Free Republic

The Democratic National Committee wanted to honor Nancy Pelosi Thursday -- but its praise wasn't good enough for the House minority leader. When the DNC's Resolutions Committee brought up a resolution commemorating Pelosi's years as speaker of the House, Pelosi's daughter sought to alter the proposal at her mother's behest, adding some of the accomplishments that the elder Pelosi felt the committee had overlooked. "I have some friendly amendments," said Christine Pelosi, a political strategist, at the committee's session during the DNC Winter Meeting Thursday. She is a member of the committee. "You think I'm kidding," Christine Pelosi added, to...

It was always going to be a struggle for the U.S. to dissuade its Arab allies from going ahead with a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements. But last week's "people power" rebellion in Tunisia has made Washington's effort to lobby against the plan more difficult. Tunisia has given the autocratic leaders of countries such as Egypt and Jordan more reason to fear their own people. For those regimes, symbolically challenging unconditional U.S. support for Israel is a low-cost gesture that will play well on restive streets. Going ahead with the resolution, which was discussed on Wednesday at the...

As we enter the New Year, the financial landscape is littered with essentially bankrupt governments. Governments at every level are in dire financial straits. During the last decade’s governmental spending binge, total state and municipal bond debt has nearly doubled to almost $3 trillion, while federal debt rose over 150 percent from under $6 trillion to almost $14 trillion. Several dozen cities, including Harrisburg, Los Angeles, and Detroit, teeter on the brink of insolvency. Municipal bonds, once considered ultra-safe, are approaching junk status. State governments from coast to coast are broke. From Republican Governor Chris Christie’s New Jersey on the...

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama has set his New Year's resolution high for 2011: repair the struggling economy. In his weekly radio and Internet address on Saturday, the vacationing president said recent data showed the economic recovery was gaining traction even as millions of Americans are still out of work. "Our most important task now is to keep that recovery going," Obama said. "As president, that's my commitment to you: to do everything I can to make sure our economy is growing, creating jobs, and strengthening our middle class. That's my resolution for the coming year." Unemployment of nearly 10...

J’lem concerned PA may not want even indirect talks without freeze; Fayyad says Palestinians seeking state, not just another declaration. The Palestinian Authority was looking to Arab League foreign ministers who met on Wednesday night in Cairo to “tie its hands” and not authorize even proximity talks until Israel freezes settlement construction, Israeli government officials said. And, indeed, the Arab League obliged, with the ministers speaking out against any talks – direct or indirect – unless the US takes a firm stance on the future borders of a Palestinian state. “The negotiation track between the Palestinians and Israelis is futile....

(Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans debating Muslim integration to stand up more for Christian values, saying Monday the country suffered not from "too much Islam" but "too little Christianity." Addressing her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, she said she took the current public debate in Germany on Islam and immigration very seriously. As part of this debate, she said last month that multiculturalism there had utterly failed. Some of her conservative allies have gone further, calling for an end to immigration from "foreign cultures" -- a reference to Muslim countries like Turkey -- and more pressure on immigrants...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Tuesday the administration remains opposed to a permanent extension of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, something strongly favored by Republicans. He said it is critical for Congress to resolve the issue before the end of the year. Geithner said that the administration wanted to see a permanent extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for families making less than $250,000 annually. He said a permanent extension of tax cuts for households making above that amount would be very expensive. But during an appearance at a forum for corporate executives, Geithner...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Lance Dutson, Communications Director, Maine Republican Victory Campaign 207-322-3843 August 13, 2010 MAINE REPUBLICANS STAND WITH ARIZONA Maine-authored resolution receives unanimous support from Republican National Committee AUGUSTA - A resolution in support of Arizona's right to enforce existing federal immigration laws was passed last week at the Republican National Committee meeting in Kansas City. The resolution was introduced by Maine GOP Committeewoman Jan Staples, and received unanimous support. "Maine Republicans stand with the people of Arizona," said Staples. "As a border state, we understand the gravity of this issue. The safety of our citizens is of...

Is no Congress at all better than the one we'll have between Election Day and the swearing in of the winners? According to a resolution offered today by Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Georgia), the answer is most definitely yes. The resolution calls on Congress not to hold a so-called lame duck session to pass unpopular legislation such as card check, cap & trade, tax increases and more deficit spending bills.

