Free Republic

Congressmen, President Barack Obama and faith leaders from around the country met for the annual prayer breakfast in Washington, D.C. Thursday. At the breakfast, House Minority Leader Democrat Nancy Pelosi took the opportunity to invoke "the prophet Muhammad."

At her weekly press briefing on Thursday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said that she does not support Congress taking any action to restrict the use of women in combat by the U.S. military. [...] "No, no, no, no. I think that women can--while it's an individual thing for men and for women as to the task--but I support removing any barriers to women serving in the military, including becoming commander in chief." ...

Obama just lost another one of his top advisers. His legislative affairs director has stepped down, creating challenges to passing the president's agenda in his final year in the White House, according to The Hill. Chief of Obama's legislative affairs operation, Katie Beirne Fallon is leaving after two years on the job. Fallon, a former aide to Sens. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), was instrumental in helping Obama score victories in trade, budget and Iran nuclear deal agreements last year. Obama called Fallon a "close adviser" and a "good friend," in a statement on Friday. "Republicans and Democrats...

Nancy Pelosi acknowledges the Iranians may do bad things with the $150 billion dollars set to be returned to the regime as part of the Iranian nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama Administration. Appearing on CNN's "New Day" on Wednesday, Pelosi even said the Iranians "have been doing bad things with the money that they have but the fact is the biggest threat to all of us is that Iran would have a nuclear weapon."

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested Thursday that, when it comes to questions of U.S. citizenship, not all foreign births are the same. The House minority leader cited "a distinction" between Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was born on a U.S. military base in Panama, and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who was born in Canada to a U.S.- citizen mother. "I do think there is a distinction between John McCain being born to a family and serving our country in Panama than someone born in another country," Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol. "But, again, this is a constitutional issue that will...

After the British victory at the Battle of the Second El Alamein in November of 1942, Winston Churchill spoke to the British people. Churchill eloquently stated, “Now, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Perhaps, the same can be said of the opening salvos of the 2016 Presidential Election. We have watched numerous debates on both sides, filled with candidates grandiose and not very grandiose. Gradually, the field is being thinned and on February 1, 2016, the games truly begin at the Iowa Caucuses....

Republican lawmakers reportedly laughed at House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) after he told them he had been given a promise from Senate Democratic Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV). Lawmakers were amused at Ryan's naiveté for thinking that Reid is someone their party can trust. "I know, I know," Ryan replied with a smile, according to The Hill. Reid and Ryan just finished working together to help pass a $1 trillion dollar spending bill, which many argue contained far more liberal policies than conservative ones. Reid has promised Ryan that he will return to regular order in the New Year....

Beltway-insider publications Politico and The Hill are hiding House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan's 2016’s disastrous report card, even days after the Dec. 18 passage of his $1.1-plus trillion 2016 spending-and-tax plan. Ryan and his top aides “really gave away the store,” Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) declared Dec. 18. Her report-card phrase — “they really gave away the store” — doesn’t appear in Politico or TheHill, even by Dec. 22. Instead, Politico suggested that Ryan came out roughly even. “The four leaders — Ryan, Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Minority Leader Sen. Harry...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is siding with many Democrats in criticizing conservative Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia over comments he made about African American student achievement during oral arguments earlier this week of the affirmative action case, Fisher v. University of Texas. "I thought his remarks were very tough,"Trump said of Scalia in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper that aired Sunday. "They were very, very tough to a certain community," the Republican front-runner continued. "I thought it was very tough to the African-American community." Scalia's remarks, made Wednesday, drew accusations of racism from Democrats and liberal activists who...

House Speaker Paul Ryan and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi had a rare dinner together Friday in the Wisconsin Republican's Capitol office. Sources familiar with the dinner, which lasted more than two hours, said Ryan asked his Democratic counterpart to join him. The meeting comes as both sides are engaged in contentious negotiations over a government funding bill.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday called on the House to take up legislation to ban guns from terrorist suspects, and said Congress needs to take this step to fulfill its duty to protect all Americans from violence. "We cannot remain silent," the California Democrat said at a hearing of the Democrats' Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. "For us to honor the responsibilities that we have to protect and defend the American people, we must not only have moments of silence, we must have days of action." "To start, we can and must bring up the bipartisan Deny Firearms...

