Free Republic

TALLAHASSEE — In light of Key West banning the sale of sunscreens that contain chemicals believed to harm coral reefs, Florida lawmakers are fast-tracking proposals that would undo the local regulation. Sen. Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island, said Monday that Key West is sending “mixed signals” to people about the importance of sunscreen and that his bill is meant to send a clear message to the “country and the world” that the use of sunscreen is encouraged in the Sunshine State. “Unfortunately, with all of the wonderful things that come with our beaches and our sunshine, we also rank second in...

Helen Hudson will tell you what the 15th Ward was like when she was a girl. In the 1950s and early ’60s, the Syracuse neighborhood was home to thousands of predominantly black residents who had settled in the growing upstate New York city during and after the Great Migration. Those who remember it, like Hudson, describe it as thriving, self-sufficient community they were proud to call home. “Oh my god, the things we had,” she said recently, her voice softening with the distinct twang of nostalgia. “We had two bowling alleys. We had meat markets.” Charlie Pierce-El will tell you...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, inspired by the plan to tear down the elevated portion of Interstate 81 in Syracuse, wants to rewrite federal rules for hiring workers on such big infrastructure projects. If she succeeds, at least half of the workers hired for the $2 billion project for a new I-81 would have to come from Syracuse. Hiring priority would be given to people who face barriers to employment, including veterans, ex-offenders and the chronically unemployed. At least a third of contracts and subcontracts would go to small businesses, and at least 30 percent of the contracts would...

Trump got you down? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez giving you the willies? Try federalism — now with 70 percent less authoritarianism. To the uninitiated, conservatives sometimes sound — to put it plainly — bonkers. Your lefty friends are going on and on about free health care and making Jeff Bezos pay off their student loans, and conservatives are talking about . . . the 17th Amendment. Conservatives do hate the 17th Amendment. That’s the one that instituted the direct election of senators, which basically turned the upper house into a puffed-up House of Representatives with a bit less accountability. Conservatives of a...

There is no shortage of issues upon which Republicans and Democrats can respectfully disagree. We’re silly people sometimes though, and respect seems to come at quite a cost. There are a handful of issues, however, on which Democrats are so profoundly and dangerously wrong that I find myself incapable of empathy. Beto O’Rourke, Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Cory Booker, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and more have come out for eliminating the Electoral College. This is an unequivocal deal-breaker for me. It seems one of the only Democrats with any sense is the anti-establishment progressive, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who...

President Donald Trump called for a bipartisan effort to pass an infrastructure bill in his latest State of the Union speech. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao echoed the same sentiments shortly after the speech. Yet both failed to provide a few details as to what ought to be included in such a bill, and leaving the details to Congress is problematic. So far, most congressional discussions on any infrastructure bill have focused on ways to fund more federal spending. Letting Washington simply throw more dollars at roads and bridges, however, is a bad idea. Whatever we spend, politicians should take...

In the wake of the recent horrific shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, a number of proposals involving federal grant programs have been offered in Congress to try to address the critical issue of school safety. Empowering states and localities to implement evidence-based programs that meet their needs represents a sensible approach. Among the proposals under consideration is the Students, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Act of 2018, which has been introduced in the House by Rep. John Rutherford, R-Fla., a former sheriff, and in the Senate by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Both House...

DENVER (CBS4)– The Colorado Department of Transportation is gearing up for a major project that will change the landscape of Interstate 70 through the central part of Denver. The Central 70 Project will dramatically impact the community from Colorado Boulevard to Brighton Boulevard. The Colorado Department of Transportation is now hiring people who live there. “The Central 70 Project is by itself a major economic driver for the entire Denver-metro region. CDOT wanted to also ensure that these economic and job opportunities were made available to local residents,” said Shailen Bhatt, CDOT Executive Director. “CDOT is one of only a...

The Trump administration is developing principles that will guide future highway funding. At a recent White House meeting with state transportation officials, the administration announced it was considering shifting greater funding responsibilities to the states. Along with expanding the private sector’s role and loosening tolling restrictions, these reforms will result in better decisions and management of the transportation system. It makes sense for Congress to support these transportation policy reforms. Ted Mann of the Wall Street Journal recently reported that the administration is thinking about reducing the share of federal dollars that fund highway construction. Rather than receiving the usual...

