Free Republic

In the 219-206 vote, 67 Republicans rejected the spending bill, largely because it failed to take action to stop Obama's executive immigration order. But that was offset by 57 Democrats who voted in favor. Shortly after passage, both the House and Senate passed a 48-hour extension to allow the Senate more time to consider the measure. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said it would be debated on Friday.

In a rare break from President Obama, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) blasted the White House on Thursday for putting its weight behind the $1.1 trillion government funding package. In a speech decrying the “cromnibus” on the House floor, Pelosi, the minority leader, noted that Republican defections have given the Democrats significant leverage in the debate and wondered why the White House wouldn't use that power to fight the conservative policy riders that have sparked the Democrats' outcry. “I'm enormously disappointed that the White House feels that the only way they can get a bill is to go along with this,”...

The fight over the “cromnibus” began as an internecine battle within the Republican Party — which is nothing new for the GOP on Capitol Hill when it comes to budgets. Over the past few hours, though, it’s turned into a civil war among Democrats, especially between progressives in Congress and the White House. Barack Obama spent the afternoon on the phone attempting to whip enough House Democrats to vote for the bill, while Nancy Pelosi declared herself opposed to the bill and whipped her caucus to stand firm. As noted in an update in the earlier post, Obama sent his...

The constitutional issues involving President Barack Obama's executive orders on amnesty far transcend the issue of illegal immigration. The president’s action strikes at the very heart of our separation of powers. The Constitution reserves to Congress alone the power to enact and alter law, and charges the president with the responsibility to faithfully execute those laws. If the president can seize legislative power in this manner and then boast to an audience that he himself has changed the law, then the separation of powers becomes meaningless, and our constitutional Republic will have crossed a very bright line that separates a...

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...