Free Republic

IMMIGRATION BILL THIS YEAR: Obama to begin looking for illegal immigrants to become legal, NY TIMES planning to lead in Page Ones on Thursday, newsrooms sources tell DRUDGE... Developing...

The Obama administration acknowledged Thursday that the as-yet-unnamed Census Bureau director will have a direct line to the White House but sought to define the relationship as one in which the director would “work closely with” rather than report to President Obama’s senior staff. ***After black and Hispanic leaders raised concerns over Commerce Secretary-nominee Judd Gregg ’s commitment to core functions of the Census Bureau, a senior White House official told CQ on Wednesday that the director would report directly to the White House.*** That brought fire Thursday from Republicans, who accused the White House of attempting to gain advantage...

Senate Republicans on Friday blocked a plan by Democrats to pump $56 billion in government spending into the economy through public works projects, help for the jobless and money for states struggling with their Medicaid bills. The 52-42 tally fell well short of the 60 votes needed to defeat a GOP filibuster. The White House promised a veto anyway, saying the measure would not work and would cost too much. The House was expected to have better luck with a companion $61 billion House plan later in the day.

A casual encounter sparked a controversy over the methods of the Democratic National Committee. Several women say they saw volunteers offering to pay people to register to vote.

Examples of lawmakers who have sponsored earmarks for private companies and received campaign contributions from them and, in some cases, their lobbyists: _Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, a member of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, obtained a $2.4 million earmark last year for the Greentree Group of Beavercreek, Ohio, for a digital information sharing system. Greentree Group executives, their families and consultants have donated $43,350 to Hobson since 2000, reports The Columbus Dispatch. _Rep. Peter Visclosky, D-Ind., a member of House defense appropriations subcommittee, sponsored a $2 million earmark to 21st Century Systems last year for a virtual fence demonstration project....

When it comes to running the economy, no-one could ever accuse Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez of being a hostage to conventional wisdom. With the country's most recent statistics showing consumer price rises of 29.1% in the 12 months to the end of March - the highest rate of increase in Latin America - now might not be the best time for inflation-busting pay deals. But on 1 May, Mr Chavez gave public sector workers an across-the-board salary increase of 30%. He said maintaining people's purchasing power was a more pressing priority than getting inflation down. At the same time, he...

In the threadbare border towns of South Texas, one of the country’s poorest regions, enterprising locals like Candelaria Espinoza have long been paid to round up votes for candidates on Election Day. There is even a name for these electoral soldiers of fortune: politiqueras. So when Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign arrived in South Texas in February seeking an edge in its uphill battle against Senator Barack Obama, Ms. Espinoza was happy to oblige, for a price. The campaign paid her and seven other members of her family $100 to $200 each to knock on doors, deliver fliers and...

DNC Superdelegate Puts His Vote Up For Sale Steven Ybarra Wants $20 Million For His Vote SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CBS13) ― In this tight battle for the Democratic nomination we've heard a lot about the candidates courting superdelegates. But, one superdelegate is courting the candidates. He says he'll sell his vote for a price. A very high price: $20 million. Steven Ybarra of Sacramento says that eight-figure price is peanuts for the presidency.

Fourteen months into a campaign that has the feel of a movement, Sen. Barack Obama has collided with the gritty political traditions of Philadelphia, where ward bosses love their candidates, but also expect them to pay up. The dispute centers on the dispensing of "street money," a long-standing Philadelphia ritual in which candidates deliver cash to the city's Democratic operatives in return for getting out the vote. Flush with payments from well-funded campaigns, the ward leaders and Democratic Party bosses typically spread out the cash in the days before the election, handing $10, $20 and $50 bills to the foot...

Why Rescues Don't Work By Paul Tustain "...Just like natural organisms, the financial system must have death to evolve into a better form..." NOW THAT HE'S wearing some sort of do-good government hat, even Hank Paulson is not thinking straight.Regulate in New York and finance goes to Toronto. Regulate in London, it goes to Frankfurt or Paris - and since Toronto, Frankfurt and Paris are run by the same nervous bureaucrat-types, we can reckon soon enough that the entire financial markets will be hosted out of Singapore and Shanghai.There they will accept the risks as well as the rewards,...

