Free Republic

Even more bizarre than the subpoenas issued to sitting lawmakers are the circumstances surrounding their inception. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was officially subpoenaed by the Select Committee on Jan. 6 along with four other Republican members of the lower chamber in an unprecedented step on Thursday. Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Mo Brooks of Alabama are each demanded to offer testimony to the witch-hunt probe established by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi under threat of contempt charges that have been levied on those who’ve refused to comply. “The illegitimate January 6th...

This week, the average price for a gallon of gas reached yet another all-time high of $4.37. Adding to the bad news, the average price for a gallon of diesel fuel has also reached a new record-high of $5.55 as of this writing. No wonder, according to a new poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports on behalf of The Heartland Institute, 82 percent of likely voters say they are either “very” or “somewhat concerned” about rising energy and gas prices under the Biden administration. Since Joe Biden entered the Oval Office, the cost of energy (especially gasoline and diesel fuel) has...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi showed up in Kyiv this weekend in a “secret, surprise” visit to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. She was joined by several members of Congress, including Adam Schiff. Zelensky was quick to welcome the delegation and thank the United States for being his greatest supporter during the Russian invasion. There were plenty of photo ops and speeches, though nothing much of substance appeared to come out of the meeting, aside from assurances that America would continue to send funds and supplies to the Ukrainian forces. Pelosi did take the opportunity to call Vladimir Putin a...

When the House of Representatives convened for a three-minute session on Monday, the proceedings opened with a written statement from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "I hereby appoint the Honorable Andy Kim to act as Speaker pro tempore on this day," Pelosi declared. As recorded by C-SPAN, Kim, empowered by Pelosi, then instantly announced: "The prayer will be offered by Chaplain Kibben." The Rev. Margaret Kibben stepped to the podium. "Would you pray with me?" she asked with a smile. "God our creator, redeemer, and sustainer, great are Your promises to us," said Kibben in words now immortalized in the Congressional...

In Major League Baseball, starting pitchers get plenty of press, all the glory, and the really big bucks. But true afficionados of the sport know that a team is only as good as its bullpen, a collection of lesser known pitchers who are called upon when the starting pitcher runs out of gas. When it comes to the U.S. government, who's our big stud starting pitcher? Why, that would be "Clueless Joe" Biden, the crusty old conniver who turns eighty in November. Clueless Joe may have once had a political fastball and the ability to put it where he wanted....

Could it get any more blatant than this? Nancy Pelosi has put forward a plan to limit the actual in-person attendance of the upcoming State of the Union address to 25 people. According to Alayna Treene: Scoop: McCarthy told members of Republican leadership at an ELC meeting today that Pelosi told him she was instituting a 25-member attendance cap for Biden's State of the Union address, two sources in the room told @axiosKevin McCarthy is said to have replied that “Democrats fly on planes with more people than they planned to allow on the floor.” This is perfectly understandable. By...

resident Joe Biden joined Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and numerous other Democrats this week in a partisan attempt to preemptively delegitimize the 2022 election. Twice the president was asked by reporters whether voters could trust the electoral system, and twice the president contended that a fair election was unlikely unless the Senate was blown up and the Democrats' election power grab was passed -- a maneuver that poses a far more serious and lasting threat to the constitutional order than anything Donald Trump is cooking up right now. "I think it would easily be illegitimate," said Biden. "The increase...

The Joe Biden who swore his oath of office on the west front of the United States Capitol one year ago on January 20, 2021, is not the Joe Biden Americans see shuffling around the White House today. Last year, Biden presented his policies as a can't-fail way to "build back better," "shut down the virus," and lead the American economy out of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. Flanked by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, Biden's party controlled two-thirds of American government, and it seemed, on paper at least, that Biden would be able to do what he wanted. For those...

The Washington D.C. wheeler-dealers are making patsies out of the rest of us. Members of Congress get million-dollar-plus expense accounts, lifetime pensions and lavish perks, but for the greedy, that's not enough. They're also racking up big bucks trading stocks in the very same companies Congress regulates. Stock picking by members of Congress should be illegal because they have an unfair edge over the rest of us. They're privy to the regulatory burdens or legal changes these companies are likely to face. And top leaders, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, actually control what's ahead for these companies. That control...

If you want to know the pickle the Democrats are in as they scuttle their Build Back Better bill and pivot to the real red meat, the H.R.1 bill that imposes vote-by-mail nationwide, read this piece from the NY Sun about Ronald Reagan in 1981-82. Beating stagflation required political heroics by President Reagan and the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker. It was “a triumph of economic policy,” Robert Samuelson recently wrote. “Volcker imposed a ferocious credit squeeze, and Reagan supported this wildly unpopular policy.” Interest rates soared to 21 percent. Unemployment spiked at more than 10 percent. Bankruptcies...

