Free Republic

House Republicans aren’t feeling pressure to tackle comprehensive immigration reform — not from the Senate, not from the business and religious communities and not from the many GOP-aligned groups backing the effort. From Karl Rove to Jeb Bush to Grover Norquist, an array of Republican heavyweights have called on the House GOP to embrace immigration reform. -snip- At the behest of the Speaker , the House is taking a more deliberate, methodical approach to immigration reform than the Senate and will begin in earnest with a special meeting of the Republican Conference on July 10.

Rockville (AP) - Hundreds of Latino immigrants - many of them illegal - gathered this afternoon in Rockville to protest proposed federal restrictions that would deny driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. The federal Real I-D Act is part of the bill covering the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has been passed by the U.S. House and endorsed by the White House. Opponents say the bill will likely pass in the Senate - maybe as early as next week. Maryland is one of ten states that don't require applicants to prove they are citizens or legal residents....

The nation's unemployment rate dropped to 6 percent in October as companies added thousands of new jobs for the third straight month, new evidence of an improving labor market. The Labor Department reported Friday that payrolls grew by 126,000 last month, significantly more than the 50,000 new jobs that economists had predicted. That followed a revised 125,000 new jobs in September, which initially was reported at 57,000. U.S. companies also added new jobs in August, marking three months of hiring gains after a sixth-month slump. October hiring occurred across a broad swath of the business landscape, including technical services,...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. NEW BRITAIN — More than 1,200 factory workers, manufacturing executives and supporters packed a rally Friday, demanding fair trade. Sen. Chris Dodd, D.-Conn., and U.S. Reps. Rosa DeLauro, D-New Haven, and Nancy Johnson, R-New Britain, all promised to join the fight alongside small and medium-sized manufacturers, who gathered under the umbrella name MAD in USA, which stands for Manufacturing Awareness Day. "If we don´t have a manufacturing sector, we don´t have an economy. If we don´t have manufacturing jobs, we don´t have a middle class," Johnson told the cheering crowd gathered...