Free Republic

Unemployment is at its highest level in 15 years. Housing prices won't stop falling. The stock market has suffered its most punishing collapse since 1931, and shareholders have lost $7 trillion in wealth. Millions of workers have lost their jobs; millions more are worried about losing theirs. IRAs and 401k accounts have been decimated, and companies are halting their contributions to retirement plans. Retail sales are dragging, the credit markets have seized up, and worse is expected in 2009. The government has gone to unprecedented lengths to improve the economy, yet the economy keeps getting worse. The federal budget deficit...

House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn of S.C., center, gestures as he acknowledged members of the Congressional Black Caucus as they were sworn in during a ceremony in Capitol Visitors Center in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009, prior to the start of the opening of the 111th Congress. Pic 1: Rep. Charles B. Rangel, D-N.Y.,right, gives a 'thumbs-up' as members of the Congressional Black Caucus are sworn in during a ceremony in Capitol Visitors Center in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009, prior to the start of the opening of the 111th Congress. From left are, Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J., Rep....

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. -- Vic Scuderi is loaded with weaponry. His booth is stocked full of customers who are looking to wipe out his arsenal of firearms. It's business he won't shoot down. "I've probably seen a 25 percent increase in sales from last year," said Scuderi. While the economy may be wounded, gun dealers say sales are exploding at the annual Arms Fair at the City Center in Saratoga Springs. "This is my best show ever. I've sold more ammunition and more magazines than I've ever sold, so in that regard it's been a very good show for me,"...

For decades, there have been black Americans, specifically descendants of slaves of African decent, who demanded reparations from the U.S. Government. They claim these reparations would be compensation for over 200 years of their ancestors’ unpaid labor. Now that the United States will have its first president of African decent, many blacks are hopeful that Barack Obama will be sensitive to their demands. However will President Obama give heed to their demands? A group called the Los Angeles Reparations NOW-Promissory Note Coalition seeks to get President Obama’s attention by an open letter which invokes Dr. Martin Luther Kings’s speech in...

Barack Obama, itching to implement his gigantic stimulus package as soon as possible, is dangling the idea of combining his spending package with a tax cut in hopes of securing another kind of stimulus: Republican support for his package. Republicans should remember that when you polish manure, you still have manure. Obama went to Capitol Hill Monday to promote his stimulus plan of between $675 billion and $775 billion. An estimated 40 percent of the package (between $270 billion and $310 billion) would consist of tax cuts. Obama strategists say the proposed tax cuts are based on historical and empirical...

Dear Supporter, As you may have read or heard by now, today the Minnesota State Canvassing Board met and made their determination in the U.S. Senate Recount, effectively proving that the only declaration coming today is one of an inaccurate count. There are a number of problems with the total certified today, including double counted votes, over 650 potentially wrongly rejected absentee votes, resulting in the disenfranchising of Minnesota voters and jeopardizing the integrity of Minnesota's election system. Harry Reid and national Democrats have now publicly said they will try to seat Al Franken tomorrow when the 111th Congress convenes...

Sheldon Alberts on Roland Burris: 'I am the junior senator, according to every law book in the nation'So, let's review the file on Roland Burris, the fellow Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich appointed last week to replace Barack Obama as the next junior senator from Illinois. He has not held an elected office since 1995. He failed in three bids to become the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Illinois, and once failed to become mayor of Chicago. Now, he has been appointed to the Senate by a no-shame governor facing corruption charges and allegations he hoped to sell the very Senate seat...

Madoff Scandal Lands At Congress' DoorPanel Probes SEC Watchdog About Regulators' Failure To Act On Decades Worth Of Warnings WASHINGTON, Jan. 5, 2009 (CBS/AP) The internal watchdog at the Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday that an investigation of the agency's failure to uncover the alleged $50 billion fraud involving Wall Street figure Bernard Madoff will extend broadly to the agency's enforcement operations. Inspector General H. David Kotz testified before a House panel examining the Madoff affair and the agency's failure to act despite receiving complaints over a decade. In prepared testimony for the Monday afternoon hearing, Kotz said his...

WHAT: A long column of figures dressed all in black with white death masks and bearing the names of those killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine. The march will be followed by a dramatic nonviolent action intended to awaken Congress to the need to end the wars. WHERE: The march will approach the U.S. Capitol on Pennsylvania Ave. SE and turn north on 1st Street to pass between the Capitol and the Supreme Court, turn west on Constitution Ave. to pass the Senate office buildings, turn south to pass the west front of the Capitol, and turn east on Independence...

