Free Republic

The Democratic National Committee has ratcheted up the threshold to qualify for its next presidential debate, requiring candidates to have picked up at least 20% of convention delegates allocated in state primary contests. The new rules announced Friday for the March 15 debate in Arizona will allow former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to participate but will likely exclude Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. Gabbard has struggled to attract support in the contest and has picked up only two delegates — from the U.S. territory of American Samoa, where she was born. By comparison, Biden has more...

Rudy Giuliani: My thought is that Trump is the nominee. I supported him before. I support him now. I fully endorse him 100% and I urge other Republicans to get behind him. We may have preferred somebody else but he is going to be the candidate. And now we have to do the best we can to make sure we defeat Hillary Clinton. The fact that Cruz and Kasich had to get together in this backroom deal, is devastating. The American people on both the Republican side and Democratic side are telling us something. They’re telling us they don’t like...

As the ex-secretary of state announces her White House bid, Sky News looks at who she could be up against from both parties.Hillary Clinton is widely seen as a front-runner for Democratic Party's presidential nomination, and her resume makes her a strong rival to any Republican. Here is a look at some of her likely opponents in the White House race. The Republican field is already crowded. :: Ted Cruz Ted Cruz became the first candidate to launch the 2016 White House bid when he announced his campaign last month. The Texas senator, 44, is a conservative firebrand who frequently...

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid helped steer billions of federal tax dollars to companies supporting a green energy group run by two of his former staff members and a current campaign operative.The Nevada Democrat pushed for millions of dollars in grants and billions more in federal loan guarantees for corporations that donated to the Clean Energy Project, a nonprofit founded by a pair of former staffers with close ties to both Reid and to a major Democratic PAC associated with the senator, Lachlan Markay of the Washington Free Beacon reported.One such company, California-based Fulcrum Bioenergy, received a hefty federal grant...

Outside of the unions, there was perhaps no group more ardent in its support of Obamacare than the AARP. The advocacy group spent $121 million on advertising in favor of Obamacare, and millions more lobbying for it on Washington DC. But now AARP’s insurance business, Medigap which competes with Medicare Advantage (a program AARP lobbied to have hamstrung by OBamacare), just got a waiver from complying with the law. ... Keep in mind, again, that AARP is set to rake in billions in profits now that Obamacare has effective knocked Medicare Advantage out of the market.

Guy Molinari, the Republican power broker and former Staten Island Beep, ripped Newt Gingrich as unfit to be president yesterday — a day before the front-running GOP candidate was set to attend a Tea Party rally in the borough. At least 600 people are expected to pack the Staten Island Hilton Garden Inn today to hear Gingrich speak at a 2 p.m. town-hall meeting. But Molinari, who served with Gingrich in Congress and supports Mitt Romney, rained on the former House speaker’s parade. “God help us if Newt Gingrich is elected president. I won’t vote for him. I love my...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has called an Aug. 17 special election to fill the 15th Senate District seat vacated by Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado's appointment to that post. Schwarzenegger's move bucks both legislative Democrats and county election officials, who urged the governor to consolidate the contest with the November general election to save costs. Democrats, of course, also wanted a consolidation because they believe the higher turnout in a general election will boost their shots at picking up the seat.

Sacramento, Calif. (AP) -- Former lawmaker Abel Maldonado has been sworn in as California's lieutenant governor, becoming the only Hispanic in statewide office.

The state Senate this afternoon voted 25-7 to confirm Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger’s nomination of state Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, as lieutenant governor; the governor will swear him into office tomorrow. As I’d said Friday on KQED Channel 9’s “This Week in Northern California,” don’t mistake this for an instance of politics being put aside. Democrats supported Maldonado only because they want him out of the Senate so they can try to win his 15th State Senate District seat, and only now because confirming him earlier wouldn’t have allowed the SD-15 special election to be consolidated with November’s general election,...

Maldonado gets the OK as lieutenant governor The Senate voted 25-7 this afternoon to confirm Sen. Abel Maldonado's lieutenant governor nomination, clearing the way for the embattled pick to finally fill the vacant post. (SNIP) UPDATE 2:43 p.m.: The governor's office says Maldonado will be sworn in tomorrow in Sacramento.

