Free Republic

President Obama’s proposal for the use of military force against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is dead in the House, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy declared on Monday. The California Republican said Obama’s draft authorization for the use of military force, or AUMF, could not win the 218 votes needed to pass the lower chamber, and suggested key GOP-led committees could draft an alternative. “I do not see a path to 218 with what the president sent up because the world has become more dangerous since he laid out Yemen as the strategy of how to move forward,”...

A smoldering debate over trade is expected to get even hotter after Congress returns from its two-week spring break. Senate Finance Committee leaders Orrin Hatch and Ron Wyden appear poised to introduce a “fast track” trade promotion authority bill along with House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. But months of closed-door negotiations were continuing on Friday, congressional aides said. The power, largely embraced by Republicans, pits many congressional Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren and potentially Senate Democratic leader-in-waiting Charles Schumer, against the White House. The measure would allow President Barack Obama to submit free trade agreements to Congress...

Washington believes that the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the US is over, according to a secret briefing document seen by The Mail on Sunday. The memo for members of Congress states damningly that ‘the UK may not be viewed as centrally relevant to the United States in all of the issues and relations considered a priority on the US agenda’. Dated April 2015 and drawn up to brief the Senate and House of Representatives on the impact of Britain’s General Election, the memo also warns that the UK faces turmoil if there is a hung parliament. The document –...

A little-noted provision of President Obama’s highway funding proposal would lift the federal prohibition against states imposing new tolls on existing interstate highways. The GROW AMERICA Act would eliminate restrictions held in place since the creation of the Federal Interstate System, according to a summary of the plan’s provisions, allowing states that receive permission from the Secretary of Transportation to toll existing Interstate highways “in order to make improvements or to manage congestion.” Since its creation in 1956, interstates have been funded primarily through fuel taxes, with tolls banned on all sections of highway built after that date, according to...

Secret US memo for Congress seen by Mail On Sunday says Britain's 'special relationship' with America is over Washington believes that the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the US is over, according to a secret briefing document seen by The Mail on Sunday. The memo for members of Congress states damningly that ‘the UK may not be viewed as centrally relevant to the United States in all of the issues and relations considered a priority on the US agenda’. Dated April 2015 and drawn up to brief the Senate and House of Representatives on the impact of Britain’s General Election,...

When Rand Paul announced his “official” candidacy for the presidency this week he sparked a number of debates, not only in the media and among his opponents, but inside the GOP. One of the less noticed ones revolved around a comment he made during the speech regarding the institution of term limits for congressional offices, similar to what we have for the Oval Office. This drew a quick response from our friend Matt Lewis, who feels that Rand is missing the mark. "During his presidential announcement on Tuesday, Sen. Rand Paul took a stand for term limits. “We limit the...

The Americans With No Abilities Act (ANAA) President Barack Obama and the Democratic Senate are considering sweeping legislation that will provide new benefits for many more Americans. The Americans With No Abilities Act is being hailed as a major legislative goal by advocates of the millions of Americans who lack any real skills or ambition. "Roughly 50 percent of Americans do not possess the competence and drive necessary to carve out a meaningful role for themselves in society," said California Sen. Barbara Boxer. "We can no longer stand by and allow People of Inability (POI) to be ridiculed and passed...

“I did not serve three combat tours in Iraq only to come home and be extorted,” Andrew Clyde, a US Navy veteran, told an oddly united House Ways and Means subcommittee in a February hearing. Clyde is now a gun store owner near Athens, Georgia, a college town located roughly 70 miles outside of Atlanta. He told members of the subcommittee about his experience with the Internal Revenue Service, which seized $950,000 from his business’ bank account in April of 2013 through civil asset forfeiture. The Bank Secrecy Act requires financial institutions to report cash deposits over $10,000 to the...

John McCain will be an 80-year-old senator if he wins re-election to a sixth term. But the octogenarian senator has far more to deal with than questions about his age. Several conservative PACs have already targeted McCain for defeat, notably the Senate Conservative Fund and the Club for Growth. With the right sharpening its knives to bring him down, the question of his survival in a Republican primary can't be dismissed. The Hill: “There are few Republicans who have betrayed our conservative principles more than John McCain,” SCF President Ken Cuccinelli said in an email to supporters Tuesday of the...

It has been revealed that thousands of taxpayer dollars have been approved to pay for disability benefits of hundreds of people that never should have received a dime, and it was all done because of an accident. The Social Security Administration (SSA) was approving some Puerto Ricans for disability benefits because they don’t speak English as their first language, but they all were residing in Puerto Rico — where Spanish is the predominant language.