As he ran for the White House, John F. Kennedy assured skeptical Americans that he was "not the Catholic candidate for president," but rather a "candidate for president who happens also to be Catholic." In 1961, the year he took office, Catholics accounted for 18.8% of Congress. On Tuesday, when the 111th Congress is sworn in, about 30% of its membership will be Catholic, according to a recent analysis by Congressional Quarterly and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. The shift reflects greater religious diversity both across the nation and on Capitol Hill. "We see much more acceptance...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to re-write House rules today to ensure that the Republican minority is unable to have any influence on legislation. Pelosi’s proposals are so draconian, and will so polarize the Capitol, that any thought President-elect Obama has of bipartisan cooperation will be rendered impossible before he even takes office. Pelosi’s rule changes -- which may be voted on today -- will reverse the fairness rules that were written around Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America.” In reaction, the House Republican leadership is sending a letter today to Pelosi to object to changes to House Rules this week...

The 110th U.S. Congress has formally adjourned for the year without a conclusion to an ethics probe of House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel, contrary to a November prediction by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi... Rangel, D-N.Y., is being investigated by the House Ethics Committee in at least four areas, including his reported failure to properly report income taxes on a Caribbean villa in the Dominican Republic; use of four, rent-controlled apartments in Harlem; questions about an off-shore firm asking Rangel for special tax exemptions; and whether Rangel improperly used House stationary to solicit donations for a school of...

President George W. Bush's "after-life," as Laura Bush calls the post-presidency, is shaping up to be pretty comfortable, with a Dallas office, staffers, Secret Service protection, a travel budget, medical coverage and a $196,700 annual pension, all at taxpayers' expense. However, Bush will be the first president not to benefit from one former lifetime benefit: Secret Service protection. "He'll be the first one to receive it for 10 years," said Malcolm Wiley, Secret Service spokesman. Congress changed the law in the 1990s so that any president elected after Jan. 1, 1997, and his or her spouse will receive the federal...

A report at the link below states that: Top Senate Democrat Harry Reid (pictured) made it clear who he didn’t want in the post: Jesse Jackson, Jr., Danny Davis or Emil Jones. Rather, Reid called Blagojevich to argue he appoint either state Veterans Affairs chief Tammy Duckworth or Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. Jesse Jackson, Jr., Danny Davis and Emil Jones are all three black. Reid’s choices are Lisa Madigan who is white and Tammy Duckworth is Vietnamese. Harry Reid says he is concerned about the ability of the appointee to win election in 2010. However, there will always be...

As Bay State residents grapple with layoffs and salary cuts, Massachusetts’ 12-member congressional delegation is digging into a whopping $4,700 salary boost that went into effect Thursday. Six of the 12 delegation members told the Herald they’d accepted the automatic increase, which will hike their pay to $174,000, a roughly 2.8 percent raise, when Congress convenes Tuesday. “Right now the vast majority of the public is just happy to have a job,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of fiscal watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense. U.S. Rep. Barney Frank ... admitted to feeling guilty about the raise at a time when...

UNEMPLOYMENT is at its highest level in 15 years. Housing prices won't stop falling. The stock market has suffered its most punishing collapse since 1931, and shareholders have lost $7 trillion in wealth. Millions of workers have lost their jobs; millions more are worried about losing theirs. IRAs and 401k accounts have been decimated, and companies are halting their contributions to retirement plans. Retail sales are dragging, the credit markets have seized up, and worse is expected in 2009. The government has gone to unprecedented lengths to improve the economy, yet the economy keeps getting worse. The federal budget deficit...

President-elect Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats are considering a major expansion of government-assisted health care insurance and unemployment benefits as part of a two-year economic recovery program, The New York Times reported in its Sunday editions. Proposals included extending unemployment compensation to part-time workers, subsidizing employers who must continue health insurance benefits temporarily for laid-off and retired employees and allowing workers who lose jobs that did not include insurance to apply for Medicaid, the Times said. The proposals would be included with other economic measures like ramping up spending on infrastructure and other public works projects meant to stimulate job...

