Free Republic

Nebraska's prison inmate population is growing faster than anywhere else in the nation, way out of sync with nearly every other state. And the smoking gun behind much of that growth — and the millions of dollars that those extra inmates are costing Nebraska taxpayers — is a 2009 state law that created new gun crimes and toughened penalties. The law also helped steer hundreds of offenders from federal prisons into the state system, adding to the tab for Nebraska taxpayers. As Gov. Pete Ricketts and the Legislature debate whether a new $230 million prison is needed to deal with...

A federal judge in Missouri has issued a temporary hold on the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors in 10 U.S. states while litigation plays out.“We just beat the Biden Administration in court again,” Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt announced on Twitter late Monday. “This afternoon, we obtained a preliminary injunction against the vaccine mandate on federal contractors, halting enforcement of that mandate in Missouri and the other states in our coalition.”The preliminary injunction, issued by U.S. Magistrate Judge David Noce, applies to Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Schmitt...

Fifteen state financial officers sent a letter to U.S. banks last week noting $600 billion in assets they pledge to take elsewhere if the financial institutions embrace corporate wokeism and prohibit financing to the fossil fuel industry. Led by West Virginia Republican Treasurer Riley Moore, the group promised “collective action” in the form of an “economic boycott.” “Just as each state represented in this letter is unique in its governing laws and economy, our actions will take different forms,” they wrote in the letter obtained by The Federalist. “However, the overarching objective of our actions will be the same –...

Kellogg plans to permanently replace some 1,400 workers who have been striking since October, the company announced this week. Kellogg and the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union failed to reach a new contract agreement, leading to the planned change. “We have made every effort to reach a fair agreement, including making six offers to the union throughout negotiations, all which have included wage and benefits increases for every employee. It appears the union created unrealistic expectations for our employees,” Chris Hood, president of Kellogg North America, said in a recent statement. “The prolonged work stoppage has...

Each of the three South Omaha teens was at a tender age: 19, 17, 15. Jose Antonio Ramos, 19, was dabbling on the edges of hard drugs and the Sureños gang. The 17-year-old, Marcos Garza-Calderon, was on probation for methamphetamine possession and was posting pictures of himself on Facebook wearing a Tupac shirt and flashing gang signs, the butt of a handgun near his pocket. The 15-year-old, Manuel Gijon-Villa, was just finishing up his sophomore year at Bryan High School and hanging out with the two older teens. They were friends. Close enough to be hanging out in the same...

A Council Bluffs teacher is under arrest accused of leaving a series of threatening notes around school referencing gun violence. Council Bluffs police said an investigation into a series of anonymous handwritten notes led them to Abraham Lincoln High School teacher Katrina Phelan, 37. Police said all the notes referenced committing gun violence on school property and were found in Phelan's classroom, or a girl's restroom. According to police in an affidavit, all four notes in question were either found and recovered by students in Phelan's classroom or by Phelan herself. The affidavit says Phelan admitted to writing three of...

In response to the recent tragedy in Oakland County, Michigan, what did the anti-gunners do? Following their standard course of action, they are politicizing the deaths of four high school teens in an attempt to undermine your constitutionally-protected rights. In fact, bowing to the will of their far-Left overlords, anti-gun senators are bringing H.R. 8 to the Senate floor—which is a bill to institute Universal Background Registration Checks (UBCs). And to make matters worse, they are trying to do this by unanimous consent—without an actual vote. Please, contact your Senators and make sure they know you’re opposed to H.R. 8...

Judge Matthew Schelp of the Eastern District of Missouri issued an injunction halting President Joe Biden's Wuhan coronavirus vaccine mandate for Medicare and Medicaid workers in ten states Monday, citing a lack of approval from Congress. "The mandate requires nearly every employee, volunteer, and third-party contractor working at fifteen catogires of healthcare facilities to be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 (“COVID”) and to have received at least a first dose of the vaccine prior to December 6, 2021," court documents show. "Congress did not grant CMS authority to mandate the vaccine. Plaintiffs are likely to succeed in their argument that Congress has...

Fifteen Republican governors, led by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, have launched “Operation Open Road,” an initiative that seeks to ease the U.S. supply chain crunch through a range of state and federal measures, including calling on the Biden administration to remove “burdensome” regulations on the trucking industry and to suspend President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for private employers. Lee announced the start of the operation in a statement on Nov. 22, the same day that he signed an executive order (pdf) deregulating critical trucking functions in Tennessee. “Republican governors across the country have committed to doing everything we can to...

A total of 32 House and Senate Republicans helped push Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure package over the finish line, most of whom have been showered with campaign cash from the leading lobbying group behind the bill — the US Chamber of Commerce. Lawmakers run for office, grabbing donations from interest groups, then, after their election, voting for legislation supported by those special interest groups despite their constituents’ opposition. The Chamber had been lobbying for Biden’s infrastructure bill, since the start of the year. By July, Open Secrets reported the Chamber had spent more than $12 million lobbying for the bill...

