Free Republic

When President Obama’s autopen turned the fiscal cliff deal into law, Americans might have thought that the federal government had begun to walk down the road to a balanced budget. But the 157-page American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 is business-as-usual. The backroom deal, chiefly engineered by Vice President Biden, fed the special-interest well while leaving the federal budget in crisis. The final bill includes some $68 billion in favors over the next ten years. The fiscal irresponsibility continues unabated. A look at the energy provisions alone shows why. For starters, the cliff deal renewed the twenty-years-and-counting “temporary” tax credit...

With his usual flair, Donald Trump set the record straight on his feud with Bill Mahr, the Miss Alabama controversy, the recent handling of the fiscal crisis by Congress and the next presidential election, in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. Trump explained that Mahr had appeared on the Jay Leno Show, said that Trump had been “spawned by orangutans” and made an offer of $5 million for Trump to produce his birth certificate. Since the money would go to charity, Trump accepted the offer and produced legal paperwork required to fulfill the obligations. “Why is it that somebody...

Gonna primary these Obama-enabling tools  in 2014 (if any of us are still in the GOP by then) Alabama --- Alaska Young, Donald “Don”Alaska At Large Arizona --- Arkansas Womack, SteveArkansas's 3rd congressional district California Bilbray, BrianCalifornia's 50th congressional district Bono Mack, MaryCalifornia's 45th congressional district Calvert, KenCalifornia's 44th congressional district, Denham, JeffCalifornia's 19th congressional district Dreier, DavidCalifornia's 26th congressional district Gallegly, EltonCalifornia's 24th congressional district Herger, Walter “Wally”California's 2nd congressional district Lungren, Daniel E.California's 3rd congressional district McKeon, Howard “Buck”California's 25th congressional district Miller, GaryCalifornia's 42nd congressional district Royce, Edward “Ed”California's 40th congressional district Colorado --- Connecticut --- Delaware...

Mitch McConnell has many virtues as a legislator. Unfortunately, brokering deals advantageous to Republicans is not one of them. McConnell’s defenders will say that his most recent deal was the best any Republican could do under the circumstances. Perhaps. But this defense ignores the fact that it was McConnell’s prior deal — the one creating the “fiscal cliff” — that established these adverse circumstances. Let’s step back and consider the impact of McConnell’s deals on the valiant effort of House Republicans in 2011 to use the debt-ceiling to attack the debt. So far, the results are as follows: (1) the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Democratic aide says the White House and congressional Republicans have reached an agreement to avert the so-called fiscal cliff.The measure would extend Bush-era tax cuts for family incomes below $450,000 and briefly avert across-the-board spending cuts set to strike the Pentagon and domestic agencies this week.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Monday night that she will present the fiscal cliff deal to House Democrats as soon as it’s approved by the upper chamber. “I understand at the present time, Senate Democrats are meeting with the Vice President,” Pelosi said in a statement. “When a final agreement is reached and passed by the Senate, I will present it to the House Democratic Caucus.”

(Reuters) - The White House and congressional lawmakers have reached a deal to avoid the "fiscal cliff" that would delay harsh spending cuts by two months, Obama administration officials said on Monday. President Barack Obama called Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House of Representatives Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who both signed off on the deal, one source said. The agreement includes a balance of spending cuts and revenue increases to pay for the delay in the automatic spending cuts that would go into effect without a deal by lawmakers.

Stock futures are up. Someone in Congress knows a deal is going to take place. Information already leaked to big players. Futures were down -207 on Dow earlier today and are now up +23. Insider trading taking place. These guys are really slick.

The term fiscal cliff has hit the airwaves, print media, business reports, and articles. Not a minute goes by without these two words being thrown at the listener. But how many people really understand where the expression started and how it became so popular? “Judging by media coverage, the so-called ‘fiscal cliff’ is the only thing driving the U.S. stock market these days. Unfortunately, a lot of the coverage is either alarmist, erroneous, or focused solely on the daily (or even hourly) micro-developments in the story,” a Dec. 4 article on the Motley Fool website states. The expression “Fiscal Cliff”...

<p>All at once, a “fiscal cliff” deal seems to be coming together. Speaker John Boehner’s latest offer doesn’t go quite far enough for the White House to agree, but it goes far enough that many think they can see the agreement taking shape.</p>

Obama: 'I'll do whatever it takes' for budget dealBy Amie Parnes - 11/28/12 07:57 PM ET President Obama on Wednesday ramped up his sales pitch for Congress to accept a budget deal that includes tax increases on the wealthiest Americans, offering a stark warning to lawmakers that it’s “too important to screw this up.” During brief remarks at the White House to a group of middle-class voters, Obama sought to push his proposal to extend tax rates only on households with annual income of $250,000 or less before those rates expire at the end of the year. Obama, who will...