Pecan trees can grow as tall as 100 feet with a productive life of 40 years. But 40 is average. In 2017, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas became home to a “champion” pecan tree – one of the nation’s tallest and oldest. Recorded by Lewis and Clark as a “tall tree” in 1804 during their explorations along a river near the present site of Fort Leavenworth, this tree is over 200 years old and towers to 130 feet. My grandmother’s pecan tree in Charlotte, N.C. stood about 40 feet tall when I was growing up in the ’60s. When she bought the...

So long as crime remained in San Francisco’s low-income, historically black Tenderloin neighborhood, it was acceptable to San Fran’s far-left ruling elites, but when it erupted in the high-end stores the elites frequent, “the reign of criminals” had “to end.” The reaction to the looting of Louis Vuitton on Union Square reveals San Fran’s liberal elites are “Fair Weather Marxists” and hypocrites. As we know from their contributions to liberal candidates’ campaign coffers and support for socialism, San Fran’s elites have an affinity for Marxist revolution, but apparently only for revolutionaries who rob, rape, maim, and kill each other in...

Christmas is right around the corner. For those of us who celebrate the birth of Christ, it is a time of great optimism. It refreshes us and makes us hopeful knowing that a savior was born and sent by God to bear our sins so that we as believers would have eternal life. I realize not everyone who reads this is a Christian. But the vast majority of the people I’m going to write about suggest they are. It’s for that reason I sincerely ask my fellow Christians of a different political party if they’re tired of living and selling...

The Democrats’ $1.75 trillion tax and spending bill is filled with special interest giveaways to trial lawyers, union bosses, wealthy blue-state taxpayers and even reporters. Aside from being a blatant giveaway to favored political interests, this is an effort for the Left to utilize the tax code for social engineering and to push woke policies. Here are six ways Democrats are using the tax code to reward special interests: 1. Giveaways to the News MediaThe bill provides a $1.6 billion tax giveaway to media companies of all sizes. In addition to the conflict of interest created by politicians giving reporters...

After months of D.C. Democrats being in disarray, they finally got a win last week for resident Biden's agenda when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was, at last, able to bring Biden's infrastructure plan to the floor for a vote and deliver it to successful passage. But Pelosi's win is not her own, nor solely a win that can be credited to Democrats. No, 13 Republican members of the House of Representatives crossed over and voted "yes" on the more than $1 trillion package that's full of woke nonsense aimed at institutionalizing the left's ludicrous dream for the future. The Republican...

The smart, moral transcriptionists of our glorious ruling class have discovered what they contend is a terrible crime of wickedness - those rural monsters out there whose skin tone is pale voted for Republicans in astounding numbers. Blatant “whiteness” they call it, a malady that people who aren’t white can suffer from too. Just ask Winsome Sears. And so can the other minority voters who ditched the Democrat plantation in record numbers. But they also contend that voting for Democrats because of your race is great. If consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, these people are totally hobgoblin-free. As...

Once upon a time resident Joe Biden was against vaccine mandates. As president-elect in December 2020, he was asked, "Do you want vaccines to be mandatory?" His answer at the time seemed clear, "No I don't think it should be mandatory, I wouldn't demand it be mandatory." But that was then, and this is now. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed. Last April, when asked about vaccine mandates, she made her position clear, "So—so here is the thing. We are—we cannot require someone to be vaccinated. That's just not what we can do. It is a matter of privacy to know...

Glenn Youngkin, good man as he seems to be, is not a stand-in for active and engaged parents. If they leave the field, he will not succeed.Watch the video for a monologue followed by an interview with Russ Vought, former OMB director and current president of the Center for Renewing America, and Shaun Rieley, senior director for advancement and programs at The American Conservative, a doctor of political philosophy, and combat veteran of the War on Terror.Tuesday was one heck of a night in Virginia. Virginia Democrat Terry McAuliffe went from a sure thing to the Hillary Clinton of 2021...

Frankly, it’s appalling to see how fanatically eager some parents are to inject their children with the experimental gene therapy, like so many lab rats. Hyperbole, you say? Conspiracy theory? Don’t take my word for it. Here’s one of the trained seals at the FDA, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pfizer, Inc., as that august body “debated” approving the shots for kids: “We’re never going to learn how safe the vaccine is unless we start giving it and that’s just the way it goes. That’s how we found out about complications of other vaccines.” Thank you, Dr. Pelosi. A curious and...

On Friday, resident Joe Biden is set to have an audience with Pope Francis in Vatican City. During this past Friday's press conference, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that "they will discuss working together on efforts grounded in respect for fundamental human dignity, including ending the COVID-19 pandemic, tackling the climate crisis, and caring for the poor." Extending that "respect for fundamental human dignity" of the unborn is not mentioned there. While the president considers and is heralded by supporters and many in the mainstream media as a "devout Catholic," he is at deep odds with the Catholic...