Free Republic

Legislation to combat global warming by putting limits on greenhouse gas emissions appeared headed to defeat as Democrats and Republicans accused each other of manipulating Senate rules to impede it. Opponents of the bill, co-authored by Sen. John Warner of Virginia, are "trying to fritter away the time" that Senate leaders had set aside for debate, Democratic Sen. John Kerry charged. On Wednesday, Republicans forced Democrats to have the 492-page bill read aloud on the floor, taking up more than nine hours. Majority Leader Harry Reid then scheduled a showdown vote for this morning on a motion to limit additional...

South Carolina's Lindsey Graham is a flop. He pretends to be a conservative, but sells out conservatives and insults them while doing so. He pretends to be effective at reaching across party lines, but the only thing he effectively does is help the other party. He inhabits the Senate seat of Strom Thurmond, legendary for great attention to his South Carolina constituents, but Graham spends most of his time trailing behind John McCain like a valet as McCain criss-crosses the country in pursuit of the presidency. He called Ted Kennedy "one of the most principled men I've ever met." In...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- In an ironic vote, Senate Democrats led a fight against an amendment to the SCHIP bill on Thursday night that would have helped poor pregnant women and their unborn children obtain prenatal care. They voted against restoring a program that allows states to provide help for pregnant women in difficult financial circumstances. The reasons for the vote likely had more to do with the politics of abortion. In 2002, President Bush authorized a change in the SCHIP program that allowed states to cover pregnant women and their babies -- and many states such as California, Rhode...

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine will co-sponsor a Democratic troop-withdrawal amendment that would bring U.S. troops home from Iraq by April 30, 2008, CNN learned from an aide Wednesday. The senator from Maine became the second Republican to sign on as sponsor of the proposal by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Michigan, and Sen. Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island, that calls for a withdrawal to begin within 120 days of the bill’s passage. Gordon Smith, R-Oregon, also backs the measure. Snowe indicated Tuesday she was leaning toward supporting it. A vote on the proposal is...

WASHINGTON — In another sign of Republican unease with the president's Iraq policies, a third GOP senator expressed support Thursday for pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq under certain conditions. Sen. Olympia J. Snowe announced she would sponsor a bill to require American commanders to plan a withdrawal within 120 days of the bill's enactment, unless the Iraqi government meets a series of benchmarks. "The Iraq government needs to understand that our commitment is not infinite," said Snowe, a moderate from Maine who frequently departs from the party line. President Bush has insisted that Congress not impose any limits on...

Zoologist Darren Naish has written a thoughtful essay on “Are Sumatran Rhinos Really Living Fossil?” His blog is in response to my comments on the “living fossil” issue, discussed here. I disagree with Naish’s restrictive parameters, of course, as I see this more an issue of educational semantics influenced by zoology, not ruled by it. Darren Naish’s approach is worthy of your attention and he has every right to his very informed point of view. Needless to say, in this case, I was employing the “living fossil” definition that this rhino species is “a living species/clade with many ‘primitive’ characteristics...

Several Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee strongly dissented from the conclusions in the report.

As the "Big Tent" collapses, make way for the true "third" party According to research that I conducted in 1998, there were more than 400 political parties in America. (That number has grown smaller in recent years, but is still over 200 — far larger than the "mainstream" media admits.) According to research by Richard Winger, the publisher of Ballot Access News, the third-largest political party in the United States is the Constitution Party. Thus, the CP is the true third party. Statistically, the CP has more members than any political party other than the Big Two. And, statistically, there...

April 4, 2006 Press Release No. 06-17 Contact: Oliver Wolf, (412) 760-5482 ******MEDIA ADVISORY****** EVENT LISTING: Saturday, April 8 10:00 AM-5:00 PM. Maine College Republican State Convention. The Portland Club, 156 State Street, Portland. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Maine College Republicans to Hold Annual State Convention in Portland U.S. Senator Snowe, Colorado Governor Owens to Deliver Keynote Addresses AUGUSTA - The Maine College Republicans will hold the organization’s annual State Convention on Saturday, April 8 from 10:00 AM-5:00 PM. The State Convention will be held at the Portland Club in Portland. U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe will deliver the event’s main keynote...

WASHINGTON -- The Senate has agreed to put an additional $1 billion this year into a program to help poor people with energy costs, but only after overcoming resistance from warm state senators who said those suffering from summer heat weren't getting their fair share.The additional spending would increase to $3.1 billion the amount the federal government will have this year for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, a decades-old program that subsidizes heating and cooling costs for poor families.The legislation, which still must be considered by the House, passed by a voice vote Tuesday, but only after a...

