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Last week the US House voted overwhelmingly in favor of an anti-Russia resolution so full of war propaganda that it rivals the rhetoric from chilliest era of the Cold War. Ironically, much of the bill condemns Russia for doing exactly what the US government has been doing for years in Syria and Ukraine. For example, one of the reasons to condemn Russia in the resolution is the claim that Russia is imposing economic sanctions on Ukraine. But how many rounds of sanctions has US government imposed on Russia for much of the past year? I guess sanctions are only bad...

Trey Gowdy sets immigration hack Marielena Hincapie straight after she suggests race is the reason why Republicans oppose Obama’s immigration executive order. Watch the video

A recent report by a GOP-led committee that was seen as going easy on the Obama administration's Benghazi response is drawing stinging complaints from a number of Republicans on the panel, as well as survivors of the attack. Some GOP members on the House Intelligence Committee grumble that the final product "might as well have been written by the minority," while other House Republicans say they are frustrated with the committee's decision to release a report with so many "holes." Several lawmakers point their fingers at the committee's chairman, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich. Some members who disagreed with the findings...

House Republicans are launching a two-headed strategy to stop President Obama’s executive orders on immigration that will both reject the president’s actions with legislation while simultaneously targeting funding for their enforcement. Timing is essential in this strategy. Current funding for government operations is set to expire Dec. 11. GOP leaders plan to move both parts of this strategy well before that deadline. Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., is spearheading the effort to strike down the executive orders. His bill, H.R 5759, is known as the Preventing Executive Overreach on Immigration Act.

Speaking on the House floor, members of the Congressional Black Caucus used the “Hands up! Don’t Shoot” gesture popular with Ferguson protesters reacting to the shooting of Michael Brown. “Hands up, don't shoot,” said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries. “It's a rallying cry of people all across America who are fed up with police violence.”

Several lawmakers took to the House floor Monday evening to make the “Hands up, don’t shoot,” gesture to protest the police shooting of the unarmed Ferguson teen, Michael Brown. “Hands up, don’t shoot. It’s a rallying cry of people all across America who are fed up with police violence,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said as he took the floor. “In community, after community, after community, fed up with police violence in Ferguson, in Brooklyn, in Cleveland, in Oakland, in cities and counties and rural communities all across America.” Jeffries added that people are fed up with injustice, a broken criminal...

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) its November Porker of the Month for his second unsuccessful attempt to convince his fellow Republican lawmakers that it would be a good idea to restore earmarks. During a closed-door meeting on November 14, 2014, by a vote of 145-67, House Republicans rebuffed Rep. Roger’s effort to earmark projects for “state, locality, public utility or other public entities.” Rep. Rogers was also named CAGW’s Porker of the Month in April 2012, after his first failed attempt to end the earmark ban on March 30, 2012. Rep....

A protester in Ferguson, Missouri accidentally burned down his own house last night after mistaking the building for a convenience store. According to a report in the Ferguson Post-Gazette, 32-year-old Tyler Jackson threw a Molotov cocktail into a window not realizing he was setting ablaze his own residence. The home, which was empty at the time, subsequently burned to the ground. “It was dark. I got all turned around. I thought it was a 7-11 or something,” he told the newspaper. Witnesses describe Jackson shouting expletives after he realized what he had done. He then tried to put out the...

<p>The incoming House minority leader is about to be in the worst position with her caucus since the end of Democrats’ short-lived majority in 2010.</p> <p>That leader, Nancy Pelosi, will be unchallenged for the top House Democratic post on Tuesday during a closed-door party meeting, Politico reports. But after quietly grumbling about Pelosi since suffering devastating losses on Election Day, Democrats’ discontent with her is spilling out into the open. “They wiped the floor with us, so no, we’re not feeling good,” said Rep. Marcia Fudge of Ohio. “We think clearly there was a lack of a coherent and compelling message. We believe that certainly our leadership worked hard, but there obviously was something lacking because we lost so many seats.”</p>

Democrats re-elected Rep. Nancy Pelosi to another two-year term as House minority leader on Tuesday, two weeks after elections in which the party lost at least a dozen seats in the chamber. In a closed-door meeting of House Democrats, Pelosi was re-elected by voice vote in a race in which she faced no challenger. The California Democrat has been party leader in the chamber since 2003, including four years in which she was the first female House speaker. No. 2 House Democrat Steny Hoyer of Maryland and the party’s other top leaders also were re-elected without a challenge. …

The House Speaker scored another glorious victory over intra-party democracy with his secret meeting to ram-through the re-election of the whole existing Republican 'leadership' last week, including himself of course... The 'voice vote' conducted was a far more controlled -and apparently intimidating- atmosphere than last time (in the halls of Congress on the first day of the new session in January... where it's supposed to occur, out in the daylight for all see).  Boehner and his feckless, ineffective team were dubiously reelected with a 99% unanimous vote from the incoming congressional Republicans (even the Castros don't pull #s like that)...

