Free Republic

President Joe Biden and his White House were “largely absent” from the government funding negotiations in Congress this week, according to the Hill, which cited statements from political strategists and lawmakers. As President-elect Donald Trump and his camp grappled with congressional Republicans over a resolution while the threat of a government shutdown increased as the year comes to a close, Biden and his administration officials have mostly been silent.

An elected official in charge of voter registration and tax collection in Texas hasn't swiped into her office for around four years .. Tax Assessor-Collector Ann Harris Bennett, who is responsible for the records of over 2.5 million voters, last accessed her office building in late 2020 according to county records that were seen by the newspaper. The Democrat, who assumed office in 2017 and is not seeking re-election in November, has oversight over voter registrations in Harris County, the most populous in Texas, which includes the city of Houston. County records also show Bennett has only sent 18 emails...

Vice President Kamala Harris reportedly has no campaign events scheduled for Tuesday (October 22), exactly two weeks before the 2024 presidential election. Harris' decision not to campaign on Tuesday drew criticism from her opponent, former President Donald Trump, who claimed that she's "sleeping," during a Latino roundtable event in Doral, Florida, on Tuesday (October 22). "She's not doing anything today," Trump claimed via the New York Post. Harris is, however, scheduled for interviews with NBC News' Hallie Jackson and Telemundo's Julio Vaqueiro in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday. The vice president's running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is campaigning alongside former...

Whoopi Goldberg will be taking a break from her duties on “The View” in the coming days – an absence that co-panelist Joy Behar attributed to filming obligations for an acting gig.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein is headed back to Washington on Tuesday evening after spending a week away in San Francisco while her husband was hospitalized. The California Democrat’s return comes as Congress continues to look for a solution for keeping the government open and raising the debt limit ahead of Thursday’s federal funding deadline. Republicans blocked Democratic efforts on Monday — a vote Feinstein missed. “Senator Feinstein is returning to Washington this evening after staying in San Francisco while her husband was hospitalized,” a Feinstein spokesperson said in a statement to POLITICO. “Her husband is now recovering at home.” The Hill...

Thousands of US flags have been placed at the National Mall in honor of the nearly 200,000 Americans who were not able to be present for the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. The display, which is called the 'Field of Flags,' is comprised of 191,500 US flags and 56 pillars of light. Images taken on Monday showed the flags carefully placed in rows near the US Capitol. The flags are representative of the Americans who cannot travel to Washington, DC, to attend the inauguration in person due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The U.S. Supreme Court kicked off its new nine-month term with a flurry of activity on Monday, hearing arguments in three cases and rejecting numerous appeals that piled up over the summer. With conservative Justice Clarence Thomas absent due to an unspecified illness, the court began hearing its first argument in a case focusing on whether states can discard the so-called insanity defense in criminal prosecutions. The case involved a man sentenced to death in Kansas for fatally shooting four family members while suffering from severe depression. In remarks from the bench before the first argument, Chief Justice John Roberts...

Rep. Steve Cohen (D., Tenn.), a Hillary Clinton supporter, said he was not sure where Clinton was while Donald Trump donated a truck full of food and supplies to the victims of the historic flooding that has devastated Louisiana this week. Cohen deferred questions about Clinton by attacking Trump for having three campaign managers and said his past contributions to St. Jude Children’s Hospital did not actually contain items of use. “You have the optics of Mr. Trump in Louisiana today,” CNN’s Brooke Baldwin said to Cohen. “We just saw an 18-wheeler full of items that he’s donated. Can you...

A Democratic member of the House Select Committee on Benghazi is calling for an end to the investigative body, but Republicans are hitting back hard, pointing out that the lawmaker, Adam Schiff, has largely served “in absentia,” attending only one of 45 interviews the committee has conducted. Schiff, from California, issued the call to disband the committee in a New York Times op-ed published on Friday. He claimed that the panel has lost sight of it purpose of investigating the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and is now focused only on taking down former Secretary...

A new Government Accountability Institute (GAI) report reveals that President Barack Obama has attended only 42.1% of his daily intelligence briefings (known officially as the Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB) in the 2,079 days of his presidency through September 29, 2014. The GAI report also included a breakdown of Obama’s PDB attendance record between terms; he attended 42.4% of his PDBs in his first term and 41.3% in his second. The GAI’s alarming findings come on the heels of Obama’s 60 Minutes comments on Sunday, wherein the president laid the blame for the Islamic State’s (ISIS) rapid rise squarely at...

