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GOP U.S. Senate candidate Scott Brown has been all but abandoned by the same national Republican committees that pumped hundreds of thousands in campaign cash to former governors Mitt Romney and William Weld

Harder to buy US Treasuries Created: 2009-12-18 0:13:35 Author:Zhou Xin and Jason Subler IT is getting harder for governments to buy United States Treasuries because the US's shrinking current-account gap is reducing supply of dollars overseas, a Chinese central bank official said yesterday. The comments by Zhu Min, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, referred to the overall situation globally, not specifically to China, the biggest foreign holder of US government bonds. Chinese officials generally are very careful about commenting on the dollar and Treasuries, given that so much of its US$2.3 trillion reserves are tied to their...

At least someone in America isn't feeling a credit squeeze: Uncle Sam. This week Congress will vote to raise the national debt ceiling by nearly $2 trillion, to a total of $14 trillion. In this economy, everyone de-leverages except government. It's a sign of how deep the fiscal pathologies run in this Congress that $2 trillion will buy the federal government only one year before it has to seek another debt hike—conveniently timed to come after the midterm elections. Since Democrats began running Congress again in 2007, the federal debt limit has climbed by 39%. The new hike will lift...

Sarah Palin may draw ecstatic crowds in "real America," but among Republican insiders in Washington, she's not so popular. National Journal's annual Insiders Poll issue will come out Friday, but we've got some early results; the most interesting finding is how many GOP insiders and members of Congress listed Palin as one of their least favorite members of the party. Palin was the top response when 85 GOP strategists and insiders were asked, "Which voice in your party would you most like to mute?" 28 percent listed Palin; Republican National Committee Chairman Michael came in second, with 12 percent. [...]...

I'm all for Ralph Nader running again. I'd love for Howard Dean to get fed up or some other Democrat to get fed up with Obama and I'd love for a third party of Democrats and liberals to establish itself. I want all kinds of liberals to line and up run in third parties. That's how we weaken their side. As for our side, the focus must be to take back the Republican Party. That's the way you win. You can draw attention to yourself by denouncing both parties at the same time, and you can think that you're relating...

The Republican party wonders why conservatives are so disappointed with it?Another glowing example of the problems confronting the Republican party occurred yesterday.  The Senate Republicans had the opportunity to force a full reading of the Senate's proposed health care bill so that every bit of the 2,200 pages would be made public by the reading, and so the people could become much better informed about its contents before it is passed...if it is passed.  It had the opportunity to really hold the Democrats' feet to the fire over this abominable excuse for legislation that is being crammed down the throats...

AUSTIN – Here's what I did not hear at the annual confab of Republican governors held here this week: The words socialist, extremist, or government takeover. With the focus on jobs, jobs and jobs, the only red meat was the Texas barbecue. And by design, there was no Obama-bashing. [snip] Barbour cautioned Republican candidates to refrain from attacking the president, period: "People want the president to succeed; good Lord, they want the country to succeed, and particularly the first African-American president has a lot of goodwill. . . . We need to be careful, we need to treat the president...

(snip) There’s a list of issues being hammered out, but at the top is finding money for South Florida’s cash-strapped Tri-Rail. Republicans are targeting a $2 fee on rental cars as the source and discussing whether to let county commissions approve the charge or require a referendum.“That’s sort of one of the issues we’re dealing with,” Crist said. Florida’s Republican leaders believe they need to settle funding issues for Tri-Rail and a host of insurance and money issues for a proposed Central Florida line known as SunRail before the state has any chance at securing $2.5 billion in federal stimulus...

It was a moment of unintentional comedy earlier this year when newly appointed U.S. Sen. George LeMieux called himself a " Charlie Crist Republican." No doubt LeMieux spoke in earnest about the man who appointed him to the Senate, and who is now running to succeed him in it. But the joke was that nobody knew what he meant. What is a "Charlie Crist Republican" anyway? Honestly, do you know how Charlie Crist would vote on a federal takeover of health care, on a cap-and-trade energy tax, on massive new spending bills, or on another stimulus boondoggle?

Let’s keep this simple. Word got out today via Politico that the RNC’s health care package for their employees covers abortions. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, if you at any time have donated to the RNC since 1991 (when this policy apparently took place), some incremental portion of your donation went to the administrative costs of running the RNC, including employee salaries and benefits packages. Part of “benefits packages” in this context is apparently a health care package that pays for abortions. For thirty years, we have fought tooth and nail to prevent our tax money from being...

