Free Republic

Americans' confidence in all three branches of the U.S. government has fallen, reaching record lows for the Supreme Court (30%) and Congress (7%), and a six-year low for the presidency (29%). The presidency had the largest drop of the three branches this year, down seven percentage points from its previous rating of 36%.

It’s not too uncommon for Republican leaders from the House and Senate to occasionally meet, trade notes, and work out bicameral strategies, but as a rule, rank-and-file members tend to stick with colleagues from the same chamber. When they have ideas or grand plans, GOP lawmakers usually turn to their chamber’s leadership or committee chairs. Which is why it’s odd to see House Republicans huddle so frequently with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Last September, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) presented a plan to avoid a government shutdown. Cruz met directly with House Republicans, urged them to ignore their own leader’s...

Tens of thousands of illegal immigrant children from Central America are pouring over the border and the only bright idea we’ve gotten from Washington is a call for more funding – more money for border control, more money for corrupt Central American governments, and more money for the kids. What we haven’t heard is a single practical solution that will do anything to stem the tide that is threatening to overwhelm our nation. Rather than asking Americans to pony up more of their hard earned cash to address this problem, there is an obvious solution available that can turn off...

When asked if the endorsement of Senator Santorum would change the complexion of the race for the GOP nomination in the 6th Congressional District, Senator Grothman said that he expected the establishment to go against his campaign and feels that the establishment does not like conservatives. Former Senator Santorum said that he is no big fan of the establishment. The 6th Congressional District is located in parts of Northeastern and South Central Wisconsin. Major cities in the district include Beaver Dam, Fond du Lac, Manitowoc, Neenah, Oshkosh, Port Washington, and Sheboygan. The winner of the August 12th GOP primary between...

And also he's pretty sure they got a bigger piece of cake. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnxgfQXq5Aw Barack Obama in a speech on Friday took an innovative step forward in policy discussion and blamed someone else for all of his troubles. Speaking on addressing the concerns of voters, the President claimed the administration would have gotten  away with it, if it weren't for those damn Republicans. "The only holdout standing in he way of change for tens of millions of Americans are some Republicans in congress," Obama told an enthusiastic Minneapolis crowd.  "I just want to be real blunt. If you watch the news,...

Republican and Obamacare-funding congressman Bill Flores (TX-17) recently introduced a bill offering a $1 million cash award for the missing Lois Lerner emails. It also offers a $500,000 award for anybody with knowledge of who may have intentionally destroyed said emails. If such awards were given, it would be paid out of the IRS’ budget. While this sounds like a good idea on the surface, in reality, it makes little to no practical sense. The award itself might bring a good many informants out of the shadows, but the bill has no chance of passing the Senate or being signed...

(Newser) – A Maryland congressman who meant to take a stand against looser marijuana laws in Washington, DC, might end up making them even looser thanks to the legal fine print in his amendment. The Washington Post lays out the somewhat convoluted scenario surrounding Republican Andy Harris' legislation: To begin with, recall that DC's city council voted earlier this year to make possession of small amounts of pot punishable by only a $25 fine. Harris, who thinks that measure is a bad idea and wants to block it from taking effect, tacked an amendment onto a House spending bill that...

Dan Bongino running for Congress in Maryland ... today. Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-luTC0-3SI#t=33

Two years after activists for same-sex marriage obtained the confidential tax return and donor list of a national group opposed to redefining marriage, the Internal Revenue Service has admitted wrongdoing and agreed to settle the resulting lawsuit. The Daily Signal has learned that, under a consent judgment today, the IRS agreed to pay $50,000 in damages to the National Organization for Marriage as a result of the unlawful release of the confidential information to a gay rights group, the Human Rights Campaign, that is NOM’s chief political rival. “Congress made the disclosure of confidential tax return information a serious matter...

Republican congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio excoriated the Internal Revenue Service commissioner Monday night in a House hearing looking into the agency's malfeasance regarding conservative non-profit groups. Jordan focused his questioning to when IRS comissioner John Koskinen knew about the loss of critical emails from former official Lois Lerner. Koskinen testified that he discovered a computer hard drive crash lost the Lerner emails in April but did not report this publicly until presenting Congress with a report earlier this month. Watch the exchange below:

Dr. Alieta Eck, you’re a Wonder Woman. All of Congress is waiting for you! Iraq. Benghazi. Lois Lerner’s emails. It seems the entire world is erupting into deception and chaos. We need a woman who can save us. Not Kathleen Sebelius. Not Lois Lerner. Not Hillary Clinton. We need Dr. Alieta Eck. Dr. Alieta Eck is running for Congress in the state of New Jersey. She doesn’t rush to give Obama hugs when he visits Atlantic City. But she does rush to care for New Jersey’s poor, sickly and destitute. In 2003, Eck founded Zarephath Health Center, a non-government free...