A new Government Accountability Institute (GAI) report reveals that President Barack Obama has attended only 42.1% of his daily intelligence briefings (known officially as the Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB) in the 2,079 days of his presidency through September 29, 2014. The GAI report also included a breakdown of Obama’s PDB attendance record between terms; he attended 42.4% of his PDBs in his first term and 41.3% in his second. The GAI’s alarming findings come on the heels of Obama’s 60 Minutes comments on Sunday, wherein the president laid the blame for the Islamic State’s (ISIS) rapid rise squarely at...

Pete Sessions is free to live wherever he likes, but a man whose home and wife is in Florida shouldn't claim to live in Texas.

CBS News has been told that, hours after the attack began, an unmanned Predator drone was sent over the U.S. mission in Benghazi, and that the drone and other reconnaissance aircraft apparently observed the final hours of the protracted battle… But it was too late to help the Americans in Benghazi. The ambassador and three others were dead. Retired CIA officer Gary Berntsen believes help could have come much sooner. He commanded CIA counter-terrorism missions targeting Osama bin Laden and led the team that responded after bombings of the U.S. Embassy in East Africa. “You find a way to make...

TOKYO — The drizzly weather didn’t dampen the excitement at the annual spring imperial party last month as the royal family strolled along Tokyo’s Akasaka Palace grounds. Mao Asada, the Olympic figure skating silver medalist, was so overwhelmed when Emperor Akihito spoke to her that she managed only to repeatedly reply “yes,” and “thank you very much.” It was a typical reaction that shows the magnetic hold the emperor and empress have over the Japanese people. Missing as usual from the festivities was Crown Princess Masako who suffers from a stress-related disorder that causes anxiety and distress and only occasionally...

BOSTON – The White House says President Barack Obama has no plans to visit Massachusetts to campaign for the Democrat seeking the Senate seat held by the late Edward Kennedy. Spokesman Robert Gibbs was asked Monday about the possibility of a presidential trip on behalf of state Attorney General Martha Coakley. She would maintain the 60th vote Democrats need to prevent a filibuster of Obama's top domestic priority — a health care overhaul. She is running against Republican Scott Brown and independent Joseph L. Kennedy. The independent is no relation to the late senator.

OSLO (Reuters) – Norway's ambassador to the United Nations has accused Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of weak, ineffective and at times counterproductive leadership during recent crises, the daily Aftenposten reported on Wednesday. Aftenposten published what it said was a letter from Ambassador Mona Juul to Norway's Foreign Ministry, where she said Ban was late in handling challenges and that his abrasive style irked even seasoned diplomats. "At a time when the need for the United Nations and for multilateral solutions to global crises is greater than ever, Ban and the United Nations are conspicuous in their absence," Aftenposten quoted the letter...

WASHINGTON - House and Senate negotiators agreed Tuesday on a $460 billion Pentagon bill that bankrolls pricey weapons systems and bomb-resistant vehicles for troops, but does not pay for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Republicans said the omission would impose an unnecessary strain on troops, but the Democratic majority said it wouldn't leave the military in the lurch. "We'll take it step by step," said Rep. John Murtha, chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. "The public wants this war over." House Democrats said they were considering separate legislation that would allot some $50 billion in war spending. Murtha,...

As cousins Travis and Chuckie Jones stroll off the South Broward High campus on school days, they're "gooned out." Wearing oversized T-shirts and low-riding jeans, they mimic the hard core look that gangsta rappers first popularized in the 1990s. The Jones boys' jean shorts, held up by belts, are hanging around their thighs and sag so low that you can't help but see the gym shorts they wear underneath. "I like saggin'," said Travis, a 15-year-old sophomore. For him, wearing baggy, ill-fitting jeans, is cool — and makes a strong statement. It's all about attitude. "It tells everybody to kiss...

MBTA officials say rampant absenteeism is hurting bus and subway service, discouraging riders, and eating away at the agency's finances by forcing it to pay overtime. ...about 35 percent of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's roughly 6,000 employees were absent for 11 or more days in 2004, and 16 percent were absent 26 or more days. Khalida Smalls, coordinator for the watchdog group called the T Riders Union, said yesterday that excessive absenteeism directly affects passengers. ''People stand at their bus stop at 4:45 waiting for a bus that doesn't show up," ...

Nobody was surprised that state Sen. Carole Migden voted in favor of her own cosmetics bill. The problem was that she did it in the wrong legislative house. Toward the end of Wednesday's floor session, Migden, a San Francisco Democrat, pushed the voting button of a GOP assemblyman who was temporarily away from his desk. Her action violated Assembly rules and drew an angry response from Republicans. "That behavior cannot be tolerated," said Assembly Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield. "It's unheard of on this floor, it's against the rules, and it cannot be tolerated." Migden, chairwoman of the powerful...