Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Texas clergy from San Antonio, Houston and Dallas joined a Tuesday march on Capitol Hill to press senators to approve an immigration bill that would provide citizenship for foreign-born children. More than 100 leaders from 10 states took part in a march around U.S. Senate office buildings as lawmakers scrambled to finish their legislative work in a lame-duck session and adjourn for the holidays. "We are hoping for a Christmas miracle," said the Rev. Harry Knox with Resurrection Metropolitan Community Church in Houston. The Rev. Lorenza Andrade Smith, a San Antonio Methodist minister, and Maria Antonietta Berriozabal, a...

House Democratic efforts to block President Obama’s tax bill have dwindled into a battle to save face as they come to the realization they will have little opportunity to rework the bipartisan compromise. Party leaders were debating on Tuesday whether to bring up amendments to the bill for a vote even as Democrats acknowledged the overwhelming Senate support for the tax deal created an “urgency” to get legislation to the president’s desk. “The vote in the Senate indicates an urgency that is felt by a broad spectrum that middle-income taxes not be increased come Jan. 1,” House Majority Leader Steny...

If you thought Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., went on interminably last week, just wait until you see what Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., has planned. Democrats, having passed none of this fiscal year's appropriations, want to ram through the lame duck Senate a 2,000-page spending bill that no one had a chance to read. DeMint released the following statement yesterday.

Election? What election? "The twelve bills included in this package fulfill the Congress' most basic responsibility, to exercise the power of the purse," he said in a statement. "This measure reflects a year's worth of work by members of both parties. Together, we have closely scrutinized the president's budget request, held hundreds of hearings, thousands of meetings, and asked literally tens of thousands of questions to each and every federal department and agency seeking justification for how taxpayer dollars are being spent." Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, responded in a statement, saying that after neglecting to pass a budget, "today we...

Environmentalists hate sprawl -- except when it comes to the size of their expansive pet legislation on Capitol Hill. In a last-ditch lame duck push, eco-lobbyists have been furiously pressuring Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to pass a monstrous 327-page omnibus government lands bill crammed with more than 120 separate measures to lock up vast swaths of wilderness areas. Despite the time crunch, Senate Democrats in search of 60 votes are working behind the scenes to buy off green Republicans. House Democrats would then need a two-thirds majority to fast-track the bill to the White House before the GOP...

George W. Bush: Stop Calling Them "Bush Tax Cuts"Posted by Mary Dooe December 14, 2010 10:59 AM George W. Bush suggested in a radio interview on Monday that the debate over extending tax cuts in Washington might be made easier by using a phrase other than "Bush tax cuts." In the interview, conservative talk radio host Scott Hennen said that three of the most used words in politics in the last few months have been "Bush tax cuts." That's because of the debate raging over whether and how to extend the cuts, which were established in 2001 and 2003 and...

Pray in Jesus Name Project 2 new bills to Homosexualize our military....Call Sens. Brown and Murkowski today Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) is expected today to file a Rule 14 motion waiving our troops right to have any committee review the new fast-tracked bill S.4022 that bypasses debate or hearings, and repeals the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law.  The new bill forces open homosexual aggression on our troops against the will of 91% of our troops, using the same language that failed a cloture vote last week by 40-57 (thank God) in the Pentagon budget, but now rears its head again...

Domenico Montanaro writes: *** UPDATE *** NBC's Ken Strickland reports based on preliminary vote tally the Senate has cleared the 60-vote threshold to advance the tax bill. The vote is still open. These are preliminary numbers The Senate is voting on a key procedural vote on the tax cuts compromise bill; 60 was needed for passage.

My first post, is a vanity but I'm blowing steam out of my ears!!! Watching "Morning Joe" to see an interview with newly elected Pat Toomey (Conservative Senator from Pennsylvania) when Scarborough did the damnedest thing. He was talking about how the GOP should support the Obama Tax compromnise and began to refer to "Obama Republicans" and the rest of the cast jumped right in and pushed the idea. Obama republicans like Reagan Democrats!!! I was floored. In a matter of 3 or 4 days, we have been saddled with Obama. In the media view, it is now the Dem...

