Free Republic

U.S. pastor and pro-family activist Scott Lively The First Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed a lawsuit to proceed against U.S. pastor Scott Lively accusing him of “crimes against humanity” for his overseas activism opposing the homosexual agenda.The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified damages "to be determined at trial" and a declaration that he violated "the laws of nations" by speaking against homosexual “rights.”Pastor Scott Lively, who recently completed an unsuccessful bid for governor of Massachusetts, was sued in 2012 by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on behalf of "Sexual Minorities Uganda." The Ugandan homosexual activist group claims Lively’s speeches...

The House narrowly approved a vital spending bill Thursday night despite deep misgivings among liberals and conservatives alike, sending the measure to the Senate as a funding deadline looms. The bill passed on a 219-206 vote, following an intense lobbying effort by House Republican leaders and the White House. Current government funding technically runs out at midnight Thursday, and lawmakers still are expected to move a stopgap measure to buy time as the Senate considers the main $1.1 trillion spending package. That debate could last through the weekend and potentially into Monday. Passage in the House followed hours of urgent...

The House will take one last shot Thursday night at passing a $1.1 trillion government-funding bill that has set off a feud between House Democrats and the White House. If the bill fails, the House will move to a three-month government-funding measure as a fallback. A vote on the smaller measure could take place later on Thursday night. Outraged House Democrats have been left unswayed by a last-ditch White House lobbying push, and dozens say they would vote against larger spending measure. Emerging from a closed-door meeting in the Capitol with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, a slew...

The Land of Magical Thinking: Inside Putin’s Russia Snip... In Russia, “corrupt” is not an adjective. Corrupt is a noun, a proper noun, the word for the name and nature of the place. Corrupt crony capitalism is familiar everywhere. But in Russia the corruption is so pervasive that even the cronies have to pay bribes, not just to the higher-ups but to the lower-downs. Pomerantsev visits a TV studio owned by Kremlin-connected moguls. It’s in a shabby warehouse on the wrong side of town. There’s no sign or address on the metal door. Inside is a dirty little room with...

Tea party activists are attacking a campaign finance rider in the $1.1 trillion spending bill that they view as a sneaky power grab by establishment Republicans designed to undermine outside conservative groups. The provision would increase the amount of money a single donor could give to national party committees each year from $97,200 to as much as $777,600 by allowing them to set up different funds for certain expenses. The change would be a huge boost for party committees that have faced steep challenges in recent years from well-funded outside groups. Disgruntled activists fear the committees will unleash the added...

One of the two psychologists who devised the CIA's harsh Bush-era interrogation methods said on Wednesday that a scathing U.S. Senate report on the torture of foreign terrorism suspects "took things out of context" and made false accusations. "It's a bunch of hooey," James Mitchell told Reuters from his home in Florida when asked for his response to the Senate Intelligence Committee's findings released on Tuesday. "Some of the things are just plain not true." A day after the Senate report was issued, the U.S. Defense Department said it was shutting its detention facility at Bagram and no longer has...

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on Thursday held a conference call with government agencies and departments to prepare them for a possible shutdown, as the House struggles to pass a funding bill. "Congress is taking a series of actions today on legislation that would prevent a lapse in appropriations and allow for continued Government operations. We continue to believe that time remains for Congress to pass full-year appropriations for FY 2015, and prevent a government shutdown," an OMB official said in a statement. "However, out of an abundance of caution, we are working with agencies and taking steps...

In the month prior to the 2010 midterm elections, Internal Revenue Service investigator Lois Lerner met with Justice Department officials to discuss the criminal prosecution of tax-exempt political groups. It had previously been revealed that Lerner investigated avenues for prosecuting certain tax-exempt status applicants upon the suggestion of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) when the watchdog group Judicial Watch obtained Lerner’s emails on that subject via a FOIA request. The email, dated May 8, 2013, revealed some coordination between Lerner and the Department of Justice: I got a call today from Richard Pilger Director Elections Crimes Branch at DOJ, I...

