Free Republic

An Arizona county’s board of supervisors certified their jurisdiction’s midterm elections results on Thursday at the order of a judge three days after they missed the statutory deadline of Nov. 28.Judge Casey McGinley of the Pima County Superior Court instructed Cochise County’s board of supervisors to convene and declare the results official by 5 p.m. MT on Thursday.McGinley ruled that the failure of two Republican supervisors to certify the results before the state’s legal deadline was illegal.On Monday, the lone Democrat on the three-person panel, supervisor Anne English, voted against the motion to postpone the results, while Republican supervisors Peggy...

Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) said in a new interview it is possible she loses her reelection bid to a “rubber-stamp Republican.” “I may be the last man standing. I may not be re-elected,” the senator told The New York Times. “It may be that Alaskans say, ‘Nope, we want to go with an absolute, down-the-line, always, always, 100-percent, never-question, rubber-stamp Republican.’

Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday said that he doesn’t believe he has the “unilateral authority” to decide between competing slates of electors. “It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not,” Pence said in a statement released just before a joint session of Congress began. As president of the Senate, Pence is presiding over the session. The purpose of the session is to count electoral votes. Under the Electoral College system, voters choose electors. Those electors...

Donald Trump may end up losing the 2020 election in the Electoral College, but he won the campaign that ended on Nov. 3. Democrats had been talking of a "sweep," a "blowout," a "blue wave" washing the Republicans out of power, capturing the Senate, and bringing in an enlarged Democratic majority in Nancy Pelosi's House. They visualized the ouster of Trump in a defeat so massive and humiliating that it would serve as an eternal repudiation of the man. And, most intoxicating of all, they believed they would be seen by history as the angels of America's deliverance. It was...

A new poll released by Germany’s Bild newspaper on Saturday, conducted in six countries in late February and early March, showed the far-right Europe of Nations and Freedom Group (ENF) was likely to win 67 seats in the European Parliament election in May. Europeans go to the polls on May 23-26 to elect representatives to the 705-seat European Parliament. Currently, the ENF group holds 37 seats. According to the Bild report, which surveyed more than 9,000 people, right-wing euroskeptic parties are in the lead in three of the six countries surveyed. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party is...

Moves to let European Parliament head Martin Schulz extend his tenure are sparking fresh infighting in the crisis-hit EU, with his opponents warning it would be akin to a declaration of war. The bearded 60-year-old German former bookshop owner has been in office for five years, more than anyone else since the parliament held its first international elections in 1979. Schulz now looks set to seek another two and a half years at the helm of the EU’s only elected body, a position whose profile he has raised with outspoken views on issues ranging from Brexit to Grexit. But Schulz...

Ahead of President Barack Obama’s first visit to Vietnam, the country voted Sunday in once-every-five-year-elections for a rubber-stamp parliament whose membership has already been largely determined by the Communist Party. Amid worries about soaring public debt, a serious budget deficit and China’s aggressive claims in nearby seas, there’s also high hope for Obama’s visit, both in the government, which wants him to lift an arms export embargo so it can better deal with Beijing, and among rights activists who want him to hold to account a repressive one-party state seen as treating its critics abysmally. […] Obama must balance a...

The Obama administration has announced a set of financial regulations that would force companies to disclose more information about their owners, part of an effort billed as a crackdown on tax evaders and money launderers. Administration officials announced the new rules Thursday as Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew urged Congress to pass legislation that would further enhance transparency in the U.S. banking system and help law enforcement track down secret owners. […] A second proposed rule would close a loophole that allows a narrow class of foreign-owned companies to avoid reporting to the IRS. […] Treasury also sent new legislation to...

On February 26, the ayatollahs have scheduled two "elections" in Iran: one for the parliament and one for the Assembly of Experts, a body that is supposed to monitor the supreme leader and choose a replacement when the time comes. Some in the West tout this as the potential start of a new era of moderation. After all it is the first election since the conclusion of nuclear negotiations between Iran and six world powers. But the nuclear deal cannot be the only criteria by which the West determines the prospects for moderation in Iran. Equally or more important is...

