Free Republic

Fox local affiliate came on in Miami, said the Assclown was going to speak at 1:30. So once the teleprompter is loaded, expect him to stumble in at about 2:00.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted to hospital with blood clot following concussion.

Planned layoffs at U.S. firms rose for the third month in a row in November, partly driven by the bankruptcy of Hostess Brands, a report showed on Thursday. Employers announced 57,081 job cuts last month, the highest level since May and up nearly 20 percent from 47,724 in October, according to the report from consultants Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. November's job cuts were also up 34.4 percent from the 42,474 seen a year ago. Employers have announced 490,806 cuts in 2012, lower than 2011's total of 606,082 layoffs. The recent surge in layoffs is at least partly attributed to...

WASHINGTON—The Pentagon is preparing to notify its entire civilian workforce to prepare for furloughs if Congress and President Barack Obama are unable to reach a deal before Jan. 2 to avert automatic spending cuts. A senior defense official said Sunday that the Pentagon would notify 800,000 civilian workers to brace for furloughs in the new year, meaning the workers would be ordered to take mandatory leave without pay for a certain period. The warning is much gloomier than the agency recently offered employees, as it had said there wouldn't be an immediate impact on personnel or operations if a deal...

President Obama on Sunday said he would make gun control a priority in his new term, pledging to put his “full weight” behind passing new restrictions on firearms in 2013. “I'm going to be putting forward a package and I'm going to be putting my full weight behind it,” said Obama in an interview aired on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I'm going to be making an argument to the American people about why this is important and why we have to do everything we can to make sure that something like what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary does not happen...

The Talk Shows December 30th, 2012 Guests to be interviewed on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): President Barack Obama.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.THIS WEEK (ABC): Sen. Chuck U. Schumer, D-N.Y.; Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.; Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.; Rep. Darrel Issa, R-Calif.; Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.; Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md.; Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

The highly-anticipated meeting came and went without any immediate clue from congressional lawmakers as to whether they had made any progress toward resolving the impending onset of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts set to take effect on Jan. 1. But the president is scheduled to deliver a statement from the White House at 5:45 p.m. ET. A protracted stalemate between Obama-led Democrats and congressional Republicans had prompted Friday's last-ditch meeting.

With President Obama safely re-elected to a second term, federal workers feel comfortable to make their demands known. As debate rages over lowering the federal deficit, they want a pay raise. As CNN's Money magazine reports: [Union president Colleen M.] Kelley said her No. 1 issue right now is getting federal worker salaries unfrozen on Jan. 1, even if that means working out a deal later in the year and making pay hikes retroactive to Jan. 1. In the midst of that, federal workers are also nervous about the fiscal cliff , which includes $1.2 trillion worth of spending cuts...

President Barack Obama issued an executive order to end the pay freeze on federal employees, in effect giving some federal workers a raise. One federal worker now to receive a pay increase is Vice President Joe Biden.

In January, Senator Feinstein will introduce a bill to stop the sale, transfer, importation and manufacturing of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition feeding devises. Following is a summary of the 2013 legislation: Bans the sale, transfer, importation, or manufacturing of: -120 specifically-named firearms -Certain other semiautomatic rifles, handguns, shotguns that can accept a detachable magazine and have one military characteristic -Semiautomatic rifles and handguns with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds

<p>The Obama administration's chief environmental watchdog, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, is stepping down after a nearly four-year tenure marked by high-profile brawls over global warming pollution, the Keystone XL oil pipeline, new controls on coal-fired plants and several other hot-button issues that affect the nation's economy and people's health.</p>

FXstreet.com (Barcelona) - A fall of 6.4 points in November was registered by the Consumer Confidence indicator released by the Conference Board. Data fell from 75.1 (revised from 73.7) to 65.1, coming much lower than the expected 70.3.

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment aid fell last week to nearly its lowest level in 4 1/2 years, a sign that the labor market is healing. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 350,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The prior week's figure was revised to show 1,000 more applications than previously reported. After spiking in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, which ravaged the East Coast in late October, the weekly levels of new claims have now dropped to their lowest levels since the early days of the 2007-09 recession....

<p>A persistent fever that kept former President George H.W. Bush in a hospital over Christmas has gotten worse, and doctors have put him on a liquids-only diet, his spokesman said Wednesday.</p> <p>Jim McGrath, Bush's spokesman in Houston, had said earlier in the day that the fever had gone away, but he later corrected himself.</p>

Today, Secretary Geithner sent the following letter to Congress regarding the debt limit. *** December 26, 2012 The Honorable Harry Reid Majority Leader United States Senate Washington, DC 20510 Dear Mr. Leader: I am writing to inform you that the statutory debt limit will be reached on December 31, 2012, and to notify you that the Treasury Department will shortly begin taking certain extraordinary measures authorized by law to temporarily postpone the date that the United States would otherwise default on its legal obligations. These extraordinary measures, which are explained in detail in an appendix​ to this letter, can create...

