten points. The Republican State Leadership Committee, who serves at the frontlines of state and local races, noted their massive victory during their conference call yesterday....

It's hard to overstate how important those GOP gains — and the consolidation of them we've seen in the last few years — are to the relative fates of the two parties. While the story at the national level suggests a Republican Party that is growing increasingly white, old and out of step with the country on social issues, the narrative at the local level is very different. Republicans are prospering at the state level in ways that suggest that the party's messaging is far from broken. There are other, more pragmatic effects of the GOP dominance in governor's races...

The fight is not over, and we are winning battles here and there. The problem was that more of us needed to start fighting in the first place I am not happy about what I am seeing in Washington. Frankly, I believe everyone feels this way. It’s about time that more people felt angry with Washington DC backroom deals, big business bailouts, and big labor cronyism. Then again, I am not happy about being unhappy. Too many people in this country were NOT angry. They were not even paying attention to what was going on, or they turned a blind...

By now, Illinois' budget problems are no secret. Back in May, after the State Supreme Court struck down a pension reform bid, Moody's move to downgrade the city of Chicago thrust the state's financial woes into the national spotlight. Since then, the situation hasn't gotten any better and despite hiring an "all star" budget guru (for $30,000 a month no less), Bruce Rauner was unable to pass a budget in a timely fashion leading directly to all types of absurdities including everything from the possibility of shortened school years to lottery winners being paid in IOUs. Now, as Bloomberg reports,...

A group of 64 legal experts and scholars have signed a statement calling on Americans to oppose the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision legalizing gay marriage nationwide.The Washington, DC-based American Principles Project posted the legal experts' statement Thursday on their website in which they denounced the 5-4 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. "The Court's majority opinion eschewed reliance on the text, logic, structure, or original understanding of the Constitution, as well as the Court's own interpretative doctrines and precedents, and supplied no compelling reasoning to show why it is unjustified for the laws of the states to sustain marriage as...

LANSING- In response to President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt today issued a letter to the Governors of all 50 states urging them to impose state-based sanctions against Iran. “Iran engages in some of the world’s most severe human rights abuses, oppressing women, and persecuting people of nearly all faiths, including Jews, Christians and Baha’is,” said Schuette. "In my past service as a Congressman from Michigan, I supported a strong national defensive capability and opposed relations with Iran, a country hostile to both the United States and our key...

In 2013, more than 200,000 people on net fled states with Democrat governors for ones run by Republicans, according to an analysis of newly released IRS data by Americans for Tax Reform. "People move away from high tax states to low tax states. Every tax refugee is sending a powerful message to politicians," said ATR President Grover Norquist. "They are voting with their feet. Leaders in Texas and Florida are listening. New York and California are not." That year, Democrat-run states lost a net 226,763 taxpayers, bringing with them nearly $15.7 billion in adjusted gross income (AGI). That same year,...

The US is the richest nation in the world, with an annual GDP of $17.3 trillion in 2014. However, some states are greater contributors to the economy than others. To illustrate differences among state economies, the folks at HowMuch.net created a chart that shows the relative economic value of each US state. The states are also color-coded based on which region of the country they're in.HowMuch.net The three regions that contribute the most to the economy are the Far West (18.6%), Southeast (21.3%), and Mideast (18.2%). California (13.3%), Texas (9.5%), and New York (8.1%) have the largest economies in the...

Please see the the following links below. Just a coincidence or what? http://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2015/08/24/windshield-shatters-on-i-25-in-fort-collins/32283265/ http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/shootings-arizonas-i-10-put-drivers-alert-n419291 http://www.youngcons.com/sniper-suspected-of-shooting-at-cars-on-two-interstates-in-michigan/ http://www.cleveland.com/akron/index.ssf/2015/09/akron_highway_shooting_mirrors.html#incart_m-rpt-1 http://kwqc.com/2015/09/01/henry-county-ill-vehicles-targeted-sheriff-investigates/ http://www.wsoctv.com/photo/news/local/shots-fired-car-waiting-east-charlotte-intersectio/pCpx5Q/

It may have escaped the attention of Baltimoreans but things have gotten a little testy in the New York-New Jersey area in recent weeks over the state of century-old rail tunnels running under the Hudson River. The deteriorating condition of the tunnels is threatening Amtrak and other rail service, but how to pay for a $14 billion-plus replacement has proven a challenge. Unfortunately, that's not just a problem for New York City but for Baltimore and other stops along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, the nation's most heavily traveled railway handling more than 750,000 passengers a day. The stations in Baltimore and...

Scott Walker is running for president hardened by four years of fighting for fiscal pragmatism and public sector reform as governor of Wisconsin. Those bruising battles, and his victories in them, underscore nearly every position he has staked out on the road he hopes will take him to the White House. He touts legislative accomplishments in a blue state, his defeat of militantly hostile unions, and his reversal of the state's budget deficit. Walker slashed wasteful spending by forming a special commission tasked with rooting out abuse, and forced the state government to publish its expenditures online. Candidates often talk...

Rural states with a history of conservative leadership generally fare better than urban ones with a history of progressive leadership — but there are exceptions in this latest study by George Mason University, ranking the 50 states in terms of their governments’ financial health.The Mercatus Center, a pro-market think tank at George Mason, released this year’s version of “Ranking the States by Fiscal Condition,” a remarkably well-named look at how each of the 50 states is faring when it comes to stewardship of public funds.Alaska tops the rankings, with the Dakotas, Nebraska and Florida rounding out the top five.Illinois is...

Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz are suggesting there might be ways for states and cities to nullify the justices’ ruling. They’re wrong. The Supreme Court’s decision last week did make gay marriage legal nationwide. Unfortunately for social conservatives, it did not, however, make nullification legal around the nation. Nullification is the historical idea that states can ignore federal laws, or pass laws that supercede them. This concept has a long but not especially honorable pedigree in U.S. history. Its origins date back to antebellum America, where Southern states tried to nullify tariffs and Northern states tried to nullify fugitive-slave laws....

Ted Cruz has some unsolicited advice for the states not specifically named in last week’s Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage: Ignore it. “Those who are not parties to the suit are not bound by it,” the Texas Republican told NPR News’ Steve Inskeep in an interview published on Monday. Since only suits against the states of Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan and Kentucky were specifically considered in the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which was handed down last Friday, Cruz — a former Supreme Court clerk — believes that other states with gay marriage bans need not comply, absent a...

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that health insurance consumers can receive federal subsidies regardless of their state’s role in running their insurance market, fewer states may stay in the game.When the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, most people expected that each state would want to run its own health insurance marketplace. That never really happened, as many states opted to let the federal system, HealthCare.gov, do the work for them. Many of those states that did try running their own marketplaces are starting to think twice.Now, with the Supreme Court ensuring that every state’s consumers will have...

(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), part of the Interior Department, will decide by September 30 whether to list the greater sage-grouse as an endangered or threatened species under the 1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA).The stakes are huge: Greater sage-grouse (or prairie chicken) habitat covers 165 million acres across 11 western states, but that is only half of what it used to be, the federal government says. At one time, the greater sage-grouse population likely numbered in the millions, but it is now estimated to be in the 200,000 to 500,000 range.The enormous sage grouse habitat also is home to...