Free Republic

We all remember the Jeb! plant that made news during the election for her questions to Trump during the No labels forum in New Hampshire. At the forum, Batchelder asked Trump, 'I want to get paid the same as a man, and I think you understand that. So if you become president, will a woman make the same as a man? And do I get to choose what I do with my body?' Then Trump replied: 'You're going to make the same if you do as good a job – and I happen to be pro-life. Okay? I'm pro-life.' Trump...

While the national spotlight has been on Wisconsin’s efforts to downsize state government and get structural deficits under control, Ohio also has been moving to rationalize its state government in an era of high unemployment and static state revenue. The Buckeye State will soon consider the budget proposals of newly elected Republican Gov. John Kasich, which would close Ohio’s $8 billion, two-year budget deficit by, among other things, reducing payments to localities, restructuring Medicaid and selling five state prisons. As in similar reform efforts in Wisconsin, Florida, Indiana and other states with Republican governors, no tax increases are proposed. Earlier,...

NASHUA, N.H.—A biodiesel refinery is opening in Nashua, N.H., next week and another is planned in Keene early next year. Batchelder Biodiesel Refineries is hosting a grand opening of its first refinery on Wednesday. The facility will convert yellow and brown waste grease into biofuel, a process that eliminates the "food vs. fuel" controversy like ethanol, which is processed from corn.

Is there any room for Moses in an American courthouse? Or must the old lawgiver of Exodus 20 be forever banished into outer darkness? The Supreme Court may give us a hint after it hears argument in two cases presenting the same tough question: Is it constitutionally permissible for an agency of government, such as a public park or a county courthouse, to display the Ten Commandments? On this issue, the lower federal courts are sharply divided. In Van Orden v. Perry, the 5th Circuit said yes, it's OK. In McCreary County v. ACLU, the 6th Circuit said no, it's...

"Shell shocked," "confused," "stumbling," "full of doubt." These are all words I have heard used to describe the current White House effort to find Sandra Day O'Connor's replacement. Batchelder, Williams, and Owen have all been interviewed, but the process continues to sputter along. Several have told me not to buy into the Miers trial balloon. It is, I'm told, just that -- a trial balloon. Another tells me, "The President wants Gonzales. That's what is dragging this thing out. They're sending out people to say he is conservative as if by telling us that enough we will say, 'sure, he...

The Judge Bush Should Get to Know... Editorial July 2005 by: Peter W. Schramm After two weeks of rampant speculation, consensus has settled on the theory that the President will nominate a woman to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court, but there is little consensus as to who that nominee will be. Several of the better-known female judges—Edith Jones, Janice Rogers Brown, and Priscilla Owen—have been all-but-dismissed by the chattering class as too "controversial" to be nominated at this time. Attention, therefore, is turning to lower-profile judges who have thus far escaped the media’s glare. Yet, like all...