Free Republic

**SNIP** Perhaps the biggest blow to the high-speed rail project came in 2010, when Republicans won control of the U.S. House of Representatives. They proceeded to block any further federal funding for high-speed rail, undermining the California project’s financial plan. Ironically, Gov. Newsom’s decision to pause high-speed rail comes just as Democrats have retaken the majority in the House, making possible a Green New Deal and billions in high-speed rail funding. California ought to show the country how to overcome these obstacles. If we believe climate change is real, then we are obligated to do something about it, and not...

A former Chicago transportation official was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison for taking bribes to steer $100 million in red-light camera contracts to a company in Phoenix. U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall sentenced John Bills, 55, in Chicago moments after he apologized for his actions. Federal prosecutors had asked the judge for at least a 10-year prison sentence. The former second-in-command at Chicago's Department of Transportation was convicted in January of bribery, conspiracy and extortion. Bills was accused of accepting envelopes stuffed with cash, along with gifts — including condos in two states and a Mercedes — to...

Obama and the other leaders were requested to give three minute introductory addresses. At 8:41 on the video, they begin to try to finally shut him up. They try again every thirty seconds...until it becomes obvious that he could care less...

... said Faulconer, who urged the owners to give the city until June, when it would have an initiative for $350 million in public financing on the ballot.

Joel Ramer and his girlfriend got stuck off-roading this old Jeep Cherokee on a powerline road in Walpole, Massachusetts last week. Seems egregious that he was arrested for trespassing and disturbing the peace, but the $48,000 recovery charge is downright offensive. It’s unclear whether Ramer got slapped with a trespassing charge after calling for help, or if somebody spotted and busted him while he was screwing around in the mud. And yeah, you can be jailed for that in Massachusetts. But after Walpole PD rolled up on him Fox25 says the cops called what is presumably their go-to recovery outfit,...

After the media inexplicably dubbed Hillary Rodham Clinton the “winner” of the Benghazi hearings, her apologists dismissed a line of questioning into her unofficial adviser, Sidney Blumenthal. So he was sending her e-mail offering advice on Libya and other matters of state. In the immortal words of Clinton at an earlier Benghazi hearing, “What difference does it make?”

=San Jose's Garbage Trucks May Do Police Surveillance With License Plate Readers The government of San Jose, Calif. has come forward with a proposal to mount license plate readers to the city’s garbage trucks in an effort to expand police surveillance beyond department cruisers. Have no fear, innocent citizen, for the trash companies may be stepping up to help our friends in blue. San Jose, California happens to be America’s tenth largest city - that makes it pretty difficult for the police force to keep up with everybody. In a story by the local San Jose Mercury News, the new...

The presidential administration that vowed to be the most transparent since the baptism of Nkuwu Nzinga has once again demonstrated that such vows mean nothing to it. In addition to the secretive manner in which Secretary of State John Kerry conducted negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran over its nuclear program — in itself secretive — there was also the matter of secret “side deals” between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency. And now, additional side deals, this time between President Barack Obama and the leaders of foreign governments, have also come to light. Republican Sens. Marco Rubio...

Two days ago, I praised Gov. Scott Walker’s quiet conservatism. Today, I’ll criticize his inconsistency. The Milwaukee Bucks decided they needed a new basketball arena and they told the government to pay for it. If politicos didn’t cough up $250 million, the NBA warned that the Bucks might leave Wisconsin. Nice team you have here, Milwaukee. It’d be a shame if something happened to it… Taxpayers would rightly be furious if a private business demanded they fund a supermarket, an office building, or a strip mall — why on earth should they send their hard-earned money to millionaire athletes and...

A Planned Parenthood abortion business vice-president is not happy with the pro-life Republicans at last night’s GOP debates who said they would de-fund and investigate Planned Parenthood after it was repeatedly caught selling the body parts of aborted babies. Most of the Republican candidates took strongly pro-life positions on abortion, including Scott Walker, Mario Rubio and Bobby Jindal. That didn’t it well with Dawn Laguens, Executive Vice President of Planned Parenthood. “It was the most shocking moment of last night’s debate: Senator Marco Rubio proudly coming clean and supporting a complete ban on abortion,” she said. SIGN THE PETITION! Congress...

Windows 10 is amazing. Windows 10 is fantastic. Windows 10 is glorious. Windows 10 is faster, smoother and more user-friendly than any Windows operating system that has come before it. Windows 10 is everything Windows 8 should have been, addressing nearly all of the major problems users had with Microsoft’s previous-generation platform in one fell swoop. But there’s something you should know: As you read this article from your newly upgraded PC, Windows 10 is also spying on nearly everything you do.

From the moment an account is created, Microsoft begins watching. The company saves customers' basic information - name, contact details, passwords, demographic data and credit card specifics - but it also digs a bit deeper... and finding answers is not easy, as one privacy expert exclaimed, "there is no world in which 45 pages of policy documents and opt-out settings split across 13 different Settings screens and an external website constitutes 'real transparency'."

Disgraced Planned Parenthood official Deborah Nucatola’s shocking personal work history is coming to light. Records reveal that Nucatola was employed by a former White House staffer at the time that she was selling aborted baby fetus parts. A staunch political advocate, Nucatola railed against the “right-wing” Bush administration. What’s more, she so enjoyed her work in the abortion industry that she touted a T-shirt celebrating a drug used in the practice. Let’s break it down: Works for a White House staffer Nucatola is currently employed at Sexual Health Innovations, founded by former Obama White House staffer Jessica Ladd. Senior Obama...

In n 2013 Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal called on the GOP to “stop being the stupid party.” A former Rhodes scholar with serious policy chops, he appeared perfectly positioned to elevate the discussion of ideas. Instead, Jindal has chosen to run in 2016 as the stupid party’s standard-bearer. As Jindal prepares to make his White House bid official on Wednesday, he is struggling to break the one percent mark in national polls. That puts him a dozen places behind the top-tier triumvirate of Walker, Bush and Rubio. It’s possible Jindal will emerge from the back of the pack at some...

In April 2009, as the political right was finding its voice in the tea party, South Carolina Republican Rep. Bob Inglis was making the case for a carbon tax. “I’m a conservative. I believe in accountability,” he said. “Global warming is not a matter of belief. It’s a matter of facts.” He added, “We don’t want to be a party of deniers.” Most of his party disagreed. A year later, Inglis was trounced in a Republican primary, his staunchly conservative record proving insufficient to overcome this heretical deviation. On the surface, it may appear that little has changed in the...

McDonald's Corp. said Tuesday it has appointed Robert Gibbs, a former press secretary for President Barack Obama, as global head of communications

NEW DELHI: Immigration and visa issues, which have long plagued the information technology sector, could come back to hurt Indian IT services companies this year as the US heads towards Presidential elections in 2016. In the US, the biggest market for the Indian IT services sector, "this will be a bloody, contentious election and immigration reform is right up there for discussion," said Phil Fersht, founder and chief executive of HfS Research. "The displacement of US IT and back-office jobs will be a significant issue leading up to 2016." India's $146 billion IT outsourcing industry has been a beneficiary of...

Experts in health care and information technology agree on the future’s biggest opportunity: the creation of a new computational model that will link together all of the massive computers that now hold medical information. IBM is today staking its claim to be a major player in creating that cloud, and to use its Watson artificial intelligence to make sense of the flood of medical data that will result. The new effort uses new, innovative systems to keep data secure, IBM executives say, even while allowing software to use them remotely. Big Blue is certainly putting some muscle into medicine. Some...

Sanders blasts U.S Corporations for Dodging Taxes BURLINGTON, Vt., April 9 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the Senate Budget Committee ranking member, today issued the following statement on new data showing the extent to which some American companies are avoiding taxes: “I applaud Citizens for Tax Justice for releasing new data today revealing the unfairness of our tax system and the fact that a number of the biggest and most-well known corporations in America continue to pay little or nothing in taxes. At a time when we have massive wealth and income inequality, and when corporate profits are soaring, it...

Hillary Rodham Clinton has hired a longtime Google executive to oversee her likely presidential campaign's technology development and build new ways for Clinton to engage with voters, according to Democrats with knowledge of the move. Stephanie Hannon, who is Google's director of product management for civic innovation and social impact, will become the chief technology officer of the expected Clinton campaign, according to the Democrats, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the appointment. At Clinton's New York campaign headquarters, Hannon will serve on the senior staff and oversee a team of engineers...