Free Republic

EDITORIAL: Governor Disappointment The failed leadership of Virginia’s Bob McDonnell The surest and quickest way for a Republican officeholder to kill his future is to dream up a tax increase. Once a rising star in the Grand Old Party, a shortlist contender as Mitt Romney’s running mate and a twinkle in the eye of the Great Mentioner for 2016, Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia has disappeared from the speakers’ lists at key conservative events, such as the Conservative Political Action Conference, which begins Thursday in Washington. There’s good reason for the snub. As a candidate in 2009, Mr. McDonnell promised...

In 1919, back when the United States was a constitutional republic, Congress passed a child labor law imposing a 10 percent excise tax on companies that violated it. A North Carolina furniture maker challenged the law and won. In 1922, the Supreme Court ruled in Bailey v. Drexel Furniture that although child labor laws have a noble purpose, the means – Congress using taxing power as a penalty – was unconstitutional. This was before Franklin Roosevelt’s court-packing threat in1937 ended the Supreme Court’s resistance to grandiose expansions of federal power. The child labor issue, by the way, was resolved when...

BOLLING SAYS NO TO POSSIBLE INDEPENDENT CAMPAIGN FOR GOVERNOR Lieutenant Governor cites financial, political and personal reasons for decision; pledges to continue working to build a better Virginia Richmond – Lieutenant Governor Bolling today released the following statement: “When I suspended my campaign for the Republican Party's nomination for Governor, I indicated that I wanted to be a more independent voice for Virginia, speaking out more objectively on the important issues facing our state. Over the past several months, I have done just that. I have sought to call Virginia to a higher purpose, focusing more on policy than politics...

Ammoland has two extremely depressing reports. We already knew that Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan were pretend conservatives with plans to cave on universal background checks. This first report makes it sound even worse. [The] Republican Majority Leader is leading the charge to cut a deal with President Obama. The following are just some of the threats to innocent school children and our God-given 2nd Amendment liberties that Republicans are about to shove down our throats: 1.The NRA is cutting backroom deals to centralize gun owner data collection into the Obama/Holder massive government data base. A centralized system is less...

Colorado -–(Ammoland.com)- You might think that with Republicans in control of the US House of Representatives there would be no way ANY gun control legislation could reach the floor. But sadly we are already beginning to see so-called “conservative champions” folding to pressure from the anti-gun media to sell-out gun owners. Former Vice Presidential candidate, Congressman Paul Ryan, has stated that he would support legislation that bans private sales at gun shows. In the House, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, along with the help of Rep. Scott Rigell (VA), Patrick Meehan (PA) and others, have stated openly that they will work...

Aggravated Malicious Wounding – On March 7th at 1:16PM, police responded to the Pawn City located at 4124 Dale Blvd in Woodbridge (22193) for an initial report of a robbery. The investigation revealed that a known customer to the business, identified as the accused, was in the process of completing a transaction with the victim, a 62 year old man of Burke. The victim is an employee of the business. After completing the transaction, the accused displayed a knife and stabbed the victim in the neck. The victim fell to the ground, at which point, the accused got over the...

Gay rights activists are demanding Tim Tebow back out of a speaking engagement at Liberty University just two weeks after pressuring the New York Jets quarterback to cancel a speaking engagement at the First Baptist Church of Dallas. Tebow is expected to speak this weekend at Wildfire – a men’s conference hosted by the conservative Christian university. His remarks will be closed to the general public. The professional football player is well-known for sharing his faith in Christ – but in recent weeks he’s come under fire from the national media and gay rights activists for speaking in churches...

U.S. Congress Files DOMA Brief Senators Mark Warner & Tim Kaine Last Friday, 212 members of Congress signed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act. The brief also includes 25 members who voted for DOMA back in 1996. “Some States still criminalized same-sex relationships, inviting further discrimination against gay men and lesbians in employment, family relations, and housing,” the brief says. “…As a result, when the question of same-sex marriage arose in 1996, reflexive beliefs and discomfort about same-sex relationships dominated congressional debate. From our perspective—including those of us who voted for...

Thanks, Governor Bob McDonnell (R) and Speaker Bill Howell (R) Virginia’s 2013 state legislative session will be remembered for a lot of reasons. It was the year Republicans redistricted state senate districts to win more seats and then said just kidding, the year Republicans agreed to expand Medicaid in exchange for higher taxes (confused? Me too.), and most significantly, it was the year a Republican Governor worked with Democrats to raise taxes on Virginia families by $1.23 billion per year. Congratulations, Virginia. In honor of a precedent set forth by Nancy Pelosi in Washington, the state legislature decided that they...

