Free Republic

The Democratic senator who mocked President Trump after Trump ordered the killing of Iranian general and terror leader Qassem Soleimani, saying Trump had ‘made us a literal laughingstock” around the world, held a secret meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the Munich Security Conference last week, according to a source briefed by the French delegation to the conference. The Federalist reports that Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who had mocked Trump in early January, joined other Democratic senators for that secret meeting. What makes Murphy’s action particularly hypocritical is that in the past, he has bitterly slammed...

Documents Detail Nancy Pelosi’s Love of Flying at Our Expense Your Tax Dollars: FOIA Goes to the Supreme Court Senate Ethics Committee Gives Senator Cory Booker a Pass U.S. Grants Thousands of Spousal Visas for Underaged Children Documents Detail Nancy Pelosi’s Love of Flying at Our Expense Nancy Pelosi’s plan to fly into a war zone to thank the troops, which President Trump put on hold, was déjà vu all over again. We’ve been watching her taxpayer-supported travel for years. I discuss our prior work here in an op-ed for Fox News. Just this week, we released documents we...

Full title: Tom Fitton: 'Air Pelosi' – What you don't know about the lucrative travel our leaders enjoy on your dimeWhen President Trump denied House Speaker Nancy Pelosi use of a military aircraft for a CODEL (congressional delegation trip) to Afghanistan recently, he called the public’s attention to wasteful taxpayer-funded congressional travel. In his letter to Pelosi blocking the trip, President Trump mentioned the 800,000 federal workers going without pay. The real irony is that U.S. government workers in Afghanistan, who were among those not being paid, worked for two weeks to plan the trip – and on a holiday...

A Republican congressman is urging Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to block freshman Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the first Palestinian-American woman in Congress, from leading a delegation to the West Bank, arguing that the trip would hurt U.S.-Israel relations. Tlaib's planned delegation to the West Bank, which is set for the same time as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC) trip for new members of Congress, would be "inconsistent with our national values," Texas Rep. Brian Babin (R) argued in a letter. "I am writing to express my extreme concern that a newly elected Member of Congress, Rep. Rashida Tlaib,...

Saturday was National Popcorn Day, but I’ve been nibbling on popcorn all week as Nancy Pelosi learned a lesson about presidential power and the media was gut checked by the special prosecutor. I haven’t had this much fun since election night 2016. While she might have thought otherwise, the power of the commander-in-chief is far greater than that of the speaker of the House, and the humiliating way this was brought home to the congressional equivalent of Maerose Prizzi (h/t Michael Walsh) was something. She anticipated that she and her posse of cronies and their families (reports of a ninety-some...

Judicial Watch announced Jan 18, 2019 that it obtained documents through a FOIA lawsuit against the US Air Force. The documents detailed then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) 2015 Congressional delegation (CODEL) to Italy and Ukraine billed $134,587.81 plus $50,000 for an advance of funds for an “escort officer.” Judicial Watch filed the Dec 2015 FOIA lawsuit after the Air Force failed to respond to J/W's August 2015 request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Defense (No 1:15-cv-02236)) for: <><>All records regarding mission taskings of flights escorting members of Congress <><>All records concerning transportation costs for transporting members of Congress...

The White House on Friday rejected the accusation from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., that the administration leaked sensitive travel information for her foreign trip, calling it a “flat out lie.” "When the Speaker of the House and about 20 others from Capitol Hill decide to book their own commercial flights to Afghanistan, the world is going to find out,” a White House official said. “The idea we would leak anything that would put the safety and security of any American at risk is a flat out lie." Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff Drew Hammill said in a statement earlier Friday...

Washington (CNN) -- Over the past few days, the political gridlock that's led to the longest government shutdown in US history has devolved into a tit-for-tat between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Donald Trump. On Wednesday, Pelosi all but disinvited Trump from giving the State of the Union address in the House chamber, initially citing security concerns and suggesting the President wait until the shutdown was over. On Thursday, Trump hit back and canceled Pelosi's undisclosed plan to visit US troops in Afghanistan along with a congressional delegation, effectively blowing the cover for what is normally a secret trip....

