Free Republic

OTTAWA–Faced with a darkening economic outlook, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the premiers are pledging to speed up infrastructure spending, look at easing rules for retirement savings and consider ways to boost Ontario's hard-hit automotive sector. With an eye on the massive rescue package offered by the U.S. government for General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, Harper yesterday dangled the possibility of a government bailout package to help the auto industry, but fell short of promising concrete action. And in a major development for Toronto and other urban centres, Harper and the premiers emerged from a meeting about the economy agreeing...

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she will push legislation next week to help the ailing auto industry. "I am confident Congress can consider emergency assistance legislation next week during a lame-duck session, and I hope the Bush Administration would support it," the California Democrat said in a statement. Rep. Pelosi said she tapped House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) to craft legislation that would give the industry "limited" assistance under the recently enacted Troubled Asset Relief Program. "In order to prevent the failure of one or more of the major American automobile manufacturers, which would have...

Just hours after President Bush and President-elect Obama met in the Oval Office of the White House, details of their confidential conversation began leaking out to the press, igniting anger from the president, sources claim. "Senator Obama would be wise to keep close counsel," a top Bush source warned. "BUSH AND OBAMA AT ODDS OVER AID FOR AUTO INDUSTRY," splashed the NEW YORK TIMES in an exclusive Monday evening, quoting "people familiar with the discussion." The two met at the White House in private, without staff. "Bush indicated at the meeting that he might support some aid and a broader...

The Democratic leaders in Congress, the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, have declined to call a lame-duck session for next week, as they had hoped, without assurance that Bush would support a stimulus package.

As President-elect Obama prepares to enter the White House, he must ponder what to do about the world's trouble spots: Iran, Iraq, North Korea, the Caucasus. And, oh yes, Detroit. On Friday, General Motors and Ford announced more multibillion-dollar losses in the third quarter; closely held Chrysler doesn't publicly report results. When GM, which seems in the worst shape, was 45 minutes late releasing its results, rumors spread that a bankruptcy filing was imminent. It wasn't, but the company says it could run out of cash in the first half of next year. Make that the first quarter if the...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson urging him to assist the Big Three auto makers by considering broadening the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program to help the troubled industry. The two top Democratic leaders in Congress are likely to make the request in a letter to the White House, which could be forwarded as soon as Saturday afternoon, said individuals familiar with the matter. President-elect Barack Obama is generally supportive of the appeal, but at the moment is moving on his own track to assist the industry,...

We have reported on a number of incidents—almost all of them before the election—of Obama supporters and allies feeling emboldened in a rather scary way. Weasel Zippers posts on another such incident in . . . Chicago: Arrests at Obama Victory Rally, Woman Yells "White [expletive], [expletive] McCain--you White Police Can't do Nothing Anymore"...Then Proceeds to Slap a White Cop..... No doubt there was a fair amount of people who voted for Obama thinking that when Obama is president, I'll get what's coming to me.That's kind of lame, in that it's the typical lazy human impulse that gives seemingly...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. labor unions, having helped Barack Obama win the presidency, entertain high hopes he will enact their agenda to bolster their negotiating power with employers and increase their numbers after decades of decline. Unions have "an unprecedented amount of leverage" after turning out white middle-class voters for Obama in battleground industrial states like Pennsylvania and Ohio that he won in Tuesday's election but had lost in the Democratic nominating primaries, said University of Illinois-Chicago labor expert Robert Bruno. "American workers won this election," said Anna Burger, chairman of the labor coalition "Change to Win" at a news...

Report cites Frank's proposal to cut military 25% President-elect Barack Obama raised questions during an election campaign stop in Colorado Springs when he asserted the U.S. needs a "civilian national security force" that would be as powerful, strong and well-funded as the Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force, but few of those questions have been answered. But now one report is proposing a possible solution for part of the equation: From where would the money for such an organization come? Democrats in Congress now are floating the idea of cutting U.S. military spending by 25 percent, or $150 billion a...