For all the dire warnings, most Americans welcome a five percent cut in overall federal spending this year. But the defense budget is another matter. The public by nearly 2-1, 61-33 percent, supports cutting the overall budget along the lines of the sequester that took effect last Friday. But by nearly an identical margin, Americans in this ABC News/Washington Post poll oppose an eight percent across-the-board cut in military spending. These views come before the $85 billion in cuts this year have taken hold, leaving open the question of how the public will respond once the reductions hit home. Nonetheless,...

Virginia: 2013 Legislative Session Wrap-Up The 2013 legislative session of the Virginia General Assembly adjourned on February 23 with the passage of numerous pro-gun reforms and the defeat of all anti-gun bills. Stay tuned for more details as passed legislation goes before Governor Bob McDonnell (R) for his signature. Thank you to all NRA members who stood up for freedom and contacted their state legislators during this session. Below is a listing of Second Amendment victories for 2013. Pro-Gun Legislation Awaiting Action by the Governor: A substitute to Senate Bill 1335, patroned by state Senator Mark Obenshain (R-26), passed by...

Remember how Bob McDonnell's and Chris Christie's gubernatorial wins in 2009 gave conservatives a jolt of optimism after the catastrophe of 2008? Good times, good times.No surprise here after he broke his promise not to raise taxes in order to fund Virginia’s new transportation bill, but still newsworthy: Chris Christie isn’t the only Republican governor getting snubbed by the Conservative Political Action Conference. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell was not invited, according to someone close to CPAC who was not authorized to speak publicly.McDonnell, a potential 2016 candidate, spoke at the conference for the past two years. Like Christie, McDonnell is...

<p>The Environmental Protection Agency will not appeal a January ruling that handed Virginia Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II a courtroom victory over a federal agency he has tangled with more than once with since being elected to office in 2009.</p>

A federal court is scheduled on Monday to sentence a Mennonite pastor who was convicted of helping a Lesbian-turned-Christian woman to flee the country with her daughter after her former partner was awarded custody of the girl. Kenneth L. Miller of Stuarts Draft, Va., will appear before Burlington, Vt., Judge William Sessions on Monday afternoon, and faces up to three years in prison, according to The Associated Press. Prosecutors want Miller to be sentenced to two-and-a-half or three years in prison – the maximum sentence for his conviction in abetting international parental kidnapping. "Because of his brazen intervention, a child...

Former vice presidential adviser I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby is among more than 1,000 felons whose voting rights were restored in the past year by Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, according to a report to the General Assembly. Libby’s name is listed in the Feb. 23 report on pardons, commutations, reprieves and other forms of clemency the Republican governor is required to submit annually. Without elaboration, the report says Libby’s civil rights were restored Nov. 1, 2012. … In Virginia, only the governor can restore felons’ civil rights. McDonnell has streamlined the process and, consequently, has restored the rights of more than...

The release of hundreds of illegal immigrants into a federal monitoring system this week may be an ongoing headache for the Obama administration, as Republicans focus their scrutiny on uncovering potential missteps. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, “will be aggressively examining the ramification of this decision,” according to a committee aide. And Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security, pressed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to take more responsibility for the releases, which she says she did not know about beforehand. “I am concerned that you...

Shooter takes VP Joe Biden’s advice — and lands in trouble with cops Vice President Joseph R. Biden told a Field & Stream reporter in a published report on Monday that if “you want to keep someone away from your house, just fire the shotgun through the door.” That same day, a 22-year-old man in Virginia Beach, Va., did just that — and was charged with reckless handling of a firearm. WAVY 10 reported that the man was in his bedroom when two armed masked men leaned through the window and warned him to close the bedroom door. The 22-year-old...

Republican Party Of Virginia via kwout

-snip- For most of their lives, federal workers in Mantua say, having “United States Treasury” atop their paycheck meant security, pride and a sense of mission. Things change: Now it means having to defend yourself against arguments, from strangers and even from your own relatives, that you’re an overpaid and underworked leech.

“Buy this magazine or the dog gets it!” screamed the National Lampoon magazine cover for January 1973, showing a gun to a dog’s head. Today, President Barack Obama is nakedly threatening to harm the country and the American people if he has to slow spending. Democrats have a gun to the heads of American families. They are threatening to pull the trigger if they have to give up their spending addiction. While these tactics are old, they are not normally acted out so poorly. What’s new is that Obama is being so obvious that everyone is noticing. The Democrats are...