Free Republic

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) will undergo surgery next week to treat early-stage prostate cancer, forcing him to miss Friday's Senate session and parts of next week. Wyden's impending absence threatens to significantly complicate Democrats' lame-duck agenda, as they'll be without a typically reliable vote in the Oregon Democrat. The upper chamber still needs to pass a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill, ratify the New Start nuclear treaty and repeal the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. "I scheduled the surgery for the Monday before Christmas anticipating that the Senate would have recessed by that time and that there would be...

Behind the scenes, federal agents in charge of stopping gun trafficking to Mexico have quietly advanced a plan to help stem the smuggling of high-powered AK-47s and AR-15s to the bloody drug war south of the border. The controversial proposal by officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives calls for a measure strongly opposed by the National Rifle Association: requiring gun dealers to report multiple sales of rifles and shotguns to ATF. The gun issue is so incendiary and fear of the NRA so great that the ATF plan languished for months at the Justice Department, according...

Brendan Daly, the chief spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a close adviser to her since she joined the Democratic leadership in 2002, is leaving his Capitol Hill post to join a Washington public relations firm. A former newspaper reporter, Mr. Daly was known for his ability to reflect the speaker’s thinking and strategy for the House and he was a strong defender of her legislative approach and the party’s priorities. “Brendan has been an essential part of my team for nearly a decade, and his leadership, hard work, and dedication have been essential to the progress we have made...

MEXICO CITY — Despite being a federal fugitive, accused of laundering millions of dollars for one of Mexico’s most ruthless drug cartels, Julio César Godoy says he simply walked into the national legislature here unnoticed in September, right past the cordon of federal police officers watching the building. He then raised his right arm, swore allegiance to the Mexican Constitution and, 15 months after disappearing from public view, finally claimed the congressional seat he won last year. It was too late for prosecutors to do much about it. Mr. Godoy’s newly conferred status came with a special perk: immunity from...

House Democratic efforts to block President Obama’s tax bill have dwindled into a battle to save face as they come to the realization they will have little opportunity to rework the bipartisan compromise. Party leaders were debating on Tuesday whether to bring up amendments to the bill for a vote even as Democrats acknowledged the overwhelming Senate support for the tax deal created an “urgency” to get legislation to the president’s desk. “The vote in the Senate indicates an urgency that is felt by a broad spectrum that middle-income taxes not be increased come Jan. 1,” House Majority Leader Steny...

Some of the Republican Party’s most prominent donors reacted Tuesday with shock — and then fury — to Michael Steele’s decision to seek re-election, bluntly warning that they would not raise money for the party if the controversial chairman wins another term. None of the contributors has a vote on the committee, but with worries about the debt-ridden party’s finances hanging over Steele, the unambiguous threats could further undermine the incumbent’s already-dim prospects for victory. While nothing firm was planned, a number of the contributors said they had been in contact with one another since Steele’s announcement Monday night about...

Perennial third-party candidate Ralph Nader predicted on Wednesday that President Obama's tax deal with Republicans will earn him a primary challenge in 2012. Though he wouldn't rule out another presidential campaign himself, Nader, 76, said he hoped that a new face would take up the progressive cause. "I'm not foreclosing the possibility ... There are just other things to do," he said. "And it's time for someone else to continue. I've done it so many times. When I go around the country, I'm telling people they need to find somebody." Nader, a consumer advocate, described the immense procedural difficulty —...

Patrice Taylor has spent her past few birthdays in court. At 25, she faced an assault charge after she punched a man in the face at a club. At 26, she was at the courthouse for a custody hearing that split her family. This year, she expects to spend her 27th there, too, fighting charges that she violated a civil protection order. For most of Taylor's life, the legal system - with its "snobby" lawyers and "crooked" cops - has been a scary force with the ability to ruin your day or wreck your future. But now, two weeks after...

An internal Republican poll out of Missouri shows why Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder thinks he has a shot at upending the relatively popular Jay Nixon in 2012. The American Viewpoint survey, taken in late September, found that while Nixon remains personally popular in the state, his reelection bid will be competitive because of the national mood and a shift toward the GOP in the once-bellwether state. Viewpoint's survey, provided to POLITICO by a Missouri Republican operative, pinpoints Nixon's approval rating at 51 percent, but finds him trailing Kinder by 9 points in a head-to-head match up, 47 percent to 38...