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats are pretty enraged President Trump cancelled their taxpayer funded trip overseas -- in the middle of a government shutdown -- at the last minute on Thursday. In fact, they were already sitting on the bus ready to go to the airport. Democrat House members getting off the bus that was to take them on an overseas trip while the government was shut down. Adam Schiff looks unhappy he couldn’t go pic.twitter.com/mywvLNtsId #maga #democratShutdown— Matt Batzel (@MattBatzel) January 17, 2019 But it turns out these taxpayer funded Congressional Delegation [CODEL] trips lead by...

On Thursday afternoon, President Trump informed Speaker Pelosi her "public relations" trip to Afghanistan, Egypt, and Brussels has been postponed so that she can stay in DC and negotiate with him. The President canceled Pelosi's flight just one hour before she was scheduled to depart - Pelosi and other lawmakers were on the bus en route to the airport. [Snip] Pelosi's bus was seen circling the US Capitol after the flights were grounded. It was a rough day for Democrats. [Snip] Democrat lawmakers suffered a meltdown following the grounding of Air Pelosi.

RUSH: Well, look at this. From Fox News. “President Trump today –” ha-ha-ha. You’re gonna love this. You are going to love this. President Trump today appeared to deny military aircraft to House speaker Nancy Pelosi for an upcoming foreign trip. This in response to her call to the latest State of the Union address amid the government shutdown. “In a stinging and curt letter to Pelosi Trump said that her trip has been postponed. He wrote, ‘Due to the shutdown, I’m sorry to inform you your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this...

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's luggage has been returned to the halls of congress by cart, according to a picture sent to the Washington Free Beacon by a snap-happy tipster. The picture shows the luggage were returned to Pelosi on "military liaison" marked carts. Pelosi's bags were packed for a congressional trip to Belgium and Afghanistan, but the trip was canceled just before the delegation was set to leave by President Donald Trump, who let her know in a letter that she would have to fly commercial if she still wanted to make the trip.

Not everybody gets to travel overseas during the two-week House recess — just ask Louie Gohmert. However, many of those lawmakers who are participating in high-profile congressional delegations, or CODELs, will come back to Capitol Hill armed with new insights into some of the biggest policy issues facing Congress this year. Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, is leading a delegation that will culminate in a meeting in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who just won re-election and addressed a joint meeting of Congress earlier this month. According to readouts from the speaker’s office, the group started out in Manchester,...

MANCHESTER, UK — Alabama congresswoman Martha Roby is currently with eight of her colleagues, including House Speaker John Boehner, on a CODEL (congressional delegation trip) reinforcing the need for strong American leadership in the world, including in the fight to defeat ISIS. The CODEL began with British allies in Manchester, U.K., where more than 70 years ago General George S. Patton and the Third Army were stationed prior to the Normandy invasion. The delegation then traveled to Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently won re-election at a time of heightened tensions between Netanyahu’s government and the Obama administration over...

The government watchdog group Judicial Watch obtained documents from the Air Force detailing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s use of US Air Force aircraft for Congressional Delegations (CODELs). According to the documents obtained by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Speaker’s military travel cost the United States Air Force $2,100,744.59 over a two-year period — $101,429.14 of which was for in-flight expenses, including food and alcohol. The following are highlights from the recent release of about 2,000 documents related to Pelosi's travel: •Speaker Pelosi used Air Force aircraft to travel back to her district at an average...

29.11.05 | Hugo Chavez's spinmeisters love to sing the mantra "Venezuela wants to have the most cordial relations with the USA, based in mutual respect and understanding..." Well, how does the barring a BIPARTISAN US Congressional Delegation, from entering Venezuela, bodes with the aforementioned predicament? It was not enough, for Chavez, to have orchestrated with Kirchner, riots and the subsequent media attack on Bush in Mar del Plata. Nor it was sufficient for him to call President Fox a "lapdog of the empire" -one has to love the irony in light of the dynamics of the Castro-Chavez marriage... Now the...