Free Republic

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will postpone filibuster reform until later this month, giving him time to negotiate a deal with Republicans, say Democratic lawmakers and aides. A group of liberal Democrats had been pushing Reid to trigger the so-called "nuclear option" on Thursday, the first day of the 113th Congress, to make it more difficult for the minority to stall legislation and nominees. A senior Democratic aide said Reid will instead recess the chamber at the end of Thursday’s proceedings to extend the legislative day until later this month. This would preserve his ability to amend the Senate’s...

Are you a cop? Do you carry a gun? Don't go to the Denny's in Belleville, Ill. You are not allowed, the police chief says. Not after what happened Tuesday. The flapjacks -- sorry, the flap -- began when several on-duty detectives with the Belleville Police Department dropped in to Denny's for some on-duty noshing, according to local media.

A Westchester school was locked down this morning when a middle-aged man tried to enter with a gun on his waist.

I think by the year 2016 it will be all over.

Over the course of the 20th century, America built its welfare state. It was, by and large, a great achievement, expanding opportunity and security for millions. Unfortunately, as the population aged and health care costs surged, it became unaffordable. Public debt as a percentage of gross domestic product was around 38 percent in 1965. It is around 74 percent now. Debt could approach a ruinous 90 percent of G.D.P. in a decade... By 2025, entitlement spending and debt payments are projected to suck up all federal revenue... Ultimately, we should blame the American voters. The average Medicare couple pays $109,000...

Many Catholics seldom think past their own parish when the consider the Church. And yet the Catholic World is huge and quite vibrant: 1.2 Billion Catholics in the World.412,236 Priests721,935 Religious Sisters221,055 Parishes92,847 Catholic Elementary Schools with 31 million students.43,591 Catholic Secondary Schools with 17 Million Students [*]117,000 health care facilities, including hospitals, clinics, orphanages,” as well as “18,000 pharmacies and 512 centers” for the care of those with leprosy, all comprising 26% of the total of the world’s health care facilities. [*] There is probably never a moment during the day in which Mass is not being celebrated somewhere...

Over the past several months, while most of the political world has been focused on the election and the ensuing struggle over the fiscal cliff, a little story appeared that is worthy of much more attention.It concerns the efforts of the British Columbia–based Haida native-American tribe to restore the salmon fishery that has provided much of their livelihood for centuries. Acting collectively, the Haida voted to form the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation, financed it with $2.5 million of their own savings, and used it to support the efforts of American scientist-entrepreneur Russ George to demonstrate the feasibility of open-sea...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has announced he will begin the new Congress today by violating Senate rules and forcing through a set of procedural changes that will undermine Senate conservatives' ability to influence legislation. But the "Reid Plan" will have its most dramatic impact on presidential nominations, especially for the Supreme Court. The Senate is a unique legislative body that protects the rights of individual senators both to debate and to amend. These rights are valued so highly that it takes a supermajority -- today, 60 votes -- to deny fellow senators those rights. This higher vote threshold...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Justice Department reached a $1.4 billion settlement Thursday with Transocean Ltd., the owner of the drilling rig that sank after an explosion killed 11 workers and spawned the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The proposed settlement resolves the department's civil and criminal probes of Transocean's role in the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster. It requires the Switzerland-based company to pay $1 billion in civil penalties and $400 million in criminal penalties and plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of violating the Clean Water Act, according to a court filing. . .

The Michigan Association of School Administrators has been one of the most vocal organizations against what it calls “for profit” charter schools. In an op-ed, MASA Executive Director William Mayes rails against “profiteers who will be allowed to take taxpayer dollars … ” While Mayes complains about "profiteers" he has been paid on average a total compensation of $205,000 the past three years, according to records MASA submitted to the Internal Revenue Service. MASA makes a significant amount of its money due to its relationship with public schools. MASA made $3.3 million on its “program service revenue” that involves two...

Did you know that Christmas celebrations were banned in Scotland until 1958? I certainly didn’t, not until my son started working on his sixth grade “Christmas around the World” report. I haven’t looked up what the English did in this regard (Scotland always has had a good deal of autonomy within Britain, and never stopped following its own legal code). But it seems the good Presbyterians of the established Church of Scotland (“the Kirk,” ironically enough for traditional conservatives) thought Christmas was a Catholic holiday, best stamped out with criminal penalties for unwholesome celebrations (pretty much anything outside of church),...

