Free Republic

President Barack Obama is negotiating a multilateral trade agreement with the governments of 11 nations. These include Malaysia and Vietnam -- as well as Japan, Brunei, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Chile and Peru. This so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership would govern most of the commercial relations between the nations that sign it. "With over 20 chapters under negotiation," explains a Congressional Research Service report published in March, "the TPP partners envision the agreement to be 'comprehensive and high-standard,' in that they seek to eliminate tariffs and nontariff barriers to trade in goods, services, and agriculture, and to establish or expand...

“Clinton Cash” author Peter Schweizer said that he is ” finding some interesting, compelling things” in his investigation of Jeb Bush on Tuesday’s “Hugh Hewitt Show.” Schweizer reported, “We’re about four months into the research project, obviously not as global in scope as the Clintons, but you know, as governor of the state of Florida, you have a lot of things that you can do. So we’re following the money. We’re looking at land deals. We’re looking at an airport deal. We are looking at some of the educational reforms that were instituted, and some of the big corporate winners...

Has anyone figured out what the 2014 election results really meant? I was under the impression that Americans had grown ever more disheartened with what our nation has become. Turnout at the polls made it seem that voters wanted to rebuild the nation given us by the Founders. Historic gains were made by Republican candidates, promises were made and the excessive actions of the Democrat Party would be blunted as the citizenry exclaimed “No More!” I have been a proud card carrying Republican since I first voted. Based on what I learned in school, their platform made sense. I have...

Most members of Congress make $174,000 a year. Two senior House Democrats say lawmakers deserve a raise. Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters on Tuesday that he’s concerned that static congressional salaries — the pay level has remained the same since 2009 — will dissuade all but the uber-wealthy from serving in Congress. “This will be the seventh year in a row that we have not done a cost-of-living adjustment….I think it was appropriate at the time of the recession,” Hoyer said. “But to continue that on, we will dictate that the only people who can serve are the...

Republican leaders are considering bringing the Iran nuclear measure — overwhelmingly approved by the Senate last week — and a proposed overhaul of the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance program to the floor this week under special rules that would limit lawmakers’ ability to offer changes to the bills. The strategy is intended to hold off amendments — so-called poison pills — that could cause backing for the measures to fall apart. Though the bills would each need a supermajority to pass, both measures enjoy strong bipartisan support and would most likely be approved, sparing amendment headaches for the leadership....

The Senate signed a "blank check" when it overwhelmingly endorsed the emerging Iran nuclear deal last week, and Rep. Mike Pompeo thinks the House can do better, he tells Newsmax TV. "We can do a much more robust piece of legislation," Pompeo, a Kansas Republican, said Monday on "The Steve Malzberg Show." "[One] that really does, in fact, prevent the administration from signing for a deal which lifts . . . sanctions without any evidence that Iran has actually adhered to anything that they've agreed to. "That's what perplexes me . . . They've now signed a blank check ....

The purpose of recent articles about RINO Speaker John Boehner and his supporters was to make clear that the biggest problem conservative voters face is betrayal by candidates who lie about what they will do if elected. Because the United States leans conservative, RINO conservative poseurs have the greatest need to lie in order to win elections. Apparently, this is still not clear. On April 14, Rush Limbaugh effusively praised an egregious phony, Marco Rubio. The next day, Limbaugh astonishingly defended that praise with toxic acquiescence in preemptive surrender to contempt for the Constitution and rule of law.

One of the Senate’s leading liberals is borrowing a page from the playbook of Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is pushing to strike out language from the “cromnibus” spending bill unveiled Tuesday that would roll back restrictions on “swaps” transactions included in the 2010 financial regulatory overhaul known as Dodd-Frank. Repealing the “push-out” provision would mean that certain derivatives could again be held in bank units with federal deposit insurance. Using a strategy sometimes employed by Cruz for entirely different policy reasons, Warren said that with the $1.013 trillion spending package first being considered by the...

With the first enhanced majority—as Newt Gingrich called it—in the House and Senate, we in the rank-and-file GOP are being treated to a the skilled governing of our leadership team, Sen. Mitch McConnell and Speaker John Boehner. Gingrich waxes poetic about Boehner’s ability to govern. The process of governing itself isn’t enough, however.  Liberals governed for decades, but the result was high taxes, bloated spending and the dramatic expansion of government.  What matters is governing by conservative principles and this is the second great contrast this week’s budget vote will highlight. Given, the president will sign the first real budget produced...

The big threat to Hillary Clinton’s campaign isn’t coming from a competitor. It’s coming from an issue. And it’s coming now, long before the first primary. Will she be for or against giving President Barack Obama fast-track authority to negotiate trade deals? Fast track gives a president the power to make trade deals that cannot be amended by Congress. All Congress can do is accept or reject the agreement. Other countries, say fast-track supporters, won’t negotiate with Washington if they know that Congress can amend any deal they agree to. Obama’s problem is with Democrats. They are horrified by the...