The roof of a supermarket in the southern German town of Toeging am Inn, east of Munich, has collapsed, officials say. There is no immediate word on whether anyone was injured in the incident. The cause of the collapse is unknown, although the region of Bavaria did experience heavy snowfall overnight. Last month 15 people died when snow caused the roof of a Bavarian ice rink to fall in, and 63 people died in a similar roof collapse in Poland.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Republican Main Street Partnership today praised Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) for his decision to vote against Judge Samuel Alito's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court and blasted his critics for "playing politics" with the Senator's decision. Senator Chafee showed incredible courage by weighing long and hard Judge Alito's outstanding legal qualifications and judicial philosophy against Chafee's own principles (...)

Ugly incident at Androscoggin County GOP caucus results in Senator Snowe's cousin the victim of an alleged assault. After the Androscoggin GOP caucus broke up, a couple of caucus attendees, who had heckled speakers at the caucus, continued to use vulgar language according to people present. Things rapidly escalated out of control and the Senator's cousin was allegedly pushed to the floor. The Lewiston Police Department responded and charges were filed.

Leaders dislike move; confirmation seems certain WASHINGTON — Democratic dissension flared Friday as liberals sought support for a last-minute filibuster of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito against the advice of leaders worried about a backlash. “I reject those notions that there ought to somehow be some political calculus about the future. … The choice is now,” said Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. He said it was imperative to fight for “those people who count on us to stand up and protect them.” Two of the party’s Senate leaders, Harry Reid of Nevada and Charles Schumer of New York, privately made...

Ranked by the editors of Human Events1. Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R.I.)Once approached by Democratic Leader Harry Reid to switch parties, Chafee has long supported liberal polices. He backs legal abortion, gay rights, federal-funded health care, strict environmental protections and a higher minimum wage. Opposes ANWR drilling. Also was the only Republican in Congress not to endorse the President's reelection and one of three who tried to gut Bush's tax cuts.

Treasury Secretary John Snow said on Monday that a steadily expanding U.S. economy has reached a point where it should start generating good news about incomes and jobs. "We're about at a tipping-point here where we're going to see much improvement in wage rates and compensation," Snow said during an interview on CNBC television. The U.S. Treasury chief was one of a series of Bush administration officials participating in a media blitz aimed at highlighting positive developments on the economy. Earlier on Monday, President George W. Bush pointed to faster-than-expected growth and other positive economic news to try to counter...

Senate hearings on the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the U. S. Supreme Court will not begin until Jan. 9, but the campaign both for and against him has already begun in Maine. Television ads from interest groups are being shown in this state. The targets are Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, two moderate Republicans who cannot be counted on as automatic votes either in support of or opposed to Alito. The commercials are designed to persuade Mainers to pressure the senators to sway their votes. Conservative organizations are paying for ads supporting Judge Alito's nomination. Groups concerned...

I'm getting a little sick and tired about reading about the RINOs here on the east coast who keep scuttling things and throwing monkey wrenches into the progress toward holding Republican feet to the fire. Isn't there some way we New Englanders can send a message to our RINOs in Congress that we are gunning for them? Isn't there a somewhat vulnerable RINO that we can target and get rid of? Don't any of my fellow FReepers know of a good candidate out there that could be run against one of these idiots? Can't we form RINO-PAC and scare some...

U.S. Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito Jr. admitted he made a mistake in a 1991 opinion when he backed a Pennsylvania law that women needed permission from their husbands to get an abortion, he told U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe. Alito on Wednesday met privately with Snowe for an hour. Afterward, she said she would withhold judgment on his confirmation until after the Senate hearings in January. Alito told Snowe that his lone dissent on a 1991 abortion case mistakenly interpreted Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's opinion on what constitutes an undue burden. He believed her support of parental notification could be...

Chafee (R-RI) Coleman (R-MN) Collins (R-ME) DeWine (R-OH) McCain (R-AZ) Smith (R-OR) Snowe (R-ME)

...To prevent such a tax hike, Republicans have included a two-year extension on the 15% rates, to 2010, in this year's budget reconciliation bill. Under Congress's arcane budget rules, this means the extensions can pass with 50 Senate votes, instead of 60. Before Katrina, they were all set to pass. But now some GOP Senators are suggesting that they should redo reconciliation and drop the capital gains and dividend tax cuts. We're told Ohio's George Voinovich, New Hampshire's Judd Gregg and Maine's Olympia Snowe are three of the troublemakers. As ominously, Majority Leader Bill Frist's chief budget aide, Bill Hoagland,...

