Free Republic

As November election nears, splits in Democratic coalition resurfaceBy Niall Stanage - 06/11/12 05:00 AM ET Divisions in the Democratic coalition have burst into view, endangering both President Obama and his party colleagues in Congress as November’s election nears. Fissures have opened over everything from tax policy and former President Bill Clinton’s off-message comments to recriminations following the party’s fiasco in the Wisconsin recall, which some say should have been avoided. Democrats disagree over the wisdom of Obama’s attacks on Republican Mitt Romney’s private equity background at Bain Capital and are split over the proposed construction of the Keystone XL...

If you were looking for a political wedge issue that could work to the advantage of the GOP, you could hardly do better than immigration, which has left a sniping and divided Democratic Party in its wake. It wasn't so at first. Democrats hung together in opposition to SB 1070, sticking to the general theme it doesn't do anything to really secure the border while opening up a Pandora's box of civil-rights violations. But then came polls showing the law had a wellspring of support, followed by boycotts and a federal lawsuit - areas that also don't poll particularly well...

Despite a planned rally in Albany Tuesday to protest a state regulation requiring health care workers be vaccinated against influenza — both seasonal and swine flu — New York’s top public health official predicts dissenters will ultimately extinguish their anger and roll up their sleeves.

Despite a planned rally in Albany Tuesday to protest a state regulation requiring health care workers be vaccinated against influenza — both seasonal and swine flu — New York’s top public health official predicts dissenters will ultimately extinguish their anger and roll up their sleeves. http://www.newsday.com/long-island/mandatory-flu-vaccination-splits-workers-1.1481242?print=true

Forget the war or the White House: No issue has divided Hollywood's liberal activists like the upcoming California governor's race between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Phil Angelides. Entertainment community donors who are normally slow to reach for their checkbooks for Republicans have been lining up behind Schwarzenegger's re-election bid, much to the consternation of liberal activists loath to stray from the Democratic lineup. The conservative Republicans who have sometimes clashed with Schwarzenegger have nowhere else to go in this November's election, so the Schwarzenegger campaign has been laboring to make inroads in areas of support that a Democrat ought to consider...

Channel 4 Action News is reporting sources said Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has been released from the hospital. A source inside Mercy Hospital told Channel 4 Action News Roethlisberger was whisked out a side entrance of the hospital sometime between 11 p.m. Wednesday and midnight Thursday. That source told the station the star quarterback was surrounded by his sister, a Steelers representative and a doctor.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The emotional debate over embryonic stem-cell research has sharply split the Republican Party and could become a prominent election-year issue, with key U.S. Senate races in Missouri and Maryland emerging as early battlegrounds. The Republican rift pits religious conservatives and abortion foes who oppose the research on moral grounds against supporters who tout its potential benefits in fighting diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. With polls showing large majorities of Americans backing stem-cell research, some Republican candidates find themselves stuck in the middle. Democrats, who largely support the research, are eager to take advantage of their quandary. "It's...

Mission Presbytery in Texas has dismissed a Confessing Church congregation and its pastor to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, but the property issue is still up in the air. The presbytery voted 152-76 in October against a motion to allow the congregation – First Presbyterian Church in Laredo – to leave with its property and assets. However, the presbytery decided to allow the congregation to continue using the property until after an appraisal is made of the land and building. The presbytery's trustees were instructed to make a recommendation for the disposition of the property "in such a way as to...