I don't know about you, but when I look at the multifaceted ways Obama and his ilk are destroying our nation I get more angry and depressed than Ted Nugent being forced to watch Lois Lerner do an interpretive dance to Boy George's song Do You Really Want To Hurt Me, the extended cut. Obama has overwhelmed/is truly overwhelming our nation with truly overwhelming cataclysmic crises that have left a lot of good people saying, “Screw it. I'm moving to Panama.” Despair seems to be the soup de jour and it's being served up to us cold. Ice cold....

Thirty-eight members of the U.S. Congress wrote an open letter on Thursday to Secretary of State John Kerry, asking him to use "every legal means" necessary to rescue Christian mother Meriam Ibrahim and her two young children currently being held inside a Sudanese prison. "We request that the U.S. State Department, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, review granting Mrs. Ibrahim Significant Public Benefit Parole, asylum, or refugee status, as appropriate. In short, we urge that every legal means necessary be exhausted to ensure that she and her young children are provided safe haven," reads the letter,...

On Friday, Mac Slavo reported on Congressman Darrell Issa's (R-CA) statement in which he called the Internal Revenue Service's claim that Lois Lerner's hard drive crash resulted in a loss of emails "ridiculous." Most of us know that information from crashed hard drives can be recovered, though it costs a lot of money. However, as Mac pointed out, we could simply obtain a copy from the National Security Agency since they are collecting this kind of information. But something more telling has come to light: The IRS uses as an email archiving company to back up its emails. That's right,...

"Rand Paul: No more aid to Christian-killers Exclusive: William Murray reports on senator's demand to Islamic-supporting Obama" Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., surprised several thousand people with the truth about Syria in a speech to the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference at the Omni Hotel in Washington, D.C., today. Most in the room were social conservatives and already knew that the administration of Barack Obama was arming Islamists in Syria who are killing Christians. The real surprise was a senator standing up in front of national TV news cameras and telling America that yes, your tax dollars are being used to...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi rebuked House Speaker John Boehner on Friday for calling illegal immigrants ‘aliens’ in a tweet he sent out. Speaker John Boehner ✔ @SpeakerBoehner Obama admin should immediately deploy additional personnel to assist in the processing & removal of these aliens: http://j.mp/1lbtIxH 10:40 AM - 20 Jun 2014 38 Retweets 27 favorites “Mr. Speaker, these comments and labels are inexcusable and reprehensible — no one should be politicizing the ordeal of these children in such a manner,” Pelosi’s office said. Newsflash, NP: ‘alien’ is the correct legal term—even DHS uses it (Unaccompanied Alien Children).

What if conservatives in Congress conceded the Republican majority leader battle in order to win the larger leadership war? After Eric Cantor’s surprise primary defeat and his subsequent announcement that he would be resigning his leadership position at the end of July, many on the right urged someone with stellar conservative credentials, like Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling, to challenge Cantor’s heir apparent, California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, for the majority leader spot. But Hensarling opted not to run and McCarthy cruised to victory Thursday after a nominal challenge by Idaho Rep. Raul Labrador. Some conservative pundits who longed for someone like...

This nation was founded on the rule of law, and the equality of treatment under such. With that in mind, Rep. Steve Stockman will offer taxpayers access to the same set of excuses used by the IRS when dealing with inquiries into the tax records — and those of other politicians in scandals of their own. The new bill, titled “The Dog Ate My Tax Receipts Act,” would allow taxpayers to use any of the following ten reasons as a positive defense during an audit: 1. The dog ate my tax receipts 2. Convenient, unexplained, miscellaneous computer malfunction 3....

The Internal Revenue Service commissioner said Friday THE AGENCY WILL NOT SHARE WITH CONGRESS ADDITIONAL DETAILS ABOUT ITS LOST EMAILS related to the ongoing tea party investigation until its own review is finished because he said Republicans are releasing inaccurate, interim information.

[Live Congressional Hearing with the IRS Commissioner regarding the IRS scrutiny of the TEA Party]