Free Republic

County leaders are hopeful that the $1 trillion infrastructure investment promised by Republican president-elect Donald Trump will have a big impact on the region. Trump has promised to prioritize infrastructure spending in his first 100 days in office. The move is one that Democrats, now in minority positions in both houses of Congress, have said they're willing to support. The plan, which is not yet fully fleshed out, looks to rely heavily on billions of dollars of infrastructure tax credits to private entities. And while Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen warned recently that weighing down the national debt with...

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is pitching himself for the role of the next speaker of the House and says he’s the leader who will know how to pick his battles — and bring everyone to the table. McCarthy laid out his vision for the speakership Tuesday in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead,” saying he wouldn’t shy away from a fight, but he wouldn’t enter one that was futile. “I’m willing to fight but I want to fight to win,” McCarthy said when asked about the call by some Republicans to force a government shutdown fight...

Administration officials showed senators video of Bergdahl to support claims that his health was failing. The Obama administration gave senators a classified briefing Wednesday night on just what thinking went into the prisoner trade to recover Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from Afghanistan. But that won't end questions from Congress. "This gentleman needs to be looked into, quite extensively," said Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., following the briefing, referring to questions about whether Bergdahl deserted the military. During the classified briefing, senators were shown a roughly minute-and-a-half-long "proof of life" video of Bergdahl, which the Taliban had provided, in which the soldier "didn't...

Borrowing a page from Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer’s investigation of how elected officials funnel taxpayer dollars to projects that increase the value of properties they own, the Washington Post has conducted a study revealing that 33 members of Congress earmarked more than $300 million for projects within two miles of land they own...

In 2007, both of Michigan's senators and seven of the House of Representative members currently serving voted to raise the federal minimum wage. However, all nine of these elected officials offer unpaid internships for their congressional offices. This information comes on the heels of an Obama administration announcement this past spring that the Department of Labor would begin cracking down on unpaid internships offered by private businesses. The department seeks to eliminate unpaid internships for nearly all for-profit companies. Some believe this is a sign of hypocrisy by these members of congress and that there is value in unpaid internships....

Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-GA) issued the following statement after offering a resolution on the floor of the House of Representatives calling on Congress not to hold a lame duck session after Election Day for the purpose of passing hugely unpopular legislation like a national energy tax, enormous deficit spending bills, and the kickback to Big Labor known as “Card Check.” “Americans are sick and tired of their elected leaders making backroom deals to ram through unpopular, 2000-page bills that no one has read,” said Chairman Price. “They are sick of out-of-touch politicians, and they are tired of...

In today’s Queens Chronicle, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) attacked NLPC as “a right-wing, inside-the-Beltway organization with an explicitly stated partisan agenda.” As evidence, Meeks claimed that I  “served as a top advisor to Mitt Romney during his presidential campaign.” The only problem is that Meeks got the wrong Peter Flaherty. Maybe Meeks should learn how to aim before he fires. Or at least learn how to use Google. The Peter Flaherty who advised Romney is a principal in the Shawmut Group in Boston. He is a former assistant District Attorney in Suffolk County, and served as Vice-President of Walden Media,...

Disgraced CEO Richard Fuld, who oversaw the demise of venerable Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc that helped tip the credit crunch into a full-blown crisis, will testify at a congressional hearing next week. Rep. Henry Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has called Fuld and former chief executives of insurer American International Group Inc to appear at hearings into the financial excesses that led to the collapse of the companies. "Lax oversight and reckless investments on Wall Street are causing massive disruption throughout our economy," Waxman said in a statement on...

This is a compilation of some recent House polls: *AL2, (R) Jay Love 56%, (D) Bobby Bright 39%, (date, Aug. 39) *NM1, (D) Martin Heinrich 51%, (R) Darren White 46% (date, 8/26) MN3, (R) Derek Paulsen 44%, (D) Ashwin Madia, 41% (date, 8/26) *FL21, (D) Raul Martinez, 48%, (R) Lincoln Diaz-Balart, 46% (date, 8/27) *PA10, (D) Chris Carney 49%, (R) Chris Hacket 45%, (date 8/26)

At Hearing, Official EIB Clown Attacks Official EIB ClimatologistJuly 22, 2008 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: The official climatologist of the EIB Network, Dr. Roy Spencer, a brilliant independent climatologist and scientist, former NASA, he's now at University of Alabama at Huntsville, testified before Senator Boxer's committee on climate change research, and they had the following exchange. SPENCER: In conclusion, I am predicting today that the theory that mankind is mostly responsible for global warming will slowly fade away in the coming years, as will the warming itself, and I trust you would agree, Madam Chair, that such a result deserves to...

Common delusions notwithstanding, the United States, I submit, is not a democracy—by which is meant a system in which the will of the people prevails. Rather it is a curious mechanism artfully designed to circumvent the will of the people while appearing to be democratic. Several mechanisms accomplish this. First, we have two identical parties which, when elected, do very much the same things. Thus the election determines not policy but only the division of spoils. Nothing really changes. The Democrats will never seriously reduce military spending, nor the Republicans, entitlements. Second, the two parties determine on which questions we...

What do Connecticut voters have in common with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid? Ample reason to be frustrated with Sen. Christopher J. Dodd. During the last week of June, Sen. Reid publicly complained that presidential candidates were missing so many votes that Senate business was being impeded. The worst offender was Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who had missed 117 of 226 recorded floor votes as of mid-June. Among Democrats, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware was the worst offender, missing 62 votes. Right after Sen. Biden on the dishonor roll was Sen. Dodd with 59 no-shows. If opinion surveys in...

Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 500 employees and has the following statistics: 29 have been accused of spousal abuse 7 have been arrested for fraud 19 have been accused of writing bad checks 117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses 3 have done time for assault 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit 14 have been arrested on drug related charges 8 have been arrested for shop lifting 21 are currently defendants in law suits 84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year...