Free Republic

NEW YORK, February 4, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) – New York City schools distributed 12,721 doses of the “Morning-After Pill” to students last year, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. The 40 school-based “health centers” also performed thousands of injections of long-term contraception and implanted intrauterine devices (IUDs). Under state law, schools do not need to obtain parental consent to dispense the drugs. The $2.7 million program has provided contraceptives to 22,400 teens as young as 14. Last September, the district announced that the city Department of Health had distributed Plan B to 567 teenage girls, and...

Last week, Republicans proved they are not a governing party. Next week we will see whether Democrats are. A governing party would have, reluctantly, passed Speaker John Boehner's Plan B, which would have preserved the current tax rates on everyone with incomes under $1 million. Passage would have put Senate Democrats on the spot, since they voted for a similar measure in 2010. They might have engaged in negotiations with Boehner that could have been more productive than his negotiations with Barack Obama this month and in the summer of 2011. Then, as Bob Woodward reports in his book "The...

How long is this show going to go on in Washington, and must it? They say closing time for its costars is midnight, December 31. That's when the president and the speaker of the House need to agree on the federal budget Or Else, but politicians never met a deadline they couldn't postpone, as in Can, Kick Down the Road. This year's burlesque is turning into a melodrama (working title: Meltdown) as both sides steer the country right over the dreaded (cue scary music) Fiscal Cliff! Thelma and Louise, here we come. The Mayans couldn't have written a scarier doomsday...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is resisting pressure from Republicans pushing for the Senate to take a more active role to avoid the “fiscal cliff” after House legislation stalled Thursday. Reid has rejected Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) assertion that avoiding the fiscal cliff now depends on President Obama working out a deal with the Senate. Reid’s allies said it is unrealistic to expect him and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to step in and hammer out an eleventh-hour agreement. On Friday, Reid dismissed McConnell’s proposal that he bring to the floor legislation extending tax rates that could be...

Several conservative House Republican members are contemplating a plan to unseat Speaker John Boehner from his position on January 3, Breitbart News has exclusively learned. Staffers have compiled a detailed action plan that, if executed, could make this a reality. The Republicans, both conservatives and more establishment members alike, are emboldened after the failure of Boehner’s fiscal cliff “Plan B” on Thursday evening. Dissatisfaction with Boehner is growing in the House Republican conference, but until now there hasn’t been a clear path forward.

House Speaker John Boehner (R.-Ohio) said on Friday that he was not afraid of losing his speakership in the aftermath of the stunning defeat dealt to him on Thursday evening by House conservatives who refused to vote for his “Plan B” proposal to increase the income tax rate on income over $1 million. When a reporter asked Boehner at a Capitol press conference whether he should be concerned about losing his speakership, Boehner said, “No, I’m not.” “Listen, you’ve all heard me say this, and I’ve told my colleagues this, if you do the right things every day for the...

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During his press conference today, called to announce his new gun control task force, President Obama invoked the Newtown massacre to apply pressure on congressional Republicans in the fiscal cliff standoff.

When you lose an election you get frustrated. When you’re sitting in a subpar 2 percent economy, and are faced with tax hikes rather than marginal rate reductions, you get even more frustrated. And when you’re staring at $47 trillion in spending over the next ten years, and $8.6 trillion in deficits, your frustration levels climb even higher. These are among the frustrations that led a number of House Republicans to pull back from Speaker John Boehner’s so-called Plan B. Nobody looked good on the Republican side when Thursday night’s vote fell through. But you have to understand their frustrations....

After House Speaker John Boehner was unable to muster enough support for his “Plan B” proposal, the Congress has adjourned for the holidays. At this point, Republicans should stay home until the new Congress convenes in 2013. A deal like “Plan B” that raises taxes on those making over $1 million per year and offers limited spending cuts over 10 years will do nothing to solve our underlying fiscal problems.

What happens when Plan B fails? That answer may matter less than the question of what happens to the man who promised Plan B would work in the first place. Chris Cillizza writes that John Boehner climbed onto a big limb with Plan B --- and then watched as his own caucus sawed it off: To be clear: This was a gambit by Boehner designed to be a show of force to President Obama. This was Boehner putting himself out on a limb in hopes wavering members would follow him. This vote mattered to Boehner.And he lost it.ItÂ’s not clear...

