Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats are pushing legislation to send $25 billion in emergency loans to the beleaguered auto industry in exchange for a government ownership stake in the Big Three car companies. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., hope for quick passage of the auto bailout during a postelection session that begins Monday. Legislation being drafted by Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, would dip into the $700 billion Wall Street rescue money, approved by Congress last month, for the auto aid. President Bush is cool to that idea. But...

Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's plan to aid troubled U.S. automakers threatens to spark a final clash with President George W. Bush before he leaves the White House in January. Pelosi said yesterday she wants ``immediate action'' to give automakers additional assistance as shares of General Motors Corp. hit their lowest level since 1943 and analysts said the company faces possible bankruptcy. Bush hasn't said he would approve any further aid to those companies. Richard Shelby, the Senate Banking Committee's top Republican, opposes the measure. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid made clear the bill's prospects of winning...

For the nation's labor union leaders, it's time to cash in. Having mobilized an army of workers to help elect Barack Obama, top union officials have not been shy about their plans to push a legislative wish list blocked under President Bush, and they say they will not wait. On the other hand, business leaders have not been shy about warning the president-elect against such early moves. "American workers turned out for the election. American voters voted for Barack Obama. And American workers won this election," Anna Burger, chairman of Change to Win, an activist coalition of unions including the...

Mountain View police said someone is attacking registered sex offenders in the city and the attacks may be related. Two crimes against sex offenders have taken place in the past month. Detectives described the attacks as similar. The first crime occurred on Sunday, Oct. 19, 2008, at 9:39 a.m., at an apartment complex on the west side of the city, officers said. A witness saw a man carrying a bat and placing a Molotov cocktail-type device at the front door of a registered sex offender. When confronted by the witness, the man indicated he was targeting the person living in...

DETROIT, Nov 6 (Reuters) - United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger on Thursday urged the U.S. government to provide another $25 billion in loans to struggling U.S. automakers so that they can meet their health care obligations to over 780,000 retirees and their dependents. "The U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve can help immediately by taking steps to provide liquidity to auto manufacturers so they can get through the difficulties caused by an across-the-board decline in auto sales," Gettelfinger said in a statement released by the union. Gettelfinger joined the chief executives of General Motors Corp (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research,...

Remember when the left said that dissent is Patriotic? Well, I promise to be more Patriotic. Please allow me start now: IMPEACH OBAMA! IT IS OBAMA FAULT!!!! OBAMA IS THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER!! OBAMA STOLE THE ELECTION!!! Illinois is missing and idiot! Help us return the idiot to the rightful owner!! These are my new Patriotic Battle Cries. Last night was a bad night. But today marks the beginning of payback time. Today marks the day I become more Patriotic in the left's eye. My dissent should make the left very proud of me. I will not allow a Fascist...

Richard Fuld, the disgraced head of Lehman Brothers, was punched in the face in the office gym amid the bank's collapse. Mr Fuld, who has been testifying on the financial crisis before the US House Oversight Committee, was attacked on a Sunday shortly after it was announced that the banking giant was bankrupt. Following rumours that the incident had occurred, Vicki Ward, a US journalist, said "two very senior sources - one incredibly senior source" had confirmed it to her. "He went to the gym after ... Lehman was announced as going under," she told CNBC. "He was on a...

WARSAW -- Polish analysts and a part of the political scene are linking the South Ossetia crisis to that in Kosovo, Beta says. The current armed conflict in the breakaway Georgian region is seen as the Russian answer to the western recognition of Kosovo Albanians' unilateral declaration of independence, the Polish media are saying. "This is the Russian answer to the recognition of Kosovo. That recognition was in fact a gift to Russia," Polish People's Party European MP Janusz Wojciechowski told TVN24. Wojciechowski, whose party is a partner in Donald Tusk's cabinet, warned that the case of Kosovo, where a...

The fanatical Taliban mastermind behind recent attacks in which six British soldiers died in Afghanistan has been killed in a missile attack by an Army Apache helicopter. In what military chiefs described as a 'deliberate and surgical strike', the 35-year-old rebel leader - known as Sadiqullah - died alongside nine fellow Taliban fighters after the Apache fired two laser-guided Hellfire missiles at their red pick-up truck and destroyed it. The rebel leader had been tracked down after weeks of secret intelligence work. His death would have been instantaneous, as the warheads of the 5ft-long missiles, which travel at 950mph, are...

All week long, you and I have been blasting the bereft Beltway GOP leadership for their empty sloganeering and Obama-esque change obsession. Now, the NRCC is hearing it directly on its website. Reader Fritz e-mails that the comments section in the NRCC blog post by chairman Tom Cole is sizzling hot with aggravated grass-roots conservative feedback. Go check it out. A sample: This is not the message I am looking to support. The message of the Replican Part should be fundumentally different than the Democrats. We don’t need to “fix” the government. We need the Federal Government to do wnat...

