Free Republic

Matheson again fights automatic pay hike By Lee Davidson Deseret News Published: Dec. 29, 2008 12:00 a.m. Despite the country's economic meltdown, Congress is about to receive an automatic $4,700 pay raise on Thursday — a 2.8 percent increase over the current $169,300 salary for most members. Rep. Jim Matheson says that is unconscionable, and he's vowing to renew his annual fight to stop such automatic raises. He says the bad economy might just help him win this year, and a government watchdog group is joining his battle to say the raise is a bad idea in such times.

As the holiday season commences, it’s worth taking stock of the last gift that President George W. Bush and the 110th Congress have left for U.S. taxpayers. It’s a package of about $8.7 trillion dollars’ worth of potential taxpayer commitments for loans, guarantees and other bailout goodies for businesses and distressed homeowners. Amid the tissue paper: • More than $1.5 trillion in Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. loan guarantees, including a $139 billion assist to the lending arm of General Electric Corp. • $1.8 trillion in cash, tax breaks and loan guarantees doled out from the Treasury Department to taxpayers, financial...

BANGKOK, Dec 3 (Reuters) - The Bank of Thailand surprised markets by cutting interest rates by a full point on Wednesday, saying the economic damage wrought by political unrest and the global downturn triggered its first easing since mid-2007. A rapid retreat in inflation in recent months made it easier for the central bank to slash rates by the biggest margin in over eight years to help the economy, hit by anti-government protests that culminated in an eight-day siege of Bangkok's main airports. "The political problem is having quite a severe impact on the economy," BoT Assistant Governor Duangmanee Vongpradhip...

(IsraelNN.com) Vice President-elect Joe Biden has appointed former Clinton administration aide Ran Klain as his chief of staff, one week after President-elect Barack Obama tapped Clinton aide Rahm Emanuel to head the White House as chief of staff. Both appointees are Jewish, but while Emanuel is an observant Jew, Klain intermarried more than 20 years ago and his family observes Christmas. Klain, like Emanuel, promoted the Oslo Peace Accords, which eventually exploded into the Oslo War that has been raging since September, 2000. Emanuel choreographed the handshake between Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin and Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn...

Generous congressional retirement benefits are turning former lawmakers into pension millionaires. Some want to change this. But will they create a true "citizen's Congress," or just a rich person's club? By most standards, Colorado's Pat Schroeder and Pennsylvania's Robert Walker have had long and productive careers representing their constituents in the US House of Representatives. Schroeder, a Democrat, is Congress's leading advocate for women in combat, and was an early coauthor of the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act. Walker, a Republican, has chaired the House Science Committee in the 104th Congress and is a key deputy to Speaker Newt...

TRUJILLO ALTO, Puerto Rico — Back roads, gorges and garbage dumps on this tropical island are littered with the decaying carcasses of dogs and cats. An Associated Press investigation reveals why: possibly thousands of unwanted animals have been tossed off bridges, buried alive and otherwise inhumanely disposed of by taxpayer-financed animal control programs. Witnesses who spoke with the AP said that, despite pledges to deliver adoptable strays to shelters and humanely euthanize the rest, the island's leading private animal control companies generally did neither.

Do you think noncitizens should serve on government boards? Yes No I don't know

(IsraelNN.com) The Hevron Jewish Community has released a sharp, detailed report accusing the Israeli Government of breach of trust, abuse, and hostility towards the Jewish owners of Arab-stolen property in the City of the Patriarchs. Entitled "The State of Israel's Management of the Stolen Jewish Property in Hevron," the report was issued this month in honor of the 78th anniversary of the Hevron massacre. In August 1929, Arabs brutally murdered 67 of their Jewish neighbors in their homes and in the local yeshiva. The Jewish survivors were then removed from Hevron, leaving behind their homes and land to be stolen...

Hello California, I have sent messages to the Governor for a private meeting. This is a request to discuss several issues. One of the most important issues is the vote of the troops that are deployed. As the Director of Military Outreach for Move America Forward, I have many contacts from the Troops. They now have issues that their votes have not been counted, or that their votes come too late in the process. For the left, this is good news. They do not want to hear from the troops and support for this war,which is a vote against defeat....

Should the government initiate steps to close the 'wealth gap' in America? Yes No Not Sure

A STATEMENT FROM THE GOVERNOR -- June 22, 2006 The following is a statement from Governor Tim Pawlenty regarding the full-page ad in today’s Star Tribune from the “Growth & Justice” think tank calling for a $2 billion per year tax increase. “After decades of struggle, we are proud to have moved Minnesota out of the top ten in taxes. We now have budget surpluses and double digit revenue growth to the state. We are not undertaxed and will be able to fund our key priorities like education without raising taxes. “Having read the names of those who signed the...

