Free Republic

<p>The upstart populist pro-farmer party FarmerCitizenMovement (BBB) shook the foundations of politics in the Netherlands overnight, securing a significant victory in Wednesday’s provincial elections on the back of growing resentment against the globalist government of Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his plans to introduce Great Reset-style environmental policies.</p>

The kids are not alright. The College Democrats of America — the Democratic Party’s national organization presiding over 500 chapters on campuses across the country — is in turmoil. The group’s leaders are publicly firing off accusations of anti-Blackness, Islamaphobia and anti-Semitism at each other. Impeachment proceedings are now in the works against the organization’s new vice president... screenshots of tweets that their peers sent in adolescence spread rapidly through group texts, which already caused a student running for president of the group to withdraw their candidacy... ...The conflict has gotten so messy that the Democratic National Committee is considering...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is once again calling for reform of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) Section 230 – as he once is again appearing before a US Congress committee. Zuckerberg’s testimony on Thursday before the House Energy Committee revealed that Zuckerberg is proposing replacing automatic immunity from prosecution for user generated content with platforms like his own demonstrating that they have implemented “adequate” moderation and censorship systems. He said that these systems would be used for “identifying unlawful content and removing it.” The thought behind this seems to be to convince critics that tech giants are doing everything to...

A Supreme Court justice has urged his colleagues to tackle the issue of immunity for social media platforms. On Tuesday, Justice Clarence Thomas asked the court to consider scaling back Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The section in question has served as a shield for social media companies, protecting them from content users upload to their platforms. When it comes to content posted on their sites, these companies have argued they are more like distributors of information than publishers. In most cases, the legislation grants immunity from legal prosecution, should a user post content that is deemed illegal...

  Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, February 11, 2020 The Department of Justice has released a final agenda for the Feb. 19, 2020, public workshop on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.  The public workshop, titled “Section 230 – Nurturing Innovation or Fostering Unaccountability?,” will discuss the evolution of Section 230 from its original purpose in granting limited immunity to Internet companies, its impact on the American people, and whether improvements to the law should be made.The released agenda includes welcome remarks from Attorney General William P. Barr and distinguished panelists with a wide variety...

NORTH RICHLAND HILLS - Every day on her drive home from work, Kali Roberts is taken aback by the angry pile of motorists who converge on westbound Loop 820 in North Richland Hills. Traffic coming from Texas 121/183 “Airport Freeway” must squeeze from four to two lanes, between Boulevard 26 and Rufe Snow Drive, causing gridlock that persists not only during rush hour periods but most of the day. Meanwhile, as drivers on the nearby TEXPress lanes whiz by at 75 mph, motorists in the toll-free lanes crawl at about 10 mph and cut each other off, including many who...

THE HAGUE, 08/11/08 - The Christian democrats (CDA) conclude in a study that Islam can be a source for fostering democracy. The sharia, or Koran-inspired law, can play a role in this process, the study compiled by Arie Oostlander finds. Oostlander strongly opposes what is known as the secularisation premise, which claims that democratic development benefits from reduced religious involvement. "I take a strong stand against the idea that Islam is incompatible with democracy. This premise plays into the hands of extremist groups. Islam can provide a basis for promoting the democratic constitutional state," Christian newspaper Nederlands Dagblad quoted him...

Todd Kruse has an interesting “observation and question to the CDA’s representative stating, “since there is already an oversupply of housing on the market today your development plans, using our tax dollars, would simply add more housing stock to an already saturated market. This will further reduce our homes’ values don’t you think?”

AUSTIN — The Texas Transportation Commission on Thursday selected San Antonio's Zachry Construction Corp. and a Spanish toll road developer to plan a superhighway from Texarkana to Brownsville. The $5 million contract calls for Zachry American Infrastructure and ACS Infrastructure to create a financial plan for the Interstate 69 segment of the Trans-Texas Corridor. "This team represents the best in the balance of local and global expertise necessary to complete a project of this scope," said David Zachry, chief operating officer of Zachry Construction Corp. The private developers' plan calls for seven new loops around Corpus Christi and other cities...

The Texas Transportation Commission never fails to amaze us. Bottom line - this leopard has not changed its spots. Nothing has changed. The Commission and TxDOT are hell bent to sign deals and give away the farm before the legislature can rein them in. Rain, sleet and snow won't stop the mail; and, moratoriums, legislative intent and a sunset review won't stop TxDOT. Just a week ago TxDOT tried to impress everyone with how responsive they could be as they announced their recommendation that TTC-69 focus on using existing facilities rather than building a new highway. The only thing that...

Earth Tech Inc. has been awarded a multi-million dollar contract to provide environmental services to Central Texas Highway Constructors, LLC (CTxHC). Earth Tech, the lead planning and engineering firm for Cintra Zachry, LP on the Trans-Texas Corridor 35 (TTC-35) project, was approved by CTxHC for environmental work on Segments 5 and 6 of the SH 130 highway project. The SH 130 project is the first facility to be developed under the TTC-35 Comprehensive Development Agreement. An integral part of the preparation for highway construction, the project includes site assessments, hazardous materials clean-ups, remediation, and other environmental services. A private-public partnership,...