Roe's Influence on the Choice of the Nominee Candidates > Jones | 06:14 PM | Tom Goldstein | Comments Second, and directly relevant to the President's ongoing process of selecting a nominee to replace Justice O'Connor, the article attributes to "[s]ources close to the White House" the fact that Edith Jones "is no longer under serious consideration." The reason "in part" is "concerns that her strongly voiced views against abortion would alienate Collins, Snowe, and other Republican moderates."

When then-House Republican backbencher Dick Armey came up with the concept of an independent base-closing commission in the mid-1980s, the idea was to make it easier for the political system to do the right thing... As we're seeing in the current round of base closings, even the Armey method is having a hard time surviving the ability of Members to sabotage the process.... The Pentagon has proposed closing a record 62 major bases and 775 small installations to save $48.8 billion over 20 years and reposition the armed forces to face current threats.... Before the Brac Commission was even in...

When Anthony Kennedy was nominated for the... Supreme Court in 1987, the president of [NOW] called him "sexist" for ruling against a comparable worth pay system for Washington state when he served on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. This time around, Senator Olympia Snowe is doing the honors for John Roberts. Comp worth... was a feminist rallying cry taken up by Walter Mondale in his 1984 run for President. The idea was to guarantee that women who worked in jobs dominated by women (say, nurses or secretaries) would earn as much as men who worked in "comparable" jobs dominated...

We suppose NARAL Pro-Choice America has to do something with the funds it's raised for an anticipated battle over President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, but it may find that the vicious national TV ad that starts airing today may backfire. The ad practically screams: We're so desperate to find something to pin on John Roberts that we're not above making things up. The ad focuses on a friend-of-the-court brief then-deputy Solicitor General Roberts filed in 1991 in the Supreme Court case Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic. It accuses Judge Roberts of siding with "violent fringe groups and a convicted...

Thursday, August 4, 2005 'Hold' attributed to Snowe By CLARKE CANFIELD, Associated Press ©Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. E-mail this story to a friend SOUTH PORTLAND - Sen. Olympia Snowe on Wednesday declined to confirm reports that she has blocked the nomination of Gordon England to the No. 2 Pentagon job because she is frustrated over the Pentagon's base closure recommendations. The Wall Street Journal and Defense Daily reported that Snowe, R-Maine, has put a "hold" on England's nomination to serve as deputy secretary of defense. President Bush in May designated England to be acting deputy secretary even...

President Bush opted again yesterday for a functioning government. Faced with an endless Senate stall, he used his recess-appointment power to install Peter Flory as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy.... [L]et us suggest that he pick up his pen to fill two even more senior positions at the Pentagon -- Gordon England to succeed Paul Wolfowitz as Deputy Secretary and Eric Edelman to replace Douglas Feith as Undersecretary for Policy, the department's No. 3. Senate Armed Services Chairman John Warner called Monday for Mr. Bush to do just that -- which we take as an admission he's...

Thursday, July 28, 2005 Snowe undecided about Roberts By BART JANSEN Washington D.C. Correspondent, Associated Press ©Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. E-mail this story to a friend Today's Question Each day, we ask MaineToday.com readers for their reactions to events in the news: The nominee Do you think John Roberts is a good choice to fill Sandra Day O'Connor's vacancy on the Supreme Court? Yes: 68.20% No : 31.80% Total Votes: 217 WASHINGTON — Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe stressed the importance of legal precedent on controversial issues like...

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 109th Congress - 1st Session as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate Vote Summary Question: On the Amendment (Ensign Amdt. No. 1219 ) Vote Number: 179 Vote Date: July 14, 2005, 10:04 AM Required For Majority: 1/2 Vote Result: Amendment Rejected Amendment Number: S.Amdt. 1219 to S.Amdt. 1124 to H.R. 2360 (Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act ) Statement of Purpose: Of a perfecting nature. Vote Counts: YEAs 38 NAYs 60 Not Voting 2 Vote Summary By Senator Name By Vote Position By...

...Justice O'Connor sounded the alarm against what she's termed "the increasing, and on many levels frightening, overlegalization of everyday life in our country today." The Supreme Court's first female justice is best known in tort circles for her long crusade to bring punitive damage awards under constitutional due-process scrutiny, a position for which she eventually assembled a majority that includes several of her liberal colleagues (though not conservatives Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas). Quoting a Ninth Circuit opinion, Justice O'Connor has expressed concern at the way demands for punitive damages can be "limited only by the ability of lawyers to...

Sen. Schumer declared war on President Bush's nominees to replace the retiring Justice O'Conner. That being the case, I think FReepers can fire the opening volley by writing the seven McCain Mutineers and demanding they publicly support President Bush now that the Democrats have reneged on the deal. A suggested format:Senator __________, A short time ago, you and six of your Republican colleagues made a deal with Democrats in which you promised not to support any changes to Senate filibuster rules and they promised not to support filibusters against any more of President Bush's judicial nominees. Upon the announcement by...

