Free Republic

Dangerously cold temperatures will be in place tonight to ring in the new year for many locations located east of the Rocky Mountains. Locations across the Northeast and as far south as Kansas into Ohio will be below zero at midnight with wind chills of -20 to -40 for many of these locations. Therefore, locations from northeastern Montana into portions of the Midwest and Northeast are under a Wind Chill Warning with Wind Chill Advisories in place as far south as the central Gulf Coast through Monday morning. Monday's highs will stay below freezing for much of Texas to the...

The coin is the real deal, but how did it get all the way from Norway? ON FEBRUARY 6, 1979, KOLBJØRN Skaare, a Norwegian numismatist with a tall, wide forehead, walked into the Maine State Museum to see the coin. Just a few years earlier, he had published Coins and Coinage in Viking-Age Norway, a doctoral thesis that grew from the decade-plus he had spent as a keeper at the University of Oslo’s Coin Cabinet. The first specialist to examine the coin in person, he had just a day with it before Bruce J. Bourque, the museum’s lead archaeologist, had...

Maine is having trouble finding enough snowplow drivers, another sign of the way low unemployment is taxing states. The state Department of Transportation has about 50 openings among about 700 positions and expects 30 snow storms in the season that stretches from mid-November to mid-April. Exacerbating the problem: some cities like Portland hire their own drivers and pay more, and private sector demand for experienced drivers is also high.

President Trump’s voter fraud commission must provide Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap with information, working documents and correspondence about its work, a federal judge ruled Friday evening. Dunlap, one of four Democrats serving on the 11-member commission, asked the court Nov. 16 to issue an injunction to receive past and future records after formal requests for them had been ignored. Dunlap said the records were necessary to allow him “to fully participate on an equal basis as all other commissioners.” The injunction grew out of a lawsuit Dunlap filed Nov. 9 against the commission in regards to the issue....

Connecticut continues to be dogged by messy finances. The budget legislators and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy adopted in late October for fiscal year 2017-18 is in deficit. Gov. Malloy’s Office of Policy and Management estimated a $202.8 million hole Nov. 20, while state Comptroller Kevin P. Lembo concluded Dec. 1 that the hole is $207.8 million. Before these forecasts were issued, the state was expected to contend with a $4 billion deficit in the 2019-21 biennium. ... “between 2015 and 2016, Connecticut saw a net loss of 2,050 tax filers who earn more than $200,000 per year.” This amounted to...

And leaves academics stunned. "A study released Tuesday in the journal Scientific Reports found that snowfall on the highest peak in the Alaska Range has more than doubled since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-19th century, which researchers attribute to climate change," Valerie Richardson reported in The Washington Times on December 19, 2017. "We were shocked when we first saw how much snowfall has increased," Erich Osterberg, an assistant professor of earth sciences who led the investigation with researchers from Dartmouth, the University of Maine and the University of New Hampshire, stated.

Former talk show host Rosie O'Donnell isn't exactly known for her measured political commentary, and has been excessively critical of both President Donald Trump and the GOP for years now. On Tuesday, however, she kicked it up a notch: she just might have committed a felony.In the lead-up to the vote on tax reform, O'Donnell tweeted that she would promise to give Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) $2 million each if they voted against the bill. O'Donnell said that "NO I WILL NOT KILL AMERICANS FOR THE SUOER [sic] RICH" and implored both senators to "DM"...

Comedian Rosie O’Donnell in a tweet late Tuesday offered millions in cash to senators who vote against the Republican tax plan. Her tweet called specifically on Republican Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Susan Collins of Maine. Ms. O’Donnell offered $2 million to each senator to vote no. She then followed up telling Ms. Collins specifically to call if she wanted to negotiate. [SNIP] Offering money to a lawmaker in exchange for changing a vote, or voting a particular way, is illegal.

Collins shrugged off the House snub, saying it didn’t matter if the House passes a spending bill that doesn’t include the legislation. “That has never been the plan,” she told reporters. “The plan is for the majority leader to add [the bills] in the Senate.”

About 20 protesters gathered outside Sen. Susan Collins’ Bangor home midday Sunday to voice their opposition to the sweeping Republican tax reform bill and Collins’ vote in favor of it. Carrying signs reading “Shame,” “No Tax Cut for Fat Cats,” “Don’t Trickle on Me” and other slogans, the protesters formed a long line along the edge of the road, attracting occasional honks of support from drivers passing through the quiet neighborhood.

