Free Republic

A federal judge blocked a law in West Virginia this week that banned transgender girls from participating in female teams. The judge ruled on Wednesday that the Mountain State cannot block transgender girls from playing on female sports teams. Gov. Jim Justice signed the bill in law on April 28, which initially banned transgender girls and women from participating in public school sports consistent with their gender identity. The ruling marks the third federal court decision in the past 30 days to block anti-transgender laws from going into effect. "At this point, I have been provided with scant evidence that...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WOWK) – Former U.S. Senate Candidate Paula Jean Swearengin has announced she is leaving the Democratic Party. Swearengin said the reason behind her decision is she believes both the state and national levels of the party allegedly ignored issues such as racism and children suffering across Appalachia. “Our system is broken. We can’t rebuild a two-party system with division & hate,” Swearengin said in a tweet. According to her website, Swearengin is a native of Mullens, West Virginia, who grew up in a coal-mining family. In June 2020, Swearengin won the Democratic vote in the primary election, beating...

West Virginians choosing not to receive a COVID-19 vaccine are entering a “death lottery,” the state’s governor said, as the portion of residents fully inoculated against the virus hovers around 46.4%.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Thursday that he had “never considered” switching his party affiliation to the Republicans, despite drawing ire from far-left Democrats over his opposition to scrapping the legislative filibuster. “If switching a party, or whether you have a ‘D’ by your name or an ‘R’ by your name changes who you are as a person, then you’re in the wrong profession, and it’s all about you and not about the oath you take to the office, the oath to the Constitution, to protect and defend,” Manchin told Fox News’ “Special Report”. “That shouldn’t be a party affiliation,...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said his optimism on a bipartisan infrastructure bill was “short-lived” following President Joe Biden’s remarks that he would consider vetoing the bill if it doesn’t include a sweeping reconciliation package. His comments came shortly after Biden endorsed the bipartisan deal to spend $1.2 trillion over eight years before stating that “If only one comes to me, this is the only one that comes to me, I’m not signing it“ McConnell accused Biden of “caving” to the far left following the bipartisan breakthrough and offering mixed messaging on the matter.

President Joe Biden on Thursday announced a bipartisan infrastructure deal with moderate senate Republicans and Democrats after meeting with them briefly at the White House. “We had a really good meeting and to answer your direct question, we have a deal,” Biden announced, standing with the group of senators Biden met briefly with the group to seal his support for the deal after the White House announced a framework deal for a bipartisan agreement Wednesday evening. The president celebrated the bipartisan nature of the deal, even though he said it was not all of the proposed spending that he asked...

Democrats did not win the last Senate elections. Republicans did. They did not win by as wide a margin as they needed to maintain control of the Senate, but the American people backed them, not Democrats. And Democrats cannot handle that. They pretend that they received a landslide last November and January, when they actually lost. By believing their own Fake News, Democrats set themselves not only to fail but to fail spectacularly. Republicans won 20 of the 35 senate races last year. Republicans received 49% of the vote, Democrats 47%. This split the Senate 50-50. As president of the...

HAZELTON — The West Virginia Department of Transportation has entered into a consent order with the state Department of Environmental Protection for violations of the water pollution control permit at the Interstate 68 Welcome Center near Hazelton. The order, signed March 10 by Division of Highways District 4 Engineer/Manager Michael Cronin, calls for the DOT to pay up to a total of $75,175 in civil administrative penalties and to hook onto the public sewer system, eliminating the treatment facility at the welcome center. Half the penalty, $37,587.50, is to be paid to the DEP within 30 days of the effective...

The U.S. Department of Justice is targeting West Virginia for prohibiting transgender girls and women from participating in public school sports. Saying the law “hinders equal athletic opportunities for girls by creating an additional hurdle for participation,” Aria Vaughan, a trial attorney with the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, said the new law also discriminates against West Virginia student-athletes on the basis of sex and gender identification, in the statement filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of West Virginia. “The State cannot point to any valid evidence that allowing transgender girls to participate on...

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Sunday said the infrastructure bill announced by a bipartisan group of 10 senators will not include a gas tax increase or undo the 2017 tax reform bill. When asked by host John Dickerson on CBS’s “Face the Nation” how the group plans to pay for the package, Collins, who is part of the bipartisan coalition, silenced rumors of a gas tax increase or rolling back the 2017 tax reform bill, while outlining the group’s strategies for financing the initiatives. Collins said the group, which includes five senators from each party, is considering three “pay fors”:...

