Free Republic

May 3 (Bloomberg Government) -- The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and 12 other business groups asked members of President Obama’s cabinet including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for more leeway in implementing the health-care overhaul. The groups said they’re being forced to make contract, employee-benefit and other decisions without guidance on how to comply with provisions that take effect in September. The letter dated April 30 was sent to Geithner, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- With some candidates at the top of the polls for the Republican primary for president who aren't exciting the pro-life community, the likely entry of former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson into the race is a positive one. He has a strong pro-life record and his aides rebutted one of the only criticisms against him. Thompson's tenure in the Senate included votes on various abortion issues from stopping taxpayer funding to uphold parental involvement laws and he accumulated a 100% pro-life voting record during that time.The former attorney even voted twice against a Senate resolution endorsing Roe...

WASHINGTON - Attempting to loosen decades-old restrictions, the Pentagon is asking Congress to allow its intelligence agents to go undercover when they approach Americans who may have useful national-security information, rather than identifying themselves as intelligence operatives. The provision found in a wide-ranging intelligence bill would give the Defense Intelligence Agency new latitude to meet U.S. citizens without pulling out their DIA badges and later sending a formal notice of their rights under the landmark 1974 Privacy Act. The regulations were imposed to prevent recurrence of the intelligence scandals of the 1960s and 1970s, when the Defense Department was caught...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The California Supreme Court upheld state sentencing guidelines Monday amid challenges judges were unconstitutionally justifying steeper sentences based on elements not considered by the jury. Leaving intact the sentencing guidelines avoided what might have been the resentencing of thousands of prisoners. The decision was the third this year by California's justices interpreting new precedent established by the U.S. Supreme Court involving a hodgepodge of topics including sentencing, executing the mentally retarded and limiting the amount of damages jurors could award to punish business for egregious conduct in civil lawsuits. Ruling 6-1 Monday, the justices said California's...