Free Republic

Increasing threats from China and Russia are causing some lawmakers to look at restarting the F-22 fighter production line, a House Armed Services Committee staffer said Tuesday. The draft defense authorization bill from the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces requires the Air Force to deliver a report to Congress by Jan. 1, 2017, detailing future aircraft shortfalls and what it would cost to buy more F-22s. ****snip***** The committee is asking the Air Force to provide cost estimates for another 194 F-22s. The committee staffer said the report was included in the bill at the request of a...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Trust in the news media is being eroded by perceptions of inaccuracy and bias, fueled in part by Americans' skepticism about what they read on social media. Just 6 percent of people say they have a lot of confidence in the media, putting the news industry about equal to Congress and well below the public's view of other institutions. In this presidential campaign year, Democrats were more likely to trust the news media than Republicans or independents. But trust today also goes beyond the traditional journalistic principles of accuracy, balance and fairness. Faced with ever-increasing sources of...

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. – A lawsuit can go forward against the maker of the rifle used in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, a judge ruled Thursday. Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis said that a 2005 federal law protecting gun-makers from lawsuits does not prevent lawyers for the victims' families from arguing that the semi-automatic rifle is a military weapon and should not have been sold to civilians.

When signing the bill raising California’s minimum wage, Governor Jerry Brown called the new $15 minimum wage “good politics” but “questionable policy.” He may be more prescient than many realize. There was a time in recent American history when a minimum wage of nearly equal magnitude to California’s was imposed, and “good politics” turned out to be disastrous policy. It is worth remembering this previous minimum-wage experiment as voters assess whether the progressive push for substantially higher minimum wages will deliver prosperity for the working class. President Obama has long supported the so-called Raise the Wage Act, which, if passed,...

Florida's 18th Congressional District There will be thousands of candidates vying for congressional, and senate seats in the 2016 general election, but only one the Army Times says “first started thinking about running for Congress from his hospital bed at Walter Reed”. Explosive ordnance disposal expert Brian Mast was bedridden for two months after losing both his legs to a land mine in Afghanistan, during which time a double amputee wanted to be the candidate, who could more than double the chances of a strong voice for vets if elected to Congress.

As the tax deadline approaches it's once again time to consider how the federal government wastes our money. Remember the spending caps that were supposed to keep Congress from overspending? Gone with the wind. How about the promise Republicans made about no more earmarks on spending bills? It disappeared almost as fast as a gold coin in a magician's hands. Of course, they are not calling these new and improved earmarks earmarks. They call them something else, so they can claim they are keeping their promise. Is it any wonder this political season is characterized by voter anger? Just in...

The Republican Study Committee isn’t the newest conservative caucus on the congressional block. But they’re the oldest, they’re still the biggest, and on occasion, they will throw their weight around on Capitol Hill.

We knew that Sen. Dianne Feinstein was cooking up a bill with North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr in response to Apple’s dispute with the FBI over the San Bernarndino iPhone.We knew that the bill was going to target companies like Apple that refused to help the government unscramble encrypted data. And we suspected, given Feinstein’s past history of being unconcerned about anyone’s privacy other than her own, that the bill was going to be pretty bad for the privacy of everyday citizens and the security of tech products.How bad? Well we now know.The bill would require companies, in response...

All the country’s visas for high-skilled workers were snatched up in the first week yet again this year, the government reported Thursday, signaling that companies’ voracious appetites for cheap foreign workers remains unabated despite intense criticism on the presidential campaign trail. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said it received more than enough applications to claim the 85,000 visas available under the H-1B program this year and will once again hold a lottery to award the coveted permits. Technology companies, desperate for the workers, said reaching the cap just days after the April 1 application period began should spur Congress to...

What would your reaction be if you heard that Congress was set in 2007 to bestow ‘natural born’ citizenship on ALL anchor babies through their Immigration Reform legislation. (110th Congress) S. 1348Shocked? Outraged? Ambivalent?What if you heard that Congress was moving to change Immigration & Naturalization laws so the every child born overseas to 1 citizen parent & 1 foreign parent would forever be deemed a ‘natural born’ citizen. (101st Congress) H.R. 1380, (99th Congress) H.R. 2535, Shocked? Outraged? Ambivalent?What if Congress had a bill waiting to come out of committee in February of 2008 that would change the citizenship...