President Biden ended infrastructure negotiations with a group of GOP lawmakers, led by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, the White House said Tuesday.The development came after Biden reportedly failed to get the Republicans on board with increasing their overall spending on the plan."He [Biden] informed Senator Capito today that the latest offer from her group did not, in his view, meet the essential needs of our country to restore our roads and bridges, prepare us for our clean energy future, and create jobs," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement. "He offered his gratitude to her for her...

Vice President Kamala Harris promoted the Biden administration’s "critical" coronavirus "American Rescue Plan" this week in a pair of interviews with local TV stations in West Virginia and Arizona. But U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said he was surprised by the Harris interview in his state, claiming no one from the administration had called him to discuss the appearance, WSAZ-TV of Huntington, W.Va., reported. The communication gap was a departure from the national "unity" theme that Harris and President Biden have promoted, he suggested.

No sooner do I select the most funnest Tweet of the day than Cher steps up with this howler: -snip- She’s so indignant that she can’t even bother to identify the correct Kirsten, because I guess all blonde Kirstens look alike to her. Gives me an excuse to tell a celebrity story, from almost 30 years ago. For some reason I can’t now recall, I got to have a one-on-one lunch with Sonny Bono, then just finishing up as the well regarded mayor of Palm Springs, and thinking then about challenging Gray Davis for State Controller in 1990 I think....

Senator Joe Manchin is all but assuring that the Democratic Party’s attempt to continue the debacle of the 2020 presidential election in perpetuity will be brought to a halt, at least the federal level. The Democratic Senator is delivering a backbreaking blow to the Democrats’ hope of passing H.R. 1, which would effectively outlaw strict voter IDs and mandate that elections be carried out via absentee ballots for weeks, if not months before elections. “I believe that partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy, and for that reason, I will vote against the For the...

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice announced on Tuesday that residents who receive the COVID-19 vaccine will be entered into a lottery that includes prizes of customized firearms and $1 million. The initiative, which aims to incentivize residents to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, will begin weekly drawings on Father’s Day, June 20, ending on Aug. 4. “To be eligible, you have got to get your first shot,” said Justice. “When I start through these prizes … there’s going to be a run on people getting their first shot. So go get ’em. Go get ’em so you’ll be eligible where...

The White House confirmed on Tuesday that President Joe Biden plans to meet again with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) to discuss a bipartisan infrastructure bill. “The President is looking forward to hosting Senator Capito on Wednesday afternoon at the White House, where they will continue their bipartisan negotiations about investing in our middle class and economic growth through infrastructure,” the White House said in a statement to reporters.

Eight years ago I wrote a post titled: Can A Nation Built By Giants Survive Nanny State Paternalism? The Numbers Don't Look Good... In it I wrote: “ Were the Americans who carved a nation out of a continent, who crisscrossed that continent with railroads, telephone lines and highways and who won two world wars so different from Americans today… Not based on DNA they weren’t. But that doesn’t mean they were the same. While the DNA of the American people today is no different from that of the people who invented the elevator or the light bulb, the American...

More than 2 million workers could see their jobless benefits slashed or eliminated altogether next month as more states opt out of federal unemployment programs. Some of the hardest hit will be out-of-work Black Americans. “The states are giving them 30 days to find a job,” Andrew Stettner, an unemployment insurance expert and senior fellow at the Century Foundation, told Yahoo Money. “Most of those workers won’t find a job within those 30 days. Most of them are going to have zero in unemployment benefits.” Those workers stand to collectively lose $10.9 billion, averaging out to potentially thousands of dollars...

During Friday’s briefing, Gov. Justice announced that, after consulting with State medical experts regarding vaccination rates, the Statewide Indoor Face Covering Requirement will be lifted on the State’s 158th birthday –also known as West Virginia Day – Sunday, June 20, 2021. “We believe that all West Virginians 12 years of age and older will be eligible to take the vaccine soon, and by June 20th, we project that 65% of all eligible West Virginians will have the first dose at that point in time, 75% of our population that's 50 and above will have the first dose at that time,...

Texas, Florida and North Carolina are among the states that will gain congressional seats based on new population data from the U.S. census, a shift that will boost Republican chances of recapturing the U.S. House of Representatives from Democrats in next year’s midterm elections. Blue states losing a seat = California, New York, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania. Red states losing a seat = Ohio, West Virginia. Blue states gaining a seat = Oregon, Colorado. Red states gaining seats = Montana, Florida, North Carolina, and Texas is gaining two seats. Summary = Net gain of +3 seats for red states.