Free Republic

"Superficial" "A source close to the Senate negotiations [says] that two senators who voted against the background check bill would vote for it after minor, superficial changes." - Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC, May 6, 2013ACTION: Senators who voted pro-gun last month are under intense pressure - by Senate Democrats and Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s hit ads - to switch their votes.  We need to keep applying the heat and let them know that gun owners are ready to help in any Senate campaign, no matter which state, to defeat ANY SENATOR who votes for gun control.LEGISLATIVE UPDATE FROM WASHINGTON, DC. It’s...

Senate Republicans say the Labor Department appears to be spending millions in taxpayer dollars to establish labor unions and promote collective bargaining in foreign countries and is asking top Obama administration officials for a full audit. The request was sent by Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the leading Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, and Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, the top Republican on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “At a time when our federal budget is deteriorating rapidly … it is troubling to us that the department appears to be spending millions of dollars of taxpayer funds to establish...

KATHMANDU SNIPPET: The Annapurna Post vernacular daily reported on Sunday that the arrest was made on April 13. Identified as Mohsin Khosravian, the suspect is currently in police custody.

 The security officials at the Embassy speculated that the suspect was scouting the facility with a harmful intention "for he carried a tourist map of the Lazimpat area" where the Israeli mission is located. 

He had stayed in a Thamel-based hotel. After his arrest, the suspect told police that he had ventured out to find out a shop to repair his laptop.

 According to the report, the Nepal Police's Central Bureau...

Has society really become quite thin-skinned, or is acting “offended” a new tactic that is being used to shut down legitimate political debate? Progressives are increasingly claiming to be offended whenever those on the right disagree with their left-wing positions. It doesn't matter what the issue is; the left will divert a legitimate political debate into an accusation that the right disagrees with them because they are full of hate towards them. This puts the right on the defensive, and removes the real debate from discussion. It then becomes difficult for the right to ever prevail with their position, because...

Last Friday night (March 22), March Madness was in its televised glory. And Taylor Swift was singing and strumming at Time Warner Cable Arena. Despite such competition, Christ Episcopal Church managed to draw 1,100 people. The attraction: A doctor describing his time in heaven. Not just any doctor. Sitting on stage, answering questions from the Rev. Chip Edens, the church’s rector, was Dr. Eben Alexander. He’s a Charlotte native who wrote “Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife.” His book is such a mega-seller that he has talked to Oprah – and Universal Pictures won a bidding war...

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - New Jersey is using an anti-terrorism law for the first time to try six animal rights activists charged with harassing and vandalizing a company that made use of animals to test its drugs. Prosecutors say the activists, who will stand trial next week, used threats, intimidation and cyber attacks against employees of Huntingdon Life Sciences, a British company with operations in East Millstone, New Jersey, with the intention of driving it out of business. The six, members of a group called Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), are charged under the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, amended in 2002...

The deceptively named “Cancer Project” animal-rights group is at it again. This time its target isn’t hot dog makers, but grilled-chicken servers. The group, a branch of the PETA-linked Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), filed a lawsuit in Connecticut yesterday against three restaurant chains demanding warnings about a supposed link between grilled chicken and cancer. As we told the media, PCRM is nothing more than an animal rights front for pushing vegan activism, which is funded primarily by a single rich donor. Since 2003, PCRM and the Cancer Project have derived 60 percent of their budgets from a...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.fbi.gov/houston/press-releases/2012/russian-agent-and-10-other-members-of-procurement-network-for-russian-military-and-intelligence-operating-in-the-u.s.-and-russia-indicted-in-new-york Russian Agent and 10 Other Members of Procurement Network for Russian Military and Intelligence Operating in the U.S. and Russia Indicted in New York Defendants Also Include Texas- and Russia-Based Corporations; 165 Persons and Companies ‘Designated’ by Commerce Department U.S. Attorney’s Office October 03, 2012 BROOKLYN, NY—An indictment was unsealed today in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York charging 11 members of a Russian military procurement network operating in the United States and Russia, as well as a Texas-based export company and a Russia-based procurement firm, with illegally...

Alexander the Great is portrayed as a legendary conqueror and military leader in Greek-influenced Western history books but his legacy looks very different from a Persian perspective. Any visitor to the spectacular ruins of Persepolis - the site of the ceremonial capital of the ancient Persian Achaemenid empire, will be told three facts: it was built by Darius the Great, embellished by his son Xerxes, and destroyed by that man, Alexander. ~~~snip~~~ He razed Persepolis to the ground following a night of drunken excess at the goading of a Greek courtesan, ostensibly in revenge for the burning of the Acropolis...

Senator Inhofe (OK) was on the Senate floor today to give a status update on the opposition to the Law Of the Sea Treaty (LOST). He now has 35 senators who will vote "no" if the treaty comes to a floor vote. This is enough votes to stop the treaty from passing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPS-VsEUZ08&feature=player_embedded The video is 12:46 long and has some interesting information about the treaty and why senators are objecting to it.