When “Joseph” Cao was elected to the 2nd Congressional District in Louisiana, House Minority Leader John Boehner hailed him as representing the GOP’s future. Cao was the only Republican to vote for the Pelosi healthcare reform bill Saturday evening. According to the POLITICO, in a memo dated December 7, 2008 and addressed to House Republicans, Boehner wrote: As House Republicans look ahead to the next two years, the Cao victory is a symbol of what can be achieved when we think big, present a positive alternative, and work aggressively to earn the trust of the American people. Joseph Cao is...

He may have been starry-eyed, but he wasn't a fool. Carl Romanelli, a divorced father of two grown sons from Wilkes-Barre, knew that as the Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2006, he'd have a hard time beating the big boys in the race: Republican incumbent Rick Santorum and Democrat Bob Casey. But he hoped to focus on his issues: an end to the Iraq war, health insurance, the rights of women and gays. He did not foresee that, first, he'd get knocked off the ballot and, three years later, both he and his lawyer would be facing...

<p>There are 18 states, as columnist Mark Shields recently pointed out to me, that have gone Democratic in each of the last five presidential elections.</p> <p>Of the 36 senators who represent those states, only two are Republicans. Both are from Maine, one of the last, storm-lashed, surf-pounded footholds of the Yankee GOP. So it is hardly shocking that the lone Republican supporter of Democratic health reform on the Senate Finance Committee should be Maine's Olympia Snowe.</p>

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. listens during remarks of the Fiscal Responsibility Summit, hosted by President Barack Obama, not pictured, Monday, Feb. 23, 2009, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Henry Waxman (R) speak to reporters during the Fiscal Responsibility Summit hosted by U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington February 23, 2009. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., second fromleft, accompanied by, from left, Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. gestures...

I had to post this somewhere Got a call from the Republican Party last night wanting money...boy....did he ever call the wrong person. I politely pointed out that until the republicans stop being such cry babies and do what they need to do, I will not contribute a penny. The caller kept on saying but this is when we need your support the most. I said...." and you got my support in the past, but until I see some sort of help or action to unseat the O, I WILL NOT GIVE A PENNY. and that they need to go...

The new year has already witnessed an unseemly rush on the part of some Republicans to cozy up to President Barack Obama. Sucked in by the lights, the parties, the adoring fans, and of course the fawning "paparazzi," these politicians have traded loyalty to the convictions of their constituents for pilgrimage to kiss the ring of the one whom Farrakhan called "the messiah." Where did the train fly off the track folks? If Obama couldn't be trusted prior to the election, as even Senator John McCain indicated, or if he supported all methods of abortion and opposed the Second Amendment...

Mitt Romney praised President-elect Barack Obama Monday for extending an olive branch to Republicans. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney praised President-elect Barack Obama Monday for extending an olive branch to Republicans. “He’s been already reaching out. He’s asked for the input of Republicans with regard to the stimulus plan. I think he is very much following the speeches he used to give during the campaign that he would reach across the aisle,” Romney said during an interview on CNN’s “American Morning.” “I think he’s showing a pragmatic bent. And at a time like this with so many challenges, that’s the...

The new year has already witnessed an unseemly rush on the part of some Republicans to cozy up to President Barack Obama. Sucked in by the lights, the parties, the adoring fans, and of course the fawning "paparazzi," these politicians have traded loyalty to the convictions of their constituents for pilgrimage to kiss the ring of the one whom Farrakhan called "the messiah." Where did the train fly off the track folks? If Obama couldn't be trusted prior to the election, as even Senator John McCain indicated, or if he supported all methods of abortion and opposed the Second Amendment...

The automobile industry is at a crossroads. The speaker of the House recently met with management and labor about a government-sponsored bailout. Many speak with awe of the bailout of Chrysler many years ago during the Carter administration. They reminisce how Chrysler repaid the money and the government benefited financially. But is this a memory clouded by time? Did the bailout enable Chrysler to ignore the systemic problems in its industry as well as with Chrysler itself, virtually guaranteeing its need for another bailout or its ultimate demise? Anytime you bail out a company or an industry, you merely institutionalize...

<p>ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Gov. Sarah Palin denounced anonymous criticisms leveled at her by former John McCain aides as lies, including allegations that Republican lawyers were traveling to Alaska to reclaim her high-priced wardrobe and that she didn't know Africa was a continent.</p>

I worked tirelessly for the Northwest Florida Republican Party for many years. I need to start over and this time seek the beginning of a truly independent party. First, the Democratic Party left us and now the Republican Party has dumped us. The bailout for Wall Street, the banks and the greedy real estate mortgage companies and all their coharts should never have happened. They should have been left in the burning meltdown they created. We have mortgaged our grandchildren and great grandchildren. I cannot believe that I have lived to see our once great and mighty country slide slowly...

