Free Republic

Includes both his speech and questions from Sean Hannity. 24 minutes.

(CNSNews.com)- House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer said on the House floor on Tuesday that if Congress did not pass a Department of Homeland Security funding bill by the end of the week, it would shut down the department—but that 200,000 of the department’s 230,000 employees would still go to work. The other 30,000 employees are not deemed “essential” workers. “The Department of Homeland Security will not be funded,” said Hoyer. “There are 230,000 people who work at that Department, and 30,000 of them, mostly administrative personnel, will be laid off. The others, known as critically important important—essential employees who are...

More than two dozen states have joined the Texas lawsuit opposing President Obama’s executive amnesty for millions of illegal aliens, but more eye-opening is the list of Republican governors whose names still do not appear on the suit. The seven Republicans who have thus far elected not to join the suit aimed at reining in Obama are Chris Christie of New Jersey, Terry Branstad of Iowa, Larry Hogan of Maryland, Susana Martinez of New Mexico, Matthew Mead of Wyoming, Charlie Baker of Massachusetts and Bruce Rauner of Illinois. Five of those seven states – Maryland, Iowa, New Mexico, Massachusetts and...

The top speed on some Maryland highways could go to 70 miles per hour under a bill passed by the Senate Thursday. The measure carried by a vote of 39 to 7, with dissenters warning increasing speed limits could cause more crashes and traffic fatalities. Sen. George C. Edwards, a Garrett County Republican and the bill's sponsor, said the bill authorizes but does not require the State Highway Administration to raise speed limits on some interstates and expressways. Most interstate highways are built to handle vehicles going 70 miles per hour, he said, noting that neighboring Pennsylvania and West Virginia...

CORBIN, Ky. (AP) — A 16-year-old boy killed in a shootout Saturday with police in Maryland, prompted the search of his home over 500 miles away in Kentucky, where authorities found the bodies of his parents and younger sister. Friends and relatives of Jason Hendrix were struggling to understand how the boy, a faithful churchgoer who was baptized just two months ago, could end up as the suspect in the slayings. Hendrix, a Kentucky high school ROTC student and active church member, was angry at his parents for taking away his computer privileges when he's suspected of killing his family...

The General Assembly's policy analysts warned lawmakers Friday that Gov. Larry Hogan's suggested decreases in tolls could have a harmful effect on the maintenance and operations of the Maryland Transportation Authority's highways, bridges and tunnels. The Department of Legislative Services told a Senate budget subcommittee that too large a toll reduction could throw off the debt service ratios that allow the authority to maintain a stellar bond rating. The analysts also noted that the authority's revenue forecasts don't take into account the acknowledged need to replace a Southern Maryland bridge at a cost of $1 billion or more. In addition,...

WASHINGTON—Highway funding, tax reform and tire registration were the big issues tire dealers, repair shop owners and association officials discussed with Capitol Hill staffers during the Tire Industry Association’s Federal Lobby Day on Feb. 5. Approximately 55 representatives of the tire retailing and auto repair industries participated in the event, which began with speeches from current and former members of Congress and progressed to one-on-one meetings with key staff persons in the offices of several top Washington lawmakers. With the Highway Trust Fund set to run out of money in May, passage of a multi-year transportation funding bill was the...

Kristin Beck, a transgender former Navy SEAL, is planning a primary challenge to Maryland’s longest-serving U.S. representative, Democrat Steny Hoyer. The state Board of Elections website shows Beck filed the paperwork Monday. Beck didn’t immediately respond to an emailed interview request Thursday. The telephone number on her campaign website wasn’t set up. Beck’s website highlights her military service and criticizes the government’s handling of the home-loan crisis. It says Hoyer “has been too busy helping Wall Street since 2008 to even notice Main Street.”

There were more than 2,300 homes and condos in the foreclosure process last month. That is up 104 percent from December. Statewide that increase is 109 percent from January 2014. The jump in foreclosures comes as the Phoenix housing market tries to shake off a slow 2014 where low demand for homes and tough mortgage qualifications stymied sales. Foreclosure activity was also up in states such as Ohio, New Jersey, Maryland and California and metropolitan areas such as St. Louis, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The worst cities for foreclosures include Atlantic City, Las Vegas and eight Florida markets including...

