Free Republic

"Conservative" does not mean the same thing as "pro-business," as Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has demonstrated. McDonnell -- whose three-year record is mostly characterized by conservative policies -- this week won the largest tax hike in state history and a package of new spending on transportation. Cheering him on was Virginia's business lobby. The tax-hike-and-roads package fits well into a pattern of McDonnell veering from his conservative principles when the business lobby wants more government. McDonnell, for instance, has subsidized favored businesses and industries through tax credits and special incentives. Also, Virginia's dependence on the military-industrial complex and the "Beltway...

This morning on "Mornings on the Mall" on WMAL-FM in Washington DC, Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) used the memory of Ronald Reagan to give himself cover for a tax increase he helped engineer. Once considered a strong contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, McDonnell has found himself under increasing scrutiny from allies on the right for a tax-laden transportation bill that was approved by Virginia's legislature this weekend, despite opposition from many Republicans, including the presumptive GOP nominee to succeed McDonnell, tea-party favorite Ken Cuccinelli.

A pizza shop owner had a strong desire to show his support for the first amendment even if it means losing out on profit. A Virginia Beach, Virginia, pizza shop owner, is showing support for the rights to carry firearms by giving gun owners a discount of 15 percent on their order. Jay Laze, who is the owner of All Around Pizzas and Deli, has received media attention for his novel idea. In order to get the discount, customers have to either bring their weapon or they can present their permit to carry concealed weapons at the time of purchase.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden will address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference next Monday, it has been confirmed. His speech comes just ahead of President Obama's anticipated visit to Israel later in the month and amid renewed concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear program. The 2013 conference, which will be held March 3-5, in Washington, D.C., will also feature addresses by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird, House of Representatives, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (R-TX), House of Representatives Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD),...

Three weeks after a 10-year-old Alexandria boy was arrested for showing a toy gun to another student on a school bus, prosecutors dropped charges against the child Tuesday and his record was scrubbed clean. “We did not feel it was appropriate or productive to proceed with criminal prosecution and believe the matter can be best handled administratively within the school system,” said Alexandria Commonwealth’s Attorney S. Randolph Sengel. The child’s mother, Nakicha Gilbert, said that she was glad her son’s courtroom travails had ended but that “it should’ve never happened” in the first place. The fifth-grader at Douglas MacArthur Elementary...

This David Weigel post on Friday reminded me that I should use the final election data to check a point I’d talked a fair amount about right after the election: that Romney ran ahead of the Republican Senate candidates in tightly contested races. My AEI colleague Caroline Kitchens went to the official state election-result sites and pulled the numbers, which are better than what we had in mid-November.In Wisconsin, Virginia, and Texas, Romney ran just barely ahead of Tommy Thompson (by 0.03 percent), George Allen (0.3 percent), and Ted Cruz (0.7 percent), respectively.In Nebraska, Ohio, and Arizona, Romney ran...

What is it with Republicans and transportation bills? The pork-packed 2005 highway bill, which included the infamous Alaskan “Bridge to Nowhere,” was the fiscal low point of the Bush-Hastert years, and now Virginia governor Bob McDonnell has decided that his legacy to the commonwealth will be a gigantic tax increase to fund billions of dollars’ worth of dubious transportation projects. Politics is about tradeoffs and compromise, inevitably, but this is a bad deal on most counts. There are two ways to judge the deal Governor McDonnell has cut. For those who take the inerrantist Norquistian view that any tax increase...

On Friday, March 15, 2013, at 8:00 a.m. Bob McDonnell will go to CPAC and address the Faith & Freedom Coalition Prayer Breakfast. For those of you who attend this event, you will be sitting staring at a liar. If you are a conservative, remember Bob McDonnell thinks you’re an idiot. That’s the only explanation I can think of for what just happened in Virginia this week. That, and that McDonnell is an unprincipled fake conservative whose promises are without value, an exemplar of the kind of big government pro-tax Republican who ruined the party’s stature with fiscal conservatives.

