Free Republic

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday agreed to allow a short-term debt ceiling extension. The debt limit will be increased into December. “The unified Democratic government had two and a half months to address the debt limit through reconciliation. Instead, they drifted to the doorstep of yet another self-created crisis,” McConnell said in a statement on Wednesday. “To protect the American people from a near-term Democrat-created crisis, we will also allow Democrats to use normal procedures to pass an emergency debt limit extension at a fixed dollar amount to cover current spending levels into December. This will moot Democrats’...

Congressional leaders spoke Friday after meeting about the fiscal cliff with President Barack Obama at the White House. -snip- McConnell spoke immediately after Reid, saying, “I share the view of the majority leader. We had a good meeting down at the White House. “We are engaged in discussions, the majority leader and myself and the White House, in the hopes that we can come forward as early as Sunday and have a recommendation that I can make to my conference and the majority leader [Reid] can make to his conference and so we’ll be working hard to try and see...

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said late Thursday that Senate Republicans are open to any White House proposal to avert the fiscal cliff. McConnell said he and House Speaker John Boehner spoke with President Barack Obama on Wednesday night as the president prepared to return to Washington from his Christmas vacation in Hawaii. “I told the president I would be happy to look at whatever he proposes,” McConnell said, in a brief statement on the Senate floor. “The action is on the Senate side, and we will see if we can move forward on a bipartisan basis. “We’ll see what...

SANTA MONICA – Rudy Giuliani picked up the support Thursday of former Gov. Pete Wilson, an endorsement that could be a mixed blessing for the Republican presidential front-runner because of Wilson's hardline reputation on illegal immigration. “America needs America's mayor to lead us as president,” Wilson said while endorsing the former mayor of New York. Wilson, who served terms as U.S. senator and San Diego mayor, becomes Giuliani's most recognized supporter in the nation's largest state. But the endorsement represents some tricky political calculus for Giuliani, since the immigration policies Wilson championed as governor in the 1990s are widely blamed...

(Angus Reid Global Scan) – Many adults in the Empire State want a former New York City mayor to run for president in 2008, according to a poll by Strategic Vision. 62 per cent of respondents say they would like Rudy Giuliani to launch a White House bid.Giuliani—a Republican—garnered national and international attention in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The former mayor currently heads Giuliani Partners, LLC—a consulting firm.Last week, Newsday reproduced the comments of John Dennehy—a strategist during the 2000 presidential run by Republican Arizona senator John McCain—on Giuliani’s possible presidential bid. Dennehy declared, "In my humble...