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...

Republican Reps. Justin Amash (R-MI), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Dave Brat (R-VA), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Paul Broun (R-GA), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Tim Huelskamp (R-KS), Walter Jones (R-NC), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Steve King (R-IA), Raul Labrador (R-ID), Tom Massie (R-KY), Bill Posey (R-FL), Matt Salmon (R-AZ) and Steve Stockman (R-TX) held the line and voted no. Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R-MI) switched his vote from nay to yay at the last minute. If the numbers that are being reported—50 to 60, maybe more—of Republicans hold on against the final passage of the bill later in the day, and all the...

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...

Call it the mysterious case of the Incredible Shrinking GOP. Barely one month ago, the party sailed to victory in one of the biggest rout election waves of the past century. They ran the board and took control of the U.S. Senate. They grew to historic levels in the U.S. House. The Democratic Party was left in tatters in state, local, and governor races across the country. But today, just a few weeks later, before GOPers even take hold of their new reins of power, the party is crying poverty. They are stricken with paralysis. House Speaker John A. Boehner,...

GOP members have released their draft amendment to defund President Barack Obama’s national amnesty. “None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available, including any funds or fees collected or otherwise made available for expenditure, by this division or any other Act, or otherwise available to the Secretary of Homeland Security, for any fiscal year may be used to implement, administer, carry out, or enforce the [amnesty] policies,” says the short amendment. The new anti-amnesty language is being pushed by Arizona Rep. Matt Salmon, South Carolina’s Rep. Mick Mulvaney and Virginia Rep. Dave Brat, who unseated the GOP’s pro-amnesty majority...

Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid joined a growing list of Democrats voicing regrets about various aspects of Obamacare when he said his party underestimated the damage done by the disastrous rollout of the healthcare exchanges. […] “We never recovered from the Obamacare rollout. I’m not going to beat up on Obama. The rollout didn’t go well. We never recovered from that,” conceded Reid, who insisted that he has no regrets about moving the Affordable Care Act (ACA) ahead of other issues. …

Sens Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said, “So I have a message today to every leader in Congress, to every official in the White House, and to President Obama: we are going to fight this illegal amnesty and we are not going to stop. We are going to carry out the mission the voters sent us here to do. We are not going to give in. We are not going to yield. We are going to stand strong for the American people.”

House speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Wednesday defended the $1 trillion spending bill as a bipartisan bill that's needed to keep the government open after Thursday, even as it came under attack from both Republican and Democrats. ...

It was 1 a.m. on a Saturday when the call came. A friend, a University of Virginia freshman who earlier said she had a date that evening with a handsome junior from her chemistry class, was in hysterics. Something bad had happened. Arriving at her side, three students —“Randall,” “Andy” and “Cindy” as they were identified in an explosive Rolling Stone account — told The Washington Post that they found their friend in tears. Jackie appeared traumatized, saying her date ended horrifically, with the older student parking his car at his fraternity, asking her to come inside, and then forcing...

Seven states joined Texas's lawsuit challenging President Obama's executive amnesty plan this week, brining the total number of states on the suit to 24."More than 20 states have joined our challenge against the president’s unilateral executive action to bypass Congress and rewrite immigration laws," Texas Attorney General and governor-elect Greg Abbott said in a release. "The president’s proposed executive decree violates the U.S. Constitution and federal law, circumvents the will of the American people and is an affront to the families and individuals who follow our laws to legally immigrate to the United States.”The list of states now suing Obama...

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. RINOIt's an...

The Senate Intelligence investigators never spoke to us—the leaders of the agency whose policies they are now assailing for partisan reasons. The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on Central Intelligence Agency detention and interrogation of terrorists, prepared only by the Democratic majority staff, is a missed opportunity to deliver a serious and balanced study of an important public policy question. The committee has given us instead a one-sided study marred by errors of fact and interpretation—essentially a poorly done and partisan attack on the agency that has done the most to protect America after the 9/11 attacks.