Free Republic

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been hit with a torrent of negative economic news, portending a prolonged period of stagnation for the foreseeable future. While most recessions end with a period of robust growth and job creation, this recovery has been stymied by odious regulations and a cloud of uncertainty painted dark black with Obama’s anti-business policies. Naturally, the response from Democrats is to impose even more regulations. This time they plan to tap one of their favorite tools; wage controls. Harry Reid is planning to bring the “Paycheck Fairness Act” (S. 3220) to the floor today. Behind this...

Around the dexterosphere, the question about the coming election seems to be whether it will be more like 1994 or 1894. Amidst the confident babble, Instapundit has made a trademark out of the whisper, “Don’t get cocky, kid.” It’s not just that cockiness enrages the gods and lacks social grace. This year, in particular, there are solid reasons to doubt that November 2nd will be nearly as happy a day as we hope: 1. It’s not enough to win; you have to win by more than the margin of fraud. That concern ought to be obvious in states like Illinois...

A reader wrote Jim Geraghty raving about an ad for GOP Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck, and Geraghty concurred. "It's a basic, simple message that I think hits the sweet spot.......

As Democrats frantically tried to cobble together votes to pass their sweeping health care reform legislation Saturday, House Republicans began a victory lap of sorts. First, in a meeting of the House Republican Conference, the GOP’s leadership rallied the troops with flourishing rhetoric about regaining the majority in the fall. “I don’t know, quite frankly, whether victory will come on the third Sunday in March or on the first Tuesday in November, but victory will come,” House Republican Conference leader Mike Pence of Indiana told Republicans Saturday afternoon. And when they emerged from the room to speak to the media...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she will ram the unpopular Senate health bill through the House without a vote. Article 1, Sect. 7 of the Constitution says she can't. Many House Democrats are reluctant to go on record in support of the Senate bill. Pelosi's strategy is to "deem" it passed, go straight to a vote on a package of reconciliation "fixes" and then present both the Senate bill and reconciliation package to the president for signing. In recent years, the US Supreme Court has twice struck down attempts to abbreviate the lawmaking process required by Article 1, Sect 7....