After watching the presidential debates it became obvious to me that it’s politics as usual and that my candidate — who was almost laughed out of the race early on — has been right all along. Neither candidate will admit that our “central banking system” is at the heart of the economic crisis and that it’s the printing, borrowing and creation of credit and money from thin air that got us where we are. But all through the race, my candidate said, “By injecting money into the market to prop it up, we make the inevitable collapse worse in the...

For most of my life I've been told that the government was to protect our rights and freedoms in the United States, how is it doing these days? Not well as I see it and here's why: Socialist government now is to raise us all from cradle to grave so we can all be equally unhappy. Government now knows best what to do with your money; you are too ignorant! Do you really want this government to run your health care? They tried to run the mortgage industry, see where that got us - $800 trillion in debt and no...

Dear Freepers We are going to win the Presidency this November. Do not be fooled by the biased media polls because they have done the same thing in 2004 and 2000 but neither Gore nor Kerry became Presidents. We are going to win because at the end a defeatist, a socialist, and a left wing liberal like Barack Obama will not be elected President. We are going to win because at the end Barack Obama who voted to cut the funding for our brave troops in the battlefield, who voted against the surge, who voted against victory, and who voted...

I listened in on a phone conference this evening with anti-bailout conservatives, congressional staffers, and other Hill insiders. With only one exception, the groups and individuals on the call all opposed the bailout in its current form. They also concurred that this deal is worse than the one Paulson proposed — on constitutional, policy, and fiscal grounds. Phone calls to congressional offices continue to show overwhelming public opposition to the massive, unprecedented government giveaway. Nevertheless, GOP House Minority Leader John Boehner and the House Republican leadership have thrown in the towel. Make room for them on the couch with Gingrich...

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s new Windows ad, featuring Jerry Seinfeld, is outdated and not very funny -- but it's highly revealing of all that's wrong out there in Redmond. The background: Windows is losing market share to Apple's Mac OS and even Linux. And Vista, the latest version, has been a big fat dud. Businesses have shunned it outright, and many consumers find it unintuitive and difficult to use. So, Microsoft hired "award winning" agency Crispin, Porter + Bogusky -- at a reported cost of $300 million -- to give Vista, and the Windows franchise in general, an image makeover. The...

Despite a valiant effort, the power of conservative talk radio was no match for the White House, the Republican and Democratic Parties, and the major media. The Senate on Tuesday voted to revive the illegal alien amnesty bill by a vote of 64 to 35. Senate leaders are pushing for a final vote of approval by Friday. One reason for the outcome was the propagandistic ability of supporters of the bill, such as Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, to frame the debate in terms of a “solution” to the immigration problem?the Senate bill?versus rounding up illegals and deporting them...

The GOP Should Dump Its Litmus Test By Michael Reagan FrontPageMagazine.com | February 16, 2007 The philosopher Diogenes is said to have wandered around ancient Greece holding a lantern and seeking to find an honest man. My fellow Republicans, sans lanterns, are now wandering around the political landscape seeking to find the perfect Republican presidential candidate. I don’t know if Diogenes ever found that honest man, but I do know that those Republicans are never going to find the perfect candidate, simply because he does not exist. Some Republicans insist that the only perfect candidate would be a clone of...

Here are the three leading candidates for president in the Republican party, a party based in the South and in the interior, rural in nature, and backed in large part by social conservatives: the senior senator from Arizona, a congenital maverick with friends in the press and a habit of dissing the base of his party; the former governor of deep-blue Massachusetts, son of a Michigan governor, a Mormon who looks, sounds, and comes across as a city boy; and the former mayor of New York, the Big Apple itself, ethnic and Catholic, pro-choice and pro-gun control, married three times,...

QALAT, Afghanistan U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday that the Afghan guerrilla war can never be won militarily and called for efforts to bring the Taliban and their supporters into the Afghan government. The Tennessee Republican said he had learned from briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular support to be defeated by military means. "You need to bring them into a more transparent type of government," Frist said during a brief visit to a U.S. and Romanian military base in the southern Taliban stronghold of Qalat. "And if that's accomplished we'll be...

With Republicans controlling Congress and the White House, conservatives these days ought to be happy, but most aren’t. They see expanding government, runaway spending, Middle East entanglements, and government corruption, and they wonder why, exactly, the country should be grateful for Republican dominance. Some accuse Bush and the Republicans today of not being true conservatives. Others see a grab bag of stated policies and wonder how they cohere. Everyone thinks something’s got to change. Now seven prominent conservatives dare to speak the unspeakable: They hope the Republicans lose in 2006. Well, let’s be diplomatic and say they’d prefer divided government—soon....

