Free Republic

... In short, Mr. Obama is about to hammer the American energy industry, and he's doing it for money. The real elephant in the room is the Keystone XL pipeline project intended to bring Canadian oil to American Gulf Coast refineries and the resulting products onto the international market. In fact, the title of the Bloomberg article cited above includes the words "Keystone foes." Mr. Obama has already delayed Keystone, once and a final decision is coming up. While Keystone has received a lot of press attention, there are two interrelated aspects that have not yet come to the surface....

That's the allegation contained in a class action lawsuit, and it was reported by no less than the New York Times in 2007.  Business Insider noted this and other troubling information on the possible magnitude of NSA spying on Americans. Over the weekend James Risen and Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times - who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for this story on the NSA gaining the cooperation of U.S. telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to customer data - mentioned a detail from 2007 (emphasis ours):In Virginia, a telecommunications consultant reported, Verizon had set up a dedicated fiber-optic line running from New Jersey to...

Neb. Christian College Expels Lesbian, Charges Tuition [Pics in URL] Danielle Powell, right, and her spouse Michelle Rogers are June 12, 2013. OMAHA, NEB. Danielle Powell was going through a hard time in the spring of 2011, just months away from graduating from a conservative Christian college in Nebraska. She had fallen in love with another woman, a strictly forbidden relationship at a school where even prolonged hugs were banned. Powell said she was working at a civil rights foundation in Mississippi to finish her psychology degree when she was called back to Grace University in Omaha and confronted about...

To paraphrase William Shakespeare, there’s something rotten in Washington, and the odor is emanating not just from the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department. It’s also coming from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other agencies accused of colluding with radical environmental groups to write regulations that are threatening the livelihoods of millions of Americans. A U.S. Chamber of Commerce study has found that the EPA has given green groups a seat at the table when drafting environmental regulations, but it has excluded the people and industries most likely to be affected. The Sierra Club has participated in “closed-door...

Mayor Jean Stothert is dedicated to making Omaha city government more efficient and customer service oriented. Her priorities include improving public safety and reducing crime, enacting policies that help attract new businesses and create jobs in Omaha, and restoring the public’s confidence in city government. Mayor Stothert is also committed to smarter budgeting by eliminating waste and finding efficiencies, as well as keeping taxes low for Omaha families and businesses. Demonstrating her commitment to fiscal discipline and leading by example, Mayor Stothert has cut the mayor’s personnel budget and her own salary by 10 percent. A graduate of Seattle Pacific...

Several counties want to secede from Colorado The counties in Colorado that say they want to leave the state / KCNC-TV Several Colorado counties that strongly oppose increased regulation of the oil and gas industry say they want to form their own state. They are planning on calling it North Colorado or Northern Colorado, reports CBS affiliate KCNC in Denver. The counties are frustrated with the new agricultural and energy bills that have recently been signed into law. "We really feel in northern and northeastern Colorado that we are ignored -- citizens' concerns are ignored, and we truly feel disenfranchised,"...

The U.S. Senate is expected to vote this morning on a measure that will effectively end debate on the misnamed “farm” bill, cutting off opportunities to fix the deeply flawed legislation. At a cost of a nearly $1 trillion — 80 percent of which goes to the food-stamp program — American taxpayers deserve a robust debate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) won’t let that happen. This isn’t the first time Reid has pulled this stunt. His iron-fisted approach to running the Senate is one reason Americans hold Washington in such low regard and have a strong distrust of politicians....

Nebraska voters are very upset about the IRS and Department of Justice scandals, according to a new Conservative Intelligence poll of the state conducted by Harper Polling. Seventy-six percent of likely Nebraska voters believe the IRS workers who targeted conservatives should be fired and/or face legal consequences, the poll shows. And 54 percent said the scandal makes them less likely “to vote for a Senate candidate who supports the Obama Administration.” ...

Omaha should cut down on suburban sprawl, restructure incentives for inner-city development and do a better job sharing data between government departments, according to a new report from IBM business consultants. The city was one of 33 communities that received a grant last year for a study. A team of five consultants visited Omaha in October to assess the city's planning and development efforts and offer their recommendations. Monday, the city released the consultants' final report.

Whenever Congress throws too much into one bill, special interests profit. The massive farm bill — which is already 80 percent food stamps — is no exception.