The United States House of Representatives allowed a Muslim imam to give the opening prayer on Thursday morning, in which he praised Allah, the demonic god of Islam, who is the enemy of Christ and America. Imam Hamad Ahmad Chebli of the Islamic Society of New Jersey was invited by Democrat Rep. Rush Holt (NJ). Chebli praised Allah as, "The most gracious, the most merciful" and then declared "Praise be to Allah, the cherisher, the sustainer of the world; the most gracious, the most merciful master of the day of judgment." He then went on to declare, "Thee do we...

The House of Representatives passed a bill expediting the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline on Friday, thrusting Congress back into the debate over a long-stalled project lauded by proponents as a job creator and reviled by foes as an environmental disaster. The bill passed by a margin of 252 to 161. This is the ninth time the House has passed such a bill on the pipeline. The Senate has planned a vote on a similar proposal next Tuesday. The long-simmering debate over the pipeline's construction reached a sudden boil earlier this week when a group of lawmakers, led...

Tim Moore makes his case for Speaker by Brant Clifton • November 13, 2014 • 3 Comments Snip20141112_4Next weekend, state House Republicans will be huddling to ID their picks for House and caucus leadership positions for the upcoming legislative session. With the departure of Thom Tillis for DC, all eyes are on the race for speaker. A crowd of legislators has big dreams about being the next speaker. But insiders tell me the race for speaker really boils down to two candidates: Leo Daughtry of Johnston County and Tim Moore of Cleveland County. Daughtry – a former Republican caucus leader...

DALLAS, Texas -- A Texas State Representative, Giovanni Capriglione (R-Southlake), shocked Tea Party activists in Fort Worth Monday night, November 10, when he declared he would be supporting the current Speaker of the Texas House, Joe Straus, instead of the Tea Party favorite son, State Representative Scott Turner (R-Rockwall). The announcement came during the NE Tarrant Tea Party final meeting of 2014 as a pre-84th Texas legislative session panel discussion on the upcoming race for the Speakership in the Texas House. Many conservatives and Tea Party leaders across Texas are rallying around Turner. However, in front of over 200 Tarrant...

House Republicans have scheduled two more hearings on the U.S. response to Ebola, focusing on the health system's readiness for more cases and the development of cures and treatments. The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittees on Health and Oversight and Investigations will host the events on Tuesday and Wednesday. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden will appear at one to discuss training for U.S. health workers and other preventative measures against the virus's spread. "The threat of the Ebola outbreak is real and extends beyond its source in West Africa," said Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is said to be losing the strong support she has enjoyed among her Democrats in the United States House of Representatives. Yet, the 74-year-old politician powerhouse from California has made it well known to her fellow-Democratic lawmakers that she intends on keeping her position in Washington, D.C., as the House Minority Leader. As she expresses her desire to stay in power, Politico is reporting on Thursday that there are no Democrats preparing to challenge Pelosi publicly even though there are those who wish she would be replaced.

A potential shortlist going off this last congressional period and the bizarre antics from the minority party, many of whom got acclaim for idiocy during congressional investigations into the IRS scandal among other things. CHARLIE RANGEL (NY-13) - Has been going overboard on the race card recently with insane accusations against Obama's opponents that almost reach James Clyburn levels of acclaim. Clearly angry Dems got their butts whooped, he's been indicted more times than I've had hot meals. GERRY CONNOLLY (VA-11) - He looks like a fool. He is a fool. He doesn't think the IRS did anything. A butterball...

As an accompanying piece to my Midterm analysis located here http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3223860/posts I wanted to maybe give some positive news to those real conservatives who, while happy the Dems have been kicked to the curb, are annoyed that the establishment seems to have 'won the day'. Yes, the establishment robbed us of many high profile primary races, with Mike Simpson hanging on in Idaho as the most liberal Republican of that delegation, Boehner stooge James Lankford winning the senate nod from Oklahoma, and of course the despicable ruination of Chris McDaniel in Mississippi to save the dribbling Cochran. But in the...

In the following post, I am going to go through what happened last night for those finding it hard to follow, perhaps because they don't know who is who etc. I will go systematically through the highlights and lowlights of the governor's races, US Senate races, US House races, and state legislature makeup, picking out the ones I was watching out for in particular. I will then state the big winners and losers of the night in general Finally, my opinion on where we should go next, how to improve on successes and not repeat failures. Without further ado, and...