For all you loony couch conservatives, the General Election is not the time to sit home and cry over not having a choice. If you sit home and the Rats gain the majority in either House, blame yourself. I know I will. A Republican Rino is still better than a Rat. It gives the Republicans majority status. With that status, we control committees and keep the Rats from starting multitudes of witch-hunting investigations and impeachment procedures. Nothing may get done with or without the RINOs, but its better than having the Rats in control. If you don't like the RINOs...

CHICAGO, Illinois -- Living in Boston these past two years I have had many opportunities to visit the Old Granary Burying Ground, where several Boston Massacre victims are enjoying their final rest alongside John Hancock, Paul Revere and Samuel Adams. During my sole semester in the Emerson College Master's program last fall, these little forays became a near daily ritual. At this point I have tagged along on more of the free tours of the graveyard than I can count. In all that time, however, I don't believe I ever heard as much talk of Samuel Adams as I did...

Something's happening. I have a feeling we're at some new beginning, that a big breakup's coming, and that though it isn't and will not be immediately apparent, we'll someday look back on this era as the time when a shift began. All my adult life, people have been saying that the two-party system is ending, that the Democrats' and Republicans' control of political power in America is winding down. According to the traditional critique, the two parties no longer offer the people the choice they want and deserve. Sometimes it's said they are too much alike--Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Sometimes it's...

WASHINGTON -- The District of Columbia is making historic and startling progress in its effort to gain full voting rights in the House of Representatives, as a compromise between Democrats and Republicans to permanently increase the size of the House to 437 members gains momentum. A Republican, Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, is brokering a deal that would give the district's delegate full representative status , a change that would give the overwhelmingly Democratic district a vote in the House. In exchange, another seat would be awarded to Utah, a heavily Republican state expected to gain a new seat in...

The party of Ronald Reagan has devolved into the party of Lyndon Johnson, George McGovern, Henry Waxman, and Al Gore.  On spending, LBJ’s Great Society seems greater than ever. Washington Republicans’ Spend-O-Rama famously included 13,997 pork-barrel projects that lodged like baby-back ribs in last year’s appropriations bills. President Bush’s $92.2 billion request for Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina funding has expanded to $109 billion after Senate manhandling. It now features such germane adornments as $6 million for Hawaiian sugar growers and $1.1 billion for private fisheries. Another $700 million would redirect train tracks that CSX Corp. invested $250 million to...

This is what happens when Republicans start governing like liberals. The waters get muddied and nobody know what you are any more. There is some good news in this poll for the GOP but if they continue to act like Lincoln Chaffe instead of Ronald Reagan then we can kiss '06 goodbye Dems Make Progress on Immigration Issue April 26, 2006--Before the immigration debate exploded on the national scene, Americans were evenly divided as to which political party they trusted more on the issue. After the earliest rounds of the debate, the GOP gained ground and were favored by a...

Any immigration legislation passed by Congress this year will not include the inflammatory provisions approved by the House last year that make it a felony to be in the United States illegally, Republican leaders on Capitol Hill said yesterday. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said in a joint statement that "it remains our intent to produce a strong border security bill that will not make unlawful presence in the United States a felony." The commitment removes a primary concern held by many Democrats who say that the yearlong imprisonment carried by a felony conviction...

If you grew up in America, chances are, at some time in your youth, your parents handed you a few dollars along with the message, "This is your allowance." You learned quickly that your allowance could disappear in a hurry if you a.) raided the local drug store for candy; b.) persisted in acting up at school; or c.) decided to talk back to your father at an especially inopportune moment. As you grew older, you probably learned that you could buy something a great deal more valuable than candy if you simply saved your money. You knew it would...

Proposed Legislation Creates Treasury-Funded Campaigns for the Two Major Parties, Leaving Third Parties with No Means to Run (Washington, D.C.) On February 1, congressional Democrats, led by Rep. Obey of Wisconsin, introduced a bill, H.R. 4694, that would end viable, third-party competition in races for the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill, ironically named the "Let the People Decide Clean Campaign Act," would mandate public funds (taken from the U.S. Treasury) to candidates for the House of Representatives and forbid candidates from taking private funds such as contributions from individual donors. The ambiguously-written bill provides funds for candidates of the...

