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Jerusalem — Israel looked set to slide back into political deadlock on Wednesday as the final votes were being tallied from the third election in less than a year. CBS News correspondent Seth Doane reports Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party was holding on to a solid lead, but appeared to be falling short of the 61 seats needed to form a government. With nearly all the votes counted, Likud led the way with 36 seats followed by Benny Gantz's centrist Blue and White party, with 33 seats. The Joint List, an umbrella group of Arab-led parties, finished third with...

About this time in every presidential nomination contest there is talk of a brokered convention. As if on cue, we’re hearing it again. The thought of such a convention races the hearts of political junkies everywhere. It conjures the image of power brokers deciding the fate of the nation in a smoke-filled room. In 1924, it took 103 ballots for Democrats to settle on dark horse John W. Davis. While it is not likely the 2020 Democratic nomination will be brokered in a backroom – rule changes have made that more difficult – it is possible that the convention could...

President Barack Obama called Democrats and Republicans to the White House Tuesday to discuss election-year standoff over the vacancy on the Supreme Court. Neither side showed signs of budging. In an awkward Oval Office sit-down that lasted less than an hour, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, delivered their case for refusing to consider any nominee to the highest court during the throes of a presidential election. Their Democratic counterparts, meanwhile, resolved to ´continue beating the drum,´ Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid told reporters after the meeting. The gathering was the first time

European politicians and markets have reacted anxiously after Italy's general election produced a stalemate between centre-right and centre-left blocs. France and Germany urged continued reform, while Spain described the result as a "jump to nowhere". Italian markets fell sharply while others in Europe and around the world opened down. Centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi said fresh elections should be avoided, and called for a period of reflection. The BBC's Alan Johnston in Rome says he was hinting at the possibility of considering what would be a very awkward alliance with his opponents on the centre-left. With all domestic votes counted, Pier...

Three of the four candidates seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Virginia agree that efforts to repeal the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – which authorizes the direct election of senators – are impractical at best. In post-debate interviews in Roanoke on Saturday, where all four candidates participated in a forum sponsored by the Republican Party of Virginia, the candidates expressed their views on the 17th Amendment in response to questions posed by the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner. ‘Repeal Amendment’ alternative Jamie Radtke said that she does not think the repeal efforts are viable, “so I’ve been...

Poll

Well. I wonder if the democrats in Sacto have a clue as to how much money the state lost this morning by not having a budget. Thanks to furlough Friday imposed by the court system, all state offices are again ordered closed every Friday until a state budget is passed. I don't have a figure on the amount of money the state just paid out today to every person on welfare today but it's a pile of cash for sure. The point? The loss of one days interest to the state treasury on billions of dollars just paid out this...

WASHINGTON - President Bush nominated two new Republicans and one new Democrat to the Federal Election Commission Tuesday in an attempt to break a Senate confirmation deadlock that had paralyzed the regulatory agency. Bush resisted efforts to withdraw the nomination of Hans von Spakovsky, a former Justice Department official whom he nominated in 2007 but who had not been able to win votes in the Senate to get confirmed. The White House said the latest compromise would permit a separate vote on von Spakovsky. The stalemate over von Spakovsky had left the six-member FEC without a quorum to conduct business...

In 2006, former premier Lucien Bouchard and several business leaders blamed the not-in-my-backyard syndrome - NIMBY - for much of the Montreal metropolitan area's "immobilisme." The criticism followed the cancellation of two projects that had stirred public protests - a casino near Pointe St. Charles and the Suroît power plant. Despite the scolding, citizens remain unrepentant and as pesky as ever. Protests against noisy aircraft over the West Island, for example, are giving headaches to airport officials trying to accommodate increasing numbers of flights. Protests on the North Shore are also causing problems for the expansion of a smelly regional...

Steven Stark lays out a scenario whereby all the other candidates, none of whom have wholehearted Republican support, cancel each other out, paving the way for Fred Thompson to receive the nomination at the convention. "When conventions deadlock, history teaches us that yesterday's disappointments become tomorrow's stars. If McCain can't stampede to the nomination and Super Tuesday doesn't produce another clear front-runner, we may not have heard the last of Fred..." I find the idea highly unlikely, though appealing...but stranger things have happened. Whoever would have thought the 2000 election wouldn't be decided for 36 days?

The European Union is set for financial deadlock - with Britain being blamed.Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg prime minister and current EU president, said he was fairly certain a deal will not be agreed at an EU summit this week. And Britain's £3 billion annual rebate will be the main sticking point, he added. Mr Juncker said that although farm payments will be discussed "a number of states ferociously stick to agreements we made in 2002". "We have to take a detailed look at what to do with the British rebate; 24 member states believe the rebate can't go on like this,"...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

<p>CONSIDER a radical idea: Enable a mere majority, not two-thirds, of the California Legislature to pass a budget.</p> <p>Then consider how completely un-radical it is. Majority rule is good enough for Congress to approve the federal budget. Majority rule is good enough for all but two other states.</p>

Thursday, January 30, 2003 11:58AM EST State House still deadlocked on speaker Members are split between 3 men By LYNN BONNER, AMY GARDNER, AND DAN KANE, STAFF WRITERS, Staff Writers At mid-morning, the state House remained deadlocked over the election of a new speaker of the House. With the House evenly divided 60 to 60, Republicans had to essentially filibuster because one of their members, Rep. Cary Allred of Burlington, wasn't there. That gave Democrats a temporary 1 vote advantage. But Republicans successfully used procedural moves to delay a vote on the speaker until Allred showed up an hour late....