Free Republic

Senator Marco Rubio, who announced Monday he is running for president in 2016, withdrew his amendment that would have required Iran to recognize Israel's right to exist. Some lawmakers warned extraneous elements could upend the bill, and Rubio acknowledged the importance of a securing congressional review of the Iran agreement. Washington's powerful pro-Israel lobby AIPAC voiced approval of the measure, saying: "Congress should review any agreement to ensure it meets US objectives, and object if it fails to do so." A final deal, the group said, "must be subjected to the constitutional system of checks and balances that is the...

Politics and Policy Senator Reid Scores Early Victory as Opposition Leader But minority leader warns fellow Democrats against taking victory laps after homeland security win By Siobhan Hughes and Michael R. Crittenden WASHINGTON—Senate Democrats think they have had a good couple of weeks, including a win in a battle over immigration and homeland security funding, but their leader is warning members of his caucus against taking any victory laps. “We cannot be gloating,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said he told his caucus at a closed-door meeting on Tuesday. “We have a lot of things we have to...

Our friend Erick Erickson of Red State set off an amusing avalanche of double entendre in conservative cyberspace by posting an article in which he ridiculed Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner by saying, “I guess Barack Obama took John Boehner’s balls because Boehner is playing with the President’s balls instead of his own,” and then offering a link through which readers could send Boehner some “Blue Bullet balls” from Amazon. After the 13-year-old part of our brain got done laughing at Erickson’s locker room humor, we got to thinking more seriously about the problem of Speaker Boehner’s apparent...

"I think this is now no chamois" Students see the Unterberg decades-old skeletal remains of a man. He could have been one of the first skiers. Investigators have even been possible clues to the identity of the dead. By Sarah Cannings Actually, the trip would have in the Unterberg just an exercise should be for students in Tübingen Cave AG, guided by the Salzburg cavers Georg Zagler. "I have them before that said that some people go missing in the lower mountain, and that you can always find bones of animals, so that they are not intended to scare," says...

The U.S. House of Representatives will delay the start of a five-week recess in order to try to pass a funding bill dealing with an immigration crisis on the southwestern border, Republican lawmakers said on Thursday. The decision comes shortly after House Republicans revolted against their own party's $659 million spending bill, causing House Speaker John Boehner to cancel Thursday's scheduled vote on the measure. Republican lawmakers emerged from a closed-door meeting telling reporters of the decision and the goal of passing a bill on Friday. It was not yet clear if that bill would be identical to the one...

Summary: When did humans really begin to control fire and use it for their daily needs? Scientists discovered in the Qesem Cave, an archaeological site near present-day Rosh Ha'ayin, the earliest evidence -- dating to around 300,000 years ago -- of unequivocal repeated fire building over a continuous period. These findings help answer the question and hint that those prehistoric humans already had a highly advanced social structure and intellectual capacity.

A cave on the northwestern coast of Sumatra holds a remarkable record of big tsunamis in the Indian Ocean. The limestone opening, close to Banda Aceh, retains the sandy deposits washed ashore by huge, earthquake-induced waves over thousands of years. Scientists are using the site to help determine the frequency of catastrophes like the event of 26 December 2004.

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Republican leaders in Washington, DC are signaling they will cave on the fight against Obamacare.Heck, they are signaling they are caving on everything.Isn’t it interesting that when Ted Cruz and Jim DeMint were touring America to fight against Obamacare, the popularity of the GOP was going up and the popularity of Obamacare was going down.But now that John Boehner and the Orange Man Group of Capitol Hill are the faces of the GOP, Obamacare’s popularity is going back up and the GOP’s popularity is going back down.GOP Leaders, by caving, are signaling they want us to primary them.I am happy...

U.S. Representative Dennis Ross, a Florida Republican, said he would support a broad spending deal that didn’t include changes to the health-care law, becoming the first Tea Party-backed House lawmaker to publicly back off the fight that has shut down the government for five days. Ross, ranked among the House’s most conservative members by both the Club for Growth and the American Conservative Union, said he shifted his position because the shutdown hasn’t resulted in changes to the Affordable Care Act, which started Oct. 1, the same day government funding ran out. The shutdown also could hurt the party, he...