Former president Bill Clinton has been buddying up to both presidents Bush in what strategists right and left view as a bid to salvage his political legacy and boost the ambitions of his senator wife. "My new brother" is what Republican President George W. Bush called Clinton, a Democrat, in a weekend interview. At the president's request, Clinton has lined up with Bush's father, the Republican he ousted from the presidency 13 years ago, to help victims of the 2004 tsunami in Asia and the 2005 hurricane in the southern United States. "Clinton beat a Bush, then was replaced by...

In all my years in politics, I've never sensed such anger and frustration from our volunteers--those who do the hard work of door-to-door mobilization that Republican candidates depend on to get elected. Across the nation, wherever I go to speak with them, their refrain is the same: "I can't tell a dime's worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats." Our base rightly expects Republicans to govern by the principles--lower taxes, less government and more freedom--that got them elected. Today, with Republicans controlling both the legislative and executive branches of the federal government, there is a widening credibility gap between their...

American petro-dollars continue flowing to terrorist-sponsoring oil producing states and American soldiers fight in what leftists call a “war for oil” in Iraq. In spite of this, Congressional debate on oil drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) is once again going down to the wire. A group of 24 “moderate” Republican congressmen mostly from North East states joined Democrats on November 9 in stripping the House Budget Bill of a provision opening ANWR to drilling after hordes of home-district “environmental” activists lobbied them at their Washington offices. Senators, on the other hand, have voted 51-47 November 3 against...

A brief and steamy walk on the streets of Pittsburgh with the chairman of the Republican National Committee succinctly affirmed what affliction has stricken many of today's conservatives: They don't know what conservatism is. It was on the evening of June 9 that a behind-schedule but very gracious Ken Mehlman and I took a brisk stroll from one political fundraiser to another. "What's the future of conservatism?" I asked.

One would be forgiven for thinking our Constitution was the blueprint for a government of Big Business, by Big Business and for Big Business. Forget the people -- this is Robin Hood in reverse. First, limit people's power to right wrongs done to them by corporations. Next, force people to repay usurious loans to credit card companies that make gazillions off the fine print. Then hand over history's most successful public safety net to Wall Street. Of course, the GOP translation is a bit different: "Tort reform," "eliminating abuse of bankruptcy" and "keeping Social Security solvent."

Perennial Philadelphia mayoral candidate Sam Katz must repay $2.1 million he obtained from three business partners by allegedly fraudulently misrepresenting information about the viability of skating rink development projects.The Delaware Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling in a civil lawsuit over a private business deal that Katz tried to keep from the public during his third failed run for mayor last year.The justices were unmoved by Katz's argument on appeal that the Delaware Chancery Court's summary judgment decision against him blindly accepted the plaintiffs' disputed version of the facts.According to court records, the dispute arose from Katz's effort...

At this very moment, there are millions of conservatives across the land who, unbeknown to them, will soon develop an intense personal loathing for Sen. Harry Reid, of Nevada. The process, inevitable as the changing of the seasons, began when the Republican National Committee distributed a 15-page memo accusing Reid, the chief Senate Democrat, of various transgressions. It's working. Conservative talking heads already have begun expounding upon Reid's treacherous ways. Although many rank-and-file Republicans may have no strong feelings about Reid today, and some have never even heard of him, it won't be long before the very mention of the...

Until President Bush lays his annual State of the Union address on all of us next week and gets half of the country hopping mad, we must make do with Atlantic Monthly's assessment of how our great republic is faring politically, economically and culturally. For starters, Atlantic's editors say in the introduction to their third annual "State of the Union" package, we should all disabuse ourselves of the stereotype that there is a neat red/blue-ideological/geographical bipolarization dividing the land. It's a simplistic, media-mongered falsehood, America's best general-interest magazine says, which we would all know from personal experience if only we...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. First, a declaration so readers can judge where the rest of this column is coming from. Full disclosure leaves no choice. To write about George Bush and what will happen on Tuesday means dispensing with even the pretence of objectivity. This President is that kind of figure, a man who doesn't encourage ambivalence. So here it is, all upfront and honest: I quite like the guy and hope he wins the election by a country mile. Now for the rest of this piece: Why in these, the final and frantic minutes...

Commonwealth Court kicked independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader off Pennsylvania's November ballot. The two-party duel monopoly effectively stops competitors -- those not registered "Democrat" or "Republican" -- from challenging it. Think of the duopoly as a 19th century trust virtually eliminating competition to corner the political market. Think of the court as a component of the duopoly's vertical integration. Think of Nader as a trust-buster. Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News, thinks little of the ruling. "I have been following ballot access cases for 40 years," Winger said. "I never have seen a more mindless decision."