Free Republic

(CNSNews.com) - Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D.-Ill.), who is the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate after Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.), praised Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) willingness to work on entitlement reform, saying on the Senate floor Wednesday, “I don’t disagree with Paul Ryan saying we have got to look honestly at Medicare.” In this context, Durbin pointed to what he described as a need to "reduce the costs" of the program.

(CNSNews.com) – Black Americans are the most religious in the United States, according to a newly released Gallup Poll. In a daily tracking survey released July 1, Gallup found that 53 percent of black Americans were identified as being “very religious,” with 33 percent saying they were “moderately religious.” That stands in contrast to the 39 percent of white Americans who said they were “very religious” and the 26 percent who said they were “moderately religious.” Only 13 percent of blacks said they were “nonreligious,” versus 34 percent of whites.

Washington (CNSNews.com) – White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on Tuesday deflected questions about a botched ATF sting operation that allowed guns to “walk” to Mexico, but he did tell reporters, “You could assume that the president takes this very seriously.” As part of “Operation Fast and Furious,” the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives knowingly allowed some 2,000 guns purchased in the U.S. to flow to Mexican criminals – to see where they would end up. But ATF lost track of many of the weapons. Two of the “straw-purchased” guns were later found in Arizona, at the scene...

(CNSNews.com) – President Obama’s nominee to a top State Department post is one of the few American diplomats to have met North Korea’s Kim Jong-il, whom she later described as “smart, capable and supremely confident.” Wendy Sherman traveled to Pyongyang in 2000 in her capacity as counselor to then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Visiting South Korea four years later – when she was no longer in government – Sherman had positive things to say about the reclusive Stalinist leader. “He’s not a lunatic, nor is he psychiatrically ill, but he has an inflated sense of power,” Seoul’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper...

(CNSNews.com) – North Korea’s appointment to the rotating presidency of the U.N.-linked Conference on Disarmament raised eyebrows Wednesday, but it is just the latest in a series of jarring appointments at the United Nation’s various agencies. The Conference on Disarmament (CD) position in Geneva comes because North Korea -- under its official name, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea -- is next up in the alphabetical rotation for the presidency, which changes hands among the CD’s 65 member-states six times a year. The custom applies irrespective of a member state’s actual record on promoting the CD’s agenda, which covers weapons of...

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has been in the U.S. Senate for six months, and he says nothing is getting done. Therefore, he is leading a Republican call for the Senate to work through its scheduled Fourth of July recess. “I’ve been here six months and trust me, the Senate is fiddling while America is going bankrupt," Johnson said. "The fact that anyone would even consider recessing at this point in time is absurd. If we let that happen, we’d be guilty of willful neglect. It’s time to get serious about the most urgent problem facing our nation today....

(CNSNews.com) – Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) met with other Republican senators on Wednesday to explain why they are pushing for a balanced budget amendment in their negotiations with Democrats over increasing the federal debt limit, which currently is $14.29 trillion, stressing that the primary “threat to our country is the national debt.” At the Capitol, Paul said, “Our country is in grave danger. The number one threat to our country is the national debt. “I firmly believe we will not ever surmount our fiscal problems until we amend the Constitution,” said Paul. “We must have a balanced budget amendment, and...

(CNSNews.com) – At the urging of homosexuals gathered at the White House on Wednesday, President Barack Obama praised gay “spouses” in his speech marking lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender “Pride Month.” “We’ve got community leaders here. We've got grassroots organizers,” Obama told the gathering in the East Room of the White House. “We've got some incredible young people who are just doing great work all across the country -- folks who are standing up against discrimination, and for the rights of parents and children and partners and students.” At that point, someone in the audience shouted, “and spouses.” Obama concurred:...

(CNSNews.com) – Although Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has championed women’s rights from Azerbaijan to Zambia, it took her weeks to respond to an appeal to publicly support a campaign by Saudi women to be permitted to drive. Even then, her comments on Tuesday came not of her own initiative, but in response to a question at a press availability – and after Saudi women activists and journalists had questioned her public silence on the subject. In her answer, Clinton signaled once again the Obama administration’s sensitivity about the U.S. being seen to be preaching change to a non-Western culture...

From the Washington Times: U.S. Agriculture Department officials have asked the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees all federal employee policies, to impose its intense brand of homosexual sensitivity training on all federal departments, according to an internal newsletter. The training includes a discussion of “heterosexism” -- the belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman -- and compares it to racism. If accepted by the Obama administration, that move could mean more sessions for military service members already undergoing gay-sensitivity training. The Washington Times says the push for the training is coming from Agriculture Secretary...

