Free Republic

WASHINGTON—Democrats on Capitol Hill are pushing for the White House to propose more generous and long-lasting jobless benefits on a permanent basis as part of the antipoverty package President Biden is expected to roll out next week. In a letter sent to the White House Friday, nearly 40 Democrats said President Biden should propose implementing a series of new federal standards of unemployment insurance programs, which are largely run by states. They proposed increasing the amount of jobless payments, extending the duration of the weekly benefit, expanding the pool of eligible workers, and implementing a system that would more closely...

Scotland’s first minister says ‘independent nations’ wield more power in EU than Scotland does within the UK. Scotland should hold a referendum on independence before 2021 if the U.K. leaves the EU, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said. “A choice between Brexit and a future for Scotland as an independent European nation should be offered in the lifetime of this parliament," the Scottish National Party leader said. "If Scotland is taken out of the EU, a referendum within that timescale must be open to us. That would be our route to avoiding the worst of the damage that Brexit would do.”...

One SNP MP predicted another referendum “in the next two years”.what, then, to make of this week’s utterance from her normally gung-ho Westminster colleague Pete Wishart? The latter is neither a surgeon nor, it feels uncontroversial to say, particularly smart or savvy, but he somehow seems to have detected a change in the wind. In an article for iScot, one of those odd little pro-independence newsletters consumed only by diehards and MI5, he struck a cautious tone in relation to a new vote. “There is only one thing that determines my approach to a second independence referendum and that is...

Carl Robinson, 26, believes there is nothing wrong with using his benefits to pay for sex. Mr Robinson has been sponging off the system since he left his last job working in a bookmakers three years ago. But he now spends almost all of his fortnightly £170 on seedy romps with hookers. "I don't care what people think about what I am doing, there are a lot worse people than me out there," he said. "What man doesn't want to have sex when he can?" Mr Robinson continued: "I first slept with a prostitute when I was 18 and I...

End austerity: it’s cheating us all; Jobs not Trident; No cuts; Defy Tory rule; Cut war not welfare; Stop fracking; a Living Wage for mothers; and, The Pope gets it, why can’t you? With the slogans emblazoned on banners, posters and flags, anti-austerity marchers shouted slogans, sang, and beat drums, as they walked through London in what is being called the biggest protest march that the city has seen. The ‘End Austerity Now’ demonstration saw participation by an estimated crowd of between 70,000 and 250,000, all coming together to protest against cuts imposed due to austerity, the threats to the...

More than 1 million Americans are bracing for a harrowing, post-Christmas jolt as extended federal unemployment benefits come to a sudden halt this weekend, with potentially significant implications for the recovering U.S. economy. A tense political battle likely looms when Congress reconvenes in the new, midterm election year. Nudging Congress along, a vacationing President Barack Obama called two senators proposing an extension to offer his support. From Hawaii, Obama pledged Friday to push Congress to move quickly next year to address the “urgent economic priority,” the White House said. For families dependent on cash assistance, the end of the federal...

President Obama called for the extension of unemployment benefits after the Senate approved a bipartisan budget deal on Wednesday. Obama applauded the deal as move away from “shortsighted, crisis-driven decision-making” that avoids another government shutdown. But he called it a first step, adding that unemployment insurance should be extended after it was left out of the deal. “Congress should pass an extension of unemployment insurance so more than a million Americans don’t lose a vital lifeline as they fight to find a job,” Obama said. …

...Between 1971, when Invalidity Benefit was introduced, and the mid-1980s, there were typically around 700,000 claimants. Today, there are 2.6 million (the name was changed to Incapacity Benefit in 1995). We have, tragically, encouraged some people to arrange their affairs around qualifying for the allowance. Those who suffer most are not the grumbling taxpayers – they have rather more pressing things to grumble about – but the people who have been trapped in the squalor of dependency. Before you rage about scroungers, imagine you would feel if you relied – relied – upon a weekly handout of £91.40 (the maximum...

A Muslim community leader who falsely claimed he had been kidnapped by members of the British National Party was exposed last night as a suspected benefits cheat who was in this country illegally. Noor Ramjanally, 36, told police that racist thugs had abducted him at knifepoint and threatened him with violence. But his account was exposed as a lie by cameras fitted secretly outside his flat after earlier claims that he had received racist hate mail and that the family's home had been firebombed. Footage revealed that on the day of the alleged kidnapping Ramjanally had left home by himself,...

Gov. Bill Owens is weighing in on the debate over an artist given a $5,000 state fellowship grant, after hearing about the works of art that depict sex toys on hooks. "Obviously, this is offensive and in extremely poor taste," said Owens, who couldn't view the piece himself but had it described to him by staffers. The governor is in New York for an awards ceremony for the University of Northern Colorado Business School. The artist, Tsehai Johnson of Denver, received the fellowship from the Colorado Council on the Arts in 2003. The work, originally titled "Twelve Dildos on Hooks"...

An elderly political activist, repeatedly portrayed by CBS News as a typical victim of the high cost of prescription drugs, now admits the network "probably" should have disclosed her lobbying interests. Viola Quirion, who favors the Medicare changes that would provide elderly Americans such as herself with a taxpayer-subsidized prescription drug plan, might not be considered a typical senior citizen to many people - given her extensive political lobbying background, which includes advocating on behalf of Alliance for Retired Persons. But that's the way she was portrayed by CBS News on at least three occasions since 1999, most recently in...