Check NEWS Max 5/25/2005 for the complete article. The RightMarch.com PAC is coordinating the effort. Unlike the Republican Senators, Conservatives need to work together to defeat these arrogant turncoats. "Out of the seven GOP turncoats (McCain, Graham, DeWine, Warner, Chafee, Collins, Snowe), THREE of them are up for re-election in 2006. In Rhode Island, we're targeting Sen. Lincoln Chafee for defeat in the Republican primary. For the first time in years, Chafee has a likely conservative opponent: Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey. In Maine, we're targeting Sen. Olympia Snowe for defeat in the GOP primary. We've got a great candidate to...

Here are the seven sell-outs with the year they will run for reelection. PLEASE remember them in the Republican primaries. Chafee, Lincoln- (RI) 2006; DeWine, Mike- (OH) 2006; Snowe, Olympia- (ME) 2006; Collins, Susan- (ME) 2008; Graham, Lindsey- (SC) 2008; Warner, John- (VA) 2008; McCain, John- (AZ) 2010. And if you want to give 'em "heck," you can call any of them toll-free at 1-877-762-8762. E-mail info can be found here: http://www.conservativeusa.org/mega-cong.htm

This is a bit radical, I admit. But, given the current circumstances I believe it is time that we realized that the Republican Party, in the Senate, is a MINNO (Majority iN Name Only). 7 traitorous RINO's have effectively given control of the Senate to the minority party. I propose that we begin a concerted effort to force the RNC to remove the offending members from the roles of the Republican Party. This would, of course, result in the loss of control of the Senate. However, as evidenced by the behavior of the 7 Traitors, the Republicans are NOT in...

Forces entrenched at the Pentagon keep trying to push women onto the front lines of combat, despite the fact that U.S. law forbids it. The latest bid: A push to start assigning female soldiers to act as "forward support" personnel (such as mechanics), living alongside combat troops who are often in battle. Last week, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) moved to block that with an amendment to the 2006 Defense appropriations bill. The Pentagon and Democrats howled in protest. But why? Who wants more women to be shot? This is a small scene in the larger drama over the feminization of...

Fading into the background Let us pause a moment to recall that Congress busies itself with matters other than Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. Some of them, in fact, affect quite a lot of people. One vote you might have missed last week said a lot about what the next couple of years will be like on Capitol Hill. The vote involved the fundamental question of how Congress balances tax cuts against spending. During the Senate's annual budget debate, which sets guidelines for the year's spending bills, some senators pushed a measure to require that any new tax cuts be...

Once again Senators Collins and Snowe vote for continued funding of terrorist and against the security of Mainer's Special Christian-news-in-maine report: With fuel oil prices going over $2.00 a gallon, gas at $2.05 a gallon and diesel at $2.30 a gallon. With the profits from oil from the mid-east going to fund Bin Laden and the terrorist, you would think that every member of the US Senate and House of Representatives would be fighting with one and other to get us free of Middle East oil. But not Maine's own to anti-freedom Senators Collins and Snowe. In a historic vote,...

Senators Collins and Snowe voted with Schumer, Kennedy, Kerry, Clinton, Reid, etc in trying to: "...attempt to criminalize pro-life advocates who peacefully protest outside abortion clinics, with full legal protection, by insinuating that their intent is to commit violent acts," Sen. Schumer's Divisive Sham is Trampled in Defeat! WASHINGTON, March 8,2005 53-46 defeat of Sen. Charles Schumer's (D - New York) fraudulent attempt to target pro-life advocates with his amendment to the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005. Schumer also sought to hijack this legislation in the 107th Congress by trying to insert the abortion debate into...

Congressmen Michael Michaud and Congressman Tom Allen are liars! Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe are liars! Does that sound harsh? But, as you see, through the next two reports on existing legislation, it is true, Collins, Snowe, Michaud and Allen are liars, liars defined as being men or women who do not tell the truth, but instead say one thing and do the opposite. HR-552 Congressman Michael Michaud of Maine's second congressional district has claimed over and over again and has won his seat based upon the claim that he is Pro-Life, yet, he has refused to join in...

As much as we hate Republicans In Name Only (RINOs), the question has offered surfaced, are we better off with them in or out of office? Based on the American Conservative Union's ratings, we can classify a RINO senator as an individual with a life-time rating of under 70 (which I submit is a rather liberal definition). The following senators fall under this category: Lincoln Chafee (41%) Susan Collins (57%) Olympia Snowe (51%) Arlen Specter (44%) Exemptions (granted to members who have a rating lower than 70 but higher than 80 within the last year or two): Ted Stevens (64%,...