Oregon is among a growing number of states exploring ways to tax drivers based on the number of miles they drive instead of how much gas they use, even going so far as to install GPS monitoring devices in 300 vehicles. The idea first emerged nearly 10 years ago as Oregon lawmakers worried that fuel-efficient cars such as gas-electric hybrids could pose a threat to road upkeep, which is paid for largely with gasoline taxes. "I'm glad we're taking a look at it before the potholes get so big that we can't even get out of them," said Leroy Younglove,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrats will pack greater clout when the new Congress convenes on Tuesday but they face enormous expectations from voters as they grapple with two wars, a financial crisis and record budget deficits. Lawmakers begin work 14 days before Barack Obama is sworn in as president. When he takes the oath on January 20, Democrats will control the White House and Congress for the first time in 14 years. Having rolled to victory in the November election with a promise of change after eight turbulent years under Republican President George W. Bush, Democrats need to produce results. Their...

Charleston, SC - Leaders of the Latino community are pushing for a massive change to the immigration reform system. They want to see an end to deportation that leaves families in disarray. At the same time, a new law in South Carolina is creating tension for illegal immigrants. They came to the U.S. in search of a better life. They were looking for a chance to make a living and to provide for families here and back home. Some of these people are legal U.S. citizens, others are here illegally and their future is uncertain. “We are hoping we can...

Pick up the morning newspaper or turn on the evening newscast and the story that you’re bound to see is that America is facing an economic recession of historic proportions. Consumer spending is down and unemployment is up, but there is one item that Americans are rushing to buy -- guns. Why? Well, as NRA-certified instructor Joel Rosenberg told the Minneapolis Star Tribune, “It’s the Obama effect.” Gun sales have skyrocketed ever since it became clear that Barack Obama was going to win the White House and be able to govern with Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. The...

President-elect Barack Obama's plan to jolt the economy by overhauling the nation's roads, bridges and transit systems has local officials clamoring for their share despite questions as to whether the program will actually work. "California's fiscal house is burning down," state Treasurer Bill Lockyer declared recently after a California regulatory board halted financing for some 1,600 infrastructure projects because of the state's nearly $15 billion deficit. California's woes are far from unique, as the deepening economic crisis has wreaked havoc on state budgets across the country. At least 40 states are running deficits, forcing governors to raise taxes and trim...

The top Senate Republican said his caucus would block any attempt to seat Democrat Al Franken until an anticipated court case over Minnesota's close election is finished and an official election certificate is conferred. Texas Sen. John Cornyn said Friday that Republicans would object to seating the race leader Franken sooner. A filibuster would require 60 votes to break — a few more than Democrats currently hold in Washington.

Denver Public Schools superintendent Michael Bennet is expected to be named Saturday as the future U.S. Senate replacement for Interior Secretary nominee Ken Salazar, according to two Democratic sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Gov. Bill Ritter is expected to name his U.S. Senate replacement pick on Saturday, ending a brief but frenzied period of speculation about who will take the seat of Interior Secretary nominee Ken Salazar. The selection would be preliminary, since Salazar is not expected to resign his U.S. Senate seat until sometime after Jan. 15, when he faces a confirmation hearing — and later...

The US Senate is arguably the strongest governmental entity in the world designed to preserve and protect the liberty and freedoms that have been the hallmarks responsible for the most envied society in the history of the world, the United States of America. In addition to the power to create laws and appropriate money like the US House of Representatives, the Senate alone has the power to approve Treaties and to determine who sits on the US Supreme Court. Think about the far-ranging impacts of these two powers. Treaties become “the law of the land” thereby overruling the Constitution. Think...

President-elect Barack Obama and his family are flying to Chicago tonight, ending a 12 day vacation in Hawaii. Now it's down to work. As Mr. Obama trades the white sands of Hawaii for the White House he faces an unprecedented slew of challenges, reports CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy. "You have to look at the United States as a dam that is leaking," said CBS News analyst Douglas Brinkley. "It's not going to do good just to stick a finger in one hole, you're going to have to plug them all up quickly." First, there's the economy and how to...

December 30, 2008: Oh What a Day! I'm so glad that my father told me to buy a special notebook and to write everything down because that's exactly what I did. When we left from Cyprus, one reporter asked me "are you afraid?" And I had to respond that Malcolm X wasn't afraid; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wasn't afraid. But little did I know that just a few hours later, I would be recollecting my life and mentally preparing myself for death. When we left Cyprus, the Mediterranean was beautiful. I remember the time when it might have been...