By Shane D'Aprile - 12/07/10 10:22 PM ET Christine O'Donnell on Tuesday compared the "tragedy" of extending unemployment benefits to Pearl Harbor and the death of Elizabeth Edwards. "Today marks a lot of tragedy," O'Donnell, the Tea Party-backed GOP Senate candidate from Delaware, said Tuesday night during an appearance in Virginia. "Tragedy comes in threes," O'Donnell said. "Pearl Harbor, Elizabeth Edwards's passing and Barack Obama's announcement of extending the tax cuts, which is good, but also extending the unemployment benefits." O'Donnell continued: "The reason I say this is a tragedy is because his announcement of economic recovery was more of...

I am trying to get into the holiday mood, but thanks to the gang of three, I can't. I am on edge all the time and have to constantly listen to the news. This roller coaster has to stop. The Lamers are trying to destroy the country by hook or by crook. Clearly this is the nadir of socialism in the US

"@SenatorCollins and I and others are introducing a free standing bill to repeal #DADT today."

House passes immigration bill known as "Dream Act" 216 to 198

Senate Republicans have been playing a neat trick to squeeze Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal off the Senate calendar. On the one hand, as the year comes to an end, they're eating up the last days of floor time and refusing to debate any issues until the tax cut fight is resolved and the federal government is funded into next year. On the other hand, they're laying out arbitrary -- and totally new -- benchmarks for how long it should take to debate the Defense Authorization bill (the vehicle for DADT repeal) to argue that there isn't enough time to...

<p>WASHINGTON – Democrats controlling the House muscled through legislation Wednesday night that would freeze the budgets of most Cabinet departments and fund the war in Afghanistan for another year.</p> <p>The bill would cap the agencies' annual operating budgets at the $1.2 trillion approved for the recently finished budget year — a $46 billion cut of more than 3 percent from President Barack Obama's request.</p>

In the Weekly Republican Address, newly-elected Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois says, “Last month, the American people sent a clear message to Washington: spend less, borrow less and tax less to put America back to work.” Sen. Kirk expresses his disappointment that leaders in Congress have not heeded this message. “The current leaders of Congress should not move forward with plans that were just rejected by the American people. These leaders should not raise taxes and risk another recession. Instead, Congress should reduce spending and prevent another tax hike on American taxpayers.” Sen. Kirk emphasizes, “Congress should set its highest...

Democrats hoping to move forward with legislation other than tax cuts shouldn't look to centrist Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to break the logjam. Collins said again on Friday that, while she would vote with Democrats to end the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, she wouldn't do so until a debate over tax cuts has been resolved. "Once the tax issue is resolved, I have made it clear that if the Majority Leader brings the Defense Authorization bill to the floor with sufficient time allowed for debate and amendments, I would vote to proceed to the bill," she said in...

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) is defending WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's release of thousands of classified diplomatic cables. In an interview with Fox Business Thursday, Paul went against the opinions of many of his Republican colleagues, asserting that Assange should be given the same protections as the media. "In a free society we're supposed to know the truth," Paul said. "In a society where truth becomes treason, then we're in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it." “This whole notion that Assange, who's an Australian, that we want to prosecute him for...

Senate Republicans on Saturday voted against extending the Bush tax cuts to only the middle class in a pair of votes Democrats are seizing to paint the GOP as guardians of the rich. The Senate voted 53-36 to extend all expiring tax cuts on individuals with incomes of less than $200,000 a year and married couples making less than $250,000 -- seven shy of the required 60 to advance. The other proposal, which drew opposition from White House officials, would have renewed them for all tax filers with incomes of $1 million or less. That also failed in a 53-36...

Rep. Jim Moran, Democrat of Virginia, is angry at Catholic League president Bill Donohue for protesting the anti-Christian video that was removed from the Smithsonian Institution; it was part of a larger art exhibit. What he said about Donohue, as quoted in the Washington Post, went beyond mere criticism. Moran said Donohue "implicitly condoned all the pedophilia that was going on in the church." Donohue responds today: Congressman Moran has been accused of being an anti-Semite by his own Jewish colleagues in the House of Representatives, and he has a track record of bashing the Catholic Church. So it is...