Free Republic

Though incumbent Governor Rick Perry is almost assured to win the Republican nomination for this year's gubernatorial election in Texas, he does face three longshot challengers. One of them, Corpus Christi rancher Star Locke, has proposed eliminating property taxes in the Lone Star State with revenue from taxing three things he finds undesirable. Specifically, Locke is proposing a $10,000 per-abortion tax on medical clinics that perform abortions and a 10 percent tax on all sodas containing sugar. However, gamers will be especially alarmed by the third part of Locke's property-tax-relief proposal--a 50 percent tax on "violent video games." "I take...

Governor Daniels says cost-cutting steps will have Indiana poised to eliminate a $600 million deficit by June. During his Wednesday night State of the State Address, Daniels said, "The first steps of any race are critical. Our first steps have been fast ones." Governor Daniels' first year in office brought dramatic change and this year is shaping up to be the same. As expected, Daniels sought support for his plan to raise money for highway construction by selling or leasing the Indiana Toll Road. “If big private firms are willing to offer Indiana a very large sum of money today,...

President Bush's proposal for a guest worker program as a way of addressing illegal immigration is gaining support from Gov. Mitch Daniels, but doubts from officials with agencies that work with northwestern Indiana's growing immigrant population. Bush's desire for a guest worker program has been stalled in Congress since he proposed it while running for re-election, although at least two competing bills would establish temporary worker visas. He made immigration the subject of his weekly radio address Saturday and addressed the issue during appearances in Arizona and Texas last week, saying it will top his legislative agenda next year. "These...

It is often overlooked that George Orwell’s Animal Farm predicted not only the horrors of communism but also the end of the Cold War. At the end of the fable, the farmer, who symbolizes the capitalist West, returns to the farm and plays cards with the pigs, who symbolize communism. The shivering creatures outside, symbolizing ordinary people, “looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” We normally think of the end of the Cold War as having marked the unambiguous victory of...

Dear xxxxxx We are pleased to tell you that the campaign to protect America from "50 Caliber Terror" is gaining momentum! This week the New York State Assembly passed a package of legislation to stem the tide of gun violence that included a ban on .50-caliber sniper rifles. And in Illinois, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley announced 4 pieces of gun violence prevention legislation that also included a bill to restrict anti-armor, .50-caliber sniper rifles. Your support of the Freedom States Alliance is helping to educate America about these weapons of terror. You can help us build our campaign by asking...

A piece of legislation recently signed by President Bush makes it illegal to send an e-mail or a message over the internet that will annoy someone without revealing your full name. The courts will get to decide what’s annoying and what isn’t, and the penalty, if you are found to have annoyed someone, is two years in jail and a stiff fine. I find it extremely creepy that our Congress believes they should regulate annoying behavior. We really need to clean house in ‘06. It’s no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web...

Is a fee different than a tax? Technically, yes. But for many Republicans, they are one in the same. In fact, in recent years GOP lawmakers have made many an eloquent speech about how Democrats tack on a "fee"... which can often be approved on a simple majority vote... rather than assess a new "tax", which requires a two-thirds vote (and, therefore, GOP votes). Now, fast forward to today... where Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger traveled to Sacramento's Nimbus Dam on the American River to promote his new water safety and flood protection package. The $35 billion proposal is part of the...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- A state senator wants to force Missouri stores to sell warm beer. Under a bill by Sen. Bill Alter, grocery and convenience stores would risk losing their liquor licenses if they sold beer colder than 60 degrees. The intent is to cut down on drunken driving by making it less tempting to pop open a beer after leaving the store. "The only reason why beer would need to be cold is so that it can be consumed right away," Alter, who has been a police offer for more than 20 years, said Thursday.

Only hours after Mayor Bloomberg vowed in his second inaugural address to launch a national campaign against "illegal guns," the gun rights lobby is mobilizing to respond, with the influential National Rifle Association accusing the mayor of "intimidating law abiding Americans." On Sunday, as Mr. Bloomberg was sworn in for his second term, he invoked the names of police officers shot and killed in the line of duty as he announced a new, central focus of his administration - protecting New Yorkers from what he called "the scourge of illegal guns" by taking a message for tougher gun laws to...

Routing the city's "scourge of illegal guns" will be the top priority in the next four years, Mayor Bloomberg pledged yesterday as he was sworn in for a second term. "Our most urgent challenge is ending the threat of guns and the violence they do," Bloomberg said during his inaugural address on the steps of City Hall — winning the loudest applause of the 19-minute speech. "Now we have a duty as well, one that rises above partisan politics, and one that we will pursue relentlessly: And that is to rid our streets of guns, and punish all of those...

