Free Republic

Utah Republican Orrin Hatch has spent 36 years in the U.S. Senate, including stints as chairman of the Judiciary and Labor committees. He's in line to become chairman of the Finance Committee if Republicans gain control of the Senate in November. But back home in Utah, Hatch's quest for a seventh term is not the cakewalk he had in the last five elections, in which he didn't even have to run in primaries. In fact, the Hatch campaign has spent more than $5.7 million in the past 15 months just to make sure he'll survive the Utah Republican nominating convention...

Charlie:: “You coulda been another Billy Conn, and that skunk we got you for a manager, he brought you along too fast.” Terry: “It wasn’t him, Charley, it was you. Remember that night in the Garden you came down to my dressing room and you said, `Kid, this ain’t your night. We’re going for the price on Wilson.’….I coulda taken Wilson apart! So what happens? He gets the title shot outdoors on the ballpark and what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palooka-ville! You was my brother, Charley, you shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda...

WASHINGTON (AP) — First, do no harm. Economists say the most important part of the jobs plan President Barack Obama will unveil Thursday night is the renewal of two measures already in place — a cut in Social Security taxes and emergency aid for the unemployed. His new proposals, like spending more for transportation projects and cutting taxes for companies that hire the unemployed, probably wouldn't add many jobs, they say. Not soon, anyway. "These are not bold, new, big programs," says Nariman Behravesh, chief economist with IHS Global Insight. "You put everything together, it's going to be pretty small."

Wall Street is heaving a quiet sigh of relief: All Washington is going to give us for "financial reform" in the wake of the collape of 2008 is a law based on Sen. Chris Dodd's bill. That thin semblance of reform will let Congress and the Obama administration claim they brought Wall Street to heel. But by dodging all the hard issues, this "reform" makes it likely that the next crisis will put the last one to shame. Start with ending "too big to fail": Despite Dodd's floor statements (and improvements made at the request of Sen. Richard Shelby, the...

Consequences of the Mass. Election Submitted by Bruce Krasting on 01/19/2010 23:43 -0500 I was watching the election results from Mass. with some people who know history better than I. None of us could come up with a historical parallel to the development that took place this evening. This one is going to go down as one of those ‘water shed’ events that you hear about. The TV guys are all talking about what this could mean to the health care legislation. At this point, I could care less. I thought it was dead before and I think it is...

To put it charitably, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass is not having a good 2009. In February, the Los Angeles Democrat was one of a handful of state leaders who put together five budget-related ballot measures that included $16 billion in tax hikes. She then went along with the dishonest decision to omit any mention of the hikes in ballot language. When voters figured out the truth and overwhelmingly rejected the measures in a May 19 special election, Bass proclaimed she had gotten the message. Within days, however, Bass joined in efforts to spin the May 19 results as somehow having...

When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, he notably dissented from liberal orthodoxy on welfare and the death penalty. Many observers have been wondering if Barack Obama will follow Clinton's example. They frequently raise school choice as a cause Obama could take up to show his independence from Democratic interest groups. It doesn't look as if that's going to happen, as ABC News's Jake Tapper reports: On the same day that he was extolling the need to shake up the "status quo" in education, Obama also defended his opposition to school vouchers. "We don't have enough slots for every...

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Following is the text of the operative provisions of a draft resolution circulated to members of the U.N. Security Council on Friday. The preambular provisions have been omitted for reasons of length. THE SECURITY COUNCIL, ... Determining that the situation in Lebanon constitutes a threat to international peace and security; 1. Calls for a full cessation of hostilities based upon, in particular, the immediate cessation by Hizbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations; 2. Upon full cessation of hostilities, calls upon the government of Lebanon...

WASHINGTON, July 31, 2006 – The current Middle East crisis between Israel and Hezbollah is part of a larger struggle between the forces of freedom and terror, President Bush said today in Miami.   “For decades, the status quo in the Middle East permitted tyranny and terror to thrive,” Bush said during a speech at the U.S. Coast Guard Integrated Support Command. “And as we saw on September the 11th, the status quo in the Middle East led to death and destruction in the United States, and it had to change.”   Bush said America must continue to oppose...

Arnold Schwarzenegger's improbable rise to governor in the 2003 recall election left many Californians giddy at the prospect that the state finally would have an energetic reformer at the helm after years of mismanagement in Sacramento so irresponsible that it bordered on looting. For about two years, reform was for the most part what we got. Schwarzenegger's chief goal was promoting economic growth – a business-friendly state will have more revenue to pay for its needs, he liked to note. But he also worked to restrain spending and to overhaul dysfunctional agencies – especially the prison system. Unfortunately, the painful...