If the Clintons get back into the White House, it will be retribution time, like the Corleone family consolidating power in "The Godfather," where the watchword is, "It's business, not personal." Notables who abandoned her for Obama will get the Big Chill. "He's dead to us," a Clinton aide was quoted saying of John Kerry, who along with Ted Kennedy was turned off by the perception of race baiting that led up to the South Carolina primary. A major donor, conflicted between the two candidates and apologetic over his backing of Obama, found Hillary less than sympathetic. "Too bad for...

One of the most famous familiar quotations regarding revenge goes as follows. ”…revenge is a dish best served cold.” - Khan In the frenetic days before the Pennsylvania Democratic Party holds their Presidential Primary, we see the motivation of revenge driving Junior Senator Robert P. Casey to play a major role in the unfolding campaign. While the senator reminds me far more of a meek and subservient Fredo Corleone than of the antagonist from Star Trek II, few things can bring forth manly virtue like the opportunity to settle an old score between ambitious and powerful families. Thus, Robert Casey...

Only a week after appearing to patch things up, the state Senate and Gov. Bill Richardson were back to fighting Thursday. What looked like the latest affront came Wednesday when Richardson cut $7 million in Senate-sponsored projects from a $348 million bill (SB 471) for statewide capital improvements ... while sparing all projects sponsored by House members. Some lawmakers saw Richardson's actions as missing an opportunity to develop some trust with the Senate, with whom he often clashes. Others wondered if health care reform might be the ultimate casualty. "It's hard to sit back and not say this is retaliation,"...

One of Sen. Barack Obama’s surest applause lines comes about halfway into his standard stump speech. It goes like this: “They whisper to me. They say, ‘Barack, I’m a Republican, but I support you.’ And I say, ‘Thank you. Why are we whispering?’” If the latest polling data are to be believed, those Republicans aren’t whispering in Texas, where 195 of the 228 delegates the state will send to the Democratic National Convention will be chosen in a primary and caucuses Tuesday. As many as a tenth of the Texans voting in the Democratic contests could be Republicans, and overwhelmingly...

WASHINGTON -- Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee says it is "unfounded" for anyone to say he has alienated the Mormon community or that he used rival Mitt Romney's LDS faith as a wedge issue. ... Huckabee said he would have concern if anyone said he had estranged the Mormon community. ... "Anyone who says that I have this anti-Mormon prejudice is absolutely off the mark," Huckabee said. "And it has no basis whatsoever." Some Mormon Republicans, though, say Huckabee ran a campaign playing off the concern some Protestant evangelicals have for Mormons, viewed as heretical by some groups. Some evangelicals do...

If John McCain rolls on Super Tuesday then it is time for all Freepers living in remaining primary states to cross-over in your respective primaries and vote for Obama on the dem ballot. It's our best opportunity to stop her because she will crush McCain in November.

ALL those politically correct types who piled on last April when Don Imus went down for making his bad "nappy-headed ho's" joke had better duck and cover on Monday, when the I-Man goes back to work on WABC Radio. "I think he will have some scores to settle," the station's general manager, Phil Boyce, told Page Six yesterday. It is doubtful Imus will ever forgive CBS chief Les Moonves, who fired him, or regular guest Tim Russert, the host of NBC's "Meet the Press," who was "an invisible man" while Imus was under attack. Private eye Bo Dietl, who will...

ANNAPOLIS — Gov. Martin O'Malley is continuing his public attempts to fire high-ranking Maryland officials, including those he has deemed disloyal to the administration. Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, now has enough votes on the Maryland Stadium Authority board to oust longtime Executive Director Alison L. Asti, former board Chairman Robert L. McKinney said yesterday. He said Miss Asti, a 13-year authority employee, is being punished because "she didn't play ball with the O'Malley folks" and that the attempt to fire her is "nothing but a vendetta." Mr. O'Malley has pushed for new leadership at the authority since an audit in...

On Saturday, he became a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, looking to knock off Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss. Surprise. “It’s been so doggone hard to keep this under wraps,” the 44-year-old former journalist said. But he’s done it. Cardwell, a six-time Emmy winner, will formally announce his candidacy on Monday at his campaign headquarters in College Park. He joins DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones as the only Democrats yet to express public interest in the ’08 race. Cardwell said he will run against what he calls the daily, debilitating corruption of Washington, and promises to eschew money from special...

llegal Immigration Foes Target Senate Offices By Nathan Burchfiel CNSNews.com Staff Writer June 01, 2007 (CNSNews.com) - Senators enjoying a week-long recess in their home states are being targeted by opponents of illegal immigration who are expected to deliver thousands of petition signatures opposing the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform proposals. Volunteers with the conservative activist website Grassfire.org on Thursday began delivering petitions to senators' home offices opposing the immigration bill that the Senate will consider when it returns to session June 4. The bill would give illegal immigrants a chance to remain in the United States by paying fines and...