ALBANY — Following up on the passage of the "heroes law," Gov. Pataki yesterday announced the state will hire 100 state troopers to crack down on illegal gun trafficking. Pataki said the specially trained troopers will work with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and local police to track down illegal guns that make their way into New York. "We will go after guns from the streets to the source and not just in New York, but outside of New York," Pataki said. The State Police investigators — who will be in addition to those already working...

NEW YORK (AP) - Hoping to save hundreds of lives, health officials made a regulatory change Wednesday that will allow the city to track thousands of people with diabetes and occasionally prod them to take better care of themselves. In doing so, New York will become the first American city to monitor diabetes in the same way health departments now commonly track people with HIV or tuberculosis. It will also be treading new ground, and potentially raising some privacy concerns, by collecting information about people who have a chronic disease that isn't contagious or caused by an environmental toxin. The...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Nov. 11) - Critics have dubbed it "Bald Ego," "Murky's Turkey" and "Incontinental Airlines," but Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski finally has the sleek executive jet he says he and other state officials need. The $2.6 million Westwind aircraft, equipped with a leather sofa, burgundy carpeting and a flush toilet, arrived this week in Anchorage and will replace a no-frills turboprop used by previous Alaska governors for official business. Critics say Murkowski's jet is unusable in much of rural Alaska, where runways are too short and made of gravel or nonexistent. Murkowski press secretary Becky Hultberg defended the purchase,...

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court refused Monday to disturb New York's system of taxing the income of telecommuters who live elsewhere but are employed by companies in the Empire state. Justices passed up a chance to hear the appeal of a Tennessee computer programmer who claimed that New York's tax law is unconstitutional. Thomas Huckaby had been ordered to pay New York income tax for his full salary, not just the time he spent at the New York offices of the union for which he worked. He lived 900 miles away in Nashville.

An interim legislative committee is considering a bill that would prohibit gays, lesbians and single people in Indiana from using medical science to assist them in having a child. Sen. Patricia Miller, R-Indianapolis, said state law does not have regulations on assisted reproduction and should have similar requirements for adoption in Indiana. "If we're going to try to put Indiana on the map, I wouldn't go this route," said Betty Cockrum, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Indiana. "It feels pretty chilling. It is governmental intrusion into a very private part of our lives." Miller acknowledged that the legislation...

The Virginia Citizens Defense League is non-partisan. We are only asking all the candidates to take a position on specific issues of concern to Virginia's gun owners, so that gun owners might make an informed choice. We believe this to be a reasonable request, and remain perplexed by the hostility that this has generated from the Kilgore campaign. The emails on which I have been cc'ed from gun owners across the state run the gamut from *pleading* with Mr. Kilgore to answer the VCDL survey and take a stand on gun rights, to furious gun owners saying that they have...

hereby officially pronounce the conservative movement dead. May it rest in peace. It was killed by its faith in men, not principles – men like George W. Bush. The appointments of John Roberts as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and Harriet Miers as associate justice serve as the epitaphs for the political movement. But even before these betrayals, conservatism was on life support. It could not have survived the irresponsible spending by the Republican Congress, approved by the president during the last five years. The conservative movement, in the best of times, represented a defensive effort to slow...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 - The White House distanced itself today from the comments of a prominent Republican who said on a recent radio program that the nation's crime rate could potentially be reduced through aborting blacks. The White House called the comments, made by William J. Bennett, the former Republican secretary of education, off base. The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said that President George W. Bush "believes the comments were not appropriate." Mr. Bennett has said the remarks were taken out of context, noting that he immediately said such abortions would be "reprehensible." Mr. Bennett, who served as drug...

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) had the look of a hunted man as he walked from the Capitol to the Longworth House Office Building yesterday for a speech to young conservatives. Pence, chairman of a group of House conservatives called the Republican Study Committee, was complaining to his companions about a Robert Novak column in yesterday's Washington Post saying Pence was subjected to a "closed-door auto-da-fe" from Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Tom DeLay for daring to suggest that the profligate House leadership should reconsider its big-spending ways. But Pence got the leadership's message, loud and clear. Pence's speech was...

washingtonpost.com GOP Leaders Try to Soothe Conservatives Drive Planned to Defuse Ire Over Spending By Jonathan Weisman Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, September 27, 2005; A04 Squeezed between a conservative clamor for spending cuts and the rising cost of hurricane relief, Republican congressional leaders will respond this week with a public relations offensive to win over angry conservatives -- but no substantive changes in budget policy. Republican lawmakers and leadership aides conceded that the wholesale budget cuts envisioned by House conservatives are not being contemplated; the Senate is moving toward approving a temporary expansion of Medicaid for hurricane survivors, estimated...