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Speaker John A. Boehner outlined the September legislative agenda in a Wednesday afternoon conference call with House Republican lawmakers, describing a scheduled 12-day session that will be “brief, but busy.” The most pressing item on the agenda is a short-term spending bill to avert a government shutdown on Sept. 30, but Boehner also spoke strongly and at length, according to a read-out from a source on the call, in favor of using the remaining legislative days before the November elections to draw “a very stark contrast between ourselves and the Democrats who run Washington.” The Republican-led House, Boehner said, “is...

Tepid fundraising, underperforming candidates and a lousy party brand are threatening to deprive House Republicans of the sweeping 2014 gains that some top party officials have been predicting this year. POLITICO interviewed more than a dozen top strategists from both parties about their outlook for the House in the midterms, and their assessment was nearly unanimous: Republicans are on track to expand their majority by only five or six seats, or roughly half their goal. The conversations covered everything from advertising strategies to fundraising to polling. A small gain would again leave Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) largely beholden to the...

One year. Yet still President No Strategy is flummoxed. So flummoxed that he simply flees to the fairway. It gets worse:

SNIP Chobani yogurt, which is based in the upstate town of Norwich, has planted branded refrigerators filled with its Greek yogurt in the DC offices of New York Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Richard Hanna.

Washington - President Barack Obama formally notified the U.S. Congress on Monday that he had authorized air strikes and humanitarian airdrops over the weekend in the Iraqi Shi’ite town of Amerli where Islamic State militants had trapped the civilian population. Iraqi security forces backed by Shi´ite militias on Sunday broke the two-month siege of Amerli and entered the northern town after the U.S. military carried out air strikes on militant positions and delivered emergency supplies to residents there. Obama said in a letter to congressional leaders he was notifying Congress of his decision under the long-standing War Powers Resolution,

In both volumes, Loudon has proved himself to be among the foremost experts in the world investigating and reporting the penetration of communists, socialists and the current group of “progressives” affiliated with Democratic Party politics who portray themselves as liberals. In his 2011 book, Loudon presented documented evidence that Barack Obama’s rise in politics was not an accident, but a conscious, decade-long effort by the radical left to promote a candidate with African roots. Obama, he said, was packaged as an engaging and seemingly harmless Trojan Horse radical, sent to Chicago to refine his skills running for office as a...

<p>So I asked the next five Americanists I ran into and received a bit more confirmation: three gave solid endorsements of the speaker, one gave a lukewarm endorsement and one was much less enthusiastic.</p> <p>I figure it’s worth reporting because I don’t think this largely positive view among political scientists is reflected in the speaker's image in the media, where he comes off as ineffective, not particularly good at the job, and probably doomed.</p>

Unlike most American presidents, Barack Obama took his inaugural oath of office twice, the latter affirmation serving as a private belt-and-braces remedy to a verbal mistake, the former as the usual public spectacle. Four years later, he repeated the trick, promising fealty first during an exclusive White House ceremony, and then, a day later, before the nation at large. Thus did our 44th president bring to a remarkable four the number of times that he had solemnly sworn to faithfully execute the Office, and, to the best of his ability, to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United...

Extortion: Radical Democrat activist groups stand to collect millions from Attorney General Eric Holder's record $17 billion deal to settle alleged mortgage abuse charges against Bank of America. Buried in the fine print of the deal, which includes $7 billion in soft-dollar consumer relief, are a raft of political payoffs to Obama constituency groups. In effect, the government has ordered the nation's largest bank to create a massive slush fund for Democrat special interests.

President Obama is weighing a big-time executive action on immigration that has both Democrats and Republicans anxious. He's also pursuing a major international climate-change agreement without ratification by Congress. And it's not yet clear whether the White House will seek congressional authorization for military action in Syria that appears increasingly likely. Yes, we are finally entering into what could be a very big debate about executive authority -- and with the 2014 election just weeks away. ThIS (sic) debate was supposed to happen when House Republicans sued Obama over his having delayed a portion of Obamacare unilaterally. But if he...

On Tuesday, the Sheboygan Press reported that according to two veteran GOP consultants that talk radio and campaign cash were to blame for State Senator Joe Leibham’s narrow defeat in the 6th Congressional District Republican primary. Jason Smathers, the author of the article, said: “But with two other state legislators running to his right, those advantages disappeared. Leibham played defense most of the race. He was blasted in attack ads and press releases and lost to his main opponents in all but two counties – Manitowoc and his home of Sheboygan.” Smathers interviewed veteran GOP consultant Mark Graul of Arena...