The lawmaker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Mr. Boehner had said he would be willing to violate the so-called Hastert Rule if necessary to pass a debt limit increase. The informal rule refers to a policy of not bringing to the floor any measure that does not have a majority of Republican votes. Other Republicans also said Thursday that they got the sense that Mr. Boehner would do whatever was necessary to ensure that the country did not default on its debt.

Big news — unless, of course, it’s disinformation, which I doubt. With attention shifting to potential consequences of not increasing the debt limit, one House Republican said Thursday that Speaker John A. Boehner had told colleagues in a meeting that he was determined to prevent a federal default and was willing to pass a measure through a combination of Republican and Democratic votes. The lawmaker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Mr. Boehner had said he would be willing to violate the so-called Hastert Rule if necessary to pass a debt limit increase. The informal rule refers to...

Adventurers have stumbled across a cave so enormous that it has its own weather system, complete with wispy clouds and lingering fog inside vast caverns. A team of expert cavers and photographers have been exploring the vast cave system in the Chongquing province of China and have taken the first-ever photographs of the natural wonder. They were amazed to discover the entrance to the hidden Er Wang Dong cave system and were stunned when they managed to climb inside to see a space so large that it can contain a cloud.

(CNN) -- The worst possible outcome for the country from the impasse over the continuing resolution that would prevent a government shutdown would be for House Republicans to cave. This is a pivotal conflict that will define the relationship between Congress and the executive branch for the next three years. The country will be much better off if Congress does not abdicate its constitutional role and if the president cannot ignore that role. When President Barack Obama is willing to negotiate with Russian, Syrian and Iranian leaders but unwilling to negotiate with the U.S. House of Representatives, it is time...

An all-too-familiar scene was enacted on the campus of Swarthmore College during a meeting on May 4 to discuss demands by student activists for the college to divest itself of its investments in companies that deal in fossil fuels. As a speaker was beginning a presentation to show how many millions of dollars such a disinvestment would cost the college, student activists invaded the meeting, seized the microphone, and shouted down a student who rose in the audience to object. Although there were professors and administrators in the room — including the college president — apparently nobody had the guts...

“The Club for Growth will not oppose tomorrow’s vote on the debt ceiling,” Club for Growth President Chris Chocola said in the statement. “The Club for Growth will, on the other hand, strongly oppose any efforts during the upcoming debate over the continuing resolution and sequester that fail to arrest out-of-control spending and put sensible limits on the growth of government.” That's a major reversal for an organization whose primary mission is to force lawmakers to curb government spending. Until now, Club for Growth has demanded that any vote to increase the debt limit include a balanced budget amendment. The...

Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, also said the Republican approach was reassuring. "If the House can pass a clean debt ceiling increase to avoid default and allow the United States to meet its existing obligations, we will be happy to consider it," he said in a statement.

Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter SH: So are you saying that, for PR purposes, that they should give in to Obama on the tax rate? AC: Not exactly, I--Well, yeah, I guess I am. SH: You're saying capitulate to Obama? We don't have a revenue problem, Ann. AC: We lost the election, Sean. Hannity seems genuinely flummoxed by Coulter's capitulatory attitude, but does she have a point? Recent polling has been gruesome for Republicans. Not only does an overall double-digit plurality favor raising taxes on "the rich," support for extending all current tax rates has plummeted by nearly 30 percentage...

WASHINGTON — On a conference call with House Republicans a day after the party’s electoral battering last week, Speaker John A. Boehner dished out some bitter medicine, and for the first time in the 112th Congress, most members took their dose. Their party lost, badly, Mr. Boehner said, and while Republicans would still control the House and would continue to staunchly oppose tax rate increases as Congress grapples with the impending fiscal battle, they had to avoid the nasty showdowns that marked so much of the last two years. Members on the call, subdued and dark, murmured words of support...

Pottery fragments found in a south China cave have been confirmed to be 20,000 years old, making them the oldest known pottery in the world, archaeologists say. The findings, which will appear in the journal Science on Friday, add to recent efforts that have dated pottery piles in east Asia to more than 15,000 years ago, refuting conventional theories that the invention of pottery correlates to the period about 10,000 years ago when humans moved from being hunter-gathers to farmers. The research by a team of Chinese and American scientists also pushes the emergence of pottery back to the last...