From its early beginnings, feminism was a young women’s movement. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul, Charlotte Lozier and so many others began their suffragist work in their 20s. These women — the original feminists — understood that the rights of women cannot be built on the broken backs of unborn children. Anthony called abortion “child murder.” Paul, author of the original 1923 Equal Rights Amendment, said that “abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.” So the pro-life movement hasn’t changed the meaning of feminism, as has been suggested. It was the neo-feminists of the 1960s and ’70s...

Washington, D.C. – It is possible, possible, that the massive shuffling of Cabinet positions for president Obama will have a positive effect on his next four years in office. With so many people leaving the make-up of the team that led to a lot of mediocrity and divisiveness will be fundamentally altered.timothy geithner leaving obama administration Some of those changes, say Secretary of State, clearly trade one strong player for another but in other places the changeover will not be as smooth or as clearly good. There is, perhaps, no position more important in all of this than the change...

President Obama cut a video, distributed by his reelection, to reiterate his belief that the wealthiest Americans still aren’t paying their “fair share” of taxes and to outline a second-term agenda ranging from environmental policy to gun control. Obama started by celebrating the tax increases — “making our tax code more progressive than it’s been in decades,” he said — that will take place because of the fiscal cliff deal. “Obviously, there is still more to do when it comes to reducing our debt,” Obama said in the video. “And I’m willing to do more, as long as we do...

I am from another town where glaciers are fairytales, I was as much of a tourist as the Australian tourist, so I decided to join the crew. The beautiful scenery was amazing, but the nature doesn't care about anyone. That day almost became our last day.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve policymakers expressed broad support last month for the Fed's plan to buy bonds to support the U.S. economy. But they differed over how long to keep buying bonds to drive down long-term interest rates. Minutes of the Fed's December policy meeting show that some of the 12 voting members thought the bond purchases would be warranted through the end of this year. Others felt the purchases should be slowed or stopped altogether before the end of 2013. This group was concerned that too much bond buying by the Fed might destabilize the economy.

I just found out that all the faxes I sent to the Republican members of Congress have been referred to just the 3 Congress-critters who represent me. I need everybody to contact your own Congress members and let them know that Hawaii registrar Alvin Onaka has certified to AZ SOS Ken Bennett that Obama's Hawaii birth certificate is not legally valid. Bennett asked Onaka to verify, among other things, that Obama, male, was born on Aug 4, 1961, in Honolulu on Oahu to Stanley Ann Dunham and Barack Hussein Obama. According to Hawaii law, Onaka has to verify any submitted...

Matt Drudge is the proprieter of the world’s #1 news aggregator site, the Drudge Report, which receives tens of millions of visits every day. On his personal Twitter account he has over 160,000 followers. He is also pro-life. This is the amazing message that his followers were greeted with this morning: There will be over 3,500 killed in USA today from abortion. No flags lowered, no presidents crying. No media hyperventilating. Normal day. The post is a bold move for Drudge. His reference to “presidents crying” appears to be a pretty direct reference to President Obama’s reaction to the...

It's 2013. Do you know where your Socialist Paradise is? What's the matter, DUmmies, you say you can't find it? Where did it go? I thought that by now everything would be hunky-dory. You guys should be jumping for joy. I mean, Our President got re-elected. Some of the Obamacare provisions are starting to kick in. The Congress and Our President just got this fiscal cliff deal done, which will raise taxes on the evil rich. What more could you want? Aren't these the things you've been hoping for? Aren't these the things that will cause the economy to...

As I wrote earlier this week, the fiscal-cliff deal was mostly a win for Barack Obama, but only a temporary victory fought on one issue. By delinking the tax debate from the spending debate and keeping the debt limit out of the fiscal-cliff deal, Republicans at least allowed themselves the chance to fight another day for spending cuts and entitlement reform. Whether they can successfully negotiate real reform is another question, of course, but even Obama's former OMB director acknowledges that the White House now has significantly less leverage to prevent budget reform now that taxes are off the table....