Free Republic

The House of Representatives is a large body with diverse opinions. Without structure, nothing could get done. In order to both have debate and amendments while also not dragging processes on forever, legislation brought to the floor of the House of Representatives is accompanied by a rule. That rule sets out the parameters for debate, timeframe for debate, and amendments to the underlying legislation. Legislation rarely goes to the floor of the House of Representatives without a rule. Killing the rule, which is voted on before the legislation, kills the underlying legislation. Often, members of congress will vote in favor...

At the Saban Forum in Washington Last Saturday evening, Naftali Bennett became overnight the talk of the town. Bennett appeared at the prestigious Saban Forum 2014 of the Brookings Institution Saban Center for Middle East Policy devoted to Israel/US relations; or what’s left of them. Bennett did not merely “appear.” He waged a one-on-one confrontation with the man who is his complete antithesis, the former US ambassador to Israel and vice president and director for foreign policy at the Brookings Institute in Washington, Martin Indyk. It was a formative, possibly unique, event. Hundreds of participants in the hall were virtually...

Republicans should hope that it will begin to simplify the tax code, cut spending, reduce the huge national debt, aid the growth of the energy sector, and crack down on rogue agencies. That would be a good start Clearly President Obama did not get the message the voters sent in the November midterm elections, electing enough Republican Senators to shift power in the Senate and to increase it in the House. Many Presidents in their second term encounter this shift, particularly if they are seen by the voters to be incompetent in some respect. Writing in the December 9 edition...

Like two predatory animals circling each other, Republicans and Democrats are trying to sort out the meaning of last month's election and plan strategies for the remaining days of the current Congress and the new one in which Republicans will hold majorities in both houses. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), soon to be chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, spoke with me about the election and his party's strategy going forward. "I think (voters) want to see government respect taxpayers again and respect (government's) limits. And they don't want to see an executive go unchecked ... people want...

Many might say they prefer an honest adversary to a treacherous ally. Many House conservatives should be reevaluating their relationships after their own “leadership” betrayed them by covertly changing a bill designed to stop Obama’s amnesty into a bill that now effectively legalizes it. In an exclusive interview with Breitbart, Rep. Louis Gohmert revealed that Speaker John Boehner and his Establishment cronies secretly changed H.R. 5759 first put forward by Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) and kept their amended language quiet. He says most of the 216 Republicans who voted on the bill had no idea it had been dramatically altered...

John Boehner predicted Tuesday that “very few” Republican lawmakers would vote against him when he seeks a third term as Speaker of the House. In an interview with USA Today, the Ohio Republican pushed back against a report in The Hill that pockets of Tea Party conservatives are plotting to oust the Speaker when the 114th Congress meets in January to elect its House leaders in a public vote. Boehner also dismissed suggestions that his leadership team would strip committee assignments from GOP lawmakers who vote against him. "I just don't think it's necessary," Boehner said of possible retribution. A...

House Speaker John Boehner is releasing the huge, $1 trillion 2015 government budget on Monday, only three days before the vote on Wednesday, Dec. 11. That delay jams GOP legislators, who won’t be able to identify or oppose many of the unpopular spending programs that are likely buried deep inside the complex budget, which was drafted by GOP and Democratic members of the appropriations committees. “There’s no way this huge bill can be addressed effectively,” Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking GOP member of the Senate’e budget committee, said on Sunday. “There are going to be thousands of pages.” Boehner has...

The Republicans now have their largest majorities in Congress since World War II. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)has been defeated in a runoff in Louisiana. Former Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards went down to defeat too. Republicans will have a solid majority in both houses of congress in January. They will have that majority because they ran opposed to Barack Obama. They ran campaigning on the eradication of Obamacare and stopping the President’s then planned executive amnesty plan. The Republicans told the voters that if the voters would stand with the GOP, the GOP would stand for them against Barack Obama. The...

Now that he feels secure that he will have another term as Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner is going full liberal on America. He is preparing to push an Amnesty bill through the House next year. He has completely abandoned any attempt to repeal, replace or even reduce Obamacare. And he is spending money like a drunken Democrat. From The Hill: House conservatives are griping that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is putting the squeeze on them by rushing through a $1 trillion spending bill in Congress’s last week in session. Appropriators are expected to roll out the...

Mississippi’s congressional delegation is regaining its clout, former Sen. Trent Lott said Thursday. Lott noted that, beginning in January, Republican Sen. Thad Cochran is in line to become chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, and Republican Sen. Roger Wicker will take over the National Republican Senatorial Committee, a top leadership post. “Our delegation has been relatively weak in recent years compared to the past, but with time that is beginning to change,” Lott, a former Senate majority leader, told reporters following a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. “They’re building up seniority and influence and respect.” SPECIAL: Modern Day...