As late as last year, the FBI ran a child pornography operation in an attempt to nab its customers.  The service ran for two weeks "while attempting to identify more than 5,000 customers, according to agent's statements to the court." Court records indicate the site continued to distribute child pornography online while under FBI control; the Seattle-based special agent, a specialist in online crimes against children, detailed the investigation earlier this month in a statement to the court. The methods used in the child pornography ring depart from traditional investigations, "historically, child pornography investigations stem from tips made to law...

Live coverage: http://www.ksn.com/weather/live-radar-and-storm-coverage/ Large tornado confirmed on the ground. Weather service has issued a Particularly Dangerous Situation warning.

Rev. James D. Conley, the Catholic bishop for the diocese of Lincoln, Neb., said the mainstream media, which usually pursue news stories that involve violence and death, largely ignored the gruesome story of Dr. Kermit Gosnell and his “house of horrors” abortion clinic that was “reminiscent of Auschwitz.” “Somehow, this story went largely unnoticed by mainstream reporters,” said Bp. Conley in his May 3 column. “One would expect a murderous doctor, running a ‘clinic’ reminiscent of Auschwitz, to face a media blitz and a burst of public outrage.”“Instead, Gosnell’s trial has been treated as a low-key, local story,” said the...

Shortly after Barack Obama won reelection in November, New Jersey governor Chris Christie pointed out that Republicans’ cloudy political prospects had a bright silver lining. “One of the reasons you have 30 Republican governors in America, and why we’re the only organization to add Republican strength,” Christie said, “is because people see us getting things done.” Christie’s stance countered most of the elite postelection commentary, which gleefully pronounced the Republican Party’s political irrelevance. But the governor was right. Since Obama first took office in 2008, Republicans have picked up a net nine governorships, bringing their total to 30 states,...

Energy: As the EPA snipes at the State Department's approval, Canada's natural resource minister says failure to approve the pipeline would seriously jeopardize our energy relationship and do nothing to save the earth. Joe Oliver, not amused by the continued delays in perhaps the most shovel-ready project since the pyramids, said Wednesday that rejection by the U.S. of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline "would represent a serious reversal in our long-standing energy relationship." This critical energy infrastructure project is also perhaps the most studied and approved. After a reroute at the behest of environmentalists allegedly concerned about the sensitive Ogallala...

Stop me if you've heard this before. An administration walks into Congress and insists on billions of dollars to "invest" in green-tech startups, then loses its shirt on bad bets — even while knowing the bets were bad. If that sounds like Solyndra, well, you're right — but it's also part of a pattern in which Barack Obama and the White House have treated taxpayer funds like Monopoly money. CBS and the AP unveil the latest example of this pattern, Fisker Automotive, which continued to get millions in taxpayer funds even while failing to meet the conditions of its loan:...

WASHINGTON — Sen. Deb Fischer is headed back to the White House tonight for dinner with President Barack Obama. “I’m a regular,” the Nebraska Republican quipped as she arrived at the weekly Senate GOP luncheon in the Capitol. Fischer was among a group of Republican senators who dined with Obama earlier this month. She also attended a reception there in March for Women’s History Month. The invite list for tonight’s dinner includes all 20 women in the Senate. It’s a record number of women in what has long been a male-dominated club. The group includes 16 Democrats and 4 Republicans....

Charlie Rogers will serve a week in jail and two years on probation for faking the anti-gay hate crime that stunned Lincoln last summer and captured the country’s attention. Lancaster County Judge Gale Pokorny on Thursday morning also ordered the 34-year-old to do 250 hours of community service for lying to police when she told investigators three men broke into her house, tied her up, carved anti-gay slurs into her skin and tried to light the house on fire. “The evidence is overwhelming that Charlie Rogers’ narrative of July 22, 2012, was an incredible and outrageous lie the second it...

Probably the most bracing aspect of Ira Katznelson's new history of the New Deal, Fear Itself, is his portrait of the marriage of progressive domestic policy and white supremacy. I knew the outlines of this stuff, but for a flaming commie like me, the extent of the embrace is hard to take: Far more enduring was the New Deal's intimate partnership with those in the South who preached white supremacy. For this whole period -- the last in American history when public racism was legitimate in speech and action -- southern representatives acted not on the fringes but as an...

Shocking surveillance video appears to show a Nebraska bus driver, now identified as 43-year-old Troy Fischer, punching a passenger over and over before dragging him off the bus and abandoning him on the side of a road. The two had reportedly been arguing beforehand, and Fischer can be heard yelling in the clip: “What did I say about the next question you ask me? ​WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT THE NEXT QUESTION YOU ASK ME? You remember? WHAT DID I SAY?…I SAID DON’T ASK ANY MORE QUESTIONS!” The passenger advances on the driver, rolling his eyes and saying something along...

