Free Republic

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney on Thursday backtracked on a central theme of his presidential campaign: that President Obama has made a struggling U.S. economy even worse. "I didn't say that things are worse," Romney said at a press conference in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

(CNN) -- Amid rising gas and oil prices, a leading Republican said on Sunday that the U.S. government should consider imposing a windfall tax on oil company profits. "I think it's something worth considering among a number of options," Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, told CNN's "Late Edition." He also criticized consolidation in the oil industry. "I believe that we have allowed too many companies to get together to reduce competition," he said, citing the combinations that created ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. Specter said that after the chief executives of top oil companies testified in Congress last...

The Senate defied the White House yesterday and voted to set new limits on interrogating detainees in Iraq and elsewhere, underscoring Congress's growing concerns about reports of abuse of suspected terrorists and others in military custody. Forty-six Republicans joined 43 Democrats and one independent in voting to define and limit interrogation techniques that U.S. troops may use against terrorism suspects, the latest sign that alarm over treatment of prisoners in the Middle East and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is widespread in both parties. The White House had fought to prevent the restrictions, with Vice President Cheney visiting key Republicans in...

<p>Americans go to the polls a week from today. And while it appears that Republicans will maintain their majority in the U.S. House, the Democrats' control of the Senate is tenuous. Friday's death of Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota only complicated the prognosticating.</p>