House Speaker Paul Ryan called on Republicans Wednesday to stop fighting angrily among themselves and not to be distracted by guns or other "hot-button" issues that President Barack Obama raises this election year. "We can't fall into the progressives' trap of acting like angry reactionaries," Ryan, R-Wis., said at a Heritage Action for America policy meeting. "The left would love nothing more than for a fragmented conservative movement to stand in a circular firing squad, so the progressives can win by default." ...

In the wake of the two-year budget deal the former House Speaker John Boehner negotiated with the Obama White House, Congress still needs to enact appropriations legislation to keep the government funded after the current continuing resolution expires on Dec. 11. When asked at a Tuesday press briefing whether the Republican House will put policy riders on that appropriations bill, newly House Speaker Paul Ryan said that Congress has the power of the purse and expects to use it. […] First up is a highway funding bill: "We're opening up the process," Ryan said, with "lots of amendments considered by...

President says in Atlantic interview he cares so deeply about Israel that he's motivated to criticize continued settlement activity, comments from Netanyahu. WASHINGTON -- "Political forces" in Washington seek to provide the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a rubber stamp for its policies, US President Barack Obama said this week in an interview with the Atlantic magazine. The interview, with the outlet's Jeffrey Goldberg, was published one day before the president is scheduled to address Congregation Adas Israel in Washington, where he is expected to outline his administration's plans to combat a rising tide of anti-Semitism across Europe....

He’s already boasted of wielding power through a pen and a phone. Now President Obama wants to add a rubber stamp to his desk set – and the rubber stamp would be named “U.S. Congress.” Buried in his State of the Union address, Obama said he will ask Congress to give him “trade promotion authority.” He didn’t say what trade promotion authority would do. But critics charge that it would cede the Republican majority’s control of the congressional agenda to Obama and strip Congress of its ability to vet and amend international agreements. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., acknowledges Obama is...

In the midst of the many crisis and challenges facing today’s world, MEPs have sounded off the urgent need of setting up a parliamentary assembly in the United Nations. “A United Nations Parliamentary assembly is a vital component to strengthen democratic legitimacy of the United Nations,” said center-left MEP Jo Leinen, during an international conference last week (17 October). Leinen and ALDE party leader Graham Watson have been on the forefront of such initiative since 2007. Since the 1990s there have been many calls to reform the UN, but there is little clarity or consensus on the way to change...

While you're busy making phone calls and knocking on doors warning your neighbors about the voting record of big government politicians like Tom Perriello, Obama is out campaigning for him! In fact, the President is coming to Charlottesville tomorrow to tell folks to vote for his liberal sidekick, Tom Perriello. Talk about out of touch! Come out to an "I am AFP" rally tomorrow at Lee Park to tell President Obama that November Is Coming- and Virginians don't want more of the same big government spend-crazed politicians. But Obama has repeatedly insulted Americans for Prosperity, calling you "controlled by foreign...

Perriello All Out Efforts by Faith N Country on Sunday, October 24, 2010 at 9:33pm MoveOn.org had a blitz this weekend asking for people to step forward and host a "Save out Heroes" house parties. They wanted to recruit volunteers to help get out the vote for their heroes. They were setting goals of 500 parties and 150,000 phone calls nationwide. They have listed people like Senator Feingold, Senator Boxer and Representative Perriello, "who stood tall against Big Insurance during the health care debate." MoveOn is now calling Mr. One Term a "hero." Is a "hero" someone who will continue...

If you suspect this week's Senate confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor will be, like "Seinfeld," a show about nothing, you are probably right.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the health-care reform bill now pending in Congress would garner very few votes if lawmakers actually had to read the entire bill before voting on it. “If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,” Hoyer told CNSNews.com at his regular weekly news conference. Hoyer was responding to a question from CNSNews.com on whether he supported a pledge that asks members of the Congress to read the entire bill before voting on it and also...

Arlen Specter thinks his road to re-election takes him through the Land of Independents. He may be right. But he has to win the Pennsylvania Democratic primary first. Vice President Biden, who claims to have once lived in Scranton, and Governor Rendell assured him there wouldn't be one. Pennsylvania Democratic voters may have another idea though, especially with popular Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak edging closer to challenging the whole idea of Specter even being a Democrat. Specter has been emphasizing he's an independent and not a rubber stamp. The independent thing may work better among Pennsylvania's independents but they don't...