Free Republic

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is planning to bring President Biden's social and climate spending bill to the floor as soon as the week of Dec. 13, a source familiar confirmed to The Hill. Schumer's plan is to bring the bill, known as Build Back Better, to the Senate floor once Democrats finish their conversations with the parliamentarian, who provides guidance on what can be included in a bill passed through budget reconciliation. "As soon as the necessary technical and procedural work with the Senate parliamentarian has been completed... the Senate will take up this legislation," Schumer told reporters...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – BP may be looking to sovereign wealth funds in the oil-rich Middle East to fend off takeover bids amid mounting costs from the Gulf of Mexico oil leak disaster, according to reports published Sunday. The National, an Emirati newspaper, cited unnamed "informed sources" in the region saying that Mideast financial institutions have submitted proposals to BP advisers and are waiting for a response. Among the options being considered are the acquisition of key assets or a direct cash injection to help strengthen the oil giant's balance sheet, according to the English-language paper.

Senior White House officials have begun to make the case for a policy shift in Afghanistan that would send few, if any, new combat troops to the country and instead focus on faster military training of Afghan forces, continued assassinations of al-Qaeda leaders and support for the government of neighboring Pakistan in its fight against the Taliban. In a three-hour meeting Wednesday at the White House, senior advisers challenged some of the key assumptions in Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's blunt assessment of the nearly eight-year-old war, which President Obama has said is being fought to destroy al-Qaeda and its allies...

SACRAMENTO — Over the past dozen years, Hewlett-Packard has sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of printers and other products to Iran through a Middle East distributor, sidestepping a U.S. ban on trade with the country. Now the person who headed HP for much of that time, Carly Fiorina, is ramping up to run for U.S. Senate. And questions are emerging about what Fiorina knew about HP's growing presence in Iran during her six-year tenure at the Silicon Valley firm from 1999 to 2005. With Iran drawing condemnation abroad for its suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons and crackdown on...

<p>California chicken farmers do not pay state sales taxes for products they use as litter and resell as fertilizer.</p> <p>Fuel sold to commercial airlines with destinations outside the United States also is exempt from the state sales and use tax.</p>