Free Republic

The filing of a lawsuit against the president of the United States by the House of Representatives is an historic event which will clarify the legislative process defined by our Constitution. Those who denounce it as political posturing are afraid of losing it. Those who see it as one party against the other don’t understand it. Those who care about rule of law will embrace it. In short, the suit asks the judicial branch to settle a dispute between the executive branch and the legislative branch, having to do with which is authorized by the Constitution to make and change...

Meet the Press featured a segment this Sunday that illustrates the planted liberal axioms that dominate our political culture. The topic was Congress’s failure to “get anything done” this term. NBC News’s chief White House correspondent, Chuck Todd, set the stage: New polling from NBC News, the Wall Street Journal, and Marist . . . shows that three out of four voters agree that Congress hasn’t done much this year . . . And guess what? The public’s right. Congress hasn’t been productive. In fact, this Congress . . . is on track to be the least productive in...

Michael Steele thinks House Speaker John Boehner needs to keep closer tabs on Sen. Ted Cruz. The former Republican National Committee chairman on Monday poked fun at reports that some House Republicans changed their minds on crucial border legislation last week after meeting with Cruz, the Texas Republican and tea party icon. “For John Boehner, whenever any of his members says, ‘Hey, I’m about to have pizza and beer with Ted Cruz,’ he should be concerned,” Steele joked. “Really look at the calendar and see if there’s a vote coming up,” he said, adding that Cruz “undermined” GOP leaders. Steele...

Members of Congress are losing patience with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In a sharply-worded letter, Democrats and Republicans who’ve led House efforts to advance U.S.-Turkish relations warned Erdogan last week about what they considered to be his anti-Semitic comments. They told him he risked damaging ties between the U.S. and Turkey. …

Blackburn told TheBlaze that 356 bills made it through the House and are languishing in the Senate. Additionally, according to the congresswoman, 98 percent of those bills were passed with bipartisan support. She also pointed out that 200 of the bills were passed in the House with unanimous support from the entire chamber and more than 100 were passed with 75% support of House Democrats. To make her point that the House is working, but the Senate is where the obstruction exists, Blackburn printed all of the bills that the House has passed and stacked them on a desk with...

In a suburb of our nation’s capitol, I learned that most kids’ fathers were not Marine Corps fighter pilots, but mine was. My dad told me that when I was born, he was deployed overseas to hunt down communist aviators and to rain down terror on America’s enemies by lighting Ho Chi Minh’s soldiers on fire. My dad had this patented-daring side that often made light of dark subjects and traumatized morally superior Americans like Jane Fonda. But my dad’s equally austere side taught me to respect the danger, sacrifices, and valor of warriors who have served our country honorably....

A monumental opportunity has presented itself as Julian Castro, former mayor of San Antonio, takes over as the new Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and Congress looks ahead on the critical issue of housing finance reform. After years of tepid growth and false starts, leaders in Washington have the opportunity to give housing finance reform a shot in the arm. This reform is readily achievable even in today’s log-jammed Congress, as there is bipartisan consensus that the most prudent reforms would accomplish three essential goals: appropriately and strategically wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a way...

At his best Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., made short work of a Democrat-friendly law professor testifying before Congress, even offering him some “free litigation advice.” The former prosecutor turned congressman was surgical in his questioning of Professor Charles Tiefer, who was brought before the House Judiciary Committee as an expert witness by Democrats — Tiefer has a history of being of service to the Democratic Party, according to The Blaze. “Professor Tiefer, would you seat a juror who referred to your client as an obscene body part?” Gowdy asked in his opening question.

House of representatives of the 113th Congress Alabama District Name Party Room Phone Committee Assignment 1 Bonner, Jo R 2236 RHOB 202-225-4931 Appropriations 2 Roby, Martha R 428 CHOB 202-225-2901 AgricultureArmed ServicesEducation and the Workforce 3 Rogers (AL), Mike R 324 CHOB 202-225-3261 AgricultureArmed ServicesHomeland Security 4 Aderholt, Robert R 2369 RHOB 202-225-4876 Appropriations 5 Brooks, Mo R 1230 LHOB 202-225-4801 Armed ServicesForeign AffairsScience, Space, and Technology 6 Bachus, Spencer R 2246 RHOB 202-225-4921 Financial ServicesJudiciary 7 Sewell, Terri A. D 1133 LHOB 202-225-2665 Financial ServicesPermanent Select Committee on Intelligence Alaska District Name Party Room Phone Committee Assignment At Large...