NBC was told by the Washington, D.C., police that it was “not permissible” to show a high-capacity gun magazine on air before Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” according to a statement Wednesday from the cops.

An official from the D.C. police told a member of the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that David Gregory COULD display a high capacity magazine on "Meet the Press" Sunday ... TMZ has learned.

... Obama is cutting short his vacation in the Pacific state of Hawaii and will return to Washington to resume talks with congressional leaders aimed at reaching agreement on a deficit reduction package before the year ends. The White House says Obama will leave Wednesday and is expected to arrive back in Washington early Thursday. Early last week,the president said he and Republican House Speaker John Boehner were relatively close to an agreement on a compromise to avert what is being called a "fiscal cliff" -- $500 billion in mandated spending cuts and tax increases that would affect almost all...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said that she and other gun control advocates are considering a law that would create a program to purchase weapons from gun owners, a proposal that could be compulsory. “We are also looking at a buy-back program,” Feinstein said today in a press conference. “Now, again, this is a work in progress so these are ideas in the development.”Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y., already discussed the possibility of a buy-back law for his state, but he made clear it would be a forced buyback.“Confiscation could be an option,” Cuomo told The New York Times yesterday when discussing...

Luke 2:1-21 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was,...

Some interesting news has broken in the wake of the latest push for gun control by President Obama and Senate Democrats: Obama sends his kids to a school where armed guards are used as a matter of fact. The school, Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC, has 11 security officers and is seeking to hire a new police officer as we speak. If you dismiss this by saying, "Of course they have armed guards -- they get Secret Service protection," then you've missed the larger point. The larger point is that this is standard operating procedure for the school, period....

Webster, N.Y. -- 13WHAM News has learned several people have been shot at the scene of a fire on Lake Road in Webster. The fire is at 191 Lake Road near Bay Road. A source tells 13WHAM News that at that scene, an unknown gunman opened fire on fire crews on the scene. The victims have been taken by Mercy Flight to area hospitals. The fire has now spread to a second house. 13WHAM has several crews converging on the scene and will provide updates at they're available.

Top U.S. lawmakers voiced rising fear on Sunday that the country would go over "the fiscal cliff" in nine days, triggering harsh spending cuts and tax hikes, and some Republicans charged that was President Barack Obama's goal. "It's the first time that I feel it's more likely that we will go over the cliff than not," Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, said on CNN's "State of the Union." "If we allow that to happen it will be the most colossal consequential act of congressional irresponsibility in a long time, maybe ever in American history," Lieberman added.

The Talk Shows December 23rd, 2012 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Kent Conrad, D-N.D.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association; Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah.FACE THE NATION (CBS): David Keene, NRA president; Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Mark Warner, D-Va.; Rep. Tim Scott, R-S.C.; actor Ben Affleck.THIS WEEK (ABC): Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, N.J.; Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.; Reps....

Despite most of Congress leaving town for the holidays, postal workers are continuing a hunger strike protesting legislation to save the United States Postal Service (USPS) through budget cuts. The hunger strike began Tuesday and is expected to end late Saturday, according to The Washington Post. Six former and current postal workers, part of a group called Communities and Postal Workers United, are calling the strike “six days starving to save six-day delivery.” Their goal is to stop Congress from reducing postal delivery to five days a week. “We have to be on guard, to raise awareness and pressure the...

Obama: I Met Republicans Halfway On Taxes, More Than Halfway On Spending THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. Over the last few weeks I've been working with leaders of both parties on a proposal to get our deficit under control, avoid tax cuts -- or avoid tax hikes on the middle class, and to make sure that we can spur jobs and economic growth -- a balanced proposal that cuts spending but also asks the wealthiest Americans to pay more; a proposal that will strengthen the middle class over the long haul and grow our economy over the long haul. During...

The chemical warfare threat looming over Syria’s civil war and its neighbors has taken an epic turn with the announcement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Saturday, Dec. 22, that “the Syrian government has “consolidated its chemical weapons in one or two locations amid a rebel onslaught and they are under control for the time being.” He added that Russia, “which has military advisers training Syria’s military, has kept close watch over its chemical arsenal.” Debkafile’s military and intelligence sources report: The Russian foreign minister’s statement was a message to Washington that the transfer of Syria’s weapons of mass destruction...