If you want to hear the details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal the Obama administration is hoping to pass, you’ve got to be a member of Congress, and you’ve got to go to classified briefings and leave your staff and cellphone at the door. If you’re a member who wants to read the text, you’ve got to go to a room in the basement of the Capitol Visitor Center and be handed it one section at a time, watched over as you read, and forced to hand over any notes you make before leaving. And no matter what, you...

House Speaker John Boehner said Sunday that Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential frontrunner, needs to support the trade legislation that President Obama wants to help get enough Democratic votes for passage. The Ohio Republican, in a wide-ranging interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said the GOP indeed controls the House and Senate but that he and Obama “needs her help” to give the president negotiating authority to complete an Asia-Pacific trade deal. “We can't do this by ourselves,” Boehner said. “Every president over the last 50 years has had this (authority.) There is no reason why President Obama shouldn't...

Thousands of jobs would “disappear pretty quickly” if the Export-Import Bank were to expire abruptly when its charter runs out at the end of June, House Speaker John Boehner said on Thursday. The Ohio Republican has asked Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, to come up with a plan to overhaul or wind down the operations of the bank, which helps finance exports of U.S. products such as jetliners and wind turbines. […] Many conservative Republicans want to kill the bank outright, saying it finances too many questionable projects and favors some businesses over others. But the bank enjoys sweeping...

It certainly seems so. This week has been very revealing in terms of what conservatives actually think and what progressives imagine we think. The “big” question that kicked it all off was “would you attend a gay wedding?” This was, apparently, supposed to separate the knuckle-dragging haters on the right from the sophisticated and pious leftists. John Nolte writes: "Another Republican presidential hopeful, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, made all kinds of headlines when he said something that would not surprise anyone who has spent any amount of time with a conservative Christian — that he would attend a same sex...

Hillary Clinton should have to turn her computer hardware over to the federal government, House Speaker John Boehner now says, though he hasn't decided yet if he'll take legal action to force her hand. 'She violated the law, and the idea that she was going to use her own server and do official business on it goes against every transparency issue that the President likes to tout,' Boehner told Bloomberg News. The Republican leader said the executive branch 'just can't ignore the fact that there are a lot of public documents on this server that the American people have a...

House Speaker John A. Boehner said Thursday that the full House may have to vote to subpoena former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s email server, as the chairman of the Benghazi investigative committee officially called on her to testify twice to his panel. The invitation by Rep. Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Republican and chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, sets up a test for Mrs. Clinton, the former first lady and newly announced Democratic presidential candidate, whose attorney has said she wants to appear before the committee only once, in public. Mr. Gowdy asked Mrs. Clinton to...

House Speaker John Boehner called for the Obama administration to provide "all the facts" in the U.S. drone strike that accidentally killed an American and Italian hostage held at an al Qaeda compound. Boehner, R-Ohio, said he also expects House committees to look into the incident. "As President Obama indicated, this is not a time for excuses," Boehner said after offering condolences to the families of American Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto, an Italian citizen. "The president announced an independent review is under way and that is entirely proper," Boehner said. "We need all the facts for the families,...

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Tuesday approved sweeping changes in the way Medicare pays doctors, clearing the bill for President Obama and resolving an issue that has bedeviled Congress and the Medicare program for more than a decade. The 92-to-8 vote in the Senate, following passage in the House last month by an overwhelming vote of 392 to 37, was a major success for Republicans, who devised a solution to a complex policy problem that had frustrated lawmakers of both parties. Mr. Obama has endorsed the bill, saying it “could help slow health care cost growth.” The bill, drafted in...

Congress dedicated a bust of Winston Churchill, one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century and an honorary American citizen, in a ceremony in the magnificent Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol in 2013. (Daily Signal) In the 1930s, Winston Churchill warned Britain and the Western world about the dangers of Adolf Hitler and Germany. It was the strongest warning ever by a politician! Still, that warning was ignored and millions of Europeans lost their lives. Today Benjamin Netanyahu will warn the West of the perils of a nuclear Islamic Iran. Congressional leaders will give Netanyahu a bust of...

Glenn Beck on Tuesday tore into Congressman Chris Stewart (R-Utah) over his decision to vote for John Boehner as speaker of the House, saying he believes Stewart — who has been his friend for years — is losing his soul. Beck asked the congressman whether it was Boehner’s decision to fund Obamacare, his support of the CRomnibus bill, or his decision to continually delay any action in opposing President Barack Obama’s agenda that garnered his support. Stewart said the allegations against Boehner aren’t true, and continued: “I think in the time we have here, we can’t go back and review...