Free Republic

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s proposal to add toll lanes to three of the most congested highways in the Washington suburbs reaches beyond similar proposals that stalled over the years after being deemed too expensive or disruptive to adjacent communities. Hogan’s $9 billion plan would add four toll lanes each to Maryland’s portion of the Capital Beltway (I-495) and to I-270 from the Beltway to Frederick. It would also widen the Baltimore-Washington Parkway by four toll lanes. The project would be built using a public-private partnership in what Hogan (R) has said would be the largest such deal for highways in...

Virginia elected officials thought they had taken politics out of highway funding when they adopted a new way of scoring and ranking transportation projects three years ago. But maybe not in this election year. With three statewide offices and the House of Delegates up for grabs in three weeks, a regional spat over highway funding caught fire Monday, as Secretary of Transportation Aubrey L. Layne Jr. took aim at Republican political leaders in Southwest Virginia who have accused Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, of doing too little to fund critical road projects in their region. Layne told the House Appropriations...

Embattled actor George Takei has apologized for a recent interview with Howard Stern in which he joked about sexually assaulting men, after the former Star Trek star was accused last week of groping a male model in an alleged incident in 1981. In a social media post, Takei said he attempted to play the role of a “naughty gay grandpa” whilst appearing on the radio show, adding that it was a “caricature that I now regret.” “Many have raised concern over a back-and-forth between Howard Stern and myself, where we joked about me touching men during my ‘Star Trek’ days...

According to a recent article in Vox, conservatives who denounce government overreach aren’t really concerned about burdensome regulations. No—it turns out the “language of small government” is really just “a handmaiden to ethno-nationalism.” Proof? The author, David Roberts, points to a 2016 New York Times story that depicted a few white men in rural America venting their anger over regulations against “coal rolling”—the practice of modifying diesel truck engines to spew thick black smoke. Apparently, being a blue-collar white man who likes spewing black smoke into the air makes you a white nationalist. And apparently, spewing black smoke into the...

My name is Sam Sorbo. I’m a mom to three wonderful children, and the author of “They’re YOUR Kids: An Inspirational Journey from Self-Doubter to Home School Advocate.” Home schooling seems like a radical idea—but only because we are conditioned to think of it that way. Why? Because most of us attended school. But after nine overhauls of our public education system in less than 30 years, according to Pew Research Center data, the U.S. has fallen in world standings for education, to 39th in math and 24th in reading. We are officially behind Estonia. … The schools aren’t getting...

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — Kayla Moore, the wife of Judge Roy Moore, spoke out for the first time in response to the Washington Post’s salacious allegations against her husband last week in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News. Mrs. Moore, the Judge’s wife of 32 going on 33 years, told Breitbart News in no uncertain terms that the allegations against her husband are “just not true” in any way and that the Washington Post has caused her and her family significant harm with its publication of them. “We work out together,” Kayla Moore said when asked for her response to the...

Alabama woman Beverly Young Nelson claimed Monday that Judge Roy Moore sexually assaulted her when she was a 16-year old waitress 40 years ago — telling her story at a New York City press conference held by high-profile liberal attorney Gloria Allred. Nelson, 56, sat next to Allred and stated that she came to know Roy Moore when she was 15 years old, working in a local restaurant near her high school. Moore was, according to her, a regular, eating in the same seat every night and often complimenting her on her looks. According to Nelson’s statement, one night, shortly...

Over in one corner sat Alice, a strong-minded 27-year-old who always said what she thought, regardless of how much it might hurt someone else. In the other corner was Sarah, a thirtysomething high-flier who would stand up for herself momentarily - then burst into tears and run for the ladies. Their simmering fight lasted hours, egged on by spectators taking sides and fuelling the anger. Sometimes other girls would join in, either heckling aggressively or huddling defensively in the toilets. It might sound like a scene from a tawdry reality show such as Big Brother, but the truth is a...

Washington, DC – Today, Club for Growth President David McIntosh issued the following statement as the House Ways and Means Committee continues to mark up the “Tax Cuts and Jobs” bill:“While the corporate tax cut will lead to some increase in our nation’s GDP, the rest of the provisions on individual taxpayers fails the pro-growth test,” Club for Growth President David McIntosh stated.“Republicans must correct at least four serious shortcomings of the House bill to follow through on campaign promises and to bring our nation closer to a tax reform proposal that is truly pro-growth.“1: millionaires’ tax rate: House Republicans...

Sex reassignment is as natural as being born, some in the media tell us. And many Americans are buying it. But a growing chorus of dissenters made up of physicians, researchers, and even transgender individuals is beginning to paint a far different picture of the truth. These dissenters are now coming forward to expose just how harmful gender transition and reassignment are—both medically and sociologically speaking. First, consider recent revelations about how problematic sex reassignment surgery is as a therapy for gender dysphoria. In an interview with The Telegraph, world-renowned genital reconstructive surgeon Miroslav Djordjevic said his clinics are experiencing...