DeVore Slams Backroom Deals, Only Republican To Oppose Maldonado Confirmation FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- (SACRAMENTO) – California State Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, (R-70-Irvine), today spoke out against the backroom deals involved in the effort to confirm state Senator Abel Maldonado as California’s Lieutenant Governor. He then voted against the motion to confirm Maldonado and urged other lawmakers to do the same. DeVore cited Maldonado’s vote for the higher taxes included in 2009’s Proposition 1A in exchange for an agreement by the Governor and Democrat leaders to place Proposition 14, the open primary measure that infringes upon the rights of partisan voters...

I was following the health reform stories very closely on Free Republican as well as FNC, MSNBC and CNN and noticed some coincidences in timing that look suspicious. These Tea party slur accusations (link below) on Saturday were very close in time to the immigration reform march on Sunday. I was also following the deal that the Hispanic Caucus demanded from the White House to secure their votes on Health reform which they talked about on FNC amazingly. HereÂ’s a sequence of stories (below) and ping me if you see a possible connection as I do. Members of the Congressional...

WASHINGTON — There are no quick fixes for President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, the No. 2 House Democrat said Tuesday, as supporters agonized over whether to move the bill forward or hit the pause button until political resistance subsides. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said the goal remains to pass far-reaching legislation that would expand coverage, reduce costs and improve quality. But the Maryland Democrat acknowledged "there are no easy choices" after Democrats lost the Massachusetts Senate seat — their 60th vote — and with it undisputed control of the congressional agenda. Lawmakers hope Obama will provide an answer...

"It makes me puke that we have just been 'Cheneyed' by a guy named Barack Obama."

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's push for a national health care overhaul is providing a financial windfall in the election offseason to Democratic consulting firms that are closely connected to the president and two top advisers. Coalitions of interest groups running at least $24 million in pro-overhaul ads hired GMMB, which worked for Obama's 2008 campaign and whose partners include a top Obama campaign strategist. They also hired AKPD Message and Media, which was founded by David Axelrod, a top adviser to Obama's campaign and now to the White House. AKPD did work for Obama's campaign, and Axelrod's son Michael...

Below Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck explains the Apollo Alliance on his July 28 show. Beck mentions the Obama administration’s “stimulus” blueprint, “The New Apollo Program: Clean Energy, Good Jobs,” which you can read here.

Conventional wisdom holds that the social rate of return to R&D significantly exceeds the private rate of return and, therefore, R&D should be subsidized. In the U.S., the government has directly funded a large fraction of total R&D spending. This paper shows that there is a serious problem with such government efforts to increase inventive activity. The majority of R&D spending is actually just salary payments for R&D workers. Their labor supply, however, is quite inelastic so when the government funds R&D, a significant fraction of the increased spending goes directly into higher wages. Using CPS data on wages of...

Núñez, Perata say Schwarzenegger must get his party on board with bond deal. The Legislature's two leading Democrats called on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday to pressure his Republican colleagues in the Assembly if he wants to get an infrastructure bond plan on the June 6 ballot. Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles, and state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, said they have resolved their own infrastructure differences and that it's up to the governor and the Assembly GOP members to close the gap between their own proposals so the Legislature can present a bond deal to the...

FLASH: Big Bang Bonds Boom! There Is An Arnold/Fabian Deal. But No Puff Of White Smoke Over The Capitol Dome Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez have a deal on the Big Bang Bonds infrastructure package. But don’t pop those champagne corks — or do the Super Bowl gatorade dump — just yet. From a variety of informed sources in the Democratic and Republican parties, I’ve learned that a marathon negotiating session between the two yesterday, followed by further talks (but no planned for Big Five meeting this morning due to lingering bad feelings), has resulted in agreement...

That said, it seems to me that Schwarzenegger badly needs a deal and shouldn't be too picky. Take what he can get from Democrats and warmly embrace it as his own. Pull out a two-by-four and beat Republicans into submission. Republican lawmakers need a rehabilitated governor to help them raise campaign money in the fall and perform little favors for the next four years. Not to mention improving flood control in their rural districts. Privately, some gubernatorial insiders agree. "It's been really hard to watch," one advisor says of the Republicans. "Don't they understand the part about the governor giving...