Free Republic

The federal government’s decision to ban energy development across a wide swath of Colorado and eastern Utah to protect the Gunnison sage grouse habitat has raised concerns the action would inflict economic damage. Although the Obama administration was not expected to make its decision as to whether the bird warrants the endangered listing until November, the Bureau of Land Management’s decision this week effectively puts an oil, gas and coal moratorium on 400,000 acres – roughly 90 acres per bird. The final decision was “pushed back until after the election, because when people understand the impact on jobs, people get...

TOPEKA — Visitors will be allowed to bring concealed guns into the Kansas Statehouse starting in July because legislative leaders on Thursday refused to exercise the power granted to them by state law to prevent it. The change is part of a measure enacted last year, aimed at allowing holders of concealed carry permits to take their weapons into more public buildings. That law said top lawmakers could block Capitol visitors from carrying concealed if they acted — but only this month — and declared that the building’s security is adequate to keep all firearms out. The top seven legislative...

Making gun lovers happy, Kansas lawmakers decided Thursday that citizens can bring their weapons into the Kansas Capitol starting July 1. One question: What are they going to shoot? The idiocy of the pro-gun movement leads to the conclusion that people have to be armed to the teeth these days to walk anywhere, including in the Capitol in Topeka. Really? Kansas lawmakers said that they are going to let people who have licenses to carry hidden weapons to bring them into the Capitol. That will be in addition to the legislators and state employees who already can do that. This...

Another New Mexico county has joined a lawsuit to fight the listing of the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened species. Lea County in southeastern New Mexico joined three other counties in the state last week in a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Interior and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ... U.S. Rep., Steve Pearce, R-N.M., .. The Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to cater to environmental groups and disregard science will devastate New Mexico’s way of life,” he said. “New Mexicans will pay the price in lost jobs, industry, ranching and oil and gas production.”

WICHITA, KS, June 13, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Dr. Cheryl Chastine, the successor of George Tiller at a Wichita facility, says she became an abortionist out of “a moral obligation” and that if she stopped performing abortions, it would constitute “a victory for terrorism.” “When I was in medical school I got the message that there is a shortage of abortion providers and that, therefore, if more of us, including myself, did not become providers, that there would be women who [would] not be able to access abortion when they needed it. So, when I got the call to help open...

The Mount Vernon Assembly – Indianapolis FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Skip Brown skip.brown@iga.in.gov 317-232-9521 The Mount Vernon Assembly to Meet at Indiana Statehouse June 12 and 13 INDIANAPOLIS (June 9, 2014) – More than 100 state legislators representing 33 states will meet at the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis on June 12 and 13 to continue establishing the rules and procedures needed for a future state-led convention for proposing amendments to the U.S. Constitution, as authorized by Article V of the Constitution. The meeting is a continuation of efforts that began in December 2013 at George Washington’s historic Mount Vernon estate...

Or.. Democratrina. Far more destructive than any bomb or hurricane, Democrat locusts destroy lay waste to Detroit. This is the 'progress' they want for the rest of America.

VA health care facilities in the Kansas City area and Wichita have become part of a widening investigation into patient waiting lists by the Department of Veterans Affairs’ inspector general, Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas said Wednesday. A Kansas City area primary care clinic was among the VA health facilities keeping veterans on unofficial “secret” patient lists that could leave them stranded without medical care. The unnamed clinic, apparently one of seven associated with the Kansas City VA Medical Center, had about 30 veterans on its unofficial list. All the patients have been scheduled to be seen within the next...

WAKEENEY, Kansas, June 4, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In 1974, pro-life voters helped up-and-coming Senator Bob Dole narrowly defeat a Democratic congressman and abortionist who gave Dole the closest national election of his career. Nearly 40 years later, Dole has apologized to the abortionist for what he now views as over-the-top rhetoric from some of his pro-life supporters. The former U.S. senator and three-time presidential hopeful, now 90, reminisced about his first Senate re-election in the town of WaKeeney, Kansas (population 1,852) last Thursday. Presidential candidate Bob Dole speaks in California during his 1996 presidential campaign. Credit: Spirit of America /...

On the same day that Sonic, an Oklahoma City-based fast food chain, issued a statement against customers carrying guns at their restaurants, an employee at the company’s Topeka, Kan. store was robbed. According to Topeka police, two males robbed a carhop on Friday afternoon, reports the Topeka Capitol-Journal. Sonic is unique among major fast food eateries in that it provides customers the option of having carhops bring orders to their vehicle. While police said no guns were displayed by the robbers, the crime follows a new policy that the Oklahoma City-based company issued Friday. “We’ve considered the views and desires...