Senate Democrats on Wednesday couldn't agree that federal debt is a national security problem, in a hearing aimed at assessing the long-term strategic implications of the government's $19 trillion debt. "A realistic discussion about it, and accepting expert opinion that this debt that we have is not actually right now a threat to our country, is I think a more realistic and honorable way of talking to the American people about it," Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Wednesday. That surprised committee chairman Bob Corker, who concluded the hearing by describing such views...

Does the president of the United States have the power to unilaterally tell millions of individuals who are violating federal law that he will not enforce that law against them now, that they may continue to violate that law in the future and that he will take action that makes them eligible for federal benefit programs for which they are not currently eligible due to their unlawful status? Through Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, President Barack Obama is telling the Supreme Court exactly this right now. The solicitor general calls what Obama is doing "prosecutorial discretion."

Imagine a Republican leadership that actually harnessed public attention against some of Obama’s most unpopular policies, especially as it relates to national security? The Associated Press is reporting today that under a new expedited program to speed up resettlement, families will begin coming to the U.S. this week from Jordan. The first Syrian family to be resettled to the U.S. under its speeded-up "surge operation" departed to the United States Wednesday from the Jordanian capital, Amman: A resettlement surge center opened in Amman in February to meet President Barack Obama's target of resettling 10,000 Syrians to the United States by...

Let's not be coy. There's a certain population in this country that expects unlimited government handouts despite its piggish unwillingness to work. Don't tell me this is about their child-care responsibilities, or lack of access to transportation or education. Nonsense. These people simply don't want to work. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the new welfare queens: your democratically elected U.S. legislators, the laziest, most do-nothing generation of federal politicians in decades. Sure, they talk a big game about work ethic and personal responsibility. With the stated goal of promoting personal responsibility, the House Republicans' 2017 budget proposes newly attaching work requirements...

Radical leftists pushing for an open borders agenda are attempting to destroy the ability of over 80 percent of our nation’s Border Patrol agents to speak out and sound the alarm to the public and to Congress. The Huffington Post reported that the open-borders extremist group, Not1More, is a “prominent immigrants rights group” and that they were behind an effort to have the AFL-CIO kick out the National Border Patrol Council from its ranks. Not1More derives its name from the idea that “not one more” illegal alien should be deported from the U.S. The attacks on Border Patrol agents ramped...

Cutthroat Republican interference with this presidential election might cause a lot of Americans to finally acknowledge that a congress composed of well-fed career politicians is not beneficial to the public In the 1960s, when flower children replaced American traditions with a “feel-good” counter-culture, their rallying cry was: “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” Now in their declining years, these elderly flower children must surely experience deja vu when they witness the antics of today’s post-pubertal do-gooders. Like the flower children, today’s young people are driven to correct what they perceive as society’s flaws. This is their “Rite of Passage”, the sociological...

The subpoenas are being moved almost as quickly as the baby parts after an abortion. The House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives has announced the issuance of 12 new subpoenas in its ongoing investigation on the harvesting of fetal body parts, following the release of multiple undercover videos last year from the Center for Medical Progress. The House Energy and Commerce Committee had previously requested the information, but says these subpoenas were sent “to organizations who have failed to fully cooperate with both requests for information and previous subpoenas.” A press release notes that groups have been uncooperative with...

"Rolling Plunder – How Scott Walker and Paul Ryan Plan To Sell Out Wisconsin, and the Voters are Oblivious…" Wise Up and Rise Up Wisconsin Well, given Paul Ryan’s full-throated endorsement and promotion for the Trans-Pacific Trade Deal (TPP), perhaps the Wisconsin working voter would like to see exactly what they have in mind for you. Remember, each of the aforementioned has also endorsed Senator Ted Cruz – who, not coincidentally, was the co-author of the Trade Promotion Authority bill (TPA) which was the vehicle to insure TPP’s passage. Rather than go through all of the tentacles, and difficult to...

Back in 1994 the then-Minority Whip in Congress, Georgia Republican Congressman Newt Gingrich, along with his colleague, Texas Republican Richard Armey, crafted what was later called the “Contract with America.” What some at the time, especially Democrats, viewed initially as a political gimmick, but ultimately turned out to be a brilliant political tactic.The document detailed what Republicans promised to do if they were given control of Congress by the voters. In large part as a result of this written contract, for the first time in 40 years Republicans would indeed be given the majority in the lower house of government,...

Can we force Congress to accept Term Limits? And what is the appropriate method?