Free Republic

CONCORD, N.H. — Gov. Chris Sununu on Friday vetoed three bills that advocates said would have added “commonsense” protections for Granite Staters against gun violence but opponents said would have done nothing to stop mass shootings and would have infringed on the constitutional rights of citizens. Sununu vetoed House 109, which closes the so-called gun show loophole and requires background checks for virtually all commercial firearms sales or transfers; House Bill 514, which requires a three-day waiting period before the purchase and delivery of a firearm; and House Bill 564, which prohibits carrying a firearm on school property. “New Hampshire...

Facebook and Google increasingly influence Congress as the social media giants censor conservative and alternative voices, dominate the Internet, and violate Americans’ privacy. Facebook announced on Thursday that they have banned several conservative personalities such as Infowars host Alex Jones, Infowars contributor and YouTube personality Paul Joseph Watson, journalist and activist Laura Loomer, and Milo Yiannopoulus. The social media giant also banned Louis Farrakhan from its platforms. Facebook said that they banned these personalities because they were “dangerous.” Amid calls for greater regulation of social media companies’ potential anticompetitive behavior, censorship of conservative and alternative voices, and privacy violations, Facebook...

......"These foreign governments/factions don't just pay bribes to our politicians for favorable policy; they give money to media outlets like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post - and those are only the print media. Also networks take this $. Here's why President Trump is so confidently predicting most of the Fake News media is going to be out of business in just six years: When ad revenues dropped and subscriptions dropped back in the mid 2000's, they discovered a lucrative new revenue stream. Many top Fake News outlets are now very, very dependent on the cash they...

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., is pushing an effort to ban former members of Congress from lobbying once they are out of office. Scott announced on Friday that he is backing U.S. Sen. Mike Braun’s, R-Ind., “Banning Lobbying and Safeguarding Trust (BLAST) Act” to ensure a lifetime ban preventing former members of Congress from lobbying. “I’m proud to introduce this bill that imposes a permanent ban on members of Congress becoming lobbyists,” Scott said on Friday. “Rather than serving the public, too many in Washington spend their political careers preparing for a lucrative job at a DC lobbying firm where...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) continues to pull back the curtain on what Congress is really like. On Wednesday, the freshman lawmaker highlighted the way in which lobbyists and others who can afford it pay people — including some who are homeless — to wait in line for them outside committee hearings. “Shock doesn’t begin to cover it,” tweeted Ocasio-Cortez. Initially, she wrote, she believed the “tons of people” she saw outside the committee room were part of a demonstration. But an aide set her straight, explaining how “lobbyists pay the homeless + others to hold their place so they can...

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) is used to sparring with the best of 'em in Congress, so he had no problem clapping back at Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-MA) attacks on Twitter Friday. Warren, who recently announced her plans to run for president in 2020, for some reason picked a fight with the now former representative over his career change. Gowdy recently announced his plans to work for Nelson Mullins, a South Carolina-based law and lobbying firm. He had previously worked at the firm until 1994.Aha! Sen. Warren said on Twitter (paraphrasing). .@TGowdySC foamed at the mouth with power in Congress, then...

Is there any point in writing to a congressperson? Are letters or calls they receive actually likely to affect their choices? Greg Beuke, former Congressional Intern at U.S. Senate (2004) Answered Dec 12 · Featured on Quora's Twitter · Upvoted by Carter Moore, Degree in Political Science, former Congressional aide and Federal employee and Kate Rothwell, writer with books published by Kensington, Ellora's Cave, Simon and Schuster, Carina, Samhain and o… As a former intern for a United States Senator, I can tell you exactly what happens when you write to a congressperson. One of my key intern duties was...

We knew this day would come and sadly, this is likely to follow elsewhere. In Scotland, a plan has been approved to mandate so-called “LGBT-inclusive” education into government-run schools. NBC News reports:

MOUNDSVILLE — Trump Administration officials are continuing to listen as West Virginia officials push for an expanded Interstate 68 from Morgantown through Marshall County. Marshall County Commissioner Robert Miller led a contingent to Washington, D.C., last week to meet with Brittany Carter, the White House assistant director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. Miller said the group discussed the I-68 project’s prospects of being included within Trump’s expected $200 billion infrastructure improvement plan, which should be presented to Congress by the end of this year. The I-68 project is expected to cost at least $1 billion. “$200 billion isn’t a...

Over the last decade, short-term rental platforms like Airbnb, HomeAway, and VRBO have expanded and provided an economic boom to many communities. Yet several localities are pursuing onerous zoning rules and other regulations that would restrict short-term rental activity. For many homeowners, short-term rental provides a critical source of additional income to help them pay their mortgages and to meet other financial obligations. States can protect their residents from overzealous, local bureaucrats with state pre-emption. Short-term rental helps local communities by growing the number of tourists that visit the area. A recent study published by the National Bureau of Economic...

