Free Republic

The lame-duck session is currently underway in the Illinois General Assembly prior to the new session beginning on January 11th. One would think there isn’t anything more that could be done to further expand abortion in Illinois. Unfortunately, one would be wrong. Last night, Senate President Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) filed Senate Amendment 1 to HB 4664 during this lame-duck session. The purpose of the lame-duck session is to clean up cleaning unfinished business from the previous session. It’s not to introduce new legislation. So, why not wait until next week when the new session begins? The likely reason is...

Tennessee lawmakers have filed a bill to ban the controversial practice of pediatric medical gender transition in the state.Tennessee Majority Leaders William Lamberth and Jack Johnson, both Republicans, introduced the Protecting Children from Gender Mutilation Act on Wednesday, November 9, which would effectively bar doctors from prescribing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and performing gender-related surgeries on minors for the purpose of medical transition. It would also allow patients and their families to sue for damages and let the courts impose an additional $25,000 penalty for each violation.“This bill is about protecting children,” said Johnson. “Under no circumstances should minors be...

Republicans may win control of Congress in November, but that control won’t take effect until the new Congress assembles on Jan. 3, 2023. In the intervening two months, Democrats will try to squeeze every last bit of legislation they can from their majority.div class="thm-piano-mop">“We still have much to do and many important bills to consider,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in remarks on the Senate floor at the end of September. “Members should be prepared for extremely, underline extremely, busy agenda in the last two months of this Congress.”Just how much trouble can the Democrats cause? Fortunately, there are very...

The “Empowering States to Deport Illegal Immigrants Act” would grant state and local law enforcement officers the power to carry out certain federal immigration laws. This legislative proposal was introduced at a time when the Biden regime is doing everything possible to undermine border security. The bill would effectively nullify a 2012 Supreme Court decision which significantly hamstrung states’ ability to enforce immigration laws. The aim of Hawley’s bill is to give states the power to deploy their resources for immigration enforcement.

resident Biden and his administration are set to launch a nationwide tour in the coming weeks to shore up its standing with voters, and promote its recent legislative wins, as Democrats face an uphill battle with three months until the November midterm elections. According to the White House, Biden plans to rally support across the country by touting recent policy and political successes, including the passage of a massive social spending and taxation bill officially known as the Inflation Reduction Act. The tour may also serve as an attempt to help stave off historical trends that could see Republicans gaining...

London -- British-Indian prime ministerial candidate Rishi Sunak on Wednesday pledged a crackdown on Islamist extremism, the UK's most “significant terror threat”, with a widened government definition of extremism and strengthening existing terrorism legislation. The 42-year-old former Chancellor, who is seen closing the gap with opponent Foreign Secretary Liz Truss in the race to 10 Downing Street, also vowed to weed out organisations that promote extremism in the UK and refocus the “failing”. Prevent programme, a government tool intended to tackle Islamist extremism. “There is no more important duty for a Prime Minister than keeping our country and our people...

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) said on Monday that he is hopeful the Senate will pass some form of legislation to curb gun violence, adding that not doing so would be a “moment of moral failure.” Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) have led bipartisan negotiations among Senate lawmakers to come up with a framework that could get enough votes to pass the chamber after the shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

Former HUD Secretary Julian Castro, now an MSNBC analyst, said Monday on “MSNBC Reports” said that there was a “quiet growing anger and impatience” in Texas over a lack of gun legislation to address mass shootings. Anchor Lawrence O’Donnell said, “What did you learn in Uvalde?”

To protect a person's ability to determine whether to continue or end a pregnancy, and to protect a health care provider's ability to provide abortion services. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.This Act may be cited as the ``Women's Health Protection Act of 2022''. SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS. In this Act: (1) Abortion services.--The term ``abortion services'' means an abortion and any medical or non-medical services related to and provided in conjunction with an abortion (whether or not provided at the same time or on...

President Joe Biden signed a bill officially banning lynching on the federal level Tuesday, comparing the horrific practice to the people who marched at the protests in Charlottesville. “The same racial hatred that drove the mob to hang a noose, brought that mob carrying torches out of the fields of Charlottesville just a few years ago,” Biden said, referring to the 2017 protests. “Racial hate isn’t an old problem. It’s a persistent problem.”