For the first time since 1971, there will be no air show at Offutt Air Force Base this year. Base officials announced Wednesday that because of operating budget uncertainties tied to the federal budget sequestration, the show and open house scheduled for Aug. 24-25 have been canceled. “The Department of Defense and the Air Force are facing difficult fiscal challenges, which requires us to make some tough decisions here at Offutt,'' said Col. John Rauch, commander of Offutt's 55th Wing. “One of these tough decisions includes cancelling this year's air show.''

An Omaha police supervisor has been placed on administrative leave as authorities continue to investigate the circumstances of a controversial arrest in north Omaha. The World-Herald has learned that the command officer is Sgt. Aaron P. Von Behren, a 15-year department veteran and one-time recipient of the department's life-saving award. The World-Herald also learned the identity of an officer who earlier was placed on administrative leave: James T. Kinsella, a veteran of nearly five years.

Three bills aimed at tightening control on law enforcement were advanced Tuesday by the Judiciary Committee for debate by the full Legislature. All three bills are by Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, a frequent critic of law enforcement. The first bill (LB541) would make public all hearings and documents produced from an arbitration hearing involving disciplinary action against a law enforcement officer. Now, the process is closed. Chambers has said taxpayers have the right to total disclosure of how public employees are behaving -- and misbehaving.

The United States is in the midst of one of the biggest droughts in recent memory. At last count, over half of the lower 48 states had abnormally dry conditions and are suffering from at least moderate drought.... ...U.S. Department of Agriculture meteorologist and Drought Monitor team member, Brad Rippey, explained that when the drought began in 2012, the worst of the conditions were much farther east, in states like Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan — the corn belt states. Based on pre-drought estimates, corn used for grain lost slightly more than a quarter of its potential. By the Summer of...

Today, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that 10 states will receive funding to turn around their persistently lowest-achieving schools through the Department's School Improvement Grant (SIG) program. Four of the states will receive awards to run a new competition for previously unfunded schools, and six states will receive continuation funds for the third year of implementing a SIG model. The states receiving new awards are: Indiana—$9.2 million; Nebraska—$2.6 million; Colorado—$5.2 million; and Louisiana—$9.6 million. The states receiving continuation awards are: Alaska—$1.5 million; Iowa—$3.0 million; North Dakota—$1.2 million; Oklahoma—$5.5 million; Texas—$49.7 million; and Wyoming—$1.1 million. "When schools fail, our...

A photo involving an Omaha City Council member is creating a lot of controversy. In the photo, Chris Jerram holds a photo depicting his fellow council member, Jean Stothert, on a stripper pole. Jerram apologized and said he made a mistake. “It's disgusting, and it's demeaning, and it's not only demeaning to me, but to all women," said Stothert on Monday. "You know, to be depicted of the way I was on that t-shirt should not happen." The shirt reads "Jean, quit stripping us of our tax dollars" -- and it has a woman and stripper pole next to it....

A TransCanada Corp. executive says opponents to the Keystone XL pipeline should consider one consequence of delays in building the oil pipeline — an increase in dirtier and more dangerous rail transport. Alex Pourbaix, president of energy and oil pipelines at the Calgary-based pipeline and utility company, says although rail has an important role to play in moving oilsands crude to market, there are downsides to consider. "For every mile you move a barrel of oil by rail, you emit three times the (greenhouse gases) that you do by moving it by pipeline and you have an order of magnitude...

US House Energy and Commerce Committee members released a discussion draft of legislation designed to jump-start approval of the proposed Keystone XL crude oil pipeline project. The draft bill by Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) would eliminate the need for a presidential permit and find that the Aug. 26, 2011, final environmental impact statement issued by Sec. of State Hillary Clinton satisfied all National Environmental Policy Act requirements. Reps. Jim Matheson (D-Utah) and John Barrow (D-Ga.) cosponsored the proposal, which also would limit legal challenges to the project so it would not be delayed further. Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred...

New Jersey’s governor has branded them “political thugs.” A former federal education official has likened them to terrorists. Less vilified in Kansas than some other parts of the country, those teachers unions still find their clout under attack in the Legislature. The battle over teachers unions has marched its way across the country. Ohio. Michigan. Wisconsin. Idaho. And now it’s in Kansas, greeted by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and his conservative allies in the Legislature. Lawmakers are moving to undercut the tenuous power of teachers unions by barring them from using voluntary paycheck deductions for politics. And they’re going after...