Everyone came away from the initial summit meeting between Obama, Boehner and Reid with big smiles and a public air of confidence that Friday's kumbaya moment would lead to The Big Deal. Call me a cynic, but I'm still not buying it. Yesterday, AP touched on a part of this story, tossing out some ideas about how everyone --- particularly Democrats ... might walk away with relatively clean hands if no deal is reached on the fiscal cliff this year. It's all true, but for some of us there's a bit more to the story. The Democrats, for their part,...

British Prime Minister David Cameron and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond met today in Edinburgh to sign the agreement under which the British government consents to allow Scotland's independence referendum to go ahead. A 3-1 trade paved the way for the agreement. Cameron and Salmond had to cut through four disagreements that were blocking a deal. The opponents of Scottish Independence wanted the referendum to be limited to one question: Would Scotland's remain part of Great Britain or go independent. Alex Salmond wanted a fallback option in case he lost the independence vote by posing a second question, popularly dubbed...

Putin Says Missile Deal Is More Likely With ObamaBy DAVID M. HERSZENHORN Published: September 6, 2012 VLADIVOSTOK, Russia — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia sauntered into American presidential politics on Thursday, praising President Obama as “a very honest man” and chastising the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, for describing Russia as “without question our No. 1 geopolitical foe.” **SNIP** Mr. Putin said he believed that if Mr. Obama is re-elected in November, a compromise could be reached on the contentious issue of American plans for a missile defense system in Europe, which Russia has strongly opposed.

The House will have just eight legislative workdays in September, and at least one of them will now be spent taking up a stopgap spending bill to fund the government past the election and through what is expected to be an extraordinarily hectic lame-duck session. The chamber will not take up a continuing resolution bill this week, according to aides, but House and Senate leaders are expected to announce as early as Tuesday afternoon that they have reached an informal agreement to take up a roughly six-month continuing resolution when they return from the August recess.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. tomato growers on Monday said they have formally asked the U.S. Commerce Department to tear up a pricing agreement with Mexican producers that they say has become "a charade." Reggie Brown, executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Exchange, told Reuters U.S. producers want the pact voided so they can file a new anti-dumping complaint against Mexico. The rare request comes in a dispute that dates back to 1996, when U.S. industry filed a petition accusing Mexican producers of selling in the United States at unfairly low prices. Brown said the Commerce Department found that Mexican...

The Department of Justice told Republican House leadership in a Tuesday letter that it hopes to reach an agreement with congressional overseers on how much information about Operation Fast and Furious it is required to hand over. Congressional Republicans have threatened to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for not fully complying with a 22-part subpoena served last October. The letter comes amid reports that House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa has obtained evidence proving that senior Justice Department officials approved Operation Fast and Furious gunwalking tactics. The Justice Department letter was in response to a...

The $50 billion General Motors (GM) bailout was a Democrat Crony Socialist nightmare. The Obama Administration illegally over-rewarded its union friendsand destroyed Republican-enemy auto dealers, to name but two facets of the titanic debacle. We the Taxpayers are still out $30+ billion on the auto bailout. Meanwhile, GM is cutting even more Crony Socialist deals. General Motors told the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today that it failed to report a $600,000 deal given to an ad agency where the wife of GM's chief financial officer is a partner. In a filing GM said it had "recently learned about" a...

MK Danny Danon (Likud) on Monday slammed a deal signed Monday between Israel's Shin Bet and hunger-striking Arab security prisoners being held on suspicion of terrorism. "This deal is a serious mistake," Danon said. "Rather than making things harder on the terrorists, they give them gifts." "The situation of security prisoners must be clear: no family visits, no special benefits, and key prisoners must be confined seperately," he added. "We would not allow a Hizbullah prisoner visits, and there is no reason to give Hamas prisoners visits," he said. "Both deny the existence of Israel." Danon told Arutz Sheva he...

A Palestinian Authority lawmaker says a deal has been reached with Israel to end a hunger strike by Arab prison inmates. The announcement confirmed a statement made earlier in the day by the Hamas terrorist organization that an agreement was in the process of being formulated. Hundreds of prisoners agreed Monday to end their strike after concessions were agreed to by the two sides, according to PA Minister for Prisoner Affairs Issa Qaraqe, who spoke with reporters. The agreement, brokered by Egyptian mediators, was reached at a prison in Ashkelon, with representatives of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and...