Selecta, a German toymaker, carves whimsical cars and characters from native woods, colors them with vegetable dyes and coats them in silky beeswax. No lead, no toxic varnishes. Not even waste -- the company heats its factory with leftover woodchips. Just the kind of toymaker in demand after scares about tainted playthings from China. But this holiday season, Selecta is preparing to pull out of the U.S. market. Its problem, executives say, is consumer legislation that is adding crushing costs to selling toys in America. The law, which takes effect Feb. 10, was passed by Congress in response to recalls...

The politicians in Washington have been working overtime to persuade you that the free market system is responsible for this recession--and for good reason. In reality, government and the politicians who run it should themselves shoulder the bulk of the blame. Who was it that got the housing bubble going by subsidizing housing? The federal government. Who was it that used the power of Congressional oversight to influence Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to appoint former Clinton cronies like Franklin Raines to their top management? Congress. And who was it that cheered them on as they diverted hundreds of billions...

You know, it’s funny how all those women pundits who tore a strip off of Sarah Palin because she couldn’t define the Bush Doctrine in 25 words or less have, you know, remained silent, you know, about Caroline Kennedy repeating the phrase "you know" 142 times in a short interview with the New York Times — you know? That's right, in an interview with Nicholas Confessore and David M. Halbfinger, which was run in its entirety in the NYTs, Kennedy sounded more like, you know, an '80s valley girl than the privileged daughter of a former U.S. president. Here's what...

The former president and the former New York governor are among several boldface names being touted as possible "caretakers" for New York's Senate seat — people who would serve until the 2010 elections but wouldn't be interested in running to keep the job.

Black survivors of Hurricane Katrina said Tuesday that racism contributed to the slow disaster response, at times likening themselves in emotional congressional testimony to victims of genocide and the Holocaust. The comparison is inappropriate, according to Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla. “Not a single person was marched into a gas chamber and killed,” Miller told the survivors. “They died from abject neglect,” retorted community activist Leah Hodges. “We left body bags behind... The people of New Orleans were stranded in a flood and were allowed to die.” Angry evacuees described being trapped in temporary shelters where one New Orleans resident said...

Commitments Exceed $350 Billion Congress Has Allocated So Far With the announcement of its $6 billion investment to stabilize GMAC, the Treasury Department has now spent or committed more money than Congress has allocated to its financial rescue program, effectively making more promises than it can afford to keep. The scorecard: Congress gave Treasury $350 billion; Treasury has allocated $354.4 billion. The department acknowledges that it needs Congress to approve the second half of the $700 billion rescue package simply to meet its commitments, let alone to address new emergencies. If Congress blocks the additional funding, as some members say...

As President-elect Obama vacations with his family in Hawaii and publicly complains about the intrusiveness of the press pool and the intense scrutiny of his Secret Service team, I suspect about now Obama may be recalling George Bernard Shaw's heartless observation that: "There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it." This last week of December 2008 is a strange moment for the country. It must be positively bizarre for our president-elect. It seems as if all the problems of the world are lining up and just waiting for...

<p>The Securities and Exchange Commission opposes suspension of fair-value, or mark-to-market, accounting rules in a report to Congress delivered Tuesday.</p> <p>Instead, the agency recommends improvements to current practices, including reconsidering accounting methods for impairments and developing more guidance for determining fair value of investments in inactive markets, including where market prices are not readily available.</p>

<p>WLS just broke in to say Roland Burris, a former Illinois Comptroller, has been named to the Senate by Rod.</p>

President-elect Barack Obama has been formulating plans for the stimulus package likely to be enacted shortly after he takes office. It is reputed to be in the area of $800 billion to $1.2 trillion, and he originally proposed to create 2.5 million jobs. More recently, however, he has adjusted his goal to be 3 to 3.5 million jobs because of analyses that show the probability the economy will lose 3.5 million jobs in all of 2009. Yet this goal should be juxtaposed against the size of the growing Black unemployment rate, estimated to be 12 percent at present, which would...

Gov. Rod Blagojevich is expected today to name former Illinois Atty. Gen. Roland Burris to replace President-elect Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate. The action comes despite warnings by Democratic Senate leaders that they would not seat anyone appointed by the disgraced governor who faces criminal charges of trying to sell the post, sources familiar with the decision said.

"With trillions of taxpayer dollars being poured into an outright socialist invasion of our nation's founding free market philosophy - you might think that the paltry sum of $2.5 million would be incapable of generating much outrage." "You've heard the expression "a drop in the bucket?"

