Free Republic

It sounds like the sort of diabolically genius plot that usually comes from Republicans, but there's reason to wonder whether Florida Democrats have conspired to put tea party candidates on ballots in hopes that it will siphon votes from leading Republican candidates. Chief suspect: Fire-breathing liberal Alan Grayson, the Orlando Democrat whose health-care histrionics have led him into a tough reelection race. Roll Call notes that a woman running in his race as a Florida Tea Party candidate was previously working for Grayson as a pollster.

The left-wing militants of SEIU and the National People’s Action group plan to shut down K Street, the heart of the lobbying industry in the nation’s capital, at a massive in-your-face rally and march planned for Monday. The goal of the “action” –in organizing parlance— is a show of force calculated to intimidate bank lobbyists and show support for sweeping anti-bank legislation pending in Congress. The action, called The Showdown on K Street, is listed at the website of Jobs With Justice. JwJ works closely with ACORN, other community organizing groups, and the labor movement.

TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie Thursday will create a commission to privatize as many as 2,000 state jobs beginning next January, officials said tonight. As he grapples with an $11 billion deficit in the budget he will present on Tuesday, Christie is also considering invoking the Disaster Control Act to suspend Civil Service rules to make it easier for him to lay off higher paid workers, according to two administration officials. The Republican governor today plans to sign an executive order creating the task force to cut the size and cost of the state payroll. Three officials familiar with his...

Harrison Schmitt's credentials as a space policy analyst include several days of walking on the moon. The Apollo 17 astronaut, who is also a former U.S. senator, is aghast at what President Obama is doing to the space program. "It's bad for the country," Schmitt said. "This administration really does not believe in American exceptionalism." Schmitt's harsh words are part of a furious blowback to the administration's new strategy for NASA. The administration has decided to kill NASA's Constellation program, crafted during the Bush administration with an ambitious goal of putting astronauts back on the moon by 2020. Obama's 2011...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will announce its plans for coastal oil and gas drilling leases by the end of March, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Wednesday. Salazar told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that he was preparing two plans to govern leases on the outer continental shelf — one with court-mandated changes that would apply through June 30, 2012, and another completely new blueprint for leasing from July 1, 2012, until 2017. The decision to go with sequential schedules means Salazar is scrapping a Bush-era proposal for 2010 through 2015 that would have allowed leases on Pacific...

The White House has reached a deal with health care negotiators, including labor unions, on taxing the high-level "Cadillac" plans that workers with high-risk jobs often purchase. The White House has reached a deal with health care negotiators, including labor unions, on taxing the high-level "Cadillac" plans that workers with high-risk jobs often purchase. The excise tax on high-cost insurance plans has been one of the biggest sticking points in the negotiations, as President Obama has favored the Senate plan, which calls for the tax, while House Democrats have preferred raising taxes on high-income earners.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama outlined new multibillion-dollar stimulus and jobs proposals Tuesday, saying the nation must continue to "spend our way out of this recession" until more Americans are back at work. Without giving a price tag, Obama proposed a package of new spending for highway, bridge and other infrastructure projects, deeper tax breaks for small businesses and tax incentives to encourage people to make their homes more energy efficient.

The US and Panama have signed an agreement allowing Washington to deploy two naval bases in Panama to beef up anti-narcotic measures. A preliminary agreement on the bases was reached recently in New York between Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. A final treaty is expected to be inked in the coming days, reported Panama's La Prensa newspaper, according to Russia's RIA Novosti.

(IsraelNN.com) Iran will hold missile defense exercises on Sunday, Iranian media reported Saturday. The exercises will coincide with the Yom Kippur holiday, the holiest day of the year according to Judaism and the anniversary of the beginning of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

A plan for the building of a new settlement, Ma'aleh David, in the middle of an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem was filed for approval by the relevant municipal committee at the Jerusalem Municipality. The plan calls for the construction of 104 housing units on the land where the former headquarters of the Judea and Samaria police was housed in the neighborhood of Ras al-Amud. The new settlement is planned to be connected to an existing Jewish neighborhood, Ma'aleh Zeitim, and together will be occupied by some 200 families, forming the largest Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem

White House officials are embracing a plan to tax "gold-plated, Cadillac" insurance policies, giving momentum to an idea that is receiving bipartisan consideration on Capitol Hill. "A premium charge on top of the most expensive packages is one of the ways to ensure that there's a lid on health-care costs," a top administration official told POLITICO. "The president believes this is an intriguing idea." Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said Friday on Bloomberg TV that he is "taking an intense look at it." And top House leadership official told POLITICO that the...

