Free Republic

The House scrapped a planned vote to advance two key economic proposals as centrist Democrats and party leaders failed to break a stalemate over how to proceed with President Joe Biden’s sprawling economic agenda. The chamber will reconvene at noon ET on Tuesday as Democrats try to strike a deal to move forward with legislation they see as an economic boon and a lifeline for households. House Democrats hope to take a procedural vote as soon as early Tuesday afternoon. Biden’s domestic policy goals, and his party’s push to retain control of Congress in next year’s midterms, could hinge on...

Another Setback for Resuming Cruises in the U.S. There is another setback for resuming cruises in the U.S. as the Public Health Emergency has been extended resulting in the Conditional Sailing Order remaining in place. While most of the talk lately has been on the Conditional Sail Order from the CDC and what that means for the cruise industry, there has always been a second way the cruise industry can go back to sea. However, that second option seems to be up in the air as well now. The Conditional Sail Order is only in effect as long as the...

Republican lawmakers are surprised and disappointed by the results of Super Tuesday, which firmly re-established former Vice President Joe Biden as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination and dealt Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) a major setback. …..

The Garbage Party has made it clear that impeaching President Donald Trump is their lone strategy going into the 2020 election cycle, as evidenced by the fact that the extreme socialist Democrat Left has set the agenda by forcing Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s hand. So we can forget passage of the USMCA, which would replace that crap trade “deal” NAFTA and benefit our country and our people for a change. We can write off any hope that Americans will get relief from skyrocketing prescription drug prices (which, of course, is the direct result of too much federal regulatory interference in the...

Tuesday on “Good Morning America,” the “Jeopardy!” host said he “was doing so well” and his medical reports had approached normal levels after his first round of chemo for stage 4 pancreatic cancer. But he suddenly began losing weight. “I lost about 12 pounds in a week,” Trebek said. “And my numbers went sky high, much higher than they were when I was first diagnosed. So, the doctors have decided that I have to undergo chemo again, and that’s what I’m doing.” “Early on, I was down on myself. I didn’t realize how fallible each of us is in his...

The sources are not allowed on FR - so google the headline and you will find the report. Very disturbing.

In the wake of the Paris terror attacks, President Obama has earned his worst rating on his handling of terrorism in his career. Currently, 54 percent of U.S. adults disapprove of the way in which Obama is handling terrorism threats, the worst such rating in his White House career, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released Friday. Forty-three percent of Americans disapprove strongly of the president's handling of terror threats. Americans are particularly critical of Obama's response to the Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIL or ISIS), the terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the deadly attacks in...

Barack Obama says,“We’re not losing,” the war against ISIS in Iraq. Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, May 21, 2015, 10:54 PM Barack Obama says,“We’re not losing,” the war against ISIS in Iraq. Baghdad Barack Tell that to the Ramadi refugees. After ISIS takes Ramadi, Iraq and Palmyra, Syria, Barack Obama insists we are not losing. Yahoo reported: US President Barack Obama has described the loss of key Iraqi territory to Islamic State as a tactical setback, while insisting the war against the jihadist group is not being lost. “I don’t think we’re losing,” Obama said in an interview with...

Obama: We're definitely not 'losing' in Iraq - ISIS storming into Ramadi was just a 'setback' and it would be a mistake to send in U.S. ground troops President Barack Obama echoed the many claims of his administration officials in an interview released today and said that the fall of Ramadi is a mere 'setback.' 'No, I don’t think we’re losing,' the president told The Atlantic in the Tuesday interview. 'There’s no doubt there was a tactical setback,' he said, but 'Ramadi had been vulnerable for a very long time.' The president dug in his heels and said he would...

ERLIN (Reuters) - Angela Merkel's hand-picked choice for the ceremonial post of president resigned Friday in a scandal over political favors, dealing a blow to the German chancellor in the midst of the euro zone debt crisis. In a curt five-minute statement at the Bellevue presidential palace, Christian Wulff acknowledged that he had lost the trust of the German people, making it impossible to continue in a role that is meant to serve as a moral compass for the nation. "For this reason it is no longer possible for me to exercise the office of president at home and abroad...