PA Turnpike Commission Stops Work on Mon-Fayette ExpresswayCommissioners freeze project spending due to apparent lack of support.HIGHSPIRE, PA. (March 21, 2017) — The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission announced today that it will stop engineering-design activities on the 14-mile Mon-Fayette Expressway project in Allegheny County in light of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission’s recent decision to table the project. “The PA Turnpike has a legislative mandate to develop the Mon-Fayette Expressway, but our role is not to serve as an advocate for the project,” said PA Turnpike CEO Mark Compton. “This is a regional project, and the decision as to whether it is...

Congress has written some laudable policies into the Pet and Women Safety Act of 2017 (H.R.909) that are designed to protect domestic violence victims from “trauma caused by acts of violence or threats of violence against their pets.”There is one provision of the bill, however, that takes a familiar step too far: It would create a federal crime to harass or intimidate any person’s pet in a way that causes “substantial emotional distress.”Given the threats from cyberattacks, interstate and international crime cartels, terrorist groups, drug trafficking, and the criminal aspects of immigration issues, the resource-constrained federal law enforcement community does...

Actual title is : It’s baaack! The plan to kill talk radio. Group advising White House wants to restore controversial policy An organization that helped to craft President Obama’s environmental policies has recommended the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, purportedly as a method of silencing critics of the theory of global warming. The Presidential Climate Action Project, or PCAP, last year released an extensive list of recommendations for the White House in a 75-page paper entitled, “Building the Obama Administration’s Climate Legacy.” Primary among the PCAP’s recommendations is that the Department of Energy should join the U.S. Department of Housing...

FCC officially kills Fairness Doctrine, wiping it from rules By Gautham Nagesh - 08/22/11 03:21 PM ET Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announced the elimination of 83 outdated and obsolete agency rules on Monday, including the controversial Fairness Doctrine. “The elimination of the obsolete Fairness Doctrine regulations will remove an unnecessary distraction. As I have said, striking this from our books ensures there can be no mistake that what has long been a dead letter remains dead," Genachowski said in a statement. "The Fairness Doctrine holds the potential to chill free speech and the free flow of ideas and...

Though much of the discussion about a possible fairness doctrine for broadcasters went away when Republicans took over the House of Representatives in 2010, one Federal Communications Commissioner says there still could be an effort at finding a back door to the rules. Commissioner Robert McDowell told Chris Stirewalt on Monday's Power Play Live that localism, a proposal that gives the federal government the ability to make sure broadcasters serve their communities, could also be used to wedge in principles of the fairness doctrine.

According to Copps, who recently outlined his proposed "public value test" in a lecture at Columbia University, the test would require "quantifiable" increases in "the human and financial resources going into news." The test could mandate other, non-news types of programming, Copps added, such as children's programs and "civic affairs programming." The regulations would determine what news content is important, and mandate "quantifiable" increases in such coverage - Copps mentioned election coverage specifically. The "public value test" would also mandate "diversity" in broadcast newsroom staff. In other words, the FCC would require radio or television stations to employ more racial...

The Marxist in the White House has already taken big steps toward nationalizing the banking, insurance, automobile, and healthcare industries. Federal foot-dragging over protecting the coast from the Gulf oil spill could be motivated by a desire to have as many oil-coated pelicans as possible on the evening news as a prelude to nationalization of the energy sector. What else would be at the top of a communist's list of takeovers if not the very media that installed him in power? Mark Tapscott reports on the Federal Trade Commission's working paper on "reinventing journalism," an initiative intended to transform the...

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan said the high court should be focused on ferreting out improper governmental motives when deciding First Amendment cases, arguing that the government’s reasons for restricting free speech were what mattered most and not necessarily the effect of those restrictions on speech.

NEW YORK – President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan, argued certain forms of speech that promote "racial or gender inequality" could be "disappeared." In her few academic papers, Kagan evidences strong beliefs for court intervention in speech, going so far as to posit First Amendment speech should be weighed against "societal costs.”

During the past several days, the Federal Communications Commission and Verizon Wireless' CEO Ivan Seidenberg have argued extensively over the agency's plan to reclaim spectrum from broadcasters. ... Seidenberg's views are not 100 percent clear to everybody, however, given the fact that the wireless carrier isn't involved in any way with any broadcaster. He also questioned why the FCC wanted to reclaim spectrum from broadcasters instead of cable companies.

If you take a trip to the FCC's future of media website, one of the first thing you will read is: That’s why FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski decided to launch a major new agency-wide project to make sure that citizens and communities end up with vibrant, diverse sources of news and information – information that enables them to enrich their lives, their communities and their democracy. These have always been key goals for the FCC and America’s communications policy. But we must make sure those historic goals are met in this new, digital era. By the way, in a digital...