Free Republic

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York joined Representative Carolyn McCarthy on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to show support for a bill she will sponsor to try to close loopholes that permit criminals, drug abusers and the mentally ill to bypass the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and purchase guns. Among other things, the bill would increase penalties for states that do not properly turn over records of people who are already barred by federal law from owning a gun. The bill would also require federal agencies to certify twice a year to the U.S. Attorney General that they...

Obama Urged to Seize Reins as Crises Pile Up A conflict approaching civil war in Libya. An end-times tsunami in Japan. A Congress that can't reach a budget. And ... gender inequality? The topic of President Obama's weekend radio address has raised some eyebrows, as Obama has met mounting crises with the same restraint and cool that characterized his slow-and-steady campaign for president. To some critics, the tone set by the White House in light of recent upheaval may hurt the president's public image. Amid chaos around the world and on Capitol Hill, Obama's Saturday radio address was devoted to...

Missouri Republicans have filed a complaint against Sen. Claire McCaskill with the Senate Ethics Committee, calling for an investigation into whether the Missouri Democrat improperly used taxpayer funding to cover the cost of at least one airplane trip to a political event. McCaskill, who is up for reelection in 2012, paid more than $88,000 to the Treasury Department last week following a POLITICO report that she had used taxpayer funds from her Senate office account to repay nearly 90 flights on a private plane that she co-owned with her husband and other investors.While McCaskill and her aides adamantly denied any...

Confusion reigned in the Capitol Monday over whether Gov. Jerry Brown's overtures to five Republican senators to support his budget plan had utterly failed, or whether suspension of their talks is merely a temporary setback. Whatever the case, it appeared that Brown's hopes of placing $10 billion-plus a year in tax extensions on a June 7 special-election ballot had been dashed. Even if a budget agreement eventually emerges, the election will almost certainly be delayed. That would seem to be a minor hiccup, but having an election on June 7 – before the summer doldrums set in – has been...

At Friday's news conference, President Obama tried to connect with the common man coping with rising gasoline prices. Instead, the president left little doubt that he is clueless about cars. "You may want to buy a fuel-efficient car," quoth Obama, "but you may not be able to afford it. And so you're stuck with the old clunker that's getting 8 or 10 miles a gallon." Eight to 10 mpg? Which clunker would that be? I wondered. An old Hummer? Your father's father's Oldsmobile? A late-model Lamborghini? It takes a luxury brand, a boat-sized machine and/or a few decades to approach...

More than two months after the Tucson shootings, the administration is calling together both the gun lobby and gun safety groups to find common ground. But President Obama has no plans to take the lead in proposing further gun control legislation, aides say, and the nation’s major gun rights group is snubbing the invitation. On Tuesday, officials at the Justice Department will meet with gun control advocates in the first of what will be a series of meetings over the next two weeks with people on different sides of the issue, including law enforcement, retailers and manufacturers, to seek agreement...

When President Barack Obama opened the first meeting of his fiscal commission last April, he promised to be “standing with them” as they produced recommendations for curbing the nation’s escalating debt. Republicans and Democrats say they are still waiting. While Obama has said he’s committed to deficit reduction, he has also has made clear it is secondary, at least for now, to his “winning the future” agenda. And that reflects a strategy driven by what his senior aides believe voters care about most — jobs, not deficits. Obama’s reluctance to join the debate in a sustained way has provoked rising...

Students in the Madison School District will have up to 20 minutes of additional classroom time each day starting Monday to make up for four days canceled last month because teachers were attending protests. Because no additional days will be added to the calendar, most teachers will not receive additional compensation for that time, district spokesman Ken Syke said. Madison schools were closed to students Feb. 16-18 and Feb. 21 because a significant number of teachers called in sick to attend protests against a state proposal to limit public employee collective bargaining. Gov. Scott Walker signed it into law Friday....

Unsure from week to week how much money Congress will provide them as the two parties battle over the budget for the rest of this year, federal officials say many agencies have been operating in chaos, confusion and uncertainty. Officials at various agencies have frozen hiring, canceled projects, delayed contracts, reduced grants and curtailed training, travel and upgrades in information technology. In northern New Hampshire, a new federal prison, with space for 1,280 inmates, sits vacant because the federal government has not been able to hire correctional officers and other employees. For some Head Start programs around the country, federal...

Gov. Scott Walker's union bargaining changes will require some 30,000 state workers to hold a do-or-die vote on their unions' futures by the end of April. The provisions in the Republican governor's budget-repair law also will require 170,000 other local and school union members to vote on whether their union will have to decertify by next year, though it's unclear if they will have to do so in April, according to the head lawyer for the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission. It's just one of the changes that unions will face under the new law, unless legal challenges already under way...