Iran has unveiled plans to invest around $75 billion in its two major gas fields by 2015 to exploit their huge undeveloped reserves. Managing Director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Seyfollah Jashnsaz said that the country would finance a $40 billion investment in the South Pars gas field in a five-year plan to produce some 28 billion cubic meters of gas annually from the field. Iran and Qatar share the largest gas field in the world in the Persian Gulf, where the Iranian part is divided into 24 phases. Jashnsaz also noted that a $25-billion investment is planned...

7/1/2009 - BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, La. (AFNS) -- One step on May 11 changed the life course of an explosive ordnance disposal technician assigned to the 2nd Civil Engineer Squadron here. Staff Sgt. David Flowers, 28, was deployed with the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, when he was wounded by an anti-personnel mine on May 11. "My team was tasked to go out and dispose of a weapons cache that was called in by the Afghanistan National Police," Sergeant Flowers said. "We went out to the location and found a bunch of ordnance." After finding...

You paid $328,835 for the Air Force mission that forced the evacuation of Goldman Sachs and sent Jersey City office workers fleeing for their lives and now you'll never get the lousy snapshots that formed the entire rationale for buzzing lower Manhattan.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration is expected to unveil its plans on Thursday for accelerating development of high-speed rail, a concept that in the past has had mixed political support and little public funding. "It will be broad and strategic," Karen Rae, acting head of the Federal Railroad Administration, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday about the initiative described by officials as President Barack Obama's top transportation priority. "It's going to talk about how we begin to create this new vision for high-speed and intercity rail," Rae said. White House and transportation officials have spent the past several...

The Obama administration will play a key role in reshaping General Motors' board of directors over the next six months, potentially giving it even greater control in the management of the storied American manufacturer.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans in Congress could stand in the way of Democratic President-elect Barack Obama's hopes of signing a massive economic stimulus plan into law right after he takes office on January 20. The plan, aimed at easing the financial crisis, tops the agenda of the newly elected Congress due to be sworn in on Tuesday -- two weeks before Obama. Hearings in the new Congress could push a final package well into February. Democrats who control Congress predict the plan -- including tax relief for the middle class and spending on schools, roads and other infrastructure -- will...

When I returned home last night, my wife was sick. We are senior citizens. She said she had heard that the Democrats were going to raid our Retirement Plan. She said it's happening NOW in Argentina. She was very concerned that Obama and his Left-Wing Liberal Democrats were going to steal away from us our little retirement nest egg. I told her I had read on the Congressional website that the House Committee on Education and Labor has, indeed, been holding hearings on this exact thing. In addition, I said, the Democrats are advocating that an additional 5% of our...

WASHINGTON, July 28, 2008 – Individuals and organizations around the globe are planning special commemorations to mark the quickly approaching seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. So far, nearly 185 America Supports You Freedom Walks are scheduled to take place on and around Sept. 11. Of those walks, eight are scheduled overseas, in Heidelberg, Germany; Santa Rita, Guam; Baghdad; Vicenza, Italy; Iwakuni, Japan; Moron, Spain; and Seoul and Daegu, South Korea. America Supports You is a Defense Department program connecting citizens and companies with servicemembers and their families serving at home and abroad. “The America Supports...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The federal government will open up nearly 46,000 square miles off Alaska's northwest coast to petroleum leases next month, a decision condemned by enviromental groups that contend the industrial activity will harm northern marine mammals. The Minerals Management Agency planned the sale in the Chukchi Sea without taking into account changes in the Arctic brought on by global warming and proposed insufficient protections for polar bears, walrus, whales and other species that could be harmed by drilling rigs or spills, according to the groups. The lease sale in an area slightly smaller than the state of Pennsylvania...