“I am going to fight every single Republican politician that participated in this disgraceful disaster…” Mark Levin Show February 25.Audio

U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit stealth bomber sitting on the flight line at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, USA. Via http://ChamorroBible.org/gpw/gpw-200905.htm (medium, large) The Photographer  Staff Sgt. Eric T. Sheler, United States Air Force  

(CNSNews.com) - Colin Goddard, who was shot several times in the Virginia Tech shooting massacre and now works as assistant director of federal legislation for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said Friday that college campuses are “one of the safest places you can be in this country.” “College campuses are actually one of the safest places you can be in this country. People aged between 18 and 24 who live on college campuses are one of the constituencies that are least likely to ever get hit by bullet, and if you live anywhere else but a campus, that...

Will President Obama’s sequester interrupt government services you depend on? The media runs alarmist stories about how average Americans will suffer if Uncle Sam has to pass up a fourth sticky bun for breakfast. Politicians often panic the public to keep the money flowing. Washington is warning of three-hour delays at airports. Remember: Democrats insisted on requiring airport security screeners to be federal employees. So now you must support Democratic spending plans or else. Since 2008, federal spending has increased by $800 billion per year. The looming sequester will shave off $100 billion per year. Washington will still be spending...

Some Republican governors — all of them elected with strong tea-party support — have moved left since the November election by agreeing to participate in Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid. The lure of “free money” from Washington has proven too much for governors Jan Brewer of Arizona, Rick Scott of Florida, and John Kasich of Ohio to resist. Obamacare promises to pay 100 percent of the cost of new Medicaid patients, lowering that to 90 percent in later years. Never mind that Uncle Sugar has a notorious reputation for reneging on promises and that history shows that expanding Medicaid only increases...

Dear Friend, Today, Republicans and Democrats joined together to pass the first new significant sustainable transportation funding and reform bill in Virginia in 27 years. Crafted and led by Republicans, the bill received the votes of over 60% of legislators in both houses. Virginians worked together across party and regional lines to find common ground to solve one of our Commonwealth’s most intractable problems. We got results. And the result is $3.5 billion in new transportation funding over the next 5 years, an estimated 35% reduction in the tax on gas at the pump, a shorter commute for you, and...

The Defense Department on Wednesday officially notified Congress that it plans to begin furloughing its 800,000 civilian employees across the country if automatic spending cuts begin March 1, estimating the states would lose a total of $4.86 billion in workers’ wages this year. According to Pentagon estimates, among the hardest-hit states would be Virginia, which would have about 88,000 affected workers and salary losses of $660.9 million; California, with 62,600 workers and $419.7 million in lost wages; and Maryland, with 45,700 workers and $359.3 million in lost earnings. “This is not a Beltway phenomenon,” Jessica L. Wright, the acting undersecretary...

Virginia's House of Delegates has voted to approve what would become the first major reform in a generation of the state's system for financing its highway network. Friday's vote was 60-40.

STERLING, Va. (CBSDC) — If you enjoy packing heat while sipping a hot cup of coffee, Friday is your day. Firearms owners and gun rights advocates are heading to local coffee shops to celebrate “Gun Owners Support Starbucks Day.” It’s their way of saying ‘thank you’ to the Seattle-based coffee franchise for — as they see it — not infringing on their Second Amendment rights.

A health insurance company headed by an old friend from Obama's days as a community organizer got a $340 million federal loan to establish Obamacare co-ops in New York, New Jersey and Oregon despite having a chronic record of consumer and regulatory complaints. The New York-based Freelancers Insurance Company has been rated the "worst" insurer for two straight years by state regulators, and data compiled by a national insurance association show an extremely high rate of consumer complaints. The firm was founded in 2008 by Sara Horowitz, who worked with Obama before his career in elective politics to launch Demos,...

Bill Bolling swears he hasn't decided whether he'll run for Governor of Virginia, but in a mostly one-sided conversation with WMAL's Mornings On The Mall Thursday, the incumbent Lt. Governor sounded an awful lot like a candidate aiming for middle-of-the-road votes. "There are a lot of what I'll call more 'mainstream' Republicans like me that are just not real happy with the current leadership and direction of our party," said Bolling. "I think in this particular race in Virginia this year, there's a lot of uneasiness out there with the candidates of both of the major political parties, so that...

A 25-year-old father opened fire on three armed intruders, who kicked open his door in the middle of the night Sunday, killing two in the process. Now he, his son, girlfriend and mother have relocated out of fear the third man will come back. The front door, where one suspect was killed. The incident happened around 3:30 in the morning when the trio kicked in the front door. The young father told the local CBS affiliate that “it sounded like a car running into the side of the house.” The crash woke him and his two-year old son, who was...