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Ten states filed a lawsuit Friday to stop President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors, arguing that the requirement violates federal law. Attorneys general from Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming signed on to the lawsuit, which was filed in a federal district court in Missouri. The states asked a federal judge to block Biden’s requirement that all employees of federal contractors be vaccinated against the coronavirus, arguing that the mandate violates federal procurement law and is an overreach of federal power. “If the federal government attempts...

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday endorsed Charles W. Herbster for Nebraska governor. According to his Twitter bio, Herbster is a ''proud lifelong Nebraska farmer, cattle rancher, businessman, and Republican.'' ''Charles W. Herbster,'' Trump wrote, according to Liz Harrington, ''has been a tremendous supporter of America First and Make America Great Again, right from the beginning. He is running for Governor of the Great State of Nebraska and will do a fantastic job. ''A proud native of Nebraska, Charles is an extraordinarily successful businessman who will fight for our Farmers and Ranchers, support our Military and Vets, and protect and...

A man fired from a south central Nebraska grain complex Thursday returned to the facility and started shooting at his former colleagues killing two, and injuring on others according to the Nebraska State Patrol. The gunman, identified as Max Hoskinson, 61, was shot and killed by another employee of the Agrex facility in Superior, Nebraska.The Nebraska State Patrol was called to assist the Nuckolls County Sheriff’s Office and Superior Police Department with a response to an active shooter incident at the Agrex Elevator in Superior at 2:00 p.m. Thursday. They found one person dead, Hoskinson and another person gravely wounded...

As a former Nebraska attorney general, I have generally declined to comment on legal opinions issued by my successors. However, the recent opinion concerning ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as off-label medicines for the treatment of COVID-19 is extraordinary. Moreover, it addresses an issue that potentially affects every Nebraskan who becomes infected with COVID-19, so that it deserves to be highlighted. The issue, as stated by the current attorney general, is "whether it would be deemed unlawful or otherwise subject to discipline ... for an appropriately licensed health care provider, once informed patient consent has been appropriately obtained, to prescribe ivermectin [or]...

Few subjects have been more controversial than ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine — two long-established, inexpensive medications widely and successfully used in many parts of the world for the prevention and treatment of COVID. By contrast, the use of both medications against COVID has been largely suppressed in the U.S, where doctors have been threatened and punished for prescribing them. On Oct. 15, Nebraska Attorney General (AG) Doug Peterson issued a legal opinion that Nebraska healthcare providers can legally prescribe off-label medications like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of COVID, so long as they obtain informed consent from the patient. However,...

Like other ranchers across the country, Rusty Kemp for years grumbled about rock-bottom prices paid for the cattle he raised in central Nebraska, even as the cost of beef at grocery stores kept climbing... Federal data show that for every dollar spent on food, the share that went to ranchers and farmers dropped from 35 cents in the 1970s to 14 cents recently. It led Kemp to launch an audacious plan: Raise more than $300 million from ranchers to build a plant themselves, putting their future in their own hands.... ...Crews will start work this fall building the Sustainable Beef...

OMAHA, Neb. -- Work at all of the Kellogg Company's U.S. cereal plants came to a halt Tuesday as roughly 1,400 workers went on strike, but it wasn't immediately clear how much the supply of Frosted Flakes or any of the company's other iconic brands would be disrupted. The strike includes plants in Omaha, Nebraska Battle Creek, Michigan; Lancaster, Pennsylvania; and Memphis, Tennessee.... ...The company insists that its offer is fair and would increase wages and benefits for its employees that it said made an average of $120,000 a year last year. "We are disappointed by the union’s decision to...

(CNN)A multi-agency law enforcement operation in Nebraska resulted in the arrest of 231 people, according to the US Marshals Service... ...The operation, led by the US Marshals Service Metro Fugitive Task Force (MFTF), the Omaha Police Department (OPD), and the Lincoln Police Department, resulted in the arrest of 144 gang members, according to the release. The four-month operation, which took place from May to August, focused on "arrest warrants involving gang members, gang suppression, and gang intervention/prevention," authorities stated.... ..The Marshals Service emphasized three missing children were also found... ...The operation led to numerous significant arrests, including Maurice Coleman... A...

We're starting to get nurses applying because of these hospitals mandating the vaccine," one employer who does not require the vaccine told Alpha News. While many health care facilities are firing their unvaccinated employees amid a nationwide staffing shortage, some Minnesota companies are taking the opposite approach. President Joe Biden announced earlier this month that all employers with over 100 employees will be required to institute a company-wide vaccine mandate or face massive recurring fines. Meanwhile, hospitals around the nation are facing nursing shortages that frontline workers say will only be made worse by the Biden mandate as unvaccinated nurses...

Republicans will not be united in opposing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act when it comes up for a vote in the House on Friday, with a handful of members saying that they will buck leadership and support the bill. House Republican leadership on Wednesday announced that they will whip votes against the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act... Here are the House Republicans who say that they will or may vote in favor of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act:...