Liberal billionaire George Soros spent more on lobbying during President Donald Trump's first year in office than he has in any previous year, disclosure forms show. The Open Society Policy Center, a D.C.-based 501 (c)(4) nonprofit that focuses on domestic and international advocacy efforts and is a separate entity from Soros's Open Society Foundations, poured $16.2 million into lobbying throughout the entirety of 2017. Soros's group reported spending $4.6 million during the first half of 2017 on its lobbying efforts. During the third quarter, Soros added $1.25 million to the total. Most of the lobbying expenditures—$10.3 million—were spent during the...

One of Washington's most powerful lobbying firms did not disclose the wide extent of its lucrative political work for a Ukrainian group tied to both onetime Trump adviser Paul Manafort and to pro-Russian politicians, new records show. The firm, the Podesta Group, said nothing in a 2012 lobbying report to Congress about at least 32 meetings, emails and other communications it had with the State Department, at a time when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was scrutinizing Ukraine's upcoming election, records show. The new disclosures shed light on the web of contacts between Russian-leaning Ukrainians, Washington lobbyists and U.S. policymakers...

President Donald Trump’s $1 trillion plan to rebuild America’s infrastructure may be unprecedented in size and ambition, but it mimics a controversial scheme championed by Vice President Mike Pence when he was the governor of Indiana. That’s why Pence is the public face of the Trump initiative, and executives from financial firms that helped privatize Indiana’s toll road are in the White House, busily sculpting Trump’s national plan. Pence and his allies like to boast about how Indiana sold control of major roads to private firms, claiming the move prompted corporations to invest money in infrastructure that would otherwise have...

Progressives used to pressure U.S. corporations to cut back on outsourcing and on the tactic of building their products abroad to take advantage of inexpensive foreign workers. During the 2012 election, President Obama attacked Mitt Romney as a potential illiberal “outsourcer in chief” for investing in companies that went overseas in search of cheap labor. Yet most of the computers and smartphones sold by Silicon Valley companies are still being built abroad — to mostly silence from progressive watchdogs. In the case of the cobalt mining that is necessary for the production of lithium-ion batteries in electric cars, thousands of...

Soros pushed resources to counter laws described as direct attack on the liberal billionaire. Liberal billionaire George Soros's advocacy arm is ramping up its lobbying efforts this year, disclosure forms show. The deep-pocketed Democratic financier increased lobbying expenditures on a range of foreign issues, including efforts to oppose laws described as a direct attack on his funding of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in his native country of Hungary. The Open Society Policy Center, a D.C.-based nonprofit that focuses on advocacy efforts and is a separate entity from the Soros grant making Open Society Foundations, has spent nearly as much on lobbying...

Top Democrats in Washington hate President Donald Trump and are determined to stop him. That is, until their corporate lobbying clients — like the major airlines — need to pressure Trump to get rid of “unfair competition” in their industry. Then, all of a sudden, they become populist nationalists.

In the age of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on the H-1B and strict enforcement of immigration law, tech conglomerates are lobbying the Congress and White House for amnesty and more foreign labor. These are the four tech companies, according to analysis by Quartz, pushing for no reforms to the H-1B visa and legal immigration system, as the current process of bringing more than 85,000 foreigners to the U.S. each year. Microsoft In the first quarter of 2017 during Trump’s presidency, Microsoft lobbied more for immigration and the H-1B visas than any other tech company. In Microsoft’s five out of eight...

It’s now public on Monday: Jarrett, who has homes in Washington and Chicago, is working with the Chicago-based Obama Foundation in an advisory capacity. The foundation now has a branch office up and running in Washington — in the same building where former President Barack Obama has his official government post-presidential office. Jarrett, I am told from one of her advisers, “will work with President Obama and the foundation leadership, including Chairman Martin Nesbitt and Chief Executive Officer David Simas, to help support the foundation team’s work as it develops the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park on the South...

Former Obama campaign aide David Plouffe has been fined $90,000 for breaking the city of Chicago’s ethics rules in lobbying Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) on behalf of Uber. The Chicago Board of Ethics in a 5-0 vote determined that Plouffe broke the rules by not registering as a lobbyist after seeking Emanuel’s support for rules to allow Uber to pick up passengers at Chicago’s airports, reports the Chicago Tribune. The violation became public after Emanuel released hundreds of emails in December, bowing to pressure from two lawsuits claiming that he had violated Illinois’s open record law. “Assume both of us...

The man who managed former President Barack Obama’s campaign has been slapped with a $90,000 fine for using Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s private email account to lobby the mayor on behalf of ride-sharing giant Uber without registering as a lobbyist. Newly-appointed Chicago Board of Ethics Chairman Attorney William Conlon said the fine assessed against David Plouffe is the largest ever by the Chicago Board of Ethics. It represents $1,000 for every one of the 90 days that Plouffe failed to registered as a lobbyist after his November 2015 email to Emanuel on the mayor’s personal account. “Registration of lobbyists is important....