The poor relative of Europe contemplates his choices, with just a little help from beyond…... Greco had had a bad year. Well, that’s not entirely true. He’d had several bad years, and they just kept getting worse. In debt up to his eyeballs with a grubber list that no amount of income could ever cover, he had turned to the biggest loan sharks on the continent: He got hundreds of billions from Madame Angela and Slick Nicky, back when Slick Nicky still had a say in the matter. Now that he’s heard of a change in management up at Mob...

During his first week in office President Barrack Obama declared America was no longer a Christian nation. During his 2011 Thanksgiving address to the American people he reflected “how truly lucky we truly are.” Instead of offering thanksgiving to the provision and guidance of the Lord God Almighty, President Obama declared the true meaning of Thanksgiving as “Americans drew strength from each other.” Recently the White House held a two-week early celebration of the Jewish Festival of Lights to “cement America’s support and commitment to the security of Israel.” However, did the President actually use this occasion to once again...

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker resisted pressure from the White House and joined other Republican senators today in blocking President Barack Obama's nominee to lead a new federal agency set up to stop abuses by the financial industry. GOP senators filibustered the nomination of former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray to be director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The 53-45 vote fell short of the 60 votes needed to overcome the GOP opposition and confirm Cordray for the position. The agency was created under the Wall Street reforms Obama signed into law last year and...

“The Imperial Presidency” was written in 1973 out of Arthur Schlesinger’s concern that the U.S. presidency had exceeded its constitutional limitations. If Schlesinger were merely concerned in 1973, he’d be downright terrified today. According to Trevor Loudon’s blog, New Zeal, an American Caesar has emerged on the political landscape in the form of our current commander-in-chief. New Zeal bases its premise on the Presidential Appointment and Streamlining Act (S. 279), which is stampeding through the Senate with Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., clutching at its reins. Since its introduction, seven Republicans jumped on board in support.The stated purpose of the bill is...

Jon Kyl's sudden retirement announcement has set off a domino effect on the ambitions of several Senate Republicans.  When Senator Kyl retires in 2012, he will be vacating the position of Senate (Majority, most likely) Whip, in addition to his Arizona Senate seat.  Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (RINO, TN), the 3rd ranking member in the GOP leadership, has announced that he will seek the Whip position.  Senator John Cornyn, the Chairman of the NRSC, will challenge Alexander for that key leadership role.  Also, if Alexander vacates his current position as Conference chair, there will be a race to succeed him....

WASHINGTON —A radio reporter in the classic movie 'Mr. Smith Goes To Washington' dramatically tells his listeners that filibuster action in the U.S. Senate is 'democracy's finest show.' That might have been true in director Frank Capra's world. But in today's ultra-partisan Washington, the show is in danger of being canceled, or at least cut short. A group of Senate Democrats frustrated by Republicans' success in using the filibuster to thwart President Barack Obama's agenda is pushing for new rules to limit the parliamentary tool, which enables a single senator to hold up a piece of legislation by talking on...

Backroom deals won’t do Tennessee much good if America’s national security is compromised. Tennessee Senators Lamar Alexander (R) and Bob Corker (R) must not have considered national security when they decided to vote in favor of ratifying the dangerous New START Treaty. They also failed to research Russia’s alliance with countries like Iran, China, North Korea and Venezuela. It appears the Tennessee Senators were interested in bringing home the pork at the expense of our nation’s security. Zachary Roth’s December 23rd article states: “It will likely include more than $6 billion dollars for a uranium processing facility, to be built...

But the modernization isn't likely to be carried out in anything like a rational, cost-effective way..... It will likely include more than $6 billion dollars for a uranium processing facility, to be built at the Y-12 weapons compound in Oak Ridge, Tennessee..... Indeed, the states' two GOP senators, Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander, both said that money for modernization -- and therefore, in all likelihood, pork for their district -- was a key condition of their support.

Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander will travel Friday to Delaware to campaign for tea party favorite Christine O'Donnell in her uphill Senate race against Democrat Chris Coons. O'Donnell "will help provide a badly needed check and balance on a runaway federal government that has given us too much spending, too many taxes, too much debt and too many Washington takeovers," the Tennessee Republican said in a statement. Alexander is scheduled to attend an event with O'Donnell in the morning, a Republican operative said, although the location and other details were unclear. Alexander and other top Republicans have been criticized...

SNIPPET: "Four of them - German citizens identified only as Tarek Alexander H., Daniel P., Renee Marc S. and Jonas T. - face charges of supporting al-Qaida, al-Qaida in Iraq and Ansar al-Islam, and membership in a criminal organization. Another four face those charges and additionally are accused of trying to recruit members or supporters for al-Qaida or al-Qaida in Iraq. In keeping with German privacy rules, they were identified only as Harun Can A., Salim Mohammed A. and Vivian S., all German citizens; and Emin T., a Turkish national. The key figure in the founding and organization of the...