The State Department released preliminary findings of a new environmental impact study surrounding the controversial Keystone XL pipeline on Friday, but made no clear recommendation as to whether the the pipeline should be held up for environmental or economic reasons. Reporters trying to make sense of the nearly 2,000 pages of findings were flummoxed by one senior State Department official who stressed that the document “does not come out one way or the other and make a decision” about whether the U.S. should or should not go forward with the project. Years of heated debate have surrounded the proposed 1,700...

Chuck Hagel won confirmation Tuesday to become defense secretary over objections to his views on Middle East security and the administration’s handling of an attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya. On a 58 to 41 vote, the Senate confirmed the former GOP senator as four Republicans joined 54 Democrats in approving Hagel, ending a nearly two-month battle that included an unprecedented filibuster against the nominee. The four Republican senators voting in favor were Thad Cochran (Miss.), Mike Johanns (Neb.), Richard C. Shelby (Ala.) and Rand Paul (Ky.). All 41 no votes came from Republicans. The vote marked a foreign...

US Sens. John Hoeven (R-ND) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) were joined by 18 other senators from both parties as they urged newly confirmed Secretary of State John F. Kerry to approve the proposed Keystone XL crude oil pipeline during this year’s first quarter. “The State Department received the new route approved by the state of Nebraska on Jan. 22…but [it] has yet to inform the public and stakeholders of a definitive process for the final decision,” the 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans said in their Feb. 22 letter. “We urge you as Secretary of State to ensure that this decision...

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel declined to sign a letter circulated by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in 2007 calling upon then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to press Arab allies of the U.S. to recognize Israel’s right to exist “and not use such recognition as a bargaining chip for future Israeli concessions.” Seventy-nine Senators eventually signed the letter, which was sponsored by Schumer and by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

Chuck Hagel’s archive is housed here at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. But despite his nomination for secretary of defense, reporters, as well as the public writ large, are being denied access to the thousands of papers, speeches, audio and video files, and artifacts in the archive ... university officials yesterday indicated that if Hagel himself were to grant this reporter access to the archives, his request would be granted.

The 60th vote: Republican Richard Shelby to vote for cloture on Hagel; Update: Deb Fischer too? posted at 2:01 pm on February 21, 2013 by Allahpundit And so, after days of accusations about what Hagel did or didn’t say at Rutgers Israeli control of the State Department, and despite the nominee’s refusal to let reporters pick through his archives, this guy’s actually gaining votes in the Senate rather than losing them. I understand the argument that the president deserves deference in his cabinet picks, even if I don’t agree with it in this case. But if we’re going to cave,...

Nebraska Republican Sen. Mike Johnanns has informed Republicans in his home state that he will retire at the end of his current Senate term, GOP sources tell NBC News. The first-term senator has informed Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman that he won't run for reelection in 2014, a Republican official said.

An attempt by Senate Democrats to push through their controversial nominee for defense secretary, former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., failed today on a 58-40 vote as Republicans said they haven’t been given answers to their questions. Among his opponents are 14 retired U.S. admirals and generals, including high-profile names such as Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin and Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely. Hagel has endorsed subjecting the U.S. to the U.N.’s International Criminal Court, and he’s sat on the board of numerous globalist groups promoting U.S. funding for the Third World.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Mike Johanns called out his fellow Senate Republicans on Thursday for claiming that they aren't technically filibustering as they try to hold up Chuck Hagel's nomination to be defense secretary. "It's a filibuster," Johanns said. "If the Democrats were doing this, we would be hollering that this was a filibuster and probably did in the past." A number of Republicans are pushing to delay consideration of Hagel, the former GOP senator from Nebraska, requiring a 60-vote threshold on a procedural vote that Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., scheduled for Friday.

Senator Roy Blunt indicated Wednesday that there are enough votes in the Senate to delay the Hagel confirmation.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) on Sunday threatened to filibuster former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.)'s nomination for Defense secretary, if necessary to prevent his confirmation. “I want a 60-vote margin and you don’t have to filibuster to get that,” said Inhofe in an interview on Fox News. “I would threaten to cause a 60-vote margin. If it took a filibuster, I’d do it that way.” Inhofe, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that requiring 60 votes to confirm nominees was common and dismissed suggestions that GOP colleagues would be reluctant to back him. Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/282153-sen-inhofe-threatens-filibuster-of-hagel#ixzz2KYLsXDEC Follow...

