Free Republic

Barack Obama has gone to Congress asking for more money to spend. The President, in a rambling and tedious exercise mixing blame with demands, made quite a few dubious statements in laying out the case for Congress to vote for the plan which as yet does not exist. Much like Obamacare, Congress must ultimately vote for the bill to know what is in it. At one point Mr. Obama made a major gaffe; he identified Abraham Lincoln as the founder of the Republican Party. Lincoln did not join the Republicans until 1856, over two years after the party was founded....

The head of the U.S. Justice Department launched his strongest personal defense yet in the growing furor over Operation Fast and Furious, the controversial sting targeting Mexican drug cartels and American gunrunners. On Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder said for the first time that not only he but also other higher-ups at the Justice Department were not aware of the operation as it was being carried out. Holder also suggested politics could be a driving force behind Republican lawmakers' forceful inquiries into the matter. Related Video Rep. Issa: DOJ Let Explosives Walk California congressman reacts to new developments in ATF...

SEOUL - A US military reconnaissance plane came under electronic attack from North Korea and had to make an emergency landing during a major military exercise in March, a political aide said Friday. The aide said the plane suffered disturbance to its GPS system due to jamming signals from the North's southwestern cities of Haeju and Kaesong as it was taking part in the annual US-South Korea drill, Key Resolve.

Officials from the Department of Energy have for months been sitting in on board meetings as "observers" at Solyndra, getting an up-close view as the solar energy company careened towards bankruptcy after spending more than $500 million in federal loan money. Word of the Energy Department's unusual arrangement came as federal agents on Thursday converged on the California headquarters of the failed solar company, focusing fresh attention on the first corporate beneficiary of President Obama's stimulus program to create new clean energy jobs. The company, which closed its doors last week and laid off 1,100 workers, has been a subject...

A man accused of being part of a terrorist cell in the Triangle has been linked to what U.S. counter-terrorism officials have called a credible but unconfirmed al-Qaida threat to set off a car bomb on bridges or tunnels in New York City or Washington. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Jude Kenan Mohammad is among three al-Qaida leaders that investigators believe pose a particular threat because they have lived in the U.S. Mohammad, 22, dropped out of Fuquay-Varina High School in 2006 and left the U.S. two years later to visit Pakistan, his father's homeland. A federal grand...

In liberals’ frenzy to elect Barack Obama in 2008, no one was quite as far out to sea as Andrew Sullivan, a respected columnist for the Atlantic website. He served up his “Daily Dish” by the plateful. Here’s perhaps the hottest example of his rhetoric—quoted endlessly around the blogosphere--back then: “A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and...

In Congress yesterday a House Judiciary Committee held hearings on alleged abuses in absestos litigation involving forum shopping, witness coaching, fraudulent diagnoses and double dipping as reported by Alison Frankel for Thomson Reuters. In regard to double dipping by which some plaintiffs allegedly are receiving multiple recoveries for the same injury from different sources Dionne Searcey from The Wall Street Journal Law Blog writes: Defense attorneys have long claimed that plaintiffs double dip and get inflated payouts by filing multiple asbestos claims, both in court and with asbestos trusts, for the same injury. Because settlements are secret and the trusts...

CEO and founder of politically connected company questioned on day of raid. Now some Democrats wonder if they'd been misled Federal agents have expanded their examination of the now-bankrupt California solar power company Solyndra, searching the homes of the company's chief executive, a founder, and a former executive, examining computer files and documents, the Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News and ABC News have learned. Agents visited the homes of CEO Brian Harrison and company founder Chris Gronet. Agents also visited the home of a third executive involved in the company from the start, according to a source who agreed...

NEW YORK, Sept 9 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures fell on Friday as investors remained skeptical about how much of President Barack Obama's $447 billion proposal to generate U.S. jobs would make it through Congress.

NEW YORK — The problems that weighed down stocks all summer show no sign of letting up. U.S. stocks plunged Friday, erasing the week's gains, as rising fears about fallout from Europe's debt crisis overshadowed President Barack Obama's plan to revive the U.S. job market.

A group of about 30 protesters broke into the Israeli Embassy in Cairo Friday and dumped hundreds of documents out of the windows after a day of demonstrations outside the building in which crowds swinging sledge hammers and using their bare hands tore apart the embassy's security wall. Hundreds of protesters converged on the embassy throughout the afternoon and into the night, tearing down large sections of the graffiti-covered security wall outside the 21-story building housing the embassy. Egyptian security forces made no attempt for hours to intervene. Just before midnight, a group of protesters reached a room on one...

PEORIA — Ryder has canceled all truck rentals for the coming week due to credible but unconfirmed threats of terrorist attacks in the wake of the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

A customer who did not want to be identified told the Journal Star that she had been informed by Ryder of the cancellation by phone call Friday. A Ryder representative told the Journal Star all local rentals for the weekend had been canceled, though that person declined to elaborate on the reason.

Further questions were referred to the head of rentals for the local arm of the company. That person did not...

Washington — A growing divide over Social Security splits the two leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, and the differences between Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney foreshadow a tricky political dance with older voters. Romney has seized on what he perceives as Perry’s vulnerability on a program that seniors hold dear, Democrats venerate as sacrosanct and Perry has labeled a “Ponzi scheme.” That sets up a battle for older voters in Iowa, retirees in Florida and the Sun Belt, and Baby Boomers everywhere worried about their own recession-scarred retirement plans. “If we nominate someone...