Check out the full Kate’s List below: Kathy Steinle Kathy Steinle Rep. Scott Taylor (R-VA) (202) 225-4215 (Facebook) Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) (202) 225-5816 (Facebook) Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL) (202) 225-2371 (Facebook) Rep Mark Amodei (R-NV) 202 225-6155 (Facebook) Rep Mike Coffman (R-CO) (202) 225-7882 Facebook Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA)(202) 225-4540 (Facebook) Rep. Mia Love (R-UT) (202) 225-3011 (Facebook) Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) (202) 225-4276 (Facebook) Rep. Peter King (R-NY) (202) 225-7896 (Facebook) Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) (202) 225-2778 (Facebook) Rep. Ryan Costello (R-PA) (202) 225-4315 (Facebook) Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) (202) 225-3761 (Facebook) Rep. John Faso (R-NY) (202) 225-5614...

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, posted to Facebook her call on Franken to resign Click here to see the list of Senators calling on Franken to resign. A top Senate Dem says he expects Franken to resign Thursday shortly after Franken’s office said he would be making an announcement Thursday. Democrat Senator Ron Wyden tweeted,”I expect that Senator Franken will announce his resignation tomorrow. It is the right thing to do given this series of serious allegations.”

President Donald Trump is pushing Maine Gov. Paul LePage to run for the U.S. Senate, according to White House advisers. Trump has told advisers he plans to call LePage, the bombastic governor who endorsed him in February 2016, and ask him to jump in against Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, in 2018 — and that he would endorse him. King is an independent who often caucuses with Democrats. White House officials have been in touch with LePage’s political team in recent weeks, according to two people with knowledge of the talks. LePage came up again Tuesday at a White House meeting...

Bangor police arrested five people on criminal trespass charges Monday night after they refused to leave Sen. Susan Collins’ office in the federal building. Sgt. Myron Warner said the individuals who occupied her office were given fair warning before they were taken into custody without incident. Criminal trespass is a Class E misdemeanor.(snip) Bangor police responded to the sit-in around 6 p.m. after receiving a complaint from the Department of Homeland Security. Collins’ office is located inside the Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building at 202 Harlow St. The senator was not present. The individuals went into Collins’ office late Monday...

Sen. Susan Collins is now pushing for twice the amount of money she originally requested in an Obamacare bill she's co-sponsoring in order to win her vote on the tax overhaul measure, The Hill reports. The Maine Republican is co-sponsoring a bill with Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, that would provide states with $10 billion over two years to establish reinsurance programs to lower premiums or high-risk pools. They had originally requested $4.5 billion in the bill, the report said. "This plan will provide $5 billion annually for two years in seed money for states to establish invisible high-risk pools or...

12:20 a.m. The Senate has adopted an amendment that would allow parents to use 529 college funds to pay private school tuition for students in kindergarten through high school. Parents could also use the tax-exempt funds on home-schooling expenses. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas offered the amendment to Senate Republicans' sweeping tax package. The vote was a 50-50 tie with Vice President Mike Pence casting the tie-breaker. All Senate Democrats opposed the measure. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were the only Republicans who voted against it.

A man convicted of sexually assaulting a minor is actively volunteering for a Democrat in Maine, according to a document obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.Douglas Lane was convicted of two separate counts of sexual assault involving a minor in 1996 and in 1997, according to the Maine Police Department sex offender registry. Lane’s full information appears in a campaign list of active volunteers for Democrat Ben Chin’s 2017 run for Mayor of Lewiston, Maine.Chin previously acted as political director of the progressive activist group Maine People’s Alliance. TheDCNF reported on Lane’s activities for that organization in May after he...

Now ten members of the "progressive caucus" of the Democratic Party are trying to give these terrorist leaders another reason for using even younger terrorists to kill even more innocent civilians. The bill fails to acknowledge that some of the most barbaric terrorist attacks against Jewish Israelis have been committed by Palestinian teens who have been recruited by terrorist leaders. Israel has a right — according to international law — to protect its citizens from constant terror attacks, even those committed by young Palestinians. Indeed, it has an obligation to do so. Palestinian terrorist leaders often use teenagers to...

An aphorism much favored by my fellow dipsomaniacs goes thus: “Dogs are smarter than people. A dog won’t eat or drink anything that has made him sick in the past.” In other words, fill up Fido’s water bowl with Booker’s, let him slurp down enough to induce vomiting, and you’ll not get him near booze nor bowl again. What has this to do with Maine or Medicaid? Well, Maine experimented with Medicaid expansion 15 years ago, and it took the state a decade to recover from the hangover. Nonetheless, a majority of Maine’s voters approved another Medicaid expansion last Tuesday....

On Tuesday, Maine became the 32nd state to approve Medicaid expansion and the first to do so via referendum. But Republican Gov. Paul LePage is pushing back. In a statement released the day after the vote, the governor referenced costs associated with the initiative, saying taxpayers would be on the hook for "hundreds of millions of dollars." "The last time Maine experimented with Medicaid expansion in 2002 under then-Gov. Angus King, it created a $750 million debt to hospitals, resulted in massive budget shortfalls every year, did not reduce emergency room use, did not reduce the number of uninsured Mainers...