Here is how many times keywords were spoken: Wall Street: 23Tax: 20Inequality: 9Wealthy: 7 Now, compare the number of times other national concerns were mentioned: ISIS: 4Terror/ists/ism: 2Defense: 2Military (excluding Jim Webb): 1Freedom: 1Debt (national): 0Liberty: 0Strength: 0Armed forces: 0Islamist/Islamic: 0

ANNAPOLIS — In 2009, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley closed the visitor center at the Sideling Hill cut, the symbolic gateway to Western Maryland, as a cost-saving effort. Some saw the move as personal, or at least confirmation of how the former governor felt about the state’s rural counties. “We had only two visitor centers that were closed in the entire state under O’Malley,” said William Valentine, an Allegany County commissioner. “It wasn’t too hard to figure out what happened.” Current Gov. Larry Hogan reopened the Sideling Hill Visitor Center in 2015. Earlier this year when Hogan took the stage...

OAKLAND — The Maryland Department of Transportation is taking another look at the Oakland bypass project. Deputy Transportation Secretary Jim Ports made the announcement during MDOT’s annual meeting with local residents and officials last Friday morning at the courthouse. Every year, MDOT officials present a draft of their six-year Consolidated Transportation Program (CTP) during a tour of Maryland’s 23 counties and Baltimore City. “We have decided to reignite the decision for the Oakland bypass,” Ports told local residents last week. “We’re going to look at a practical-design approach to try and save money.” He said the decision was made after...

INDIANAPOLIS — A recent state study found that if the state’s interstates were made into toll roads, they could generate between $39 billion and $53 billion over 30 years. But it’s unlikely that all of Indiana’s interstates would be made into toll roads, State Sen. Mark Messmer, R-Jasper, said Friday morning. He especially doubts that Interstate 64 or Interstate 69 from Evansville to Indianapolis would be converted. “The only way you can put a toll on a road is if you upped the capacity of the road,” he said. “If you widen the bridges or increased the number of lanes,...

The year since the 2016 election has been dizzying. But would it have been just as dizzying if Hillary Clinton had won? A year into the scariest experiment the American Experiment has ever experimented with, here’s a glimpse at the alternate timeline that we just barely missed out on. Nov. 8, 2016: Madam President! The first female president of the United States, Hillary Clinton, wins the popular vote by 3 million votes and ekes out a narrow electoral college victory by winning Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, just like the polls all said! On Etsy, a million “Madam President” onesies go...

Maryland has submitted another grant application seeking federal money to help widen part of Interstate 81. The application will face a little less competition, because another Maryland project was withdrawn. "I feel pretty good (about the application) for a couple of reasons. ... We're a large project that's not looking for a lot of money in a rural area," Matt Mullenax, executive director of the Hagerstown/Eastern Panhandle Metropolitan Planning Organization, said Monday. The $81.9 million project would extend the widening of I-81 to six lanes from Williamsport to Interstate 70. Mullenax said the Maryland Department of Transportation plans to fund...

With winter fast approaching, one of the deadliest Kansas City road construction seasons in recent memory is coming to a close. Crews last week removed the concrete safety barriers along the Interstate 435 pavement reconstruction project in Overland Park. ItÂ’s one of several road projects that have caused major crashes, inspiring the department of transportation in Kansas to add rumble strips to the I-435 project. The first season of the two-year project is complete, and crews re-striped the highway over the weekend. The 140,000 vehicles that travel that road every day now can move along the original lanes. The $16.34...

When I was growing up, my parents almost daily rounded up my four siblings and I for family prayer, the seven of us—albeit with differing degrees of attention—reciting out loud the Catholic prayers of the rosary, while meditating on different events in Jesus Christ’s life. At the end of the rosary, after my dad had rattled off the oh, roughly 785 intentions he wanted the Lord to take some action on, it was the kids’ turn to announce to God what we’d like to see happen. And so when one of my brothers was 2, he began to pray for...

The key to healthy high schoolers might be where no one was looking: the bedroom! In last year's report from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), officials made it clear that teaching kids to save sex for marriage might just spare them from a long list of other health risks. Students in grades 9-12 who made positive decisions about sex were just as likely (or more!) to avoid other dangerous behaviors.That's great news for parents, who were thrilled with the government's announcement that more kids were postponing intimacy than ever before. For years, moms and dads of both parties have...

Sony Entertainment has canceled the American Film Institute premiere of the film All the Money in the World amid a litany of sexual abuse allegations against actor Kevin Spacey. “All the Money in the World is a superb film and more than worthy of its place of honor in the AFI Fest,” TriStar Pictures, the film division of Sony Entertainment, said in a statement, Deadline reports. “But given the current allegations surrounding one of its actors and out of respect for those impacted, it would be inappropriate to celebrate at a gala at this difficult time. Accordingly, the film will...