Troubling signs about the Affordable Care Act and the state of health care in the U.S. have bubbled up in the last few weeks. The administration's Obamacare enrollment projections for the coming year are down, the projected cost of premiums and out of pocket costs are up, nearly half of the insurance co-ops associated with the program are going out of business, and UnitedHealth Group, the nation's largest health insurer, said it may withdraw from the government marketplaces in 2017. Now comes a new survey by Gallup showing growing discontent with Obamacare and the U.S. health-care industry more generally after...

One Republican has joined eight Democrats in creating the first Transgender Equality Task Force in Congress. Created by the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus and chaired by Rep. Mike Honda, D-CA, the task force held a hearing yesterday to discuss challenges, especially violence, that transgender advocates say are prevalent among transgendered Americans. According to the description below the Human Rights Campaign's video of the two-hour forum, the event consisted of two panels. The first was about "the lived experience of transgender victims and educating on the scope of violence experienced by transgender people." The second panel included "HRC President Chad Griffin...

In a stinging rebuke to President Barack Obama by Republicans and Democrats, the House ignored a veto threat Thursday and overwhelmingly approved GOP legislation erecting fresh hurdles for Syrian and Iraqi refugees trying to enter the United States. Forty-seven Democrats joined all but two Republicans as the House passed the measure by a veto-proof 289-137 margin, a major setback to the lame duck president on an issue —the Islamic State group and the refugees fleeing it — that shows no signs of easing. The vote exceeded the two-thirds majority required to override a veto, and came despite a rushed, early...

**SNIP** The statement said "a subsequent NYDFS and CMS-led review of Health Republic's finances has found that the company's financial condition is substantially worse than the company previously reported in its filings to NYDFS." The statement provided no further details on the new discoveries regarding the co-op, which received the largest single federal loan under the Obamacare health reform law. In addition to its original $265 million, the co-op received another $90 million in an emergency solvency loan funds from federal officials in September 2014. The co-op previously reported it was burning through money at a disastrous rate. Its 2014...

House Democrats will remain on the GOP's Benghazi committee, even though they think it's sham, a senior Democratic aide told The Huffington Post. "During a meeting with Leader Pelosi, Democratic Members of the Select Committee on Benghazi made the decision to remain as participants of the panel for now," said the aide.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Amid fears of an atomic arms race in the Middle East, a senior United Arab Emirates official has told a top U.S. lawmaker that it too might seek the right to enrich uranium that Iran has asserted under the recently signed nuclear deal. The landmark Iran accord to curb its nuclear weapons in exchange for economic sanctions relief allows Tehran to enrich uranium. In barely noticed testimony last month, Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the UAE’s ambassador in Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, had informed him in a telephone call that the...

RUSH: I'm telling you, Snerdley, do not discount this. We've been making this mistake now since the early nineties. The left will go out, the Democrats, somebody will say something just totally outrageous, like all these clowns that predicted the end of the earth in ten years if we didn't clean up the oceans, or name your prediction. Twenty years ago, or 40 years ago, if we didn't fix global warming in 20 years we weren't gonna be able to inhabit the East Coast, all of these things. Or take this food's gonna kill you, that food's gonna save you,...

Trump says people will turn off tomorrow's Democratic primary debate – because he's not in it! 'I think people are going to turn it on for a couple of minutes and then fall asleep,' Trump told a Fox News audience Claimed 'a person at CNN' said that 'we have to put Donald Trump in this debate. We're going to die with it' First two GOP debates drew 24 million and 23 million viewers, largely on the strength of Trump's participation Hammered Obama for '60 Minutes' appearance: 'I watched his performance last night and I thought it was terrible' Tuesday's first...

You may recall that we recently talked about a sad day in the City by the Bay when it was announced that San Francisco’s last remaining gun shop would close its doors at the end of this month. After living through one wave of regulations after another they finally learned that they would be forced to videotape every transaction which took place in the store and proactively turn those videos over to the local police each week even if there wasn’t a hint of an allegation that the customers had done anything wrong. That was, as the store manager...