Members of the Small Business Committee in the House of Representatives urged the Environmental Protection Agency to go back to the drawing board on a proposed rule aimed at clarifying bodies of water that fall under the Clean Water Act. In March, the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed a rule to define what “waters of the United States” fall under federal jurisdiction. The rule would include smaller bodies of water including streams, riverbanks, wetlands and floodplains that may have access to larger bodies of water. Republican lawmakers have opposed the rule since its inception, saying the...

The Small Business Committee, under the chairmanship of Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO), today conducted a hearing about how small businesses would be affected by the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) and United States Army Corps of Engineers' proposed rule to expand the Clean Water Act. Last week, Graves and Members of the Committee wrote to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and Assistant Secretary of the Army Jo-Ellen Darcy, who oversees the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to urge withdrawal of the pending rule. Among the witnesses' and Members' concerns, the EPA and Corps of Engineers did not adequately assess the impact of...

Just when I thought I had seen it all on social media, along comes Mayor Charles ‘Charlie’ Stutesman. Charlie, as his friends call him is Mayor of Valley Falls, Kansas; a small town of about fifteen hundred people located in North East Kansas, the kind of place where everybody knows everyone. Now, let me be honest. I most likely would have never noticed this man had it not been for his interaction with Tammy aka CaliAzona and the CEO of this radical faction Amans__Patriae, a serious nutcase that gets his jollies terrorizing women on social media. Read the rest at...

Oil companies say a weeks-old Obama administration ruling that protects a Southwestern prairie bird has already halted oil-drilling operations in Kansas and is costing the U.S. economy tens of millions of dollars, as a GOP congressmen suggests the move is another “job-killing” attack on fossil fuel. The decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that was announced in late March and took effect May 1 includes a provision that should allow federal officials and landowners in the five impacted states -- Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas -- to manage conservation efforts. But oil producers say the interim...

Between now and the end of June, more than two dozen states will hold primary elections. A major subplot of this year’s midterm elections is the competition between the Republican establishment and the tea party wing of the party. The establishment is fighting back, but has the tea party already won? The general election is still six months off. But Tuesday opens the summer preseason of intraparty contests, which starts with an important primary in North Carolina. Between now and the end of June, more than two dozen states will hold primary elections. After a July break, the preseason will...

HAYS, KS, May 23, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Planned Parenthood has announced it is closing its office in Hays, Kansas, after the state successfully defended a law that effectively cuts off state funds from the abortion provider. The Hays Health Center offered abortion referrals as well as the morning after pill, which can work as an abortifacient.

"The Mother-in-Law of Chelsea Clinton, former congresswoman Marjorie Margolies lost a chance to get back to Washington, "losing big in her Pennsylvania House race against state lawmaker Brendan Boyle."

The parents of a little girl in Kansas are having problems getting their daughter to eat. It’s not that she’s picky or refuses the food they offer her. Instead, she has a very rare disorder that makes it so her body aggressively attacks itself any time she eats any kind of food, with one exception. Maehlee Her is 13 months old and has eosinophilic esophagitis, which is a rare condition causes her to get horrible diarrhea and vomiting every time she eats normal food. The only thing she can currently stomach is squash. The rare disorder makes her white blood...

There's been nothing but bad news lately for Gov. Sam Brownback. The FBI is investigating close associates of the Kansas Republican, including his former chief of staff, for possible lobbying and fundraising improprieties, as well as sweetheart deals involving state business. Brownback dismisses it as a "smear" campaign. Nothing may come of it, but it's certainly made for some bad press. Also, the state's bond rating was cut earlier this month amid plunging revenues, lending credibility to his opponents' arguments that his massive tax-cut packages have damaged the state. "The polls show that he's very vulnerable for somebody who should...

For Michelle Obama, the world is black and white. But not about good and evil, right and wrong. Her black and white is all about skin color. She talks about it often, incessantly, even, injecting race and racism into speeches and events in which they have no business. And she did so again on Friday, when she traveled to Topeka, Kansas, to deliver a speech to graduating high school seniors. First, a background note: Her speech was moved up a day after parents complained that her visit to a school district -- just blocks from the historic schoolhouse central to...