Free Republic

Happy Fourth of July. In honor of the occasion and to pay tribute to those who came before us, I’d like to start this essay with a land acknowledgment statement. My home sets on land first explored by English and Scots-Irish freemen who had migrated from their homeland in search of freedom and opportunity or sometimes on the run from the law. The land was settled primarily by Germans from the Palatinate , who, through their industry, created farms, pastures, and orchards where only unproductive, fallow wilderness had existed. These men and women held savage tribes at bay and together...

After months of negotiations, an $11.7 billion transportation and infrastructure plan to repair roads, ease traffic, strengthen levees, and expand affordable housing is coming together in the Senate. A similar proposal, with new school construction funding, will be unveiled in the Assembly in January. Both houses hope to get their proposals ready within two weeks, when the new legislative session gets under way. And Gov. Schwarzenegger's own plan, which Capitol sources say may be pared down from its original $50 billion price tag to $35 billion and may be phased in over time rather than in one lump, is scheduled...

Tom Adams, a Lincoln Park, Mich., resident and member of Gateway Anabaptist Church, preaches on a corner in Monroe, Mich., after the city of Monroe settled a federal lawsuit that stemmed from the ticketing last year of a group of street evangelists.AP Photo/KEITH KING MONROE, Mich. (AP) -- A group of street preachers are free to spread the gospel downtown following their settlement of a lawsuit against the city.Under the settlement agreed to last week, the city will not prosecute members of World Wide Street Preachers' Fellowship under the city's noise ordinance or for lack of a parade permit....