The NAACP will not release the actual text of its resolution condemning "racist elements" within the Tea Party movement until October, when the organization's board gives it final approval, a spokesman for the group has told me. Though the final version has not surfaced, I reported on some excerpts from the preliminary draft of the resolution yesterday, which I was able to record before a live webcast broadcasting the NAACP conference was cut off. Among other things, an early draft called Tea Party movement, a "threat to the pursuit of human rights, justice and equality for all." In a blog...

The NAACP is expected to approve a resolution today condemning the Tea Party for "racist elements that are a threat to democracy." The proposed resolution, which is expected to pass today at the organization's annual convention in Kansas City , Mo., cites cases of what it calls "explicitly racist behavior," including "signs and posters intended to degrade people of color generally and President Barack Obama specifically." NAACP spokeswoman Leila McDowell told ABC News, "We're deeply concerned about elements that are trying to move the country back, trying to reverse the progress that we've made," and asked that "law-abiding members of...

They’ll probably finesse it so that it targets “racist elements” within the tea-party movement rather than declaring the movement itself wholly and irretrievably racist, but of course the goal is to taint everyone involved by association. Despite its absurdities and own occasional racist excesses, the NAACP still has moral authority to burn when it comes to race. So this will serve two purposes: One, it gives them a shot of relevance per the endless media hyperventilating that’ll ensue once they pass it, and two, it’s obviously a nice weapon for Democrats to wield against grassroots candidates like Sharron Angle and...

In case you missed it, last week (June 13-19) was declared by a congressional resolution to be “High-Performance Building Week.” It wasn’t quite the most creative or intriguing name for a national ‘holiday,’ but properly referring to it as “Go Broke Trying to Green Your Office, School and Other Buildings Week” was too long-winded and probably would have generated unwanted attention to a handful of congressional tree-huggers’ plans to bankrupt builders before they even lay the foundations. According to H. Res. 1407, High-Performance Building Week recognizes “the importance of high-performance buildings through the inclusion of a definition of high-performance buildings...

The fact that Turkey voted against the resolution is telling. How long do you figure it will be before we hear of freshly-listed illegal arms and supplies from Turkey being found in Iran? Months? Weeks, even?

"A joint resolution disapproving a rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to the endangerment finding and the cause or contribute findings for greenhouse gases under section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act."

On Nov. 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the partition of Palestine into two independent states -- one Jewish, the other Arab -- linked in an economic union. The city of Jerusalem was to be placed under an international regime, with its residents given the right to citizenship in either the Jewish or the Arab state. For Jews all over the world, this was the fulfillment of a millenarian yearning for national rebirth in their ancestral homeland. For Arab political and intellectual elites, it was a shameful surrender of (a however minute) part of...

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said the Obama administration will seek to block a controversial bill describing as genocide the World War I killing of Armenians by Turks. A congressional panel on Thursday approved the resolution, paving the way for a possible vote by the House.

This was written by retired Admiral and U.S. Sen. Jeremiah Denton to an audience at the National Marine Corps Museum Feb. 13th. We are in a struggle for our very survival in America. This book (autobiography, "When Hell Was in Session") presents my ideas of how we can win that struggle. Although the plan is far from complete, I have already concluded that, though we are presently in a bad way, we can indeed come from behind and will win this cultural war. This belief is based partly on the truism that he who is most hungry for victory has...

The House adopted a sternly worded resolution declaring the body's deep skepticism over current climate science and called for the federal government to halt carbon dioxide reduction programs. Rep. Kerry Gibson said that by pursuing cap-and-trade policies, Washington is engaging on a path that could destroy Utah's way of life. "I'm afraid of what could happen to our economy, to our rural life, to our agriculture, if such a detrimental policy continues to be pursued for political reasons," said the Ogden Republican. He said there is mounting evidence that humans can't influence their environment and the costs of enacting climate...

On October 1, 2009, the Obama administration in conjunction with the Egyptian government, introduced an anti-free speech measure to the United Nation’s Human Rights Council (HRC). It was adopted the next day without a vote. Earlier this year, when the United States sought a seat on the HRC, it was a controversial decision. Many who found the HRC neither credible nor useful, opposed the move. Yet, others were more optimistic that America could change the HRC from within. Perhaps the U.S. could spur debate stemming from its opposition to China, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia on critical human rights...