Free Republic

News that President-elect Trump has selected Michael T. Flynn as the White House National Security advisors made local ears perk up on Friday. Flynn served with the 111th Military Intelligence Training Brigade, which is stationed here at Fort Huachuca, and he attended both the basic and advanced schools on the local post.

JANESVILLE, Wisc. — In 2009, as Rep. Paul D. Ryan was railing against President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package as a “wasteful spending spree,” he wrote at least four letters to Obama’s secretary of energy asking that millions of dollars from the program be granted to a pair of Wisconsin conservation groups, according to documents obtained by the Globe. The advocacy appeared to pay off; both groups were awarded the economic recovery funds -- one receiving a $20 million grant to help thousands of local businesses and homes improve their energy efficiency, agency documents show. Ryan’s letters to the energy...

VAN SUSTEREN, FOX News: People think of him as hawkish on the budget, on expenses, but he voted for TARP. He voted for the auto bailout, voted for two stimulus in '08, voted against the '09 -- February '09 President Obama stimulus. How does -- I mean, how does he explain those, or I mean, how does -- politically, how does he sell that? BOEHNER: I mean, I think that he's a practical conservative. He's got a very conservative voting record, but he's not a knuckle-dragger, all right? He understood that TARP, while none of us wanted to do it,...

It’s not like he didn’t tell us.  It’s not like all the warning signs were not there for all of us to see.  Barak Obama’s now infamous words, “we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America” have come true. Remember when he told Joe the Plumber “we just have to spread the wealth around”? Well, he spoke the truth. Like in “The Wizard of Oz”; “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”; we believed the media when they downplayed Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers.  Move on, there is nothing to see here.  America...

Pelosi Says She Faced Male Chauvinism While House Speaker... Fire it up 76 Share Reuters By ZIP, Weasel Zippers Cry me a river, Pelosi is a pit bull. Via National Journal: NJ: Why did the Republicans make you an issue? Is it because, as with Hillary Rodham Clinton, some voters aren’t comfortable with a strong woman leader? PELOSI: First of all, we were effective at making change. What did we do but stand in the way of Wall Street, big health insurers, Big Oil, and people opposed to collective bargaining? My situation was different from Hillary in that most people...

Dem losers still blaming Nancy Pelosi By: Richard E. Cohen March 29, 2011 02:33 PM EDT As victims of the House Democratic election massacre speak out about what caused their ouster last November, they are pointing their fingers squarely at a Washington duo: Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama. Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) moved their party’s agenda too far left during the past Congress. And then they failed to help rescue the party’s mostly supportive lawmakers, two defeated first-termers who have joined Washington-based think tanks said Tuesday. “Moderates and independents who leaned toward Obama didn’t come out because they saw...

On Aug. 9, 2010, former senior U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska died when his red 1957 de Havilland float plane tore a 300 foot gash into the side of a mountain in a remote spot far from his constituents and even further from the limelight of Washington, D.C. Stevens was approaching his 87th birthday. In addition to Stevens, four others were killed in the horrific mountainside crash. Stevens' death mirrored his precipitous fall from grace in the U.S. Senate, where he had served the citizens of Alaska for 40 years, longer than any other Republican in history. He had...

A rotten Easter egg for homeowners is part of the tax bill passed by the lame-duck Democrat Congress and signed into law by President Obama, Dec. 17. A provision to allow homeowners to deduct local property taxes without itemizing was let lapse. About two-thirds of Americans don't make enough money to make it worth itemizing. The provision saved homeowners about $1.6 billion per year.

PORTLAND — Sen. Susan Collins this morning described for a group of business leaders from across New England her role in repealing the law banning gays in the military. (snip) In a 30-minute presentation, the Republican lawmaker described the 11th-hour maneuvering against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the waning days of 2010, her work to convince key Republican allies to support repeal and the challenge of opposing a close friend, renowned veteran, Sen. John McCain of Arizona. "It was exciting to help lead what I believe to be a historic change for our country, but boy it was not...

Reminiscent of the scandal in which she used military aircraft as her personal taxi, Nancy Pelosi stuck it to U.S. taxpayers on her way out as House Speaker with a lavish Hawaiian vacation featuring secret service and local police motorcades financed by Americans.The famously corrupt California congresswoman spent her last days as Speaker at an exotic resort in Kona’s historic settlement of Ka’upulehu, according to a Hawaiian newspaper that’s working to get figures on local police and secret service costs. Not surprisingly, the feds refuse to provide details on Pelosi’s security detail and the Hawaii Police Department claims it...

