Free Republic

Sen. Joe Manchin on Sunday defended holding up debate for hours on President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill over his opposition to a $15 minimum wage and certain unemployment benefits — saying the negotiations led to a more targeted stimulus package. The moderate Democrat from red-state West Virginia said members of his caucus and Republicans worked together to “make significant changes.

State Department officials are attempting to block multiple lawsuits seeking Bill Clinton's speech schedules by redacting the documents heavily or withholding them until after the election. A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee has yielded just 14 pages of schedules so far, most of which were redacted beyond coherence, said Raj Shah, an RNC spokesman. And on Monday, the State Department provided Politico with 1,000 pages of documents — most of which were redacted entirely and contained only text that read "Page Denied" — in response to a request filed more than six years ago....

In the hours leading up to the administration's surprise decision Tuesday to delay implementation of Obamacare, the president's team gave no indication of the course reversal, in a way hiding it by spending $32 million on children's health care and announcing plans to expand the PR campaign. One example: three and a half hours before notifying the public of the change in a Treasury Department blog post, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius held a conference call with reporters to announce a $32 million spending program to enroll poor and immigrant kids into the Children's Health Insurance Program. "Every...

SAN DIEGO – When the Stevens family bought a house in Mira Mesa in 1980, they were told an elementary school would be built in their neighborhood on land set aside by housing developer Pardee Homes. More than two decades later, the site sits vacant. And Mira Mesa residents are unlikely to see a school until the end of the decade, even though the San Diego Unified School District had promised to build one as part of its $1.51 billion construction program funded by a 1998 bond measure. Jonas Salk Elementary School was supposed to open off Parkdale Avenue and...

<p>This week, Gail addresses the issue of retirement for baby boomers and discusses a recent study showing more Americans are planning to work into their 70s and 80s.</p> <p>Dear Readers, Cracks are beginning to show in Americans' eternal optimism about retirement.</p>