Free Republic

(IsraelNN.com) An American-Israeli action group has strongly criticized a group of 54 U.S. Congress members for accusing Israel of inflicting “collective punishment” on the residents of Gaza. Harvey Schwartz, chairman of the nonprofit American Israeli Action Coalition (AIAC), called the Congress members' charge “preposterous,” and said it “amounts to nothing more than outright, outrageous Israel-bashing." The AIAC is a nonprofit organization based in Jerusalem that represents the more than 250,000 U.S. citizens living in Israel. The 54 lawmakers, all Democrats, called on President Barack Obama in a recent letter to pressure Israel into lifting its blockade on Gaza. The letter...

Unemployment rose in most cities and counties in December, signaling that companies remain reluctant to hire even as the economy recovers. The unemployment rate rose in 306 of 372 metro areas, the Labor Department said Tuesday. The rate fell in 41 and was unchanged in 25. That's worse than November, when the rate fell in 170 areas, rose in only 154 and was unchanged in 48.

The government watchdog group Judicial Watch obtained documents from the Air Force detailing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s use of US Air Force aircraft for Congressional Delegations (CODELs). According to the documents obtained by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Speaker’s military travel cost the United States Air Force $2,100,744.59 over a two-year period — $101,429.14 of which was for in-flight expenses, including food and alcohol. The following are highlights from the recent release of about 2,000 documents related to Pelosi's travel: •Speaker Pelosi used Air Force aircraft to travel back to her district at an average...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic-controlled Senate approves raising government borrowing limit by $1.9 trillion.

(CNSNews.com) – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that the issue of job creation has “permeated” the efforts of congressional Democrats over the past year. Pelosi’s statement stands in stark contrast to a bleak jobs year that saw unemployment rise to over 10 percent. “The jobs issue has permeated everything, [every] major initiative that we have,” Pelosi said at her weekly press briefing Thursday. The speaker outlined the various proposals that she said had pulled the economy “back from the brink” over the past year. “With the recovery package, we not only created jobs – about 2 million saved or...

A recent Free Press article noted that Rep. Tim Walz doesn’t “dispute that a majority of Americans are opposed to the (health care) bill or at least highly skeptical.” Now, let me get this straight: We elected Walz to represent us, we pay his salary through our rising taxes, and yet he is planning to vote against our wishes. How can that be? Does he not understand what his title means? A “representative” is to act in the stead of another. The article then goes on to quote Walz: “The day after we pass it, the sun will rise.” Now,...

This is incredible, scroll down through the three pictures... the last one is amazing.

Recently, retired military have received e-mail messages notifying them of a withholding tax increase. The email states: NO ANNUAL COST OF LIVING ADJUSTMENT (COLA) WILL BE ADDED TO MILITARY RETIRED PAY IN 2010. DUE TO RECENT LEGISLATION YOUR FEDERAL WITHHOLDING TAX HAS CHANGED. After much investigating and several discussions with the IRS, it appears the Democrats have played a “cash-flow trick” on working Americans and are taking more out of American’s paychecks across the board–all the while touting the Making Work Pay tax credit. The trick, when looking at the new withholding tax tables for 2010 as compared to post-stimulus...

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, and Rep. Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat, have plans to ram through legislation that will produce universal voter registration. No matter what they claim, the rule changes will make it possible for illegal aliens to register to vote and for others to register multiple times. The proposal is to register everyone on every welfare list, everyone getting unemployment insurance, everyone with a driver's license, everyone who has had run-ins with the legal system, everyone owning any property - basically everyone on every list the government keeps. People will be registered to vote whether or...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) defended Congress' work on a healthcare bill Tuesday saying the process has displayed historic transparency, just as C-SPAN mounts an effort to open the negotiations. C-SPAN wrote a letter to congressional leaders Tuesday asking that TV cameras be allowed to film negotiations to reconcile the House and Senate versions of healthcare reform legislation. But Pelosi said Congress has already been transparent throughout the process. "There has never been a more open process for any legislation," Pelosi said at a press conference. Pelosi also hinted that holding informal negotiations--likely without TV cameras--might be the most practical...