Aflac announced it “severed ties” with Gilbert Gottfried, the longtime voice of the insurer’s duck mascot, after the comedian attracted attention for his recent comments about the Japan earthquake. Gossip outlets, including TMZ, reported about jokes in Gottfried’s Twitter feed that referenced last week’s disaster in Japan. As of Monday afternoon, those tweets do not appear in his Twitter account. Among the steam of Japan-related comments attributed to Gottfried: I was talking to my Japanese real estate agent. I said “is there a school in this area.” She said “not now, but just wait.” “Gilbert’s recent comments about the crisis...

In freeing school boards from bargaining with employees over anything but inflation-capped wage increases, Wisconsin lawmakers might have opened the floodgates for districts seeking to drop coverage by the state's dominant - and highly controversial - health insurance provider for teachers. WEA Trust, the nonprofit company started 40 years ago by the state's largest teachers union, currently insures employees in about two-thirds of Wisconsin school districts. The company's market dominance has dropped in recent years, although not as much as some school officials who complain about the company's costs would like. After switching the district's nonunion employees to a different...

Looking back, David Dutcher realizes the gorgeous blonde who approached him through an online dating service came on too strong. During their 2008 date at the Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown Concord, Dutcher said the woman chugged shots of hard alcohol and punctuated each with a kiss to his lips. After a second flirtatious woman showed up, the blonde told Dutcher, then a 46-year-old recent divorcee, that their night would continue if he followed the ladies home to join them in a hot tub. Dutcher never got there - minutes after he left the restaurant, a Concord police officer pulled...

A Kingman man has been acquitted of trespassing charges more than a year after he attempted to bring a pitchfork into the county administration building. Judge Pro-tempore Paul Julien ruled March 5 that Mervin Fried was not guilty of third-degree trespassing. Fried was arrested for attempting to bring a pitchfork into the building on Feb. 16, 2010, after a protest outside of the county administration building. He was stopped at the door by County Manager Ron Walker, who asked him to leave the pitchfork outside. Fried was arrested when he refused and tried to enter the building with the pitchfork....

Liberals complain that the hearings on American Muslims were a racist blame game. But they trashed anyone trying to tell the truth about the radicalization of Islam. In the headlines, two minutes have defined the four-hour hearing of the House Homeland Protection Committee on radicalization of Muslim American community: Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison breaking down, sobbing, as he told the story of 9/11 Muslim paramedic, Mohammed Salman Hamdani, saying some people tried to “smear” Hamdani’s name before his remains were found, “solely because of his Islamic faith.” “Keith Ellison cries,” read a caption at conservative website, the Daily Caller....

Lawmakers in Mexico are demanding an investigation into a U.S. law enforcement operation that allowed hundreds of weapons to flow into the hands of Mexican drug cartels amid claims from a ranking legislator that at least 150 Mexicans have been killed or wounded by guns trafficked by smugglers under the watch of U.S. agents. U.S. authorities say manpower shortages and the high number of weapons sold resulted in their losing track of hundreds of guns, from pistols to .50-caliber sniper rifles, though a federal agent deeply involved in the Phoenix-based operation said it was "impossible" that U.S. authorities did not...

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer scored a major coup when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tapped him to resurrect his party’s struggling messaging operation and build a unified Democratic policy strategy. But two months into his high-profile job, he’s running into an age-old problem: Democratic disunity. Democrats are split over the size and scope of budget cuts for the next seven months — let alone the next two years. They’re dealing with a White House they believe has been disconnected — and venting about a lack of leadership from President Barack Obama. And when House Republicans were maneuvering on a...

NPR President and CEO Vivian Schiller has resigned, NPR just announced. This follows yesterday's news that then-NPR fundraiser Ron Schiller (no relation) was videotapped slamming conservatives and questioning whether NPR needs federal funding during a lunch with men posing as members of a Muslim organization (they were working with political activist James O'Keefe on a "sting.") Vivian Schiller (2008 file photo). Enlarge Michael Benabib/AP Vivian Schiller (2008 file photo). Vivian Schiller (2008 file photo). Michael Benabib/AP Vivian Schiller (2008 file photo). Vivian Schiller quickly condemned Ron Schiller's comments, and he moved up an already-announced decision to leave NPR and resigned...

Todd Shepard is delusional with paranoid thoughts but knows right from wrong, a psychiatrist testified today in a hearing on whether Shepard should be sentenced to death for killing a University City police sergeant. Dr. Robert Phillips also told the court that Shepard is above average in intelligence and could be treated if he would cooperate. Under cross examination by St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch over whether Shepard knew what he was doing when he shot Sgt. Michael King, Phillips replied, "No question." Sarah Henderson, Shepard's youngster sister, described him as a protector for her, who was...

Holding a semiautomatic rifle aloft, New York Sen. Eric Adams says the state should outlaw 30-bullet clips for them to help prevent another incident like the Arizona shooting that killed six people and wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford and 12 others. Adams, a former New York City police captain who owns three guns, noted Wednesday that a 1994 law banned the 30-round clip except for those made previously. He says 10-round magazines are legal. Adams and other lawmakers have introduced legislation to ban the clips in New York regardless of when they were made. He bought one at a suburban Albany...