Journalists and pundits seem to be writing an advance copy of the political story of 2006 – the beginning of the end of the contemporary Republican Party. A few have been prepared to write the GOP’s 2006 obituary, interestingly enough, since Bush’s second inaugural. But with the President’s numbers sinking, the House majority leader and the Vice-President’s Chief of Staff under indictment, and the Republican agenda seemingly non-existent – many more political observers are now speculating whether next year will mark the end of the contemporary GOP.The question I shall answer here is whether there are grounds for this conclusion....

Arnold Schwarzenegger, having squandered a unique opportunity to restore effective governance to a fast-growing, fast-changing state desperately in need of engaged and responsive policymaking, surrendered to the status quo Thursday. Emerging from a meeting with legislative leaders, Schwarzenegger ate humble pie for this week's special election in which all four of his "year of reform" ballot measures were rejected by voters. "If I would do another 'Terminator' movie, I would have Terminator travel back in time to tell Arnold not to have a special election," Schwarzenegger told reporters. The Republican governor has every reason to be contrite - not because...

So a special election is a big risk even for a celebrity politician considered by many to be invincible. If there's no compromise with the Legislature on these proposals, there'll be a bitterly partisan shootout between Schwarzenegger and Democrats — between his special interests and the Democrats' interests, including the potent California Teachers Assn. The Terminator could meet his match in teachers — and schoolkids and parents.

The Issue: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's ambitious plans to regain control of state spending and change the face of California public education by requiring merit pay for teachers. The Spin: Lefty lawmakers and pundits assailed Schwarzenegger for "myopia," gave him an "F" for critical thinking and said he had made defenseless children his main political punching bag. The Unspin: George F. Will and others have documented how so many "reactionary liberals" in Washington fight even the most incremental change in federal taxes and entitlements they have always championed. But here's a news flash: The problem is far worse in California. At...

Though Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger once again used his political brawn to influence state ballot measures, even he could not alter California's legislative map during the recent election, according to a pair of independent pollsters who have been tracking California elections for decades. Mark Baldassare of the Public Policy Institute of California and Mark DiCamillo of the Field Poll weighed in Tuesday on trends that emerged from the recent election, agreeing that the Republican governor had a dramatic effect on the outcome of some key ballot measures - particularly the last-minute plunge in support for Proposition 66's effort to soften California's...

SACRAMENTO – As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger campaigns to put more of his fellow Republicans in the Legislature, he has a big problem: Apparently only a handful of races are competitive. He is blaming the small battlefield on districts drawn by the Legislature that packed Democratic voters into some districts and Republicans into others, creating safe seats for members of both parties and keeping the status quo. "It's crazy to think about it – 90 percent of the seats, whatever it is, has already been decided on," Schwarzenegger said at an event last week for a Republican state Senate candidate in...

<p>There is a war in Sacramento. It is a battle between the defenders of the status quo and the agents of change. The defenders of the status quo want your money, and they want to spend it to feed a monster government. The agents of change want to bring government under control. Gov. Schwarzenegger recently triggered a war with the big-spending status-quo defenders by cutting off the food supply to California's government monster, that is, by cutting your taxes and refusing to raise them. Those who feed that monster, the defenders of big government, are now striking back.</p>

<p>Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed budget doesn't ``blow up boxes'' as he promised, but at least it lights some fuses.</p> <p>Legislative Democrats, on the other hand, have responded by crawling into boxes and pulling down the lids. They'll have to do better than crying, ``Save the status quo.''</p>

LOS ANGELES — Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon will run the first radio ads directly attacking GOP front-runner Arnold Schwarzenegger by focusing on the issue his economic advisor raised by suggesting Californians might need to pay higher property taxes. The radio spots have been cut and may begin airing on California talk radio stations as early as Sunday night, Simon spokesman K.B. Forbes told Fox News early Sunday. Forbes would not say how much the campaign spent on the radio adds or which stations would carry them, but did say the anti-Schwarzenegger spots would run "on major talk radio stations...

RNC RESEARCH POLL WATCH FOR JUNE 5, 2003EDWARDS NOT GAINING TRACTIONEdwards Far Behind In National And Birth State Polls NATIONWIDE Lieberman Lead Slips. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll asked, “After I read all the names, please tell me which of those candidates you would be most likely to support for the Democratic nomination for president in the year 2004 …” No One/No Opinion - 20 Joe Lieberman - 20 John Kerry - 17 Dick Gephardt - 14 Al Sharpton - 7 John Edwards - 6 Howard Dean - 5 Bob Graham - 4 Carol Moseley Braun - 4 Dennis Kucinich -...