Free Republic

The last time a vote for speaker went to multiple ballots on the House floor was in 1923. The longest was 133 ballots over two months.... ...In this game of chicken, if the conservatives don’t blink and McCarthy refuses to back down, it could result in a chaotic floor fight with House members taking multiple votes for speaker — something that has not happened in a century. Here are other examples throughout history where the speaker's gavel didn't come easy....

Republicans only need one of the two seats to maintain their Senate majority. A look at the history of similar contests indicates that an electoral split is uncommon, but still possible.The presidential race seems to be over. Republicans gained seats in the House, but Democratic control is assured there too, if narrowly. Only the Senate stands between the Democrats and undivided government, with the majority there to be decided by two runoff elections in Georgia. As close as that state was in the presidential race—a margin of 0.25 percent, according to the hand recount just finished—we can expect the Senate...

Written as a letter to my Congressman: This morning I found myself killing 5 hours near the nemesis of any bibliophile: a bookstore. After dropping my high school son at a state-mandated volunteerism session, I entered the Barnes and Noble on Route 30, ruminating on the many forms of modern day involuntary servitude. I meandered to the History section where a copy of Democracy in America, by Alexis De Tocqueville, caught my eye. At $27.00, it promised to provide entertainment at a rate of $5.40 per hour; a bargain by any other name. I write today to encourage you to...

WASHINGTON -- As President Bush struggles to define a consistent course in the Middle East, a chorus of leading conservative voices has begun loudly discouraging the administration from inserting itself into peace negotiations--and instead is urging the president to give Israel a freer hand to respond militarily to Palestinian suicide bombings. In a series of articles over the last two weeks, conservative thinkers such as William Kristol and William J. Bennett--and leading right-leaning media such as the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the National Review--have used phrases such as "amateur hour," "moral confusion" and "Clintonite wishful thinking" to describe...