Fresh off a trip to the Middle East, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is insisting that Congress get a chance to review and approve a nuclear deal with Iran. "To the detriment of international security […] the Obama administration has always approached the goal of these negotiations as reaching the best deal that is acceptable to Iran, rather than what should be our national goal: ending Iran's nuclear program," the Kentucky Republican said in a statement Monday. McConnell visited Israel, Jordan, Iraq and Afghanistan last week with a Senate delegation. On Thursday, a framework for a nuclear deal with Iran,...

For high-profile politicians who are indicted by federal prosecutors, there’s something akin to stages of grief. First comes shock, then anger, defiance and, sometimes, after juries convict and judges are ready to impose a sentence, a bit of contrition.Having been on notice for months that his mutually beneficial friendship with a wealthy Florida doctor was the subject of a corruption probe, Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey blew right past the state of shock on Wednesday, after authorities unveiled a 68-page indictment.“For nearly three years I’ve lived under a Justice Department cloud and today I am outraged that this cloud...

John Koskinen, the strange, David Icke-like lizard person currently in charge of the Internal Revenue Service, has told Congress to forget about abolishing the agency: The IRS commissioner on Tuesday brushed aside GOP proposals to abolish his agency, insisting the U.S. would have to have a tax collector one way or another. “You can call them something other than the IRS if that made you feel better,” the agency’s chief, John Koskinen, said after a speech at the National Press Club.Republicans have heaped even more criticism upon the agency than usual over the last 22 months because of its...

WASHINGTON — The White House on Tuesday introduced President Obama’s blueprint for cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by nearly a third over the next decade. Mr. Obama’s plan, part of a formal written submission to the United Nations ahead of efforts to forge a global climate change accord in Paris in December, detailed the United States’ part of an ambitious joint pledge made by Mr. Obama and President Xi Jinping of China in November. The United States and China are the world’s two largest greenhouse gas polluters. Mr. Obama said the United States would cut its emissions...

A new study from the Pew Research Center found that Americans approve of negotiating directly with Iran, but they do not trust President Obama in the talks. Only 29% of respondents said that Obama should have the final authority over any agreement, while 62% preferred for Congress to have that power. …

Like Benghazi, the IRS, Fast and Furious, amnesty for illegal immigrants as well as negotiating the non-negotiable, the list of unsolved, unconstitutional actions conducted through the executive branch grows longer each day. Congress now hovers in the president’s shadow as the second greatest perpetrator of broken promises to their constituents. Why then, shouldn’t they renege on the one promise that would actually have impact against the wholesale destruction of our economy and defense? The fact that the president and his administration are consorting with the enemy (how many reports confirmed the supreme ayatollah’s chanting “death to America” last week?) and,...

A heavy majority, but maybe not heavy enough. If McConnell can’t muster more than 62 votes in the Senate to override an Obama veto of whatever Congress chooses passes. we’ll be stuck with this Iran sh*tburger until January 2017 at the earliest. And probably much longer than that, if we’re being honest. Nice to see President Overreach get a rebuke in the polls, though. Which is different from expecting any sort of meaningful public backlash if he makes a deal over Congress’s objections.At first glance that looks like a neatly consistent result. Americans favor giving their representatives the final say...

WASHINGTON – Unless you consider words like “repugnant” and “dangerous” to somehow be complimentary, it’s obvious congressional Democrats are less than enamored with Republican plans for the federal budget.In the House on Wednesday, no Democrats voted for the bill and 17 Republicans crossed the aisle on the 228-199 vote. Usually it’s the fiscally conservative Dems who cross over to vote with the GOP.After a marathon session of amendments and a 3:30 a.m. vote, the Senate passed the budget 52-46, with Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) casting “no” votes (Cruz said it didn’t include “meaningful entitlement reform”)...

“Traitors.” That’s a strong term, obviously. It should never be used lightly. Yet there it was, flying around like confetti in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. And why? Because 47 GOP senators who are understandably concerned about the prospects of a nuclear-armed Iran sent a letter to that country’s leaders about the deal now being struck with the United States and other countries. Their message: The next U.S. president can overturn “with the stroke of a pen” any deal Congress doesn’t approve. “Judas got thirty pieces of silver. What did you get?” one New Jersey resident tweeted. Others, sparked...

Remember when a disagreement between Republicans on the budget was “cataclysmic” for GOP claims to governance? Democrats last passed a normal budget resolution six years ago, but Republicans went all of seven days before both chambers finally passed budget resolutions. Our long national nightmare, at least as envisioned by Politico, is over: The Senate passed a Republican-authored budget plan early on Friday that seeks $5.1 trillion in domestic spending cuts over 10 years while boosting military funding.The 52-46 vote on the non-binding budget resolution put Congress on a path to complete its first full budget in six years. It...