Free Republic

Anabely Lopes wanted a child more than anything, so the 44-year-old was ecstatic when she became pregnant last year — and then devastated when doctors said her unborn child had a fatal abnormality... A new law restricting abortion access had gone into effect days earlier, and Lopes soon found herself on a plane, leaving South Florida to get an abortion at a clinic in Washington. On Tuesday, Lopes will return to Washington, this time accompanying U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address...

One of Trump’s most enduring and arguably most endearing campaign lines has been his promise to treat American vets better. When Trump dropped out of a Fox News debate in January he held a separate event at which he raised money for veterans. But three months later, Trump’s campaign adviser for veterans, Al Baldasaro, doesn’t seem too concerned about it. He told the Daily Beast, “I’m not concerned about it, because I know [Trump is] an honorable, honest guy… you guys just want to say, ‘gotcha.’”To be fair, Baldasaro is not a Trump staffer. The real problem is that...

Rep. Mike Rogers says he's been looking at the records of meetings White House staffers have had with the House Intelligence Committee he chairs, and they don't match up with claims the administration is making. According to The Washington Post, Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and Press Secretary Jay Carney say the White House has been briefing Congress for five years on a potential deal to free Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from Taliban captors. But Rogers told CNN on Monday that the stories they are telling now differ from what they said in the past. Bergdahl was freed Saturday in...

Britain has decided to cooperate with the United States in a bilateral agreement to release strategic oil stocks, two British sources said, in an effort to prevent high fuel prices derailing economic growth in an election year. A formal request from the United States to the UK to join forces in a release of oil from government-controlled reserves is expected "shortly" following a meeting on Wednesday in Washington between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron, who discussed the issue, one source said. Britain would respond positively, the two sources said.

SALT LAKE CITY — The immigration controversy has reached the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with one Latino member of the Utah community's request that Mexico suspend all LDS missionary visas to the nation. Raul Lopez-Vargas, former vice president of Centro Civico Mexicano, one of Utah's oldest Latino community centers, has sent a letter to Mexican Presdient Felipe Calderon seeking the temporary suspension of visas for LDS missionaries. He also delivered the letter in person Monday to the Mexican consulate in Utah. Lopez-Vargas says the request is a response to his view that the LDS Church won't take...

The ink is barely dry on the pay-as-you-go law, and Democrats are seeking to bypass it to enact parts of their job-creation agenda. Democratic leaders said extensions of unemployment insurance and COBRA healthcare benefits should be emergency spending that isn’t subject to the pay-as-you-go statute, which requires new non-discretionary spending to be offset with spending cuts or tax increases. With current extensions of unemployment and COBRA benefits set to expire at the end of the month and the jobless rate still near 10 percent, Democratic lawmakers want to pass the extensions quickly, without having to find offsets for the costs....

Well, you'd get the Senate Majority leader trolling for a few RINO votes in order to pass something which he can at least try to sell as an anti-war measure: Saying the coming weeks will be "one of the last opportunities" to alter the course of the war, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said he is now willing to compromise with Republicans to find ways to limit troop deployments in Iraq. Reid acknowledged that his previous firm demand for a spring withdrawal deadline had become an obstacle for a small but growing number of Republicans who have...

The power to pardon traditionally belongs to the president. But Representative Duncan Hunter, who is seeking the 2008 Republican nomination, isn’t waiting for Inauguration Day. Mr. Hunter introduced a bill in January to initiate an unprecedented Congressional pardon of two former border patrol agents currently serving 11- and 12-year sentences after shooting a drug smuggler on the Texas-Mexico border in 2005. For Mr. Hunter and other immigration hardliners, their conviction is an “extreme injustice.” While Constitutional objections are “very much a possibility,” said Joe Kasper, Mr. Hunter’s spokesman, he doesn’t see the measure threatening executive power. The president’s required signature...

<p>WASHINGTON — A federal prosecutor in a major terrorism case in Detroit has taken the rare step of suing Attorney General John Ashcroft (search), alleging the Justice Department interfered with the case, compromised a confidential informant and exaggerated results in the war on terrorism.</p>