At a quarter to 8 p.m. on Thursday night, House Republicans gathered in the Capitol basement for an urgent, closed-door conference meeting. The scene was hushed and confused. Instead of huddling in a windowless room, members thought they’d spend the evening on the House floor, voting on “Plan B,” Speaker John Boehner’s fiscal-cliff proposal. But as they took their seats and looked at Boehner’s face, the reason for the gathering became clear: The speaker didn’t have the votes. The whipping was over. “Plan B” was dead. Boehner’s speech to the group was short and curt: He said his plan didn’t...

WASHINGTON – House Republican leaders abruptly pulled their fallback tax bill from the floor Thursday night, conceding that they did not have the votes to pass it. “The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass,” Speaker John A. Boehner said in a statement. “Now it is up to the president to work with Senator Reid on legislation to avert the fiscal cliff.” The decision was a major setback for the speaker, who was pushing his so-called Plan B to prevent lower tax rates from expiring on...

By defeating the Speaker tonight, the GOP delegation in the House gave him the blank check to cut lousy deals with the lousiest President of all times that will pass with Democratic votes. Mark this day. It leads to Democratic control of the House in 2014 at worst or significantly reduced (bare) majority for the GOP. This is the most suicidal political outcome I have ever seen. Good luck!

Capitol Hill reporters on Twitter writing Speaker Boehner has dropped Plan B fiscal cliff vote tongiht after revolt from House Republican caucus. House will recess until after Christmas.After raucus closed dooor House GOP meeting, Boehner says House has already passed bills to cut spending and taxes to avert fiscal cliff and the ball is the court of the Senate and President Obama.

It seems to me that plan B is a pretty thought out response to Democrats traps and games and contrary to claims it raises NO taxes, all it does is fully protect the 99.8% by extending the tax rates on the first $1M of everyone’s income. Pretty much every R criticism on it has been telling the untruth that it ‘raises taxes’ which ttells me they have no case. Also Pelosi, Reid and O are all against it. But unfortunately the ‘we want to be defeated by O again’ crowd is once again at it. Let me compare the two...

A group called the Conservative Action Project has released a letter today calling on House Republicans to vote against Speaker John Boehner’s “Plan B” if it comes up for a floor vote. The group released a statement along with a stellar list of signatories, headlined appropriately “NO MORE TAXES!!!!!!!!” NO MORE TAXES!!!!!!!!!As leaders of broad based American citizen groups we call upon Republican House Members to vote no on Speaker Boehner’s Tax Hike known as “Plan B.”  This tax increase bill is just like the tax increase proposal Nancy Pelosi offered last year on May 23rd. Speaker Boehner, President Obama,...

Despite Democrats' intransigent, no-way-no-how screeching about John Boehner's "Plan B," House Republican leaders are pressing forward with the option behind the scenes.  Those efforts received an important boost today when Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform released a statement affirming that the potential plan would not violate the group's oft-cited tax pledge:   ATR has consistently maintained that individual Members of Congress make a pledge to their constituents to oppose and vote against tax increases. The House this week will vote on a tax bill. This legislation—popularly known as “Plan B”--permanently prevents a tax increase on families making less than $1...

Blah blah Fiscal Cliff blah. Blah blah blahdy blah Cliff. Cliff blah blah republicans blah democrats blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah, blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah, Cliff. Blah blah blah blah, blah blahdy blah.... Blah. Meanwhile in Europe: The only data point confirms what everyone knows - reality sucks, hope surges. As usual. German Ifo business confidence rises to 102.4 from 101.4, on expected rise of 102. Why the rise? Because forward expectations spike from 96.4 to 97.9. As for the "current assessment"? Why down of course from 108.1 to 107.1, on expectations...

Have you heard about the holiday gift some people think American girls should be getting this year? “Emergency contraception.”Truth be told, it’s not likely to happen before the winter solstice. But a fiscal cliff isn’t the only disaster to be on alert about. During Thanksgiving week the American Academy of Pediatrics announced its recommendation that “morning after” prescriptions be issued to adolescent girls as a matter of course, allowing them the false security of what has long been described by advocates as a “fire extinguisher” in their purse to counter at least some of the consequences of risky behavior.“There’s...