Free Republic

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe has vetoed legislation he said would legalize discrimination of the LGBT community. The Democratic governor made the announcement Wednesday during a radio appearance on WTOP. The measure would prohibit the state from punishing religious groups that refuse services related to gay marriages. Republican supporters said it would protect people from expressing their religious beliefs. …

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) on Sunday slammed Republicans who have complained about an executive order he signed extending the right to vote in his state to convicted felons who have served their sentences. "Well, I would tell the Republicans, 'Quit complaining and go out and earn these folks' right to vote for you. Go out and talk to them,' " he said in response to a question about people saying his order was an election-year ploy to help Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton.

In what is likely an unconstitutional state action seemingly calculated to ensure that the purple state of Virginia goes blue in the November election, Governor Terry McAuliffe (D.) signed an order on Friday restoring the voting rights of 206,000 ex-felons in Virginia, including those convicted of murder, armed robbery, rape, sexual assault, and other violent crimes. The order also restores their right to sit on a jury, become a notary, and even serve in elected office. McAuliffe believes that ex-felons can be trusted to make decisions in the ballot booth and the jury box but apparently not to own a...

Free Republic stands for God, family, country! America! "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United State of America." Securing the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity is our mission on FR. We cannot secure the blessings of liberty with Hillary in the White House. When Trump wins the lion's share of the primary votes, states and...

Saying he is tired of waiting for the legislature to take action, Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-Va) issued an executive order restoring voting rights to convicted felons. The move is expected to add more than 200,000 Democrats to the state’s voter rolls. “Ours is a government of, by, and for the people,” McAuliffe said. “This means all the people. For better or for worse, criminals are part of society. As members of society they are entitled to the human right to vote, to choose who will represent their interests in the halls of government.” The Governor brushed aside Republican objections, calling...

Virginia Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe restoring voting rights for roughly 200,000 convicted felons is part of a lauded, national effort to reverse sentencing laws that most affect African Americans. But Republicans are suggesting McAuliffe, a long-time Clinton supporter, went too far by including violent criminals and that his move is a “transparent effort to win votes.” The governor’s executive order allows Virginia felons, includes convicted murders and rapists, who by Friday had completed their sentence and finished supervised release, parole or probation requirements to vote in the swing state in the November presidential elections.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, will sign an order Friday restoring the voting rights of more than 200,000 felons in the state. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that the unprecedented move will also allow felons living in Virginia to sit on a jury, serve in elected office, or become a notary. The order will effectively restore the civil rights of both nonviolent and violent felons who have served their time in prison and completed parole. According to the McAuliffe administration, the move will affect roughly 206,000 felons currently living in Virginia who have finished their prison sentences but not applied...

Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s (D) unexpected decision to give a blanket, automatic restoration of voting rights to ex-felons – the order covers those convicted of all crimes, non-violent to the most heinous – has upended the 2017 contests for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. The state’s pundits have been calling McAuliffe’s surprise decision — he never hinted at this while campaigning — a politically motivated effort to help longtime friend Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. This is based on their belief that African Americans will benefit the most, and skin color determines voting choices today. This belittles...

WASHINGTON — Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia will use his executive power on Friday to restore voting rights to more than 200,000 convicted felons, circumventing his Republican-run legislature. The action will overturn a Civil War-era provision in the state’s Constitution aimed, he said, at disenfranchising African-Americans.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe this morning will sign an order that effectively restores the civil rights, including the right to vote, of more than 200,000 felons in Virginia. The unprecedented move, expected to be announced at an 11 a.m. news conference on Capitol Square, marks a dramatic expansion of policy in restoring the right to vote, to sit on a jury, to serve in elected office or become a notary. Today's order applies to nonviolent and violent felons - a significant departure from a policy embraced in recent years by Democrat and Republican governors to remove the societal obstacles felons face...

27 Things That Every American Should Know About The National Debt The U.S. government has stolen $15,876,457,645,132.66 from future generations of Americans, and we continue to add well over a hundred million dollars to that total every single day day. The 15 trillion dollar binge that we have been on over the past 30 years has fueled the greatest standard of living the world has ever seen, but this wonderful prosperity that we have been enjoying has been a lie. It isn't real. We have been living way above our means for so long that we do not have...

"The conclusion then, is, that neither the representatives of a nation, nor the whole nation itself assembled, can validly engage debts beyond what they may pay in their own time." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:457, Papers 15:398n "Then I say, the earth belongs to each of these generations during its course, fully and in its own right. The second generation receives it clear of the debts and incumbrances of the first, the third of the second, and so on. For if the first could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead...

We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. Thomas Jefferson 1816 - letter to Samuel Kercheval There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises. To say that the United States should be answerable for twenty-five millions of dollars without knowing whether the ways and means can be provided, and without knowing whether those who are to succeed us will think with us on the subject, would be rash and...

No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable. George Washington (Message to the House of Representatives, 3 December 1793) A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.” Alexander Hamilton “The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to...

Libertarian Solutions: How to solve the United States' $6,736,489,356,420 problem by Bill Winter LP News Editor If you had visited the online National Debt Clock at 12:00 noon on August 1, you would have seen this figure: $6,736,489,356,420.66. That's the amount of money owed by the federal government. (Over $6.7 trillion dollars.) But if you visited it again just 30 seconds later, you would have seen a different, bigger number: $6,736,489,954,145.59. That's an increase of about $590,000 -- a half-million dollars -- in 30 seconds. It's a stark reminder of just how quickly the politicians in Washington, DC are...

WOULD THOMAS JEFFERSON THINK WE ARE FREE? By Steven L. Hayes and Charles Adams What if Jefferson were to revisit America today? Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743. In his lifetime he saw his country transformed from an English colony to a country ruled by its own citizens. Remembered by many as the author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson also served as President and guided the young nation through eight turbulent years. When Jefferson died on July 4, 1826 at the age of 83, he left a country and a people whose commitment to the ideas of ...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A Virginia high school discriminated against a transgender teen by forbidding him from using the boys' restroom, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in a case that could have implications for a North Carolina law that critics say discriminates against LGBT people. The case of Gavin Grimm has been especially closely watched since North Carolina enacted a law last month that bans transgender people from using public restrooms that correspond to their gender identity. That law also bans cities from passing anti-discrimination ordinances, a response to an ordinance recently passed in Charlotte. In the Virginia case,...

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is clarifying — but not stepping back from — surprising comments this weekend in support of former Olympian Bruce Jenner's decision to come out as a transgender woman. "If he says he's a woman, then he's a woman," Santorum told BuzzFeed during a roundtable discussion in South Carolina on Saturday. Santorum continued: "My responsibility as a human being is to love and accept everybody. Not to criticize people for who they are."

Virginia's 10th Congressional District Republicans today nominated their three delegates and three alternates to the Republican National Convention in July, and all three main delegates are backers of Sen. Ted Cruz (R). State Sen. Dick Black, Mick Staton (Black's son-in-law) and Beau Correll were elected as delegates, while two supporters of front-runner Donald Trump – former Loudoun County Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio and past 10th District chairman Howie Lind – were elected as alternates. Blaine Dunn, a Cruz supporter, was selected as the third alternate. Trump narrowly won March's GOP Primary in the commonwealth -- although Sen. Marco Rubio comfortably took...

: In Brooklyn, a coalition of protesters, including union, Black Lives Matter, and New York communist party activists, has put up a barricade in front of a McDonald’s, although it remains open. A march started at Brooklyn’s Supreme Court, complete with a marching band and dancers. The protesters told Breitbart News that they were the same people out at 5 AM this morning, and they plan to be at Grand Central Station this evening.