PLANE EMERGENCY A cracked window in a plane causes chaos at the Portland Jetport, and Senator Snowe was on board. A tense situation at the Portland Jetport Thursday night, because of a plane approaching the runway with a crack in the windshield. There were 37 passengers on board the United Express flight coming in from Washington, DC, including Maine Senator Olympia Snowe. Rescue crews were called in and waited on the runway as the plane tried to approach, not once, but twice. Snow plow drivers also worked quickly to clear the runway of snow. Jetport Manager Jeff Schultes says the...

If Chief Justice William Rehnquist retires next year, President Bush likely won't face a tough battle over his successor. So reports the New York Times, citing consultant Howard Wolfson and "other Democrats." The Times attributes this to the Democrats' desire to soften their image as pro-abortion zealots. The court has a 6-3 majority in favor of Roe v. Wade, and Chief Justice Rehnquist is among the dissenters. Why should the Democrats spend political capital merely to run up the score? Anyway, this is a battle the Democrats would almost certainly lose. With only 45 senators..., they would need the support...

The Secretary of State has finally released and posted the official ballot count from the election way back on November 2nd, of 2004. And election held forty days ago. Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights in order to bring light and truth to the world, even to a little frozen out of the way place like Maine. In Maine the Baldacci Administration has held back the results of an election for forty days and forty nights, not to bring forth truth and light, but to hide truth and light. During that forty days of political blackout, Governor Baldacci...

It’s been almost a month since President Bush was re-elected to a second term, and many are already looking ahead to the mid-term Senate races. There will be 33 seats up for grabs in 2006, and this could lead to a decisive victory for Republicans in Congress. Five of the seventeen Democrats whose terms expire in 2006 are from current red states. This means that if these 2004 Bush states also vote Republican in 2006, the party could get a filibuster-breaking majority of 60. It also affords Bush an opportunity to flex his political muscles, as he did so effectively...

Flexing their new muscles, Congressional Republicans seem intent on reigning as a dissent-smothering monolith. First, House G.O.P. members slavishly obeyed the maneuver by Tom DeLay, the majority leader, to render his control of the caucus ethics-proof by making it possible for a party leader to keep his post even if he is under indictment. His counterpart in the Senate, Bill Frist, was more discreet but no less ham-handed. He has engineered a rules change designed to cow the few Republican moderates who may still be willing to nip back at demands for party fealty. The rule undercuts members' independence by...

What is WISH? Wish is “Women in the Senate and the House”. Sounds like a nice enough organization, promoting Republican women. If you check out their website, they reveal their true identity. From their website: “The WISH List -- which stands for Women In the Senate and House® -- raises money to identify, train, support and elect more Republican women leaders to public office at all levels of government. WISH is America's largest fundraising network for pro-choice Republican women candidates!”So with the mask off, we see that WISH is nothing more than EMILY’s List for Republicans. How bad is the...

COMEDY CENTRALSens. Joseph Lieberman and Olympia Snowe plan on holding a "Moderates Meeting" perhaps as early as this week, in hopes of creating at the very least an informal voting block of like-minded Republicans and Democrats to offset the hardening conservative and left-wing party lines. According to a staffer in Sen. Arlen Specter's office, Specter was invited by Snowe, indicated his desire to be a part of their block, but said given attempts to regain footing among conservatives, his attendance would cause him more problems. Specter's decision to decline the invitation would seem to indicate that he is focused on...

...President Bush has won a clear mandate for his big second-term agenda, including the giants of Social Security reform and tax overhaul. Yet his ability to do anything still rests with the Senate.... Republicans [picked] up Democratic seats in both Carolinas and Georgia, as well as Louisiana and Florida. They weathered storms in Kentucky and Oklahoma, and even held Alaska. But the big daddy came with the overthrow of Mr. Daschle. That ouster... was as much a repudiation of obstructionism as it was Mr. Daschle's own record. [C]onsider not just the Republicans' numerical gains, but their ideological ones. With the...

Election 2006 Of the 15 senators up for reelection this fall who voted to acquit Clinton in 1999, only one was defeated, but it was a big one - prince of obstruction Tom Daschle of South Dakota. Now we turn our attention to 2006. The following 14 senators who will then be up for reelection also voted to acquit Clinton and therefore disqualified themselves for public office. Moreover, all of them voted for the Harkin amendment to the bill banning partial-birth abortion. All but two of them (Byrd and Conrad) also voted on 21 Oct. 2003 against the bill to...