Remember when the mainstream media mocked a politician who had to attend five colleges to graduate, whose academic record was less than outstanding, and whose subsequent success was proof of nothing? Remember how that was supposed to be a threat to national security, the economy, and so much else? That was so 2008, so Sarah Palin. It turns out that former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), who is now awaiting confirmation as Secretary of Defense, attended five colleges and was a "D" student. He volunteered to serve in Vietnam,

The nomination of former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) to Secretary of Defense has been held up due to Hagel’s failure to turn over required documents to the Senate Armed Services Committee, even after a letter prompting him for those documents. Those documents concern Hagel’s stream of income from foreign sources; obviously, being in a sensitive position such as Secretary of Defense, Hagel must be cleared by the committee of any possible financial entanglements with suspicious foreign sources. On Wednesday, 25 Senators sent Hagel a letter with the following text, obtained exclusively by Breitbart News: Dear Senator Hagel, On January 29,...

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) is not providing the Senate any more information about past speeches or funders. Luckily, a few of his former audiences are only too proud to share his remarks with the world. The National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations recently published a recording of a speech Hagel gave to its conference in 2007. In addition to calling for unconditional talks with the Iranian regime, Hagel said that the U.S. had to "reverse optics" in its relationship with Israel in order to restore its credibility as an honest broker between Israelis and Palestinians, and to boost its diplomacy...

Senator Mike Johanns said on Saturday he would support fellow Nebraskan Chuck Hagel for secretary of defense, becoming the second Republican in the Senate to express public support for President Barack Obama's embattled nominee. The Lincoln, Nebraska, JournalStar reported on its website that Johanns, a former Nebraska governor who holds Hagel's old Senate seat, issued a statement supporting Hagel. An aide to Johanns confirmed the report.

Local military veterans said Thursday they overwhelmingly support lifting the ban to allow women to serve in direct combat roles. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta rescinded a 1994 ruling yesterday to remove the military's ban on women serving in combat, thus opening hundreds of thousands of front-line positions and potentially elite commando jobs after more than 11 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. The plan to integrate women into direct combat position will be implemented as early as May with full implementation slated by 2016. “American women have been serving in our nation's Armed Forces for decades, and I am...

The Sierra Club has announced its approval for a "one-time" use of civil disobedience. The civil disobedience is intended to step up their efforts to oppose the Keystone pipeline. Many of the other groups opposing Keystone have been engaging in civil disobedience as a tactic, including arson-based ecoterrorism. This will be the first time in the Sierra Club's history that they have approved violating the law.

More than half the Senate on Wednesday urged quick approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ramping up pressure on President Barack Obama to move ahead with the project just days after he promised in his inaugural address to respond vigorously to the threat of climate change. A letter signed by 53 senators said Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman’s approval of a revised route through his state puts the long-delayed project squarely in the president's hands. “We urge you to choose jobs, economic development and American energy security,” the letter said, adding that the pipeline “has gone through the most exhaustive...

Energy: With a clean bill of health from the Cornhusker State's governor, only the president's green base and the State Department's shared belief in nonexistent climate change stands in the way of jobs and growth. As we noted earlier, Nebraska's Department of Environmental Quality recently gave the revised Keystone XL pipeline route from the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, through that state a thumbs up. Not surprisingly, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman has approved the revised Keystone XL pipeline proposal through his state, seemingly removing the last excuse for the Obama administration to delay the economy-boosting pipeline. Yet even before the...

The interminable fiscal cliff negotiations in Washington produced almost no substantial reform of taxes despite a general agreement that both our income and corporate tax codes are dense, confusing and layered with perverse incentives that favor some economic activities over others at the expense of overall growth. "The existing tax code makes compliance difficult," IRS Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson recently wrote, "leaving many [taxpayers] unaware how their taxes are computed and even what rate of tax they pay. It enables sophisticated taxpayers to reduce their tax liabilities and...it undermines trust in the system." Just weeks into the new year, however,...

Washington-The Obama administration has delayed a decision on TransCanada Corp´s rerouted Keystone XL oil pipeline until after March, even though Nebraska´s governor on Tuesday approved a plan for part of the line running through his state. "We don´t anticipate being able to conclude our own review before the end of the first quarter of this year," said Victoria Nuland, a spokeswoman at the State Department, which had previously said it would make a decision by that deadline. She said the department would take into consideration approval of the line by Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman.