Free Republic

So apparently there’s a uterus puppet going around the country making videos about abortion clinics and lack thereof. Yes, there’s a puppet named Eunice, and she’s a sad uterus. Hans Johnson from JillStanek.com found this great little gem and we just had to share. He wrote: In the “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” category comes a video called “The Abortion Desert.” Taking a cue from the idea of “food deserts” - a lack of urban grocery stores – the abortion lobby group Lady Parts Justice nervously brings attention to the dwindling number of abortion clinics. For a serious subject,...

Enterprise Products Partners (EPD) is shelving a proposed pipeline that would have transported crude from North Dakota to Oklahoma, the company announced on Friday. The news came in the midst of a brutal slide in global oil prices that have raised concerns about whether U.S. companies will continue to build on the expansion of oil production. Middle East oil producers have yet to announce a cut in production to offset the drop in crude, in what some analysts say is a slow-bleed strategy designed to make pumping crude as uneconomic as possible for the world's fastest growing non-OPEC oil producer....

Six moderate Democratic senators are asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to give states more time to comply with its climate rule for power plants. The moderate Democrats said that states should be responsible for developing their own “glide paths” toward the 2030 goal. The senators signing the letter were Sens. Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) and Joe Donnelly (Ind.).

If you’re like most Americans, you haven’t been questioning the welcome drop in gasoline prices. You just fill ’er up and feel grateful that you’re spending less.But why has this remarkable drop come about? And what can we do to help keep prices lower?Some of it, unfortunately, is beyond our control. Worldwide demand for oil is down now. That always causes the cost of gasoline to drop.But the other side of the equation -- the part that is under our control -- has gone largely unheralded in many media accounts: the boom in U.S. energy production. Simply put, we’re producing...

Among Democrats, fighting is breaking out all over. The Senate’s third-ranking Democrat, Chuck Schumer (D-NY), is hurling criticisms toward the White House over Barack Obama’s handling of the recession and his myopic and politically ruinous obsession with reforming the nation’s health care system amid that economic downturn.In response, the White House took what Reuters called the “unusual step” of publicly pledging to veto an overdue plan to reform the nation’s tax code which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has been in the process of negotiating with House Republicans. When Obama announced his intention to extend legal status to...

The state of North Dakota has named a new publicly-owned landfill after President Barack Obama. In an overwhelming 35-10 vote, the state Senate advanced a bill naming a 650-acre site currently under construction after the nation’s 44th president. Governor Jack Dalrymple is expected to sign the measure into law Tuesday. When completed, the Barack Obama Memorial Landfill will be the largest waste disposal site in North Dakota, and the 17th largest in the United States. It will be especially rich in toxic waste from the local petroleum and medical industries. “We wanted to do something to honor the president,” says...

Sen. Ted Cruz is lobbying hard to prevent government regulation of the Internet, but one measure the Texas Republican supports is expected to create a sizeable budget hole for his state. Cruz, a likely presidential candidate in 2016, spent ample time last week promoting a permanent extension to an expiring ban on federal, state, and local taxation of Internet access that is currently being considered in Congress. The measure, which passed the House earlier this year, is popular in both parties and considered a lame-duck "must pass," as the ban is set to lift on Dec. 11. But a lesser-known...

The Senate narrowly rejected legislation to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline on Tuesday, handing a defeat to the oil industry and dealing a major blow to Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu, who staked her political career on the outcome. The Senate voted 59-41 for the legislation, falling one vote shy of the 60 needed for passage under the deal bringing it to the floor. But Keystone supporters insisted the defeat would be short-lived. Republican leaders are vowing to try again after they take over the chamber in January — when they will have more than enough votes to get a measure...

Republican oil mogul Harold Hamm says Congress is wasting its time debating the Keystone XL pipeline. “It’s not relevant at all, in my opinion. And here we are making it relevant now? Forget it,” the billionaire CEO of Oklahoma-based Continental Resources told Politoco in an interview Friday, just before the House passed a bill aimed at approving the pipeline. […] Hamm said his company, which had planned to use Keystone to ship some of its North Dakota crude, is already using other pipelines for half of its oil. And the percentage is growing. “We’re supporting other pipelines out there; we’re...

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi says she want to remain the top Democrat in the House, announcing she will run again for her leadership position.Her take on the massive pro-life election victory on Tuesday night is that Republicans won a victory because of “voter suppression.” The Washington Times has more: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi asked her fellow Democrats to keep her on as their leader in the new Congress next year, saying she still has unfinished goals she wants to accomplish. She said the chief message she took from Tuesday’s election, which saw Democrats eviscerated at all levels, is...

President Barack Obama should demonstrate his commitment to working with Republicans in control of Congress by permitting the Keystone XL pipeline, Sen. John Hoeven said Wednesday. Hoeven and other Senate Republicans are making plans to advance a bill authorizing the controversial project early next year, as one of their first legislative moves after taking control of the chamber. While some Senate races are not yet decided, Hoeven, R-N.D., said he already counts at least 60 votes in favor of his legislation to approve the pipeline using Congress’ authority under the Foreign Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Although that’s enough votes...

$75 dollars a barrel – that’s the price crude oil would have to hit for frackers in North Dakota’s Bakken fields to feel pressure to slow new production, according to Greg Zuckerman, author of “The Frackers” and a special reporter at the Wall Street Journal. “All these guys have hedged. They’ve got production [and] they’ve already got the acreage. They’re not gonna stop but maybe they’ll kind of slow new stuff.” Fracking in other parts of the country, though, is likely to be much more resilient. In Texas’s Eagle Ford and Permian basin, Zuckerman says oil prices would have to...

This should be a wake-up call to Europe, long accustomed to living under the U.S. defense umbrella, to take more responsibility for its own defense. So far this year, NATO jets have had to scramble 100 times to intercept these airspace intruders just to show that the West's perimeters are still protected. That's three times as many as intercepted in 2013. It also coincides with a strange submarine incursion in Swedish waters, believed to have been Russian. There's no doubt about it, Russia wants its Cold War empire back, and a complacent, "Finlandized" Europe. Vladimir Putin continues in his quest...

I have a joke about Ebola, but you probably won’t get it. Seriously though, everyone and their dog is freaking out about Ebola reaching the U.S. I get it. I really truly do. Any deadly disease is scary, but Ebola is super-duper scary. Anything that causes 70 percent of people who catch it to die counts as super-duper scary in my book. Thing is, you won’t catch it. I won’t catch it. According to NPR, Ebola isn’t contagious until after symptoms are present. On top of that, it is only spread through bodily fluids like blood, vomit and other things...

Bismarck, ND (WDAY TV) - The North Dakota Department of Health says there's a slim chance Ebola could make its way to our state, however, they are currently monitoring 2 people that recently traveled to West Africa.

Here in North Dakota, I have watched in horror as Planned Parenthood has poured $1.4 million into our state to spread lies to defeat a prolife measure in the November 4 election. Measure 1 would to add these words to the ND constitution: “The inalienable right to life of every human being at any stage of development must be recognized and protected.” It will not make law. It will simply support legislation to regulate abortion that is passed by our elected officials. At Risk Without this protection, we are at risk of going the way 12 other states have gone—to...

Bill Gilliam and North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple announced two weeks ago that a venture called Badlands NGL is trying to build a petrochemical plant in North Dakota. The plant will use ethane, the cheap, abundant component of natural gas that rises from the same wells that produce oil in the Bakken. Natural gas in North Dakota is especially high in ethane content (see deck 39), and Gilliam thinks he can figure out a way to get enough of it in pure form to start cranking out train car loads of plastic beads for industrial use. A lot has to...

Half of all the Democratic women in the U.S. Senate are featured in a new video voicing their support for Kentucky Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes. The video, released Thursday after first being shown at Grimes’ event with Hillary Clinton Wednesday evening, shows six women in the U.S. Senate saying “Shatter the glass. Break the ceiling. It’s time for Alison!” Of the twelve women in the Senate Democratic caucus, U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), Patty Murray (D-WA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) are shown...

The U.S. Senate Energy Committee advanced a bill on Wednesday that would force congressional approval of TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline project, but the measure seems unlikely to be taken up by the full Senate. The bill, the latest effort by lawmakers to breathe life into the long-delayed pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast, will languish without a commitment from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring it to a vote. The measure, from Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Republican Senators John Hoeven of North Dakota and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, would take a decision...

Refracking brings 'vintage' oil and gas wells to life Aug 20, 2014, 10.43AM IST (The development highlights…) HOUSTON/WILLISTON, NORTH DAKOTA: A fracking boom isn't enough for U.S. oil and gas producers - they're now starting the re-fracking boom.Wells sunk as little as three years ago are being fracked again, the latest innovation in the technology-driven shale oil revolution. Hydraulic fracturing, which has upended global energy markets by lifting U.S. crude oil output to a 25-year high, has been troubled by quick declines in oil and gas output. The development highlights how producers must constantly invest and tinker, both to...