President Barack Obama faces a familiar question as he contemplates airstrikes in Syria: Should Congress have a say in his decision? […] This time around, the White House is suggesting it may not be necessary to get a sign-off from Congress. …

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is working to forge a sweeping international climate change agreement to compel nations to cut their planet-warming fossil fuel emissions, but without ratification from Congress. In preparation for this agreement, to be signed at a United Nations summit meeting in 2015 in Paris, the negotiators are meeting with diplomats from other countries to broker a deal to commit some of the world’s largest economies to enact laws to reduce their carbon pollution. But under the Constitution, a president may enter into a legally binding treaty only if it is approved by a two-thirds majority of...

The American public is frustrated with Congress. There is a constant stream of bickering between the two parties and two chambers, while the country falls deeper into debt to the tune of $1.3 billion per day. Congressional approval ratings are an abysmal 13 percent. To top it all off, Congress is in the middle of a five-week recess. Followed by their return on September 8, where they are only expected to be in session for 15 days before they adjourn and head home to try and get re-elected. With such little action from our lawmakers and so much of their...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told the Asian Chamber of Commerce last week: "The Asian population is so productive. I don't think you're smarter than anybody else, but you've convinced a lot of us you are." In remarks videotaped by the GOP group America Rising, Reid also joked that he has trouble keeping his "Wongs straight." Then followed this apology: "My comments were in extremely poor taste, and I apologize. Sometimes I say the wrong thing." Sometimes? Reid is being far too humble. After the perfunctory apology, then comes the phase when Beltway solons offer explanations for why the Senate's...

Col. Rob Maness Qualifies for Ballot, Calls on LA Secretary of State to Investigate Sen. Mary Landrieu’s Residency Qualifications.... Baton Rouge, LA - This morning, while officially qualifying for the November ballot, Col. Rob Maness (R-Louisiana) today delivered in-person, a letter to Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler, calling on him to open an investigation examining the validity of Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-LA) residency status. "It appears that there are significant inconsistencies that warrant an investigation regarding the residency status of one of the candidates who has filed for United States Senate," Maness' letter says. "On Wednesday, August 20, 2014,...

If there’s one thing that will generate bipartisan consensus on the Hill, it’s that the United States needs to get serious about confronting the Islamic State (ISIS) militarily. The National Journal recently posted a piece by James Kitfield, a senior fellow at Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress, argued that it’s time the U.S. declares war on the Islamic State–and have a debate on the U.S. interests at stake: Washington is overdue for a serious debate about what U.S. national interests are threatened by the Iraq crisis. … Most importantly, ISIS today represents a direct and growing threat...

Submitted by Simon Black via Sovereign Man blog, By the late 1920s, Joseph Stalin became the unchallenged leader of the Soviet Union after having eliminated his opposition. He topped it off in 1929 by serving a decisive blow to anyone that would dare to oppose him by outlawing private gun ownership in the country. From that year on until 1953 when Stalin died, it’s estimated that more than 20 million Soviet citizens that were seen as a threat to the country’s leadership. People were rounded up and either murdered outright, or sent to infamous gulag labor camps. Stalin is an...

Congress should use the appropriations process to reassert its authority over the Environmental Protection Agency, according to a Heritage Foundation issue brief released Tuesday.The report, written by scholar Daren Bakst, identifies three issues on which the EPA has proposed rules and regulations that exceed its authority. In all three cases, Bakst recommends that Congress prohibit the agency from using its funding to implement the proposals. (RELATED: EPA Overrides Congress, Hands Over Town to Indian Tribes)According to the report, “the EPA is using the regulatory process to require greenhouse gas emission reductions even as Congress has been unwilling to take such...

Last week, we were told there were 40,000 Yazidis on Sinjar Mountain facing starvation if they remained there, and slaughter by ISIS if they came down. But a team of Marines and Special Forces that helicoptered in has reported back that, with a corridor off the mountain opened up by U.S. air strikes, the humanitarian crisis is over. The few thousand who remain can be airdropped food and water. The rest can be brought out. The emergency over, President Obama should think long and hard about launching a new air war in Iraq or Syria. For Iraq War III holds...