Remember this: "We promise to restore civility, integrity & bipartanship to Washiongton. Democrats also promise to lead the most open and most honest congress in history"! Nancy Pelosi following the 7 Nov 2006 election.

Welcome to the wailing wall of broken Democrat promises. Evan Thomas and John Meacham of Newsweek got it wrong. We are not “all socialists now.” Even in most socialist countries, at least two political parties are involved in the legislative process. What the Democrats are doing more resembles Soviet-style one-party rule than European socialism.

Many are puzzled that Democrats persist in ramming unpopular and destructive legislation down our collective throats while seemingly unconcerned by their plummeting poll numbers. A widespread belief is that the Democrats are committing political suicide and will be swept from one or both houses of Congress with unprecedented electoral losses next November. But since Democrat politicians rarely do things that will not ultimately benefit themselves, this column asked two weeks ago: "what do they know that we don't?" We may have found out. It's called universal voter registration. The Wall Street Journal's John Fund described the Democrat plan recently at...

President Obama has yet again summoned Democrats from House and Senate leadership to the White House to determine their final strategy to pass some bill that reconciles the disparate healthcare “reform” measures passed by each congressional body. Republicans were not invited to today’s meeting. Among those expected at the White House either in person or by teleconference are Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). If the majority leadership cannot agree to try to strong-arm the Senate-passed bill through the House without changes...

Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman was just on Fox News with Greta Van Susteren, where he denounced Harry Reid's purchase of Nelson's 60th vote for cloture on the Senate bill. "Nebraska doesn't want a special deal, we only want a fair deal. We're embarrassed by what's going on... Nebraskans are angry and upset by what they've heard," Heineman said. "I've also asked Senator Nelson... he has a chance tomorrow to vote no on cloture. That would be the best thing for Nebraska, the best thing for America. Send this bill back to committee, go home for Christmas and think about it...

Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) pointed out some rather astounding language in the Senate health care bill during floor remarks tonight. First, he noted that there are a number of changes to Senate rules in the bill--and it's supposed to take a 2/3 vote to change the rules. And then he pointed out that the Reid bill declares on page 1020 that the Independent Medical Advisory Board cannot be repealed by future Congresses:

In an end-of-session nail-biter vote, the House passed a short-term increase of the debt limit Wednesday, setting the stage for a February showdown on deficit spending. It was not a popular measure with centrist and vulnerable lawmakers, who don’t want to be portrayed as allowing the nation to go deeper into debt. The $290 billion increase would set the debt ceiling at $12.394 trillion.

In an end-of-session nail-biter vote, the House passed a short-term increase of the debt limit Wednesday, setting the stage for a February showdown on deficit spending. It was not a popular measure with centrist and vulnerable lawmakers, who don’t want to be portrayed as allowing the nation to go deeper into debt. The $290 billion increase would set the debt ceiling at $12.394 trillion. The vote was 218-214, but Democratic leaders had to sweat it out. As the voting clock ticked down to zero, the bill was losing, 203-208. Thirty-nine Democrats rejected the measure and not one Republican voted for...

House Democrats said Thursday that denying humans were causing climate change is like denying smoking causes lung cancer. Reps. Edward Markey (Mass.), Jay Inslee (Wash.) and Earl Blumenauer (Ore.) also compared climate change "deniers" to “teabaggers” who spread the false rumor about death panels and swift boaters who attacked Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) war record during the 2004 presidential race. The three members of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming called a news conference on Thursday in response to the controversy over the hacked emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia,...

If every great cause requires an even greater villain, Democratic greens have found one in Sarah Palin. House Democrats spent Thursday targeting former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for using e-mails, many from the 1990s, from English climate scientists to bolster her claim that global warming is “bogus” and ridiculing her op-ed in The Washington Post calling for President Barack Obama to boycott the Copenhagen climate talks. Palin and other critics of Copenhagen have seized on a passel of stolen messages reportedly showing that scientists from East Anglia University may have fudged climate change findings. Progressives, in damage control mode, have...

