Free Republic

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is resisting pressure from Republicans pushing for the Senate to take a more active role to avoid the “fiscal cliff” after House legislation stalled Thursday. Reid has rejected Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) assertion that avoiding the fiscal cliff now depends on President Obama working out a deal with the Senate. Reid’s allies said it is unrealistic to expect him and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to step in and hammer out an eleventh-hour agreement. On Friday, Reid dismissed McConnell’s proposal that he bring to the floor legislation extending tax rates that could be...

Demand for gold coins in the US has soared since the presidential election, as small investors fret about the lack of action to address America’s ballooning debt. The US Mint’s sales of American Eagles, one of the most popular gold coins, leapt 131 per cent in November, hitting their highest level in more than two years. The Royal Canadian Mint also had its strongest month of sales this year. Terry Hanlon, president of metals at Dillon Gage, one of the largest bullion dealers in the country, said sales had risen sharply “within a day or two” of the election. “You’ve...

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas Sunday promised someday the PA flag would fly over “Jerusalem, eternal capital of the state of Palestine.” Thousands of people greeted Abbas rapturously upon his return from the United Nations, where the General Assembly granted the PLO, representing the PA, upgraded status as a nonmember observer state. "Raise your heads high, because you are Palestinians!” Abbas told the joyous crowd, waving PA flags in the PA capital of Ramallah, located in Samaria. "You have proof that you are stronger than the occupation, because you are Palestinians... stronger than the settlements, because you are Palestinians. "We were...

Winning tickets for the record Powerball jackpot worth more than $587 million were purchased in Arizona and Missouri. Missouri Lottery official Susan Goedde confirmed to ABC News this morning that one of the winning tickets was purchased in the state, but they would not be announcing a town until later this morning. Arizona lottery officials said they had no information on that state's winner or winners but would announce where it was sold during a news conference later in the day. The winning numbers for the jackpot were 5, 23, 16, 22 and 29. The Powerball was 6. The jackpot...

In just two quick meetings on Capitol Hill, Susan Rice may have blown up any goodwill she had with the very senators she’ll need for confirmation if she’s ever tapped as the next secretary of state.Over the past two days, four key Republican senators have emerged from private meetings to blast the United Nations ambassador’s explanation about what happened during and after the deadly attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. It’s not clear what Rice said behind closed doors to anger all these senators, but it’s obvious the meetings went badly and this was hardly a nominee-in-waiting charm...

Art Ginsburg, who billed himself as Mr. Food in 90-second televised cooking lessons — attracting nearly four million viewers for each, selling eight million cookbooks and presaging today’s proliferation of celebrity chef shows — died Wednesday at his home in Weston, Fla. He was 81. His family announced his death, which The Associated Press said was caused by pancreatic cancer. Mr. Ginsburg disdained haute cuisine as irrelevant to the lives of hard-pressed working folks in favor of cake mixes and canned soups. His recipes had 10 ingredients at most, and he shared uncountable timesaving tricks. His “anybody can do it”...

GRAY, Maine, Nov 27, 2012 (Bangor Daily News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- So many gun dealers called the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, on Black Friday that the system went down twice and was slowed for those who did get through, Maine gun dealers said Monday. Even with the glitches, a record number of guns were sold on Black Friday all across the country, Stephen G. Fischer Jr., director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, said Monday. "We had an awful time getting through all day, and sometimes we couldn't get...

MARENGO, Ohio — Salvation isn’t automatic — but it might be semiautomatic. In an effort to increase membership, a number of U.S. churches — including the Church of Christ congregation in this rural village 30 miles north of Columbus — are offering an unconventional public service: Concealed weapons training. “Church has done a good job with coffee klatsches or whatever, but we haven’t really reached out to guys,” said Jeff Copley, a preacher at the church. “And guys in Morrow Country, they shoot and they hunt.” Hundreds of students have enrolled in the 10-hour course, which meets the state requirements...

If you really want to understand how to fix something, you first have to take a realistic look at what is wrong with it. After the 2004 election, Howard Dean wondered how the Democrats would reconnect with men who flew Confederate flags and had guns in their pickup trucks. They didn’t, but have since won two presidential elections. After 2008, the GOP was filled with hand-wringing about connecting with minority voters, but it managed to win the greatest congressional swing election in generations in 2010. In the wake of Obama’s re-election, there is a lot of hand-wringing going on in...

It was reported over the weekend that the owner of a gun store in Arizona is telling Pres. Obama's supporters he doesn't want their business. Cope Reynolds, the owner of Southwest Shooting Authority, a gun store located in Pinetop, Arizona, took out a full page ad in a local newspaper that read: "If you voted for Barack Obama your business is not welcome." The New York Daily News reports that Mr. Reynolds also posted a sign on the store's front door: "If you voted for Obama, please turn around and leave! You have proven you are not responsible enough to...

