Free Republic

Diane Hendricks and her late husband saw opportunity in Beloit, a decaying industrial town. Now, she dreams of turning it into a mecca for start-ups. When Diane Hendricks sees something she doesn’t like here, she buys it. A bankrupt country club. A half-empty mall. Abandoned buildings. The rusting foundry down by the river. Beloit used to be a town that made papermaking machines and diesel engines. Ms. Hendricks thinks it can be a place where start-ups create the next billion-dollar idea, and she is remaking the town to fit her vision. She can do so because she is the second-richest...

MADISON, Wisconsin — Wisconsin Democrats on Monday called for the elimination of nullified language in the state's constitution that defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Lawmakers held a news conference to introduce the resolution after the U.S. Supreme Court decision Friday legalizing gay marriage nationwide. State Reps. JoCasta Zamarripa, D-Milwaukee, and Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, applauded the court's decision and said Wisconsin's constitution should be amended to reflect it. "Finally victory is ours, but with this bill we want to ensure that our beloved state of Wisconsin is on the right side of history by removing this discriminatory...

Some local gun rights advocates say a proposed city ordinance banning weapons from city properties goes too far. Wisconsin's newly enacted concealed carry laws, the critics argue, reaffirm every individuals' constitutional rights to bear arms, and those rights should not be interfered with by the proposed city ordinance. "The right to bear arms is a personal right that should not be infringed," said Chuck Kuecker, a federally licensed firearms dealer whose business is located in the Town of Beloit. "We think the City of Beloit would be better off if they just accept the fact that the state of Wisconsin...

BELOIT COLLEGE'S MINDSET LIST® FOR THE CLASS OF 2008 1.  Most students entering college this fall were born in 1986. 2.  Desi Arnaz, Orson Welles, Roy Orbison, Ted Bundy, Ayatollah Khomeini, and Cary Grant  have always been dead. 3.  "Heeeere's Johnny!" is a scary greeting from Jack Nicholson, not a warm welcome from Ed McMahon. 4.  The Energizer bunny has always been going, and going, and going. 5.  Large fine-print ads for prescription drugs have always appeared in magazines. 6.  Photographs have always been processed in an hour or less. 7.  They never got a chance to drink 7-Up...

Now Senator Kerry. I know you must have been embarassed by the revelation that you ate on the bus at stop and threw the local food in the Trash. We all saw that you really didn't eat at Wendy's. I mean, everyone thought you were eating at Wendy's, but then you had some take out at some fancy place uptown so you and missus wouldn't have to eat all that "flyover country" garbage that the little people call food. I know that a wealthy "Uber" class person such as yourself wants to really eat the way you are used to....

  BELOIT COLLEGE RELEASES THE CLASS OF 2006 "MINDSET LIST"     Beloit, Wis.—In the coming weeks, a new generation of students will arrive on campuses throughout the country to mark the start of their first year of college. Most of these students were born in 1984. It was a different time, with computers becoming part of our daily lives, videotape changing the way we looked at television, and the explosion of the digital age—from watches to telephones. For the fifth year, Beloit College, the liberal arts college in Beloit, Wisconsin, is distributing the Mindset List to its faculty and...