Congress -- and possibly Citigroup -- may be gearing up to start funding the organized crime syndicate ACORN again. The current federal funding ban expires Dec. 18. On Tuesday evening the House Appropriations Committee rejected on a party line vote of 9 to 5 an amendment offered by Rep. Tom Latham (R-Iowa) that would have blocked federal funding of the radical advocacy group. The amendment was needed because the Obama administration thumbed its nose at a provision in spending legislation that banned ACORN funding until the end of next week. In a ruling revealed late last month by the Justice...

Seventy-one percent (71%) of voters nationwide say they’re at least somewhat angry about the current policies of the federal government. That figure includes 46% who are Very Angry. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 27% are not angry about the government's policies, including 10% who are Not at All Angry........ The data suggests that the level of anger is growing. The 71% who are angry at federal government policies today is up five percentage points since September. Even more stunning, the 46% who are Very Angry is up 10 percentage points from September.

Being a member of Congress rates as the least ethical and honest professions – faring worse than car salesmen by 4 percent – according to a new Gallup poll out Wednesday.

President Obama used his speech rolling out a stimulus-style jobs program Tuesday to point the finger at Republicans for allegedly facilitating the economic crisis and then foisting it off on his administration to solve. While praising his own team for pioneering "ambitious" financial reform and "sweeping" economic recovery initiatives, the president took some pointed shots at Republicans who are now blasting the latest package as a spend-crazy "stimulus two" that will drill deeper into the deficit. "We were forced to take those steps (to jump-start the economy) largely without the help of an opposition party which, unfortunately, after having presided...

Control: The House and Senate climate bills contain a provision giving the president extraordinary powers in the event of a "climate emergency." As chief of staff Rahm Emanuel says, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. If you thought the House health care bill that nobody read has hidden passages that threaten our freedoms and liberty, take a peak at the "trigger" placed in the byzantine innards of both the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill and the Kerry-Boxer bill just passed by Democrats out of Sen. Barbara Boxer's Environment and Public Works Committee. As Nick Loris of the Heritage Foundation points...

Markey: With End of U.S. Gov. Climate Denial, Real Endangerment Comes from Forces Stopping ActionDecision Based on Mountains of Data, Not Molehill of Manufactured Doubt WASHINGTON (December 7, 2009) – Following the announcement today by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that it has finalized the so-called “endangerment finding” and determined that heat-trapping pollution constitutes a danger to human health and the environment, Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), co-author of the Waxman-Markey climate bill and chair of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, issued the following statement: “Now that the U.S. government has officially ended its era of...

Today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid showed his fear of losing the health care vote. He let go an outburst that was as offense as it was historically inaccurate: Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is this:, 'slow down, stop everything, let's start over.' If you think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right. When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said, 'Slow down, it's too early, let's wait, things aren't bad enough.' When women spoke up...

Remember it for your grandchildren: Saturday, November 21, 2009—the day of the Transformation of America. That’s the day Global Marxism will begin its inexorable march to take down the Free World, starting with its leader the United States of America. There will be no shots fired, but the aim of the U.S. Senate’s poison arrow is right on target at the heart of humanity. While America’s Marxist President is abroad, Senate Majority House Leader Harry Reid is tying the red ribbon bow on his Christmas present, the Transformation, and Take Down of the United States of America. “Senate Majority...

Reid scrambles for 60 health votes With an assist from Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid scrambled Wednesday to pull together 60 votes for his health reform bill, awaiting all-important cost estimates in hopes of getting the bill to the floor by the weekend. At around 2:15 p.m., the three moderate Democratic holdouts - Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson - entered Reid's office for a briefing. "He is walking through the particulars with them," said Reid’s spokesman, Jim Manley. "We need 60 votes to get this bill to the floor." Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the...

Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000...

