Free Republic

Joe Biden’s papers from his 36 years in the Senate could have gone online on Dec. 31, but the university that Biden donated them to has changed its tune and plans to keep a lid on them until after the 2020 election. Biden donated his Senate papers from 1973 to 2009 to the University of Delaware in 2011, and more than 1,850 boxes of records were delivered to the school in June 2012. The university first said that the papers would go online no sooner than two years after Biden retired from “public office” or Dec. 31, 2019, or possibly...

A freshman member of Congress who attracted national attention when he called Barack Obama the worst president ever walked back his claim a bit on Wednesday, describing him as “one of the worst.” Rep. Ben Quayle, an Arizona Republican and son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, said in an interview with ABC News that Obama’s fiscal and foreign policies “alone would put him up there in one of the worst.” While campaigning in his party’s primary last August, Quayle released an ad in which he called Obama “the worst president in history” and promised to “knock the hell out...

NORFOLK, Va. - Fellow conservative religious leaders have expressed concern and even open criticism over Pat Robertson's habit of shooting from the hip on his daily religious news-and-talk television program, "The 700 Club." The Christian Coalition founder and former GOP presidential candidate has said American agents should assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for pulling Israel out of the Gaza Strip. Some observers say Robertson, who'll turn 76 next month, courts controversy as a strategy to stay recognizable and keep his followers mobilized. Others say he remains important to...

Gen. Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked to comment on remarks by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a Marine Corps veteran who has become a leading voice in Congress advocating an early withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. Murtha told ABC News this week that if he were eligible to join the military he would not, nor would he expect others to join. ''That's damaging to recruiting,'' Pace said. ''It's damaging to morale of the troops who are deployed and it's damaging to the morale of their families who believe in what they are doing to...

SACRAMENTO - Secretary of State Kevin Shelley bent rules, missed deadlines and failed to do proper paperwork as he spent millions of dollars in federal election money, state Auditor Elaine Howle told a legislative committee conducting its first hearing Monday to investigate the embattled state elections official. Howle meticulously told the Joint Legislative Audit Committee that Shelley's management failures, which also included the questionable use of federal money, added up to "disregard for proper controls and poor oversight" of money given California to modernize its voting systems. But a representative of Shelley's office testified under oath that much of the...

American b-52 bombers involved in training flights over the North were out in force again yesterday. Two of the 14 long-range bombers stationed at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire took off yesterday morning and flew for three hours. The aircraft are believed to have been involved in exercises over Northumberland on Friday. Security at the RAF base has been stepped up following break-ins by peace protesters. Two of those involved have been charged with damaging a number of B-52 support vehicles. Margaret Jones, 54, of Bristol and Arthur Milling, 57, of Birmingham, were taken into custody after their arrest by Ministry...