Free Republic

Eleanor Holmes Norton, the non-voting congressional delegate for the District of Columbia, angrily sputtered during a congressional hearing Friday that the White House should not be held up to scrutiny, saying that there was no right to know what it was doing behind closed doors. "You don't have a right to know everything in a separation-of-powers government, my friend. That is the difference between a parliamentary government and a separation-of-powers government," Norton said during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. It was, to put mildly, a significant departure from the more traditional liberal stance that openness and transparency...

A note of caution. Republicans in Congress and in the commentariat are fed up with this White House failing to faithfully execute the law, as is its constitutional charge. Regarding this administration’s selective enforcement of the laws passed by Congress – ranging from DOMA to DACA, from recess appointments made while Congress was in session to the delayed and selective implementation of the Affordable Care Act – the GOP is foursquare behind a proposal to sue the president over his flagrant abuse of authority. The public at large, however, is less than enthralled with the idea of suing President...

What if you were allowed to vote only because it didn't make a difference? What if no matter how you voted the elites always got their way? What if the concept of one person/one vote was just a fiction created by the government to induce your compliance? What if democracy as it has come to exist in America today is dangerous to personal freedom? What if our so-called democracy erodes the people's understanding of natural rights and the reasons for government and instead turns political campaigns into beauty contests? What if American democracy allows the government to do anything...

More than a week after convicted felon and former state Sen. Gary George was expected to disclose who is funding his longshot bid for Congress, he has still not done so. Until George files the report, voters will not find out who, if anyone, is backing his longshot bid to unseat U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, a Milwaukee Democrat. In an abrupt phone interview Wednesday with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, George declined to explain himself, telling a reporter he had no time to talk and would only take questions by email. “I’ve got to go,” George said. By email, George’s campaign...

President Barack Obama's LGBT workplace discrimination order has revealed a rift among Democrats over whether religious freedom trumps gay rights. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives could exploit that rift by bringing the Senate-passed Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which has a religious exemption, to the floor for a vote. ENDA, which would ban workplace discrimination based upon sexual orientation and gender identity, was passed by the Senate in November with the support of 54 Democrats and 10 Republicans. The bill likely would not have passed if it had not contained a religious exemption. The exemption was a major point of contention during...

It’s an odd world in which judges are accused of usurping the role of Congress for ruling that the executive branch must follow the text of a law Congress wrote. But that’s what has happened today. In Halbig v. Burwell, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Congress never gave the federal government power to provide subsidies and assess penalties under the Affordable Care Act in states that haven’t established their own health-insurance exchanges. President Obama and the Congress that passed the law assumed this wouldn’t be a problem: States were expected to go along and establish their own...

MILITARY UPDATE: VA Asks Hill Not To Open ‘Floodgates’ to Private Care.The ambitious push by Congress and its veteran affairs committees to swiftly solve a health care wait-time crisis for tens of thousands of veterans by granting access to private sector care appears to have run hard aground. After four weeks, House-Senate conferees, working through their staffs to iron out differences in separate veteran health reform bills, need some major breakthroughs, according to lawmakers and staff. “I am very concerned that this conference committee will end up taking a step backward for veterans’ health care in this country,” said Sen....

Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2014 16:24:12 -0700 Subject: RE: Budget Proposal This looks like a pretty healthy platform to start running on... In order to begin getting our country's spending under control, there has to be some elimination and take aways. Here's Paul Ryan's proposed cuts. PAUL RYAN'S PROPOSED BUDGET CUTS A List of Republican Budget Cuts Notice S.S. and the military are NOT on this list. These are all the programs that the new Republican House has proposed cutting. Read to the end. * Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy -- $445 million annual savings. * Save America 's Treasures...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Saturday urged supporters to sign a petition to end what he said was “Obama’s amnesty,” a program authorized Obama that allows certain undocumented immigrants to stay in the U.S. without fear of being deported. Cruz took to social media on Saturday to spur attention to his proposals. “Join the fight to stop the crisis on the border -- sign the petition to #StopObamasAmnesty,” Cruz wrote on his Facebook and Twitter. The Tea Party favorite is pushing legislation that would defund the program to prevent it from being expanded. Cruz says his bill should be a...

A program that allows veterans with traumatic brain injuries to receive treatment in assisted living facilities is in danger of closing down. With only two weeks to go before the August recess, Congress has yet to take action on legislation that would renew the pilot program before it expires on Sept. 30. Ralph Ibson, the national policy director for the Wounded Warrior Project, said it would be a “sad irony for Congress to fail to include in an access to care package, a critically needed access to care piece that will soon expire.” The VA started turning away applicants to...