WASHINGTON — Republican Congressional leaders sought Monday to pressure Democrats to be more open about the drafting of a huge economic recovery bill that Democrats hope to pass in the first days of the Obama administration. In a coordinated effort, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leaders of the two chambers, called on Democrats to hold hearings on the emerging legislation and not schedule any votes on the bill until it had had at least a week of public review. “A trillion-dollar spending bill would be the largest spending bill in the...

When times are tough - and these are unquestionably very, very tough times - our fearless politicians in Washington can be counted on to call upon the American public to "make sacrifices." This then begs the question: "What sacrifices are they making?" Let's get real. The "sacrifices" our intrepid leaders in Washington are calling on you and me to make are not voluntary, but forced upon us by the irresponsible conduct on the part of congressional lawmakers of both parties. As I see it, if the working men and women and those who are retired and living on a fixed...

Caroline Kennedy, you know, might need, you know, a speech coach, um, if she, you know, wants, um, to be a senator. Um, you know? Kennedy, who gave a flurry of media interviews on Friday and Saturday, revealed some cringing verbal tics that showed her inexperience as a speaker, experts told the Daily News. In a 30-minute session with The News on Saturday, Kennedy punctuated her answers with "you know" more than 200 times. "Um" was fairly constant, too.

<p>In good times, consumers search out the best places to eat, raise their kids, take a vacation, or pursue a career. But as the recession deepens and more workers lose their jobs, a more germane search may well be the best places to be unemployed.</p>

At the end of 2007, I wrote two columns examining the top stories of 2007. One looked at the worst stories of 2007, and the other listed the best. Revisiting these columns a year later is a worthy exercise that can tell us a lot about our politics and our world – and, importantly, about our individual and collective minds. This week we will take a look at some of the worst stories of 2008, reserving the best stories for next week. Some behavior seems too stubborn to change, even when its madness is pointed out year after year. The...

President Bush has been hated for every reason imaginable, such as, he "touted" prayer and said things like "Americans pray for a number of reasons, such as acknowledging God's sovereignty in our lives and our complete dependence on Him." He concluded his remarks by saying that the "greatest gift we can offer anyone is the gift of our prayers, because our prayers have power beyond our imagining." And. . . When asked, why we went to war to punish and liberate Iraq, he answered, "To him who is given much, much is required." And. . . After being asked what...

Mike Massie got his first shotgun at the age of 10. Guns have been in Massie’s life since he was 5 years old and trudging along beside his father carrying an unloaded shotgun. His children know how to handle weapons; he even purchased his nephew’s first shotgun when the boy was just one month old. That’s why the Lynchburg resident is worried about what will happen to gun-control laws when President-elect Barack Obama takes office next month. “I feel that I have the right to bear arms legally to defend myself, my family and my property,” Massie said. “I don’t...

Disclaimer: If you are looking for a PC or centrist approach to dealing with convicted sex offenders, you might as well skip this post! My wife pointed out that for all intents and purposes, sex offenders are already basically a protected group. In typical disgusting liberal bizarro compassion, there is wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth over the plight of the poor, misunderstood, rapists and child molesters. The concern about the lack of housing for convicted sex offenders blatantly displays the despicably warped priorities of the leftards. Oh, I know the spagetti-spined “Republican victory, principles be damned” Repubs out...

Bush Derangement Syndrome is curable, but like alcoholism, those who suffer from it must first want to be cured. The sickness manifests itself in, among other symptoms, a failure to acknowledge anything positive that has been accomplished during the president's time in office. Saturday Forum columnist John Foster recently had much to say in regard to the failings of the Bush administration. Not shockingly, he had not a word of censure for the present do-nothing, Democrat-led Congress. Following an Arab journalist's temper tantrum at a press conference in Iraq, where he threw his shoes at President George W. Bush, Foster...

FYI I've been on FreeRepublic and halfway listening to FOX News on the TV downstairs. I heard the Little Rockers Band on the last of Huckabee and these lines caught my attention: "Congress has sold us a crock," "Dancing to the Bail House Rock." The show will be on again at 11 PM Eastern/ 10 PM Central.

In the aftermath of the Madoff implosion, quite a few people have pointed out the parallels between a Ponzi scheme and Social Security. Arnold Kling, whom I respect, has written: I’ve been thinking that Madoff is a perfect analogy for the public sector. The government gives people money, which it expects to obtain by taking the money from people in the future. Even the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities, not known as a right-wing organization, sees the U.S. fiscal stance as unsustainable (pointer from Ezra Klein via Tyler Cowen)—in other words, a Ponzi scheme. Other people have gone farther....