Free Republic

In my home state of Maryland, there were rampant reports of fraud during early voting in November. A number of voters who cast ballots for Republican candidates witnessed the computer system automatically flipping their votes in favor of the Democrat candidate. Evidently, this turned out to be a national phenomenon. In other states, voters did indeed cast votes for Republicans, only to see the mandate overturned by the D.C. Oligarchy led by Barack Obama, John Boehner, and Mitch McConnell. It is hard to exaggerate what has just occurred in Congress. Democrats were completely repudiated and defeated in November. Then, Obama...

Since the Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives, we expected wonderful changes to come. We once again had control over the house along with having the ability to have some control over what was taking place to our Country. We knew that President Obama was a rogue President who had control over both houses. This left the Republican Party with virtually nothing they could do. Even when President Obama’s own party did not agree with him. He would simply use executive privilege and pass it anyway. After the election and the Republicans gained control over the House of...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will be the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee next year, Democrats announced Friday. The self-proclaimed socialist replaces Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who is moving over to become ranking member on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. The promotion for Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats, gives him a prominent perch to push his priorities as he moves toward a long-shot run for the White House in 2016. He is a vocal advocate for increased spending on social programs and says the budget of the Pentagon should be slashed dramatically. As ranking member...

The Democratic Party’s losses at the state level are almost unprecedented, and could cripple it for a long time to come. "........With that said, there are more costs to Democratic weakness in the states than just House elections. States are where parties build talent and try new ideas. Here, the GOP is instructive. Its brightest stars are either governors (Scott Walker, John Kasich, and Chris Christie) or former state officeholders (Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Joni Ernst). And Republican-controlled statehouses have been incubators for conservative ideas, from experiments in tax cutting (Bobby Jindal’s Louisiana and Sam Brownback’s Kansas) to full-fledged...

Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh railed against provisions in the cromnibus that relaxed campaign finance rules on Friday, saying that it was designed to "basically eliminate [the Tea Party] as a viable threat," and "how corporate America is going to defeat the Tea Party." He explained "that campaign finance stuff...I'm going to tell you exactly what that is...the limits have practically been obliterated which means that corporate donors can just start giving left and right." Limbaugh continued "This is how corporate America is going to defeat the Tea Party. By allowing limitless donations from that crowd under the rubric that...

If some (i.e. Harry Reid) in the Senate seek unanimous consent to go straight to a vote on Cronybus, but Cruz (and others who may wish to join him) delay this move by forcing Reid to hold a cloture vote - and thus stall the vote in the Senate on Cronybus by 30 hours - would you support this if it led to a short-term funding measure? While this move may upset Boehner, who has now bent his will to Obama's desire, would you support Cruz (or whomever may wish to do this - Warren?) doing this?

Boehner and GOP elite are playing checkers while Obama and his comrades in the Democratic National Communist party are playing chess. So Let me explain to you all what is going to happen in the next few months. First of all, when the time arrives to ‘defund’ homeland security it will FAIL. The socialists will all scream in unison about national security and suddenly be worried about terrorism and disease entering the country. [And anything bad that does happen will be blamed on the GOP naturally] They will be everywhere talking up this now found appreciation for Homeland security and...

Incoming Virginia congressman Dave Brat, whose historic GOP primary victory over then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor shook up Washington’s power structure this summer, is blasting President Obama’s executive fiat on immigration reform as "morally vacuous" – while stopping short of calling for impeachment.

Why the right and left have teamed up to sink a bill, which is supported by the White House and the GOP leadership, that would keep the government open until next fall. With a government shutdown looming, Nancy Pelosi and Michele Bachmann are on the same side. And the other team includes Barack Obama and John Boehner. So how did such strange alliances get formed? The “cromnibus”, the budget bill that would avoid a shutdown and keep the government open until next October, has become bogged in controversy as conservative Republicans and many Democrats have joined together in opposition. But,...

Do you want to know where Republican leaders are today? In bed with the White House, and enjoying every minute of it. The House Republican leadership is desperate to pass a massive $1 trillion spending bill before the clock runs out on government funding at midnight. Obama wants it too. Conservatives hate it because it says nothing about the worst presidential power grab anyone can remember, the unilateral amnesty. Pretty bad omen for next year, don’t you think?

House Republican leaders and the Obama White House formed an unlikely alliance late Thursday as they scrambled to secure the votes for a $1.1 trillion spending bill, ahead of a midnight deadline. Fox News is told that President Obama and Vice President Biden were calling House Democrats appealing for their support. Meanwhile, House GOP leaders were trying to sway conservative members who, for different reasons, were opposed to the package. Unclear is whether the push can produce a bipartisan majority to approve the package. Earlier in the day, the bill narrowly cleared an important procedural hurdle, on a 214-212 test...

The Capitol Hill switchboard has been overwhelmed by calls to Congress. The 202 224-3121 number is jammed, likely by people protesting House Speaker John Boehner’s 2015 government funding bill, which allows funding for President Barack Obama’s unpopular decision to stop enforcing immigration law, and to award work-permits to at least 5 million illegal immigrants. Boehner’s effort to fund the $1.1 trillion bill and amnesty is being backed by President Barack Obama, whose deputies are pushing Democrats to support Boehner’s bill. The Daily Caller called the switchboard number at 3:28, and it was not answered for seven minutes. It is usually...

A Republican has joined Democrats in criticizing the inclusion of a partial repeal of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law in legislation funding the government. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) signed on to a letter with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) that calls on congressional leaders to scrap portions of the $1.1 trillion "cromnibus" that relax restrictions on banks trading financial derivatives. The pair argued in the letter that there is "broad bipartisan support" for removing that particular language. Brown and Vitter, who have worked together in the past on bills to limit big banks, argued that the language was unfairly jammed into...

The federal government's funding authorization expires tonight at midnight, and the Republican plan to renew it bodes poorly for the GOP's leadership of Congress next year. ... Congress shouldn't let the government shut down, but Republicans should neither acquiesce to president Obama's unprecedented executive power grab, nor give up control over the budget for well into the 114th Congress. ... Republicans take control of both chambers in January, so they have no good reason to make a deal with the Senate Democratic leadership that sets spending levels until next October. ... There are, as speaker Boehner has pointed out, some...

Fellow Conservative: The text of the 1,603-page, $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill was released yesterday after House and Senate leaders wrote it behind closed doors. Instead of fighting for a provision that defunds the president's unlawful amnesty, Republican leaders fought for other riders. For example, they airdropped a political earmark into the bill that increases the amount the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) can collect from individual donors from $32,400 per year to $324,000 – a tenfold increase. Since the NRSC takes sides in primaries, the new donation limit will help the DC establishment do more to support liberal incumbents....

Late in the day on Monday, it became evident that the “Cromnibus” amnesty bill had hit a snag in negotiations, which prevented the bill from being finalized by the end of the day. So what happened? Did Republicans suddenly decide to defund amnesty? Did they discover a newfound sense of disquiet over Obama’s imperialism as president? Did they develop an affinity for using the purse to fulfill their mandate and prioritize the needs of Americans over special interests? Nope – not a chance. Mitch McConnell was bothered by an extraneous provision related to campaign finance laws that, unlike Obama’s illegal...

In 2009, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) rammed through a half-trillion dollar omnibus bill without affording members the requisite time to read through it. At the time, John Boehner led the chorus of complaints against her lack of transparency. As Democrats shoved through the massive Obamacare behemoth in 2010, Pelosi famously said, “we have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what’s in it.” Republicans mocked her mercilessly for that cloddish comment and made transparency the clarion call for their campaign to win back the House. They promised an open process by introducing bills with ample...

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...