It is distinctly possible that House Republicans will kick away their opportunity to accomplish anything of significant value in the next session of Congress before it even begins. The chances of the Republican Congress governing effectively next year could be all but over by Christmas of this year if their performance over the last two weeks, or their preview of coming attractions for the coming week and next year’s sessions, are true indicators. Rarely in the annals of democratic government has a time of so much opportunity been so promptly and effectively eviscerated by those to whom the opportunity was...

There's no sugarcoating it. The November 2014 election results marked a serious setback for Democrats, the anti-ultra right alliance and the broad people's coalition led by labor. The fight for jobs at living wages, workers and immigrant rights, racial and gender equality, for climate justice and peace proceeds under more unfavorable conditions. The election resulted in a wave of victories for the Republicans and ultra right that may have surpassed 2010. However, while the GOP claims otherwise, it was not a mandate for right-wing policies. Grassroots efforts by labor and its allies mobilized millions of voters. Tens of thousands of...

This meme is in story after story. Since when is Florida not the "deep south"?? Was it not also part of the old Confederacy?? It certainly isn't a border state up near Virginia and Kentucky!

House conservatives are griping that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is putting the squeeze on them by rushing through a $1 trillion spending bill in Congress’s last week in session. Appropriators are expected to roll out the legislation early next week, giving critics scant time to figure out what’s inside before they cast their votes by the end of the week. The government would shut down on Dec. 12 without a new funding bill. ADVERTISEMENT “Here we are doing the appropriations bill the last couple days” before a government shutdown, conservative Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas) said in an interview this week....

Rep. Raúl R. Labrador has a message for Republican leadership as they decide how to respond to the president’s executive action on immigration and funding the government beyond Dec. 11: Keep a government shutdown as an option. “I don’t think anything is off the table,” Labrador told reporters at the Capitol Tuesday. “I don’t think anybody is thinking about a shutdown, but, in negotiations, you never take anything off the table. That’s the first rule of negotiating, and apparently it’s not one that’s been learned in Washington, D.C.” Asked if leaders are too “gun shy” about a government shutdown, the...

As conservatives push back against a bill to fund the government past Dec. 11, Speaker John A. Boehner signaled Thursday that he didn’t expect to make any sizable changes to the so-called “cromnibus” in order to placate voices to the right. “I expect that we’ll have bipartisan support to pass the omnibus,” Boehner told reporters Thursday, in response to a question on whether the Ohio Republican anticipated needing some Democratic votes to pass the bill, and whether that would give Democrats leverage on negotiating riders in the appropriations bill. Conservatives are bashing the cromnibus — which would fund all elements...

Republicans ran a campaign in 2014 against the high handed overreach of Barack Obama. Democrats ran a campaign against Republicans accusing them of hating women and shutting down the government. Republicans won. Then Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)N/A and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)68% promptly surrendered. They never, despite their campaign rhetoric, had any intention of stopping the President. Boehner and McConnell both agree with the outcome, even if they oppose the means. But they know they do not have the means to do what the President did, so they’ll go through elaborate kabuki theater while funding the President. Republican stenographers in...

As a former Republican leader in the House and Senate, Trent Lott of Mississippi says he knows that party leaders don’t seek advice. But he had plenty on Thursday for Speaker John A. Boehner and Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republicans who will be running Congress — or trying to — come January. In short: Lead the growing ranks of hard-line conservatives who have often called the shots, don’t follow them, so Republicans can get things done with President Obama. “The leadership is going to have to find a way to deal sternly with some of these members,” Mr. Lott, who...

Sidestepping immigration hardliners, House Republican leaders are moving to make a deal with Democrats to pass a spending bill that would keep the government running past next week. The emerging strategy follows legislation passed Thursday by the House declaring President Barack Obama's executive actions to curb deportations "null and void." That legislation wasn't enough for some conservatives, who complained that the only way to stop Obama's actions on immigration would be to forbid them in legislation that must pass if the government is to stay open. Republican leaders are opposed to that course of action, fearing a government shutdown that...

The House of Representatives voted today to block President Obama’s executive action on immigration, but in a different room of the Capitol Republicans may have been offering a brief glimmer of hope. The powerful Republican chairman of the House Rules Committee, Pete Sessions of Texas, said on the record that only the extreme members of his party want to deport non-criminal undocumented workers. “There is no one in responsible Republican leadership, elected officials, who has said we should deport 13 or 11 million people,” Sessions said Thursday at a hearing on the president’s executive actions on immigration. “That is not...