Several conservative House Republican members are contemplating a plan to unseat Speaker John Boehner from his position on January 3, Breitbart News has exclusively learned. Staffers have compiled a detailed action plan that, if executed, could make this a reality. The Republicans, both conservatives and more establishment members alike, are emboldened after the failure of Boehner’s fiscal cliff “Plan B” on Thursday evening. Dissatisfaction with Boehner is growing in the House Republican conference, but until now there hasn’t been a clear path forward. Those members and staffers requested anonymity from Breitbart News at this time to prevent retaliation from Boehner...

A Marine veteran jailed for months in Mexico after trying to carry a family heirloom shotgun across the border has been freed, U.S. officials and his lawyer said late Friday. The attorney for 27-year-old Jon Hammar tweeted Friday night that his client had been released from a detention center in Matamoros, Mexico. “Jon is out, going home!” Eddie Varon Levy tweeted. … An aide to a legal representative of the Mexican attorney general’s office had told U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson’s staff about the pending release after the Florida Democrat’s office got word from Hammar’s mother, according to a press release...

So the White House is turning its focus to a smaller package that would extend the Bush-era tax rates on income below $250,000, pause the across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester and renew unemployment insurance benefits, according to senior administration officials. It would hold off a significant portion of the fiscal cliff, minimizing any economic shock in the new year. But it means a host of tax provisions would likely expire, little would be done to address the debt and deficit, and no process would be set up for overhauling the tax code next year. There would be no...

A Message from President Obama about Your Petition on Reducing Gun Violence In the days since the tragedy in Newtown, Americans from all over the country have called for action to deter mass shootings and reduce gun violence. Hundreds of thousands of you have signed petitions on We the People. I'm writing you today to thank you for speaking up, to update you on an important development, and to encourage you to continue engaging with the White House on this critical issue. First, you should know that President Obama is paying close to attention to the public response to this...

A senior administration official said on Friday that President Barack Obama will nominate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. as his next secretary of state this afternoon from the White House. The 69-year-old, who began his tenure in the Senate in 1985, is expected to be a shoo-in during the Congressional confirmation process and will fill the vacancy left by outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The expected announcement will come after the president's top choice for the spot, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, took herself out of the running for the post given the controversy over her reaction to the attacks on...

DEVELOPING: Jon Hammar, the U.S. Marine imprisoned in Mexico on a gun charge, will be released today, his mother told Fox News Radio. Olivia Hammar said the judge hearing Hammar's case issued a ruling in his favor and that her son is to be released at a time on Friday yet to be announced. No more details were available. Hammar, 27, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been stuck in a notorious, drug cartel-controlled prison just 15 miles south of the U.S. border since Aug. 13, after he crossed into Mexico and declared an antique shotgun to Mexican customs...

Capitol Hill reporters on Twitter writing Speaker Boehner has dropped Plan B fiscal cliff vote tongiht after revolt from House Republican caucus. House will recess until after Christmas.After raucus closed dooor House GOP meeting, Boehner says House has already passed bills to cut spending and taxes to avert fiscal cliff and the ball is the court of the Senate and President Obama.

<p>Newt Gingrich said that conservatives will have to accept marriage equality after three more states this year voted to allow same sex marriage and more will likely do the same in the 2014 election.</p> <p>The former Speaker of the House said he didn’t expect gay rights to become the “wave” issue it has, but that he can accept the difference between a marriage in a church and a legal document, reported Huffington Post.</p>

Three top officials in the State Department resigned Wednesday in the wake of a scathing report which slammed "systemic failures" and "management deficiencies" in the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, which resulted in the murder of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. Assistant Secretary Eric Boswell, head of the bureau of diplomatic security, and Charlene Lamb, deputy assistant secretary for international programs, have stepped down, CNN and CBS television said, citing unnamed department officials. Lamb, who was Boswell’s deputy in charge of international programs, denied requests from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli for an extension of temporary security...

<p>Two of the weapons involved in a drug cartel gunfight last month in Sinaloa, Mexico, that killed five people, including two soldiers and a young beauty queen, have been traced back to the U.S. – one lost during the ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious, the other originally purchased by a supervisory ATF agent who helped oversee the botched gun-tracking operation.</p>

The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office is calling one of their own a hero after deputies say she stopped what could have been a disastrous shooting inside a south-side movie theater lobby. Jesus Garcia, 19, was at the Santikos Mayan Palace 14 at SW Military and I-35 on Sunday night. According to San Antonio police, he was upset over a recent breakup with his girlfriend. According to both police and deputies, Garcia called into his girlfriend's work at The China Garden restaurant and said he was going to shoot somebody. The restaurant is located outside the theater. At 9:30 p.m., Garcia...