A leftover from yesterday via CNS but a fine note on which to end the week. There are three ways the House could punish Obama the next time he decides he wants to rewrite a statutory deadline for ObamaCare or unilaterally declare war in the Middle East or amnestize a few million illegals. They could impeach him, of course, but that’ll go nowhere in the Senate and will provoke a nasty public backlash against the GOP. That option is too hot. They could do what Boehner’s actually doing right now, suing Obama on separation-of-powers grounds, but most legal experts...

We should resurrect the "Send a Brick to Congress" initiative that was done in 2006. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1626048/posts http://web.archive.org/web/20060417173015/http://www.send-a-brick.com/

The reported downing of a Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine that resulted in the deaths of 295 passengers was an “act of terror” and an “act of war,” according to the top Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Armed Services Committee. “The shooting down, if it’s true, of a passenger airliner is an act of terror,” New York Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Daily Beast. “It’s no different from the acts of terror Iran has been perpetrating for many years… The world community should get together and decide on...

House Republicans are moving quickly to address the growing humanitarian crisis on the southern border, possibly holding votes as soon as next week. As Congress moves closer to the monthlong August recess, the speedy action sends a clear message to Senate Democrats: Take it or leave it. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), incoming Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and a group of top lawmakers working on the border crisis are set to file a bill that very closely mirrors the legislation crafted by Texas lawmakers Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican, and Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar. The legislation will come with additional...

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel quietly notified Congress last week that the military is set to transfer six Guantanamo Bay prisoners to Uruguay as soon as next month, The New York Times revealed Wednesday. The deal has been waiting for Mr. Hagel’s approval since March, but stalled after the Obama administration received a wave of backlash for releasing five Taliban detainees to Qatar in exchange for the release Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. The administration did not give Congress 30-days notice in that deal, but argued it was still legal because any delay could have risked Sgt. Bergdahl’s life. Of the six...

Another day, another VA tragedy. An Albany nurse claims dying New York Veterans were denied painkillers. Instead they were given salt water mixtures. Valerie Riviello, a nurse at the Albany Stratton VA medical center, claims that fellow employees had reported to her that dying veterans were denied painkillers such as morphine to ease their pain. Instead, they were given salt water mixtures. Riviello told the Times Union: Among stories that nurse Valerie Riviello has heard from other employees at the Albany VA is one about dying patients who were supposed to receive morphine to alleviate pain, but instead got a...

"As Senior White House Advisor Defies Congressional Subpoena, Committee Releases Audio Recording of Cabinet Secretary Making Illegal Campaign Solicitation" Then Labor Secretary: “Off-the-record here—Wanted to ask you if you could help us get folks organized to come to a fundraiser that we’re doing for Organizing for America for Obama campaign” As Director of the White House Office of Political Strategy and Outreach, David Simas, in defiance of a congressional subpoena, failed to appear today to testify before a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on taxpayer-funded political campaign activity by government officials, the Committee released an audio recording of...

Sam, the wealthiest man in his neighborhood, lives in a big beautiful house with a massive backyard punctuated by a large, deep swimming pool. While Sam is personally not very fond of children -- he supports abortion on demand and believes the government should force all employers to offer female workers free sterilizations -- he nonetheless lives in a neighborhood that teems with little ones. The children are particularly attracted to Sam's beautiful pool -- and, on those rare occasions when Sam is actually in his backyard, he frequently finds himself shooing these children away. Worried relatives have repeatedly...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)A prominent law professor and avowed supporter of the Obama White House will tell the House on Wednesday that the president has created one of the biggest constitutional crises in the country’s history and will endorse House Republicans’ effort to sue to rein him in. Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University, will say President Obama is trampling the founders’ vision for the country in his push to circumvent Congress, and he will demand Republicans and Democrats alike forget their party labels to unify against this White House’s power grab. “What we are witnessing today is one of the...

"White House to Defy Congressional Subpoena, Prevent Top Political Aide From Testifying at Hearing" WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is defying a congressional subpoena by keeping a top political aide to President Barack Obama from testifying at a hearing Wednesday. The White House is arguing that Obama adviser David Simas (SEE’-muhs) is immune from subpoena by the House Oversight Committee in its investigation into the political office that he directs.