HOUSTON - The government bore down on Enron Corp. as it would the Mafia, intimidating top lieutenants into pointing fingers at their bosses because someone had to pay for crimes that preceded the company's stunning collapse, the lawyer for former Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling said Tuesday. "This was all manufactured after the fact," Daniel Petrocelli declared in an impassioned plea for jurors to acquit his client of all 28 fraud and conspiracy counts against him. "Because it's Enron. After all, somebody has to pay. It's Enron." In a searing closing argument, Petrocelli sought to drive home the defense theme that...

JERUSALEM - Israel said Tuesday that it holds the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority responsible for the deadliest suicide bombing in nearly two years and debated whether to target it directly as an "enemy entity" — even though the attack was carried out by a different militant group. Monday's blast outside a packed Tel Aviv fast-food restaurant killed nine civilians and wounded dozens during the Jewish Passover holiday, and troop reinforcements were deployed across Israel for fear of more attacks. The 21-year-old bomber, a West Bank university dropout, was sent by the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad group. Israel's U.N. ambassador, Dan Gillerman, warned...

WASHINGTON - From Iraq reconstruction to Hurricane Katrina, poor contracting oversight enables Alaska Native corporations to capitalize on multimillion-dollar no-bid deals at a potential cost to taxpayers and small businesses, a federal audit says. A report by the Government Accountability Office, obtained Tuesday, indicates gaps in the overseeing of federal contracts, which have boomed in recent years in part due to provisions backed by Sen. Ted Stevens (news, bio, voting record), R-Alaska. The review of 16 no-bid contracts found that administration agencies routinely picked Alaskan firms — which can be designated legally as "small and disadvantaged," regardless of their size...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Nearly five years ago, the U.S. government exerted high-profile diplomatic pressure on China to secure the return of scholar Gao Zhan, a researcher at American University whom Beijing believed was a spy for Taiwan. Now, the Department of Homeland Security is pushing with equal vigor to have her deported back to China. Gao's case, set for a hearing Monday on the latest twist, became international news in February 2001 when she and her family were arrested by the Chinese on suspicion of espionage. Her husband, Xue Donghua, and the couple's 5-year-old son were released after a month...

State, Justice Will Appear at MPAC, Causing Concern BY MEGHAN CLYNE - Staff Reporter of the Sun December 16, 2005 WASHINGTON - Outrage and puzzlement are mounting over the Bush administration's participation this weekend in the fifth annual convention of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, to be headlined by a vociferous administration critic and a former ambassador to Iraq, Joseph Wilson. The convention also will include leaders of MPAC who have made statements considered by many to be anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, and to be supportive of the terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah. "It's really regrettable, because it sends the wrong...

Proposals to allow doctors to help some terminally ill patients to die have been submitted for consideration by the House of Lords. Lord Joffe's bill is modelled around Oregon's Death with Dignity Act. Since its introduction in 1994 over 200 people have used the law to hasten their death. Nora Nicolaidas is settling up. She has put her house on the market, the childcare she performed for her daughter for the last four years has now passed to a minder, and all her bills are paid. But it is not her home town of Portland Oregon she is settling accounts...

More sites banned, overhaul of filtering system planned Reporters Without Borders today accused the Iranian government of seeking to increase its control of the Internet in recent measures that have included contracting an Iranian company, Delta Global, to set up a new online censorship system. While developing a woefully oppressive model of Internet management, Iran is participating actively in international talks about Internet governance that are being held as part of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the press organisation said. “These new measures point to an ideological hardening in the Iranian government and a desire by the...

Pentagon says it won't spy on 'innocent' Americans, but critics say past record shows this is false. Claiming it needs greater latitude for the war on terror, the US Senate Intelligence Committee has approved a request from the Pentagon for the right to "covertly" gather intelligence on US citizens in order to determine whether they can recruit them as informants, without telling them that they are doing so on behalf of the US government. Reuters reported Friday that the Pentagon said the measure, which is aimed at the Muslim community in the US, could help them fight insurgencies in Iraq...

In Muslim nations that go to the ballot box, such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh, extremist political parties get crushed by voters. Those extremists are not able to earn more than a small per cent of the vote. Most people want good government, the electricity to work, the trains to run on time, low crime and so forth. The people are wise, and with a proper outlet to let that wisdom flow to government, superior outcomes prevail. Voters choose secular political parties over religious ones, and moderate parties over extremists. Saudi Arabia and Iran are the two best examples of...