It's a Monday morning and Rodney Brown's 28 students shuffle into a lime-colored room at the Department of Employment Services on H Street NE. Several arrive late. Many wear clothes made for lounging, not impressing. "I see some of you wearing tennis shoes," says Brown, his 6-foot frame tidy in gray slacks and a tie. "You come in here tomorrow with them and I'm going to have to send you out." He is just getting started. Around him, shirts are untucked. Belts bear blinged-out buckles. Pants sit low - too low. "How you going to get on Air Force One...

The coalition that got Barack Obama elected President just two years ago has been shattered. Gaming out the trajectory of the next two years can be done any number of ways, but Obama's efforts to rebuild a politically robust alliance will be the most telling. It may be the biggest challenge of his career — and he will need happenstance along with skill if he is going to get it done. A survey of the political landscape shows that many groups who were part of the 2008-09 Obama coalition have turned on him. Liberals believe he is an overcompromising wimp....

In a family whose history is woven into the woodwork of 20th Century American history, Rep. Patrick Kennedy is going against the grain. In January, the Rhode Island Democrat will retire from the House of Representatives after serving 16 years as congressman for the state’s populous First District, from East Providence down to Newport. When he does, it will mark the first time since 1945 no member of the Kennedy family is serving in Congress. Kennedy is only 43, and single, and seemed primed to many for a longer congressional career. While his most recent approval polls were challenging, he...

Ronald Lee Foster, 66, of Beaver Falls, tried to apply for a gun permit about two years ago, he was shocked when he was denied because he was a felon. The retired shift supervisor at Armstrong World Industries had no idea why they would say he had a felony conviction, but then he started thinking about what had seemed like a small offense from almost 50 years ago. In 1963, then-18-year-old Mr. Foster and 16 of his fellow Marines were stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C., and only making $82 a month. They wanted a way to come up with some...

Arizona used to be a knife carrier’s nightmare, with a patchwork of local laws that forced those inclined to strap Buck knives or other sharp objects to their belts to tread carefully as they moved from Phoenix (no knives except pocketknives) to Tempe (no knives at all) to Tucson (no knives on library grounds). But that changed earlier this year when Arizona made its Legislature the sole arbiter of knife regulations. And because of loose restrictions on weapons here, Arizona is now considered a knife carrier’s dream, a place where everything from a samurai sword to a switchblade can be...

Election losers, welcome to Office Space. Some of the most senior and respected members of Congress are among the dozens of outgoing lawmakers whose offices have been crammed into tiny basement cubicles as their old offices are emptied and refurbished. And while nobody seems to be throwing fits about missing red Swingline staplers, the basement bullpen is quite a comedown for some of the most powerful members of Congress, who virtually overnight went from comfortable congressional veterans to homeless on the Hill. Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), the transportation committee chairman who championed legislation to fix America’s crowded highways, faces an...

Just heard on the Charlie Brennan show that Steelman will run.

Emiel Kandi forever changed the lives of a pregnant hairdresser, a jobless mechanic and a single mom when he loaned them money. These unsophisticated, desperate borrowers thought a short-term loan from the well-dressed professional could save them from financial collapse or foreclosure. But the very asset they were trying to hold on to — their home — was what Kandi was determined to take. Kandi is the lender of last resort for some people who've been turned down by banks because of poor credit or limited income. He says his requirement for a borrower is merely "a pulse and a...

* Now comes a report from the Council of the Great City Schools that ought to grab the attention of anyone who cares about black youngsters, starting with those parents who have shortchanged their children on a scale so monstrous that it is difficult to fully grasp. The report, titled “A Call for Change,” begins by saying that “the nation’s young black males are in a state of crisis” and describes their condition as “a national catastrophe.” It tells us that black males remain far behind their schoolmates in academic achievement and that they drop out of school at nearly...

The investigation of Representative Charles Rangel for violation of Congressional fund-raising rules has been going on for two years. The hearing before the House ethics committee — which Mr. Rangel insisted would exonerate him — has been scheduled for weeks. Yet on Monday, the day the hearing began, Mr. Rangel demanded a delay, claiming he needed to raise money for a new lawyer. When the committee refused, he walked out the door and into a new embarrassment. There is no reason why the New York Democrat should have been unprepared to mount a defense. He said his defense team, from...

The House ethics committee ruled on Monday that there was evidence to support 13 counts of misconduct by Representative Charles B. Rangel, and began considering whether to formally convict and recommend punishment against him. The ruling came after a dramatic and puzzling appearance by Mr. Rangel, 80, in which he protested that he could no longer afford to pay his lawyers, and indignantly walked out of the proceedings, calling them unfair. Committee members were unmoved. Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California, noted dryly that Mr. Rangel, a Harlem Democrat, was responsible for paying his lawyers and that he had been...