College Junior Breakfasts With Chelsea Clinton 21-Year-Old Wisconsin Super Delegate Gets Face Time With Former First Daughter Noooo Chelsea is not being Pimped Out!Check out the young virgin's Wikipedia page!

The fate of $600-$1,200 rebate checks for more than 100 million Americans is in limbo after Senate Republicans blocked a bid by Democrats to add $44 billion in help for the elderly, disabled veterans, the unemployed and businesses to the House-passed economic aid package. GOP senators banded together Wednesday to thwart the $205 billion plan, leaving Democrats with a difficult choice either to quickly accept a House bill they have said is inadequate or risk being blamed for delaying a measure designed as a swift shot in the arm for the lagging economy. The tally was 58-41 to end debate...

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (Reuters) - Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton courted female voters on Tuesday with a plan to expand paid family leave, boost child-care funding and fight workplace discrimination against pregnant women. In a speech peppered with anecdotes from raising her 27-year-old daughter Chelsea, the former first lady who would be America's first woman president said her plan would cost $1.75 billion a year and be paid for by shutting down certain kinds of tax shelters without expanding the deficit. "The struggle to balance family and work can be simply overwhelming," the New York senator told a gathering of about...

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, noncitizens who legally obtained New York State driver’s licenses have been given licenses stamped “temporary visitor” along with the date their visa expired. No longer. The Spitzer administration three weeks ago quietly eliminated the state policy that required the special identification stamp on the driver’s licenses for noncitizens who are legally, though temporarily, residing in the United States. The policy change also eliminated the accompanying expiration date that was intended to show when the person’s legal right to be in the United States ended — raising the chance that a valuable form...

Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign gets kookier by the day. On Tuesday, she abandoned her widely ridiculed "baby bonds" in favor of a plan, funded by robbing the graves of "the rich," to give Americans earning less than $100,000 a year a 401(k), into which the government would deposit up to $1,000 annually. She apparently figured out babies don't vote. On Monday, she declared Sandy Berger would have "no official role" in her campaign. Her statement was meant to deflect criticism of her naming Mr. Berger as her unofficial, unpaid foreign-policy adviser. But his record of foreign-policy blunders is scary....

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 — Democrats and their allies mapped out a strategy on Friday that they hoped would enable them to override President Bush’s expected veto of a bipartisan bill providing health insurance for 10 million children, most of them in low-income families. Democratic leaders said they would highlight the contrast between the president’s request for large sums of money for the Iraq war and his opposition to smaller sums for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as Schip. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, said, “It’s ironic that in the very same week that the president says he’s...

WASHINGTON — Democratic lawmakers persisted Thursday in their efforts to persuade President Bush to set aside his veto threat of a large spending increase for a children's health insurance program. The Senate is expected later in the day to vote for a $35 billion increase in funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program, a federal-state partnership that subsidizes health coverage for low-income families.

A Californian who set up a vote-swapping Web site for supporters of Ralph Nader and Al Gore in 2000, before the state shut it down with a threat of prosecution, said Tuesday he may try again next year now that a federal appeals court has ruled that online vote-trading agreements are constitutionally protected. It all depends, Jim Cody said, on a candidacy by Nader or some other third-party hopeful that might siphon away enough votes from the Democratic nominee to tip the scales to a Republican in one or more states. His short-lived Vote Swap2000.com was meant to counteract that...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WHBQ The FOX13 I-Team has discovered an undercover investigation into voting fraud in North Mississippi. The Mississippi Attorney General is trying to find out who's buying people's votes in Benton County

I watched the Democrat debate yesterday evening, not so much to learn something new, but because I have the innate curse of enjoying political speeches, even if those speeches grind against the very pit of my soul in both substance and concept. The majority of the debate uncovered no real surprises, but one particular answer to a question about drug testing sticks in my mind. The answer that Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd gave to a question about drug testing welfare recipients strikes hard at the very nature of the rampant disability and aggressive disease that infects the modern Democrat party,...