A driver narrowly missed being injured when a chunk of concrete fell from a Beltway bridge onto a passing car Tuesday afternoon. The driver, Katherine Dean, said she was driving on Suitland Road in Morningside, Maryland, when pieces of the overpass fell onto her car. The concrete smashed in Dean's windshield and hood, but she wasn't seriously hurt.

WASHINGTON (AP) — It took 16 years of twists and turns. Over and over, Dr. Nancy Sullivan thought she was close to an Ebola vaccine, only to see the next experiment fail. “A case of resuscitation more than once,” is how the National Institutes of Health researcher describes the journey.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana speaking at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. Louisiana Governor and potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate Bobby Jindal is continuing to voice his growing outrage over the Common Core state education standards, which the federal government played an influential role in encouraging most states to adopt. Speaking at a Thursday luncheon at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. hosted by the American Principles Project, a conservative organization rallying opposition to Common Core, Jindal argued that the Common Core standards stand against American values and causes local communities to lose...

Two students were shot this evening outside Frederick High School near the gymnasium, police said. Officers were called shortly after 8 p.m. The assailants, described as four black males dressed in black, are at large, said Officer First Class M. Cox. A SWAT team was searching the area. Two students were wounded, and all other students and staff in the building are safe, according to an email alert from Frederick County Public Schools. Lt. Bruce DeGrange said the students’ injuries were not considered life-threatening. Police did not release the victims’ names because they are under 18. A junior varsity boys...

In November the frustrations of Maryland’s voters with their state’s failed Democrat leadership finally boiled over and provided Larry Hogan an upset victory over the Democrat’s chosen candidate Lt. Governor Anthony Brown. It would be easy to dismiss this victory as the revenge of Maryland’s far rural parts if places like Howard County, a bedroom community of both Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD, hadn’t also elected new Republican leadership. It’s obvious this election had deeper meaning: voters clearly repudiated the Democrats and their cronies’ failed leadership and commitment to business as usual. Yet, some in Maryland think they can continue...

A few weeks ago, Puerto Rican Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla made a surprise announcement that soon he would submit legislation that would give undocumented immigrants and other non-citizens the right to vote in island-wide elections. The move has been commended by immigrants’ rights groups, but is viewed by many on the island as a cheap move by an unpopular governor to try and fix the next election. It’s also left many people on the island asking: can the governor legally do it? The answer, it turns out, seems to be “yes.” Federal law doesn’t stop states or cities from allowing...

When they moved into the house in November 2005, Kofi was earning $82,740 as an IT consultant for a government contractor, and Comfort, then 43, was making $30,000 as an administrative assistant. But in the overheated mortgage market of the time, they said everyone told them that they could buy a $600,000 house. They made a $60,000 down payment and all their mortgage payments for more than 2½ years — through September 2008. But the house was financed with subprime loans, which reset to higher rates after short time periods, creating what are known as “shock payments.” The Boatengs said...

WASHINGTON — When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint session of Congress in March, it is unclear whether everybody invited will actually show up. Democrats have criticized House Speaker John Boehner for circumventing the administration when he invited Netanyahu to speak, and the White House has already said Obama will not meet with him when he’s here. BuzzFeed News asked several Senate Democrats whether they planned on skipping the speech or not. Most said they either hadn’t thought about it or they hadn’t decided. But there were no hard answers in the negative. Only one senator definitively said...

Menendez: Obama Admin Statements on Iran 'Sound like Talking Points Straight out of Tehran'

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A heated exchanged between President Barack Obama and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey) broke out Thursday over whether the U.S. should reimpose sanctions on Iran amid ongoing negotiations over the country's nuclear program, according to two senators who were in the room. Menendez, the leading Democrat pushing for additional sanctions against Iran, forcefully pressed Obama on the need for additional sanctions during a meeting in which Obama urged Menendez and other senators to drop their efforts to pass sanctions legislation. Additional sanctions, Obama argued, could torpedo ongoing negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. The unusually sharp exchange, between...