I received this message yesterday. IF this proves to be true, it is impeachable grounds. It also may help explain why Petreaus was forced out a few days before the Benghazi hearings coming up. It explains a lot of behavior by Obama and his administration - the pulled security, the "stand down" orders, and blaming that stupid video. The fireworks are coming. It will be the first of many disasters ahead. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- According to sources in the State Department and the CIA, and intercepted communications from the Muslim Brotherhood, Obama "staged" the attack in Benghazi in order to create a...

FORT PIERCE — A St. Lucie County circuit judge has scheduled a two-hour hearing for Friday on Republican U.S. Rep. Allen West’s request for a recount of all 37,379 ballots cast during early voting in St. Lucie County in his tight reelection fight against Democrat Patrick Murphy. Murphy holds a 0.58 percent lead over West in unofficial returns from congressional District 18, which includes St. Lucie and Martin counties and northern Palm Beach County. West has not conceded, citing errors in St. Lucie County’s initial early vote tally that prompted Secretary of State Ken Detzner to send three officials to...

GILBERT, AZ - A Mesa woman was arrested Saturday after she allegedly chased her husband around a Gilbert parking lot in an SUV during an argument over the presidential election. The woman finally ran over her husband, leaving him with critical injuries. According to a Gilbert police report, the argument started over her husband's lack of voter participation in the recent election. Holly Solomon, 28, apparently believed her family was going to face hardship as a result of President Barack Obama's re-election. Solomon's husband, Daniel Solomon, told police his wife "just hated Obama" and was very angry he was re-elected...

A White House petition gathering force calls for citizenship to be stripped and exile for anyone who signs a petition in favor of a state's secession. "Mr. President, please sign an executive order such that each American citizen who signed a petition from any state to secede from the USA shall have their citizenship stripped and be peacefully deported," the full petition reads. The title of the petition is, "WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO: Strip the Citizenship from Everyone who Signed a Petition to Secede and Exile Them." As of this writing, 2,205 have signed the petition; 22,795 more...

Residents in Missouri and nearly two dozen states have filed petitions on a White House website seeking approval for their state to "withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government." The secession petitions were inspired by President Barack Obama's re-election to a second term. The petitions appear on a section of the White House website called "We the People" that invites users to submit or sign petitions about policy changes they would like to see. If a petition gets 25,000 signatures within a month the White House staff will "review it, ensure it's sent to...

Divided government still rules in the nation’s capital after last week’s Tuesday’s vote, but unity is increasingly the name of the game in cities such as Annapolis, Topeka, Concord and Little Rock. In a little-noticed footnote to last week’s election, state legislature elections this year have produced the highest number of states with one-party rule in 60 years. Democrats or Republicans now have sole control of the governorship and both legislative chambers in 37 state capitals around the country. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), which tracks party representation in the country’s 50 state governments, Democrats now...

My post of this morning was published with a couple of Senate races not finally decided. But the Republican candidates (Rep. Denny Rehberg in Montana and Rep. Rick Berg of North Dakota) have now conceded to the victorious Dems. (incumbent Sen. Jon Tester in Montana and Sen.-elect Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota). This nets out at a two-seat pickup for the Dems and a 55-45 majority heading into 2013 (assuming that, as expected, the Senate's two independents, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen.-elect Angus King of Maine will caucus with the Dems). The net gain is especially impressive since the...

The Interior Department on Friday issued a final plan to close 1.6 million acres of federal land in the West originally slated for oil shale development. The proposed plan would fence off a majority of the initial blueprint laid out in the final days of the George W. Bush administration. It faces a 30-day protest period and a 60-day process to ensure it is consistent with local and state policies. After that, the department would render a decision for implementation. The move is sure to rankle Republicans, who say President Obama’s grip on fossil fuel drilling in federal lands is...

Many things went wrong with Romney's campaign for president, but one of the biggest was the epic failure of the campaign's big-data app for getting out the vote, called Orca. When the campaign needed it most, Orca was beached. Politico has an excellent summary of the problems it says that Orca had. Among them were that the Romney campaign kept it secret and didn't beta-test it before it was rolled out on Election Day. That meant that the people who it was designed for -- the thousands of volunteers across the country -- didn't have a chance to learn how...

Freedom Works has put together a list of companies that will be laying of employees as a result of President Barack Obama's health care law: Welch Allyn Welch Allyn, a company that manufactures medical diagnostic equipment in central New York, announced in September that they would be laying off 275 employees, or roughly 10% of their workforce over the next three years. One of the major reasons discussed for the layoffs was a proactive response to the Medical Device Tax mandated by the new healthcare law. Dana Holding Corp. As recently as a week ago, a global auto parts manufacturing...