House Republicans expressed confidence Friday that they would win passage of a revised $694-billion measure to provide emergency funds for the border crisis, but only after making the package tougher on immigrants and adding more money for border state governors, namely Texas' Rick Perry. Whether the two-bill package can pass the House, however, remained uncertain as Democrats largely opposed it and conservatives inspired by Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas still had objections. After failing to muster enough support for an earlier package on Thursday, House Speaker John A. Boehner postponed lawmakers' August break, which was scheduled to begin Friday....

My friend Vaughn posted this on his Facebook timeline. Can someone explain why congress needs to take a break in August. It is not like they have done anything to earn a break.Oh wait! I forgot they need to go home to stay in touch and listen to the people they represent. Oh wait! They don’t listen to those people. Oh wait! They need to go home to cash the checks from the people they do listen to, you know the corporations, billionaires and lobbyists. We have continually returned the same corrupt, owned, elitist group to office year after year. We are the...

House Speaker John A. Boehner was always expected to have trouble passing emergency funds for the crisis at the Southwestern border -- but Republican Sen. Ted Cruz made his job impossible. Cruz, the hard-line Texas Republican, has been working behind the scenes to stir up conservative opposition to a House GOP plan to approve $659 million to secure the border and handle the flow of 57,000 migrant youths. And it worked. Amid disarray, House GOP leaders canceled Thursday's vote after it was clear they did not have the votes. The senator's handiwork lighted up the telephone lines in the Capitol...

You may not have heard much from Senator Ted Cruz lately, but on Thursday, he came back with a force in blowing up House Republicans’ bill to address the border crisis. Make no mistake, House Speaker John Boehner—and the rest of the Republican establishment—still have a big Ted Cruz problem. And it’s only going to get bigger as the 2016 presidential election approaches. As it stands now, Cruz has successfully persuaded a block of House Republicans to vote against the House GOP’s border bill, forcing Boehner to pull the legislation from the docket. The situation is still fluid. The House...

Over the past two years, the Obama administration has published hundreds and hundreds of rules — on how wheelchairs should be stowed aboard U.S. aircraft, how foreign trade zones should be regulated, how voting assistance should be provided for U.S. citizens overseas, and so on. There’s a problem, however: Technically speaking, these and some 1,800 other regulations shouldn’t be in effect because they weren’t reported to Congress as required. Yet there is little that lawmakers or the courts can do about it. The situation illustrates the obscure, Byzantine process used to create federal regulations — and how easily it can...

In June, President Barack Obama sent a letter to Congress asking for help to address the surge of illegal crossings at the Texas-Mexico border. Among other items, Obama asked Congress to grant him the legal authority "to exercise discretion in processing the return and removal of unaccompanied minor children from non-contiguous countries like Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador." The administration blamed a 2008 anti-human-trafficking law signed by President George W. Bush for preventing officials from promptly deporting minors not eligible for asylum. House Republicans were happy to oblige. Speaker John Boehner maintained that voters would not accept spending more money...

he House has voted to sue President Obama over his various unilateral executive actions. No doubt all will be shocked to discover it was a party line vote. Obama’s response was typical, he wishes Republicans would “stop just hatin’ all the time.” Anyone who opposes a President who ignores the Constitution is “hatin’.” Worse still, Republicans are mad because Obama is just doing his job. Not the job as defined by the Constitution, which requires the President to enforce the laws passed by Congress. Rather Obama refers to the job as he imagines it wherein he issues dictates and everyone...

How a Club of Billionaires and Their Foundations Control the Environmental Movement and Obama’s EPA A new report was released today by the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, and it is damning. All this time that climate skeptics are accused of being in the employ of “big oil” is nothing more than a projection of their own greed. Some excerpts: Over 7.9 BILLION in funding between these groups.

Republicans on K street are helping members of their party shift their stance on gay rights issues. Kathryn Lehman, a top GOP lobbyist and partner at Holland and Knight carries a list of 40 to 50 Republican offices in the House and Senate she visits on behalf of Freedom to Marry, a group that backs same-sex marriage. "The issue is losing its toxicity from a Republican perspective," she said, mentioning that the list was a fraction of that size when she first took on Freedom to Marry as a client in 2011. Lehman... helped to write the Defense of Marriage...

Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is putting a call out to the American people: He needs help to kill President Barack Obama’s plans to grant executive amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. Sessions wants Americans to melt Congress’ phone lines, demanding their members make a precondition of any border crisis bill that Obama’s executive order amnesty via the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and any future plans be stopped.

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) believes the House of Representatives will immediately begin impeachment proceedings if President Barack Obama unilaterally grants work permits and amnesty to millions more illegal immigrants by the "end of summer." Appearing on Breitbart News Saturday with co-hosts Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon and Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow from the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, King said that if Obama "completely destroys the rule of law with the stroke of a pen" and "Congress fails to act," there will be "enough Republicans who didn't have a desire to do this" that will be "immediately activated" to consider...