On Thursday, 3 March 2022, the Alabama Senate passed House Bill 272, Constitutional Carry, with Amendments. The Amendments were added the previous day. From alreporter.com: The Alabama Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday approved a bill that would repeal the state’s law requiring a permit to carry a concealed weapon. The bill now heads to the full Senate for consideration of final passage.Looking at Legiscan, HB 272 passed the full Senate, 23 to 5, with 7 abstaining, on March 3rd, 2022. Four Republicans and three Democrats abstained from voting. They may have agreed not to vote, with offsetting votes. It is...

The Ohio Legislature has completed its votes for the Constitutional Carry bill, (permitless carry) on March 2, 2022. The bill will have some administrative procedures completed, and will then be sent to Governor DeWine. This will give Governor DeWine plenty of time to sign the bill in order to gain advantage from it in the upcoming Ohio primary election, which is scheduled for May 3rd, 2022. From buckeyefirearms.org:On Wednesday, March 2, 2022, the Ohio House voted 57-35 to pass Senate Bill 215, sponsored by Sen. Terry Johnson. About an hour later, the Senate concurred with a vote of 24-8. This...

In state legislatures throughout the country, lawmakers are introducing bills to protect the rights of their constituents concerning freedom of speech and freedom of association. Bank lobbyists are aggressively opposing these consumer protection bills, which begs the question: why? The banks say they do not use ESG metrics, so why oppose these consumer protection bills that merely erect some guardrails to ensure the rights, freedoms, and choices of citizens are protected? The banks and others opposing legislation to protect consumers and small businesses from ESG discrimination say the legislation interferes with the free market, that the government is meddling with...

Lawmakers in Iowa’s state Legislature have advanced a measure that would allow the use of ivermectin for critically sick COVID-19 patients who request it.Ivermectin has been used for decades to treat parasitic worms in humans, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, some patients and doctors have attested that the drug is effective in relieving symptoms of the disease.The Iowa measure stipulates that COVID-19 patients who are on ventilators should have the option to use ivermectin. Specifically, it expands the state’s “right to try” law, which allows terminally ill patients to access medicines that have been approved under the first phase of...

Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Senate Democrats had “a couple of different paths” to pass voting legislation without Republican support.

President Biden has said he backs creating a carveout in the Senate filibuster to pass sweeping election reform legislation over united Republican opposition. ​​ “The only thing standing between getting voting rights legislation passed and not getting passed is the filibuster. I support making an exception on voting rights for the filibuster,” Biden ​told ABC “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir in an interview.

Unable to pass their welfare-state expansion with a simple majority, Democrats have reportedly shelved Build Back Better for the year. Now prepare for the entire left-wing infrastructure -- politicians as well as the establishment press -- to pivot hard from the fake "social safety net" bill to the fake "voting rights" bill, which will quickly become the most vital piece of legislation in the history of the republic. Just earlier today, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, who not long ago heralded the mere framework of Build Back Better as "by far the most significant piece of legislation ever passed...

Call it “The Letter That Phil Swagel Wrote.” The letter from Phil Swagel, Director of the Congressional Budget Office, sent a letter to Congress stating that “The Congressional Budget Office and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation project that a version of the bill modified as you have specified would increase the deficit by $3.0 trillion over the 2022–2031 period.” In short, members of Congress asked the CBO “What would happen if the programs in the bill would be made permanent (which they almost always are made permanent). The result? The Letter That Phil Swagel Wrote: Federal Deficits...

So much for Biden’s claim that his signature Build Back Better legislation won’t cost a cent. The Congressional Budget Office scored the bill and showed an increase in the Federal deficit of $791,618 MILLION over the next five years. Here is the CBO’s spreadsheet. From The Wall Street Journal: “The sprawling bill calls for creating a universal prekindergarten program, capping child-care costs for many families, negotiating lower prescription drug prices and expanding tax credits for reducing carbon emissions, among other programs. In addition to expanding tax enforcement efforts at the Internal Revenue Service, the legislation raises taxes on some corporations...

On Tuesday, 146 GOP lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced the Illegal Immigrant Payoff Prohibition Act of 2021, to prevent the U.S. attorney general from making settlement payments to individuals and families who entered the United States illegally. The bill comes in response to reports that the Biden Administration “is planning to pay illegal immigrants who were separated from their families at the border up to $450,000 each, possibly a million dollars per family.”While Biden emphatically denied the payment reports, his deputy press secretary later contradicted him by confirming to Fox News that “the President is perfectly comfortable...