(CNSNews.com) – NBC apologized for omitting the words “under God” and “indivisible” from the Pledge of Allegiance during Sunday’s U.S. Open, but the incident has touched off calls for NBC to hold those responsible for the omission accountable. During the opening broadcast of the U.S. Open, NBC showed a montage that included children reciting the pledge, but the words “under God” and “indivisible” were omitted twice. The network received immediate backlash about the incident through social media, including tweets calling for a boycott of NBC. “We began our coverage of this final round just about three hours ago, and when...

(CNSNews.com) – Top House Democrats are going on the offensive against business consulting firm McKinsey & Company over a study the company conducted that found that significant numbers of employers would stop offering health insurance due to Obamacare’s mandates. The McKinsey study found that 30 percent of employers would “definitely or probably” stop offering their employees health insurance due to Obamacare’s minimum coverage mandate for employers with 50 or more employees. That finding is at odds with other studies conducted by the CBO, Rand Corporation, and Urban Institute that all suggested a much smaller effect on employer-provided insurance.

(CNSNews.com) – The outgoing U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan warned Sunday that the American people are growing weary of being viewed as “occupiers” by the leaders of a country where so much American blood has been spilled. Karl Eikenberry’s candid and impassioned remarks came a day after President Hamid Karzai in a televised speech accused U.S.-led foreign troops of being in the country “for their own national interests.” On Sunday, Karzai met with Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi – on the first ever official visit by Iran’s top defense official – and the two discussed problems arising from “the presence of...

(CNSNews.com) – A standing ovation and cries of “Run, Rick, Run” greeted Texas Gov. Rick Perry following his campaign-like speech to a gathering of conservatives in New Orleans on Saturday. Addressing the Republican Leadership Conference, Perry wasted no time in criticizing the Obama administration for believing that government is the answer to every need and is most qualified to make essential decisions for individual Americans. “That mix of arrogance and audacity that guides the Obama administratino is an affront to every freedom loving American and a threat to every private sector job in this country.”

(CNSNews.com) – The Department of Health and Human Services has granted a total of 1,372 waivers from ObamaCare insurance mandates since the law’s enactment, according to a new Government Accountability Office report. The waivers are for so-called mini-med plans that offer annual coverage limits. They were outlawed by ObamaCare and are scheduled to be regulated out of existence in 2014. However, such plans are often the only form of health insurance available to workers and without the waivers most would no longer be available.

(CNSNews.com) - Louis Fisher, a scholar in residence at the Constitution Project who served for 40 years as a constitutional law expert at the Library of Congress, says Americans and members of Congress should understand that President Barack Obama committed a “very grave offense” against the Constitution in taking military action in Libya without congressional authorization. “I am not going to recommend that the House Judiciary Committee hold impeachment hearings, but I would like members of Congress and the public to say that nothing would be more impeachable than a President who takes the country to war without coming to...

(CNSNews.com) – Amid continuing calls to reduce U.S. funding of the United Nations, two senior Obama administration officials this week gave speeches asserting the importance of full – and fully-paid up – engagement with the world body. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice addressed the United Nations Association of the United States (UNA-USA) on Monday, urging the advocacy group to help the administration make the case to the American people that “the U.N. plays an indispensable role in advancing our interests and defending our values.” On Wednesday Esther Brimmer, the assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, took...

(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D.-Texas) likened "Christian militants" to Islamic radicals in a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday, suggesting they posed a comparable threat to the rule of law in the United States. At the same hearing, a witness told the committee that the conversion of U.S. prison inmates to radical Islam is an “evolving threat” to national security. Michael Downing, the head of counter-terrorism and special operations at the Los Angeles Police Department, was one of three witnesses who testified at the hearing on Muslim radicalization called by Rep. Peter King, a New...

(CNSNews.com) - A Republican lawmaker is trying to protect taxpayers from what he calls fraudulent racial discrimination claims filed against the government by black farmers. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) on Wednesday filed an amendment to an Agriculture appropriations bill that would prevent any additional taxpayer money from being used to settle claims associated with the government's "fraud-plagued Pigford II program." The money, King said, “is being used primarily to build political goodwill for the President.” As CNSNews.com previously reported, the USDA allegedly discriminated against black farmers in dispensing federally funded farm loans between 1981 and 1996. In 1999, the federal...

Washington (CNSNews.com) - House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Congress needs to raise the federal debt limit above its current $14.29 trillion limit regardless of whether spending cuts are made in the federal budget. At a pen and pad meeting with reporters on Tuesday, Hoyer said, “I hope we can reach an agreement [with Republicans] on the fiscal restraints and bringing the [budget] deficit and the [national] debt down -- the debt being long-term, deficits being short-term," said Hoyer. “If we can’t, I think we need to increase the debt [limit] in any event because America is going [to]...