A very strong statement from Speaker Boehner: "Tomorrow the House will pass legislation to make permanent tax relief for nearly every American -- 99.81% of the American people. Then the President will have a decision to make. He can call on the Senate Democrats to pass that bill or he can be responsible for the largest tax increase in American history."

Judge Robert H. Bork, one of the the greatest jurists this country has ever produced, died early this morning from heart complications in a Virginia hospital near his home. He was 84. Bork was a national celebrity. Several years ago, my wife and I visited the Borks in Maine where they had taken a summer house off Somes Sound. I cannot count the times that total strangers would approach us at a lobster shack or park asking to shake the Judge’s hand and to assure him of their admiration and support. Bork’s celebrity was only partly conferred upon him by...

It's been 14 years since President Bill Clinton was impeached. Free Republic played a key role.On October 31, 1998, Free Republic held the first online-organized national protest to call for Clinton's impeachment and removal from office. The rally was broadcast live on C-SPAN for over four hours. Speakers included a who's who of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.The rally can be viewed in its entirety online at C-SPANAs the Senate trial drew to a close in Feburary 1999, FReepers came together online to design and fund a full page ad in the Washington Times urging the Senate to do its...

Twenty-seven years after driving from New York City to Chicago in a $2,000 Honda Civic for a job that probably wouldn’t amount to much, Barack Obama, in better shape but with grayer hair, stood in the presidential suite on the top floor of the Fairmont Millennium Park hotel as flat screens announced his re-election as President of the United States.

With the shock and horror from Newtown giving way to anger and calls for action, President Barack Obama will announce his first concrete steps Wednesday in addressing the raging debate about gun policy. Obama is expected to announce that Vice President Joe Biden will lead an inter-agency process to develop policy in the wake of the Connecticut elementary school massacre. White House aides say Obama won't announce major policy decisions Wednesday, but will outline his administration's path forward. "These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change," Obama told a packed auditorium at Newtown High School on Sunday.

Republicans need to "have a discussion on guns" in the wake of last week's grade-school massacre in Newtown, Conn., Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told his conference Tuesday. Speaking to his troops at a closed-door meeting in the Capitol, Boehner was mindful of conservatives' traditional opposition to new gun restrictions, emphasizing that Republicans wouldn't do "anything knee-jerk," according to a lawmaker in the room. But the Speaker also said he wants to "de-politicize" the issue of gun violence, which has been thrust dreadfully into the national spotlight following the murder of 26 people — 20 of them young school children —...

WASHINGTON — An independent inquiry into the attack on the United States diplomatic mission in Libya that killed four Americans on Sept. 11 sharply criticizes the State Department for a lack of seasoned security personnel and relying on untested local militias to safeguard the compound, Congressional and State Department officials said Tuesday night. The investigation into the attacks on the diplomatic mission and C.I.A. annex that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three others also faulted State Department officials in Washington for ignoring requests from officials at the American Embassy in Tripoli for more guards and safety upgrades to the...

John Bolton, former U.N. ambassador under President George W. Bush, suggested Monday night that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fabricated a "diplomatic illness" in order to dodge scheduled testimony this week on the Sept. 11 anniversary attack in Benghazi, Libya. Speaking on Fox News, Bolton claimed "every foreign service officer in every foreign ministry in the world" is familiar with coming up with such "diplomatic illnesses" when they "don't want to go to a meeting or a conference, or an event." "And this is a diplomatic illness to beat the band," Bolton said of recent news that Clinton had fainted...

Another weapon from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agency's controversial Operation Fast and Furious was recently recovered at a Mexican crime scene, CBS News has learned. Congressional investigators say the crime scene was likely where a recent shootout took place between reported Sinaloa drug cartel members and the Mexican military, in which Sinaloa beauty queen Maria Susana Flores Gamez and four others were killed. According to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the Justice Department did not notify Congress of the Fast and Furious firearm recovery in November, even though Grassley has requested an accounting of weapons that...

The White House rejected a House GOP proposal Tuesday to extend the Bush tax cuts for those making up to $1 million, saying it doesn't go far enough and wouldn't pass the Senate anyway.

The 79-year-old Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has died on Tuesday after suffering a stroke. He had been suffering from ill health and had received medical treatment overseas several times in recent years.