Free Republic

Moderate Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) wrote Wednesday he would oppose any attempt of his party to “eliminate or weaken the filibuster” or abuse the scheme of reconciliation. “The filibuster is a critical tool to protecting that input and our democratic form of government. That is why I have said it before and will say it again to remove any shred of doubt: There is no circumstance in which I will vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster,” Manchin bluntly stated to the Washington Post.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley confirmed Monday that a new housing development in east Jerusalem had been a topic of conversation last week during a meeting between senior US diplomats and Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren. Crowley said US opposition to construction in east Jerusalem and settlements in the West Bank had not changed. "We have made our views known to Israel," he told reporters. "Our views are not new either: that this kind of construction is the type ... of issue that should be subject to permanent-status negotiations."

The Obama Administration insistently reiterated its support for Israel this weekend after a Jerusalem Post poll found that only 6 percent of Jewish Israelis now consider Barack Obama's presidency to be pro-Israel. The poll, which has a margin of error of 4.5%, was conducted by Smith Research among a representative sample of 500 Israeli Jewish adults last week.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistan reiterated that it will not let American forces hunt al-Qaeda and Taliban militants on its soil, after a news report said Sunday that the Bush administration was considering expanding U.S. military and intelligence operations into Pakistan's tribal regions. The Foreign Ministry dismissed as “speculative” a story in The New York Times saying President Bush's top security officials discussed a proposal Friday to deploy U.S. troops to pursue militants along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. “We are very clear. Nobody is going to be allowed to do anything here,” said Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, the top spokesman for Pakistan's...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12, 2006 – Saddam Hussein's sponsorship of terrorists and terrorism is a matter of open public record, Vice President Dick Cheney said yesterday. Cheney was a guest on nationally syndicated radio programs hosted by Sean Hannity and Tony Snow. "The fact is we know that Saddam Hussein and Iraq were heavily involved with terror," Cheney told Snow. "They were carried as a terror-sponsoring state by our State Department for many, many years." He cited two terror organizations in particular -- Abu Nidal and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad - that operated out of Saddam's Iraq. He also noted that...