Pelosi on last day as Speaker: 'No Regrets' on Deficit and Debt Tuesday, January 04, 2011 By Nicholas Ballasy (CNSNews.com) - When asked if she regrets not using the last two years with a Democrat controlled Congress to do more about the national debt, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she has “no regrets,” adding that “deficit reduction” has been a “high priority” for the Democratic Congress. Speaker Pelosi was asked, “Do you have regrets that you didn't use the 2 years that you had total Democratic control of government to focus more on jobs and especially the debt which we...

Among the most deceptive measures passed in the 111th Congress was the Statuary Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, or, in Washington vernacular, Pay/Go. Democrats passed Pay/Go in February 2010 to convince Americans of their fiscal moderation while plotting to raise taxes and engage in more shameless spending. Though they proposed to bypass Pay/Go within a week of its enactment, congressional Democrats and the White House told us that the bill established pay-as-you-go rules that would require legislation affecting mandatory spending to be "budget-neutral" -- in other words, that it would not increase the deficit. The bill also directed the Office...

Outgoing Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) said Thursday that a "credible conservative" movement that doesn't focus on "hatred" of President Obama is needed. Inglis was defeated in a landslide by Trey Gowdy in the June primary runoff. Gowdy, a staunch conservative and Tea Party favorite, went on to win the 4th District seat in November. Inglis lamented on CNN that the current wave of populist conservatism is unlike that of Ronald Reagan. "We'll get through and we'll get back to optimistic conservatism," he said. "We just got to get through this unfortunate period." The congressman said he was wounded in his...

The lame-duck session of the 111th Congress proved one thing beyond a doubt: the Republican Party does not represent the interests of conservatives. Despite the midterm election tidal wave, in which the Republican Party gained 63 House seats (eclipsing its historic1994 success against Clinton), congressional Republicans failed to leverage their victory into political clout and collapsed like a house of cards in the lame-duck session. The last two weeks ought to have sickened conservatives. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spectacularly failed to hold his caucus together to even delay ratification of the START treaty until the 112th Congress is seated...

The recent repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell will likely leave Sen. John McCain's congressional legacy as one of a crotchety old miser. As his wingman, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) could also see his maverick rep reshaped in the aftermath of the gay rights victory. Graham's angry defense of the 17-year Congressional ban on out gay service members has renewed attention on what's in his closet. The question has come up in interviews and Graham has politely maintained that he's a straight, content bachelor. But he can't shake the questions about why he's never put a ring on it. For...

The departure of Patrick Kennedy, Congressman for Rhode Island, will leave the capital without a Kennedy for the first time in 64 years. The dynasty's sole remaining political office is held by Bobby Shriver, John F. Kennedy's nephew, who has a part-time city council seat in the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Monica.

Icon. Maverick. Liberal. Career politician. U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold has been called many things during his time in the spotlight. But after nearly 30 years in politics, the junior senator from Wisconsin is coming home a private citizen. When the final gavel falls on the 111th Congress, Feingold will be unemployed — the victim of an angry electorate bent on change in Washington, D.C.

111th Congress Added More Debt Than First 100 Congresses Combined: $10,429 Per Person in U.S. Monday, December 27, 2010 By Terence P. Jeffrey (CNSNews.com) - The federal government has accumulated more new debt--$3.22 trillion ($3,220,103,625,307.29)—during the tenure of the 111th Congress than it did during the first 100 Congresses combined, according to official debt figures published by the U.S. Treasury. That equals $10,429.64 in new debt for each and every one of the 308,745,538 people counted in the United States by the 2010 Census. The total national debt of $13,858,529,371,601.09 (or $13.859 trillion), as recorded by the U.S. Treasury at...

The Maine senator collected kudos from President Obama for her role in moving the controversial legislation forward.Maine Sen. Susan Collins was the only Republican on the stage for yesterday's signing of the bill repealing the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on gays in the military, and one of only two Republicans at the ceremony. Collins, who played a major role in moving the legislation forward, collected kudos from President Obama. "I want to thank Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins," he said, to cheers from the attendees. Collins says there was no reason for the U.S. military to continue banning gays....

The repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy owes much to Sens. Susan Collins and Joseph I. Lieberman, who kept the issue alive when it appeared dead in the kind of partnership that is likely to become a model for getting things done in next year's divided Congress. Mr. Lieberman, a Democrat-turned-independent from Connecticut, and Miss Collins, a Republican from Maine, plan to join President Obama at the White House on Wednesday when he signs the bill into law. The signing ceremony caps off a late-season effort that saw the military's ban on openly gay men and women...