U.S. consumers turned decidedly more pessimistic in October, according to a report released Tuesday, with households increasingly worried about job prospects. The Conference Board, a private research group, said its monthly Consumer Confidence Index fell to 47.7 this month, from a revised 53.4 in September, which was originally reported as 53.1. The current month's reading was well below economists' projections of 53.2, according to a survey conducted by Dow Jones Newswires. The downturn in consumer confidence at this stage of the recovery is to be expected, as it has occurred in previous recoveries (please see chart below), and does not...

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people. True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the...

CNSNews.com) – When CNSNews.com asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday where the Constitution authorized Congress to order Americans to buy health insurance--a mandate included in both the House and Senate versions of the health care bill--Pelosi dismissed the question by saying: “Are you serious? Are you serious?” Pelosi's press secretary later responded to written follow-up questions from CNSNews.com by emailing CNSNews.com a press release on the “Constitutionality of Health Insurance Reform,” that argues that Congress derives the authority to mandate that people purchase health insurance from its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce. The exchange with Speaker Pelosi...

Hoyer Says Constitution’s ‘General Welfare’ Clause Empowers Congress to Order Americans to Buy Health Insurance Wednesday, October 21, 2009 By Matt Cover (CNSNews.com) – House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said that the individual health insurance mandates included in every health reform bill, which require Americans to have insurance, were “like paying taxes.” He added that Congress has “broad authority” to force Americans to purchase other things as well, so long as it was trying to promote “the general welfare.” The Congressional Budget Office, however, has stated in the past that a mandate forcing Americans to buy health insurance would...

There's something the Democratic lawmakers who are pushing cap-and-trade legislation don't want the public to know. The controversial climate-change legislation winding its way through Congress will impose a massive new national gas tax on the American people. We discovered this by analyzing what the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill would do to gas prices and what Americans spend on gasoline, diesel and jet fuels. We found that cap-and-trade legislation will levy a $3.6 trillion gas-tax increase that will impact every American and important segments of our economy. Americans travel more than 200 million vehicle miles each month, and annually we spend nearly...

Not later than February 1, 2014, the Comptroller General shall submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a report on . . . (ii) the availability of affordable health benefits plans, and (iii) the ability of individuals to maintain essential health benefits coverage . . . Not later than April 1, 2014, the appropriate committees of Congress shall report legislation implementing the recommendations contained in the report . . . [or] any member of the House of Representatives or the Senate, respectively, may introduce legislation implementing the recommendations contained in the proposal and such legislation shall be placed on the...

"Benefit" is not the correct word, as Cap and Trade will not be a net benefit to any state, being a direct tax on productivity and business in the name of warding off the scam of man-made global warming. That being said, the Waxman-Baucus Bill, Waxman (D-MA) and Baucus (D-CA), will aid special interests in Massachusetts and California more than it will special interests from other states. A little noticed Environmental Protection Agency analysis shows that the pending climate-change bill in Congress would particularly benefit the states represented by its primary authors. The analysis, obtained by The Washington Times, shows...

Gee, who saw this one? Anyway, the point stands. The FDIC is clearly out of money, and this is nothing more than yet another legalized accounting fraud game, where they'll get "the money" now but allow the banks to "recognize" that "charge" over time. And now we find that this is not a short-term issue either: NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The government insurance fund designed to protect consumer bank deposits will likely stay in the red through 2012, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chief Sheila Bair said Wednesday. I know I have brought this up repeatedly, but these sorts of losses...

Senators diverted $2.6 billion in funds in a defense spending bill to pet projects largely at the expense of accounts that pay for fuel, ammunition and training for U.S. troops, including those fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to an analysis. Among the 778 such projects, known as earmarks, packed into the bill: $25 million for a new World War II museum at the University of New Orleans and $20 million to launch an educational institute named after the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat. While earmarks are hardly new in Washington, "in 30 years on Capitol Hill,...

Reid ‘Likely’ to Make Entire Health Bill an Amendment to Unrelated Tax Bill That House Passed in March(CNSNews.com) -- A senior aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told CNSNews.com that it is “likely” that Reid will use H.R. 1586—a bill passed by the House in March to impose a 90-percent tax on bonuses paid to employees of certain bailed-out financial institutions—as a “shell” for enacting the final version of the Senate’s health care bill, which Reid is responsible for crafting. Under the procedure, the substance of House Resolution 1586 would be removed and replaced with the entire Senate...

Pelosi says new tax is 'on the table' By Michael O'Brien - 10/06/09 10:59 AM ET A new value added tax (VAT) is "on the table" to help the U.S. address is fiscal liabilities, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Monday night. Pelosi, appearing on PBS's "The Charlie Rose Show" asserted that "it's fair to look at" the VAT as part of an overhaul of the nation's tax code. "I would say put everything on the table and subject it to the scrutiny that it deserves," Pelosi told Rose when asked if the value-added tax has any appeal to her....

Iowa Republican, Sen. Chuck Grassley, won passage for an amendment that will force Congress and congressional staff members to access health insurance through the exchange that would be created by the health care reform legislation under consideration by the Finance Committee. In a news release Grassley said, “the more that Congress experiences the laws we pass, the better the laws are likely to be.” Members of the committee agreed through unanimous consent on Tuesday night to support the Grassley amendment. Senator Jim Bunning was a cosponsor of the amendment. As it stands now, members of Congress and their staffs participate...

Here is video from Fox News' Neil Cavuto yesterday where he likened Obama's push to pass Government-run Health Care despite opposition from Americans to a man driving a car in the wrong direction who won't heed any of the warning signs or stop and ask for directions. Cavuto was giving his "Common Sense" commentary, and did an excellent job of describing what the Democrat-controlled Congress is trying to do in ramming Health Care "for all" through despite the fact 56% of Americans are opposed to it. Instead of listening to the people now, they hearken back to Obama's election win...

Wall Street has showered nearly $11 million on the Senate since the beginning of the year, and more than 15 percent of it has gone to a single senator: Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York. Schumer’s $1.65 million take from the financial services industry is nearly twice that of any other senator's — and more than five times what the industry gave to any single Republican senator.

Former DNC Chairman Appointed To Replace Liberal Lion A relic of the U.S. Senate for 47 years, former U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy’s greatest impact on U.S. policy may have come from beyond the grave. Recent approval by Massachusetts lawmakers have changed the Bay State’s election law as to permit Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick to name an interim lawmaker until the state’s Jan. 19 special election. The change in the law, which was motivated by partisan interests, repealed a law once supported by Mr. Kennedy that called for the seat to remain vacant until a special election was held. The result? Mr....

Ensign receives handwritten confirmation This doesn't happen often enough. Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staft Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance. Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT letterhead. He signed it "Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold." The note was a follow-up to Ensign's questioning at the markup.

ACORN -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- is stinking up Washington. And this is far more significant than if a suspiciously large number of operatives for a purely "private" outfit had been found systematically bending and breaking the law, because ACORN receives and spends taxpayer money -- lots of it -- and had carried the imprimatur of official partnerships with the IRS, the Census Bureau ... the kind of "cred" that in the political world comes only from "who you know."

WASHINGTON - Senate Finance Committee Democrats have just rejected a GOP amendment that would have required a health overhaul bill to be available online for 72 hours before the committee votes. Republicans argued that transparency is an Obama administration goal. They also noted that their constituents are demanding that they read bills before voting. Democrats said it was a delay tactic that could have postponed a vote for weeks. The Democrats say that unlike other committees, the Finance Committee works off conceptual language that describes policies — instead of legislative language that ultimately becomes law, and which the GOP...

The 2009 AFL-CIO Convention just got a message from the top leaders in Congress: We stand with you and with America’s workers. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the leader of the U.S. House, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) each delivered a video message to the opening session of the convention.Pelosi thanked outgoing AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and the union movement, crediting union members with taking the lead in winning a pro-worker Congress and giving them the momentum needed to pass legislation that really changed lives. Pelosi said: On behalf of the Congress, I thank all of you for your...

The Senate voted Thursday to confirm Harvard professor Cass Sunstein as the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Budget and Management.