TEHRAN, Iran – In a major setback to Iran's nuclear program, technicians will have to unload fuel from the country's first atomic power plant because of an unspecified safety concern, a senior government official said. The vague explanation raised questions about whether the mysterious computer worm known as Stuxnet might have caused more damage at the Bushehr plant than previously acknowledged. Other explanations are possible for unloading the fuel rods from the reactor core of the newly completed plant, including routine technical difficulties.

BONN (AFP) – Hopes of hoisting the UN process for climate change out of the mire after December's flawed Copenhagen summit suffered a setback at talks here on Friday. In their first parley since the stormy December meeting, countries in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) divided over how to plot the way forward and the mood was soured by fresh finger-pointing. "The one thing we learn from history is that we never learn from history," said Tosi Mpanu Mpanu of the Democratic Republic of Congo, representing African nations. Copenhagen damaged "the trust that is necessary for any...

Treacherous path to power trips Team Hillary Clinton Gerard Baker, American View The only real surprise in the announcement by the Clinton campaign of a senior staff reshuffle was that it took so long. Patti Solis Doyle, the woman stepping aside as Hillary Clinton's chief of staff, has been the object of repeated internal criticism and intense efforts to unseat her in the past few months. The news that she was being replaced by Maggie Williams, a long-time adviser and friend to the New York senator, was the latest indication of how treacherous and unpredictable Mrs Clinton's once inevitable path...

Along the Mexican border in Brownsville, Texas, Esmeralda Gavino echoed the disappointment of many illegal immigrants like her when she said that the immigration reform bill torpedoed on Capitol Hill was not perfect, but it was at least something. "It's sad that the senators can say, `OK, let's just roll up the carpet. We have more important things,'" said the 35-year-old woman, who cleans houses for a living and was with her two young daughters at a parish community center. "They don't have enough time for discussions, but they have time to build a wall. It wasn't a very good...

The killing of Mullah Dadullah Akhund in a joint military operation by US, Nato and Afghan army forces on 12 May is the biggest blow to the Taleban since it lost power in Afghanistan in December 2001. In recent months the Taleban have suffered a number of setbacks. Previous reports of his death or capture had proved untrue

As Ronald Reagan was thanking me I was both depressed and embarrassed. It was November, 1986. After a solid two years of effort, the Congressional elections in the sixth year of the Reagan presidency had gone badly. (Snip) So our trip to the Oval Office that November day found my colleagues and myself both depressed and embarrassed. The president had trusted us completely, followed every last piece of advice--and we thought we had our clock cleaned. In the New York Times liberal columnist Anthony Lewis had triumphantly written a column entitled "The End Begins: Radical Right Movement Has Crested." (Notice...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the Bush administration did not have the legal authority to go forward with military tribunals for detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba. The 5-3 ruling means officials will either have to come up with new procedures to prosecute at least 10 so-called enemy combatants awaiting trial, or release them from U.S. military custody. The case was a major test of President Bush's authority as commander in chief in a wartime setting. Bush has aggressively asserted the power of the government to capture, detain, and prosecute suspected...

LONDON - The blood thinner may be to blame for the severity of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke, but his doctors should not be criticized for prescribing it, independent experts said Thursday. Sharon was fighting for his life in an Israeli hospital after seven hours of surgery to remove blood from the right side of his brain following a burst blood vessel, or hemorrhagic stroke. His doctors said they planned to keep him sedated for another 72 hours. Experts say his chances of recovery are slim. Experts agree that while the blood thinner, an anticoagulant called enoxaparin, did not...

JERUSALEM - The Islamic militant group Hamas, the main threat to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' rule, suffered a setback in local elections in dozens of West Bank towns and villages, final results indicated Friday. The outcome — 54 percent of Thursday's vote for Abbas' Fatah movement and 26 percent for Hamas — was in line with a modest rise in support for Fatah following Israel's pullout from Gaza earlier this month. However, it is not necessarily a bellwether for Abbas' most crucial electoral test, parliament elections in January. The voting in 104 communities was mostly about local issues, such as...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A California appeals court on Tuesday upheld the casting aside of one of three ballot measures that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger backs for a special election in November. The Republican governor favors Proposition 77, a voter initiative to change the way the state draws its political map by taking the responsibility out of the hands of the Democratic-controlled legislature. Last month a California Superior Court judge tossed out the measure because the text that voters signed to put the redistricting measure on the ballot differed in 17 places from the language submitted to state officials. Backers...