SH 130 Concession Company LLC finalized the legal details of a financial close with Texas DOT on a $1,360m toll concession to build SH130 segments 5&6 Thursday and Friday last week in bankers' offices in New York City - at Orrick, 666 Fifth Avenue. The actual money flows should occur on Thursday or Friday (Mar 13 or 14) this week, Jose Maria Lopez de Fuentes, president of Cintra North America, told us this morning. Hundreds of documents and over 20 lawyers were involved last week representing TxDOT, private equity people, banks, mostly European, the TIFIA loan group from FHWA, and...

Officials with the Spanish toll road operator Cintra have announced that the company has secured $430 million in loans from the U.S. government to build and operate two segments of a toll road in central Texas. Cintra officials announced the company’s financial plan for the $1.36 billion Highway 130 segments on Monday, March 10. OOIDA Senior Government Affairs Representative Mike Joyce told Land Line that the Association does raise red flags when federal dollars are used to subsidize private investors. Officials with the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association are not, however, categorically opposed to a state using future toll revenue to...

Senior executives of the Texas Department of Transportation can expect some heavy grilling from state legislators when the state Legislature convenes next January, state Rep. Jim McReynolds said Friday. Speaking to the monthly First Friday luncheon of The Chamber, Lufkin-Angelina County, McReynolds said many legislators, especially those from rural East Texas, are unhappy with TxDOT leaders over the Trans- Texas Corridor project and how it has incorporated plans for an Interstate 69 through the region. McReynolds said he attended all four of the TxDOT hearings on the TTC held in his district, which included one in Diboll, and "never heard...

THE HAGUE, 04/03/08 - The Christian democrats (CDA) would only win 29 seats if general elections were held now. The disfavour of the voters is the result of the party's attempts to prevent Geert Wilders's film on the Koran from being shown, pollster Maurice de Hond reported. Last week, CDA still scored 32 seats. The new result of 29 is the party's lowest score since the spring of 2006. CDA currently has 41 seats in the Lower House, which has 150 members. The three seats lost by the CDA would be divided between Wilders' anti-'Islamisation' Party for Freedom (PVV), the...

HEMPSTEAD -- The Trans Texas Corridor may be the most controversial highway ever built in Texas. That is, if it ever gets built. All month, there have been public hearings throughout the area where people have been showing up in droves to oppose it. People don’t drive very fast on Odis Styers’ family ranch near Hempstead, but TxDOT wants that to change. “It’s quiet, it’s peaceful,” Styers said. “It’s a shame a road is gonna mess it up.” The road is the Trans Texas Corridor. The plans call for it to come through here, and with it: separate lanes for...

When the Texas Department of Transportation begins work on the I-69/Trans Texas Corridor, the U.S. 77 leg from Victoria to Brownsville will be developed first. Cameron County Commissioners revealed the information during Tuesday’s Cameron County Commissioners Court meeting. County officials received the news from the state’s Turnpike Authority Division on Monday. In a letter to Cameron County, Turnpike Authority Division Director Phillip E. Russell said, TXDOT has identified U.S. 77 as “high priority” and the “first near term facility to be developed under the I-69/TTC Comprehensive Development Agreement.” The U.S. 77 Highway runs from Victoria to Brownsville. Precinct 3 Commissioner...

STAPLES — Dennis Elam knew he wasn’t cut out to be a city dweller during the one month he lived in San Marcos with his new wife, Brenda, after they were married in 1963. “I’ve got to have my horse. They won’t let me keep him in an apartment,” Elam said. The problem for Elam and his family is that the State Highway 130 construction contractor and the property acquisition firm has tapped the 57 acres they live and work cattle on and it is smack in the middle of the path of the highway where it will connect with...

Toll road contract in Texas allows state to lower speed limits on nearby interstate freeway to avoid paying penalties to a private company. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has agreed to consider lowering the maximum speed limit on a stretch of interstate highway that competes with a planned toll road. Cintra-Zachary, a joint Spanish-US venture, paid TxDOT $1.3 billion for the right to collect tolls on 40-miles of State Highway 130 set for construction beginning in 2009. Although TxDOT suggested that free market competition was part of the goal of using a public-private partnerships to construct and operate roads,...

Road plans in Texas have conspiracy theorists in an uproar I am driving along a mostly empty road in rural Fayette County, Texas, about an hour east of Austin, looking for the NAFTA superhighway -- the one that Stephen Harper, George W. Bush and Felipe Calderón mocked as a conspiracy theory when they were asked about it at their trilateral meeting in Montebello, Que., in August. Critics, who say that behind the leaders' denials lurks a larger, nefarious plan to unite North America, fear that such a roadway will eventually be a four-football-stadium-wide artery connecting Mexico, the U.S. and Canada,...