Free Republic

President Trump’s pledge that new pipeline projects will use “American steel” will not apply to the Keystone XL project, according to media reports, directly contradicting the president’s own words last week. Politico reported late Thursday night that a White House spokeswoman explained that the project, which has been in the works for the past decade, does not count as a “new” or “retrofitted” pipeline, and therefore is not subject to Mr. Trump’s made-in-America requirement. Comments from TransCanada, the company proposing the project, on Friday morning seem to confirm the firm will not be forced to use all U.S. steel.

On Sunday morning’s Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer seemed to be setting Rep. Paul Ryan up for a sort of political “2 Girls, 1 Cup reaction video,” placing Ryan in splitscreen as he listened to President Obama’s candid “hot mic” remarks at a Chicago fundraiser earlier this week. While the President’s fiery remarks were a departure from his characteristic cool, Ryan’s pulse never got above 85. The Obama/Paul Ryan dynamic has undergone a shift in the last week or so. Ryan’s budget proposal got heaps of praise from the political media for being “courageous,” even as they were split...

<p>Officials at the FBI's New York field office - the first line of defense in preventing another terrorist attack here - got so spooked by the threat of bad weather that they declared a "snow day" Monday.</p> <p>Millions of other New Yorkers with jobs unrelated to national security managed to trudge through the snow while the FBI stayed warm at home.</p>

ZURICH, Feb 21 (Reuters) - The right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP) called on Saturday for retaliation against the United States over a U.S. tax probe into the country's biggest bank UBS that threatens prized banking secrecy. The populist SVP, the country's biggest party, said Switzerland should not take in any detainees from the U.S. prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, which the Swiss government said last month it could consider to help shut the camp down.