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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., blocked a last-ditch effort by Republicans Thursday to restore full military pensions. Their proposal would have been paid for by denying tax credits to undocumented immigrants. Pensions to retired and disabled veterans were cut last month in a budget compromise hammered out by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wa., and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., according to the Washington Free Beacon.

By shifting the spectrum of debate, here's how America's rightward march has been normalized throughout history. From Nixon to Reagan to Gingrich to Bush to Paul Ryan and Chris Christie today, leaders who’ve shifted America to the right have been aided by moderating misrepresentations. In the case of Reagan, it was not just the man, but conservatism itself that received the flattering reinterpretation. That was a difference that mattered; it goes to the heart of why Reagan is the American right’s touchstone. But the more general process of misrepresenting and reinterpreting increasingly radical ideological figures as if they were normal,...

It may come next week or maybe six months from now, but House Republicans will decisively determine whether to kill immigration reform or make a real attempt at passing it. No one would be surprised if Speaker John Boehner chose the former option. But the longer Boehner takes to decide, the more ground he cedes to states dominated by single party politics and eager to craft immigration laws in the face of a crippled Congress. Congressional inaction has left millions of families increasingly living in two parallel universes. Republican-run states turn cops into border patrol agents and cut undocumented immigrants...

Twelve-year-old Jason Penate spent the holidays hanging close by his father. They picked out a Christmas tree and decorated the front window of their Gainesville, Va., home with candy canes, and Jason tried very hard not to think about whether his father would still be here in the new year. Jorge Penate, a Guatemalan national who came to the United States illegally in 1997, has a hearing scheduled Monday that will determine whether he can stay in the country. A drunken driving arrest two years ago launched deportation proceedings and cast his family’s future into uncertainty.Jason wrote a letter to...

As someone who is constantly researching retirement, I find the recent funding cuts to military retirees very disheartening. Worse yet, I see this as a move to establish ground zero for the testing of changes to Social Security benefits. On Wednesday, the Senate passed a bipartisan budget that scales back cost of living adjustments for working age military retirees starting in 2015. Several sources including Military.com suggests that qualified participants could lose between $3,700 and $6,200 per year, or an aggregate between $83,000 and $124,000 before they retire based on rank, age and years of service. Despite some protests, a...

Chuck Wooten, a military veteran, was already ticked off about Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) pushing through the “bipartisan” budget deal, which includes cuts to veterans’ retirement benefits. So when he got a fundraising email from Ryan’s office asking for money, he decided to really let the Wisconsin congressman know how he feels.The scathing open letter, posted on Facebook last week, is going viral — and you only have to read the first few sentences to know why.

In his press conference on December 20th, President Obama urged the House of Representatives to support the Senate’s immigration bill, which passed 68-32 in late June. Among the concerns cited by Americans who oppose reform are that immigrants will take their jobs, drive down wages, increase criminal activity, burden the welfare system, and reshape the cultural dynamic of the country. These concerns are mostly ill-founded. The legitimate concerns have real solutions, and a more open immigration policy will be a net benefit for all Americans... Highlights from Article: - A 2013 study by the American Action Forum states that "immigration...

Chuck Wooten, a military veteran, was already ticked off about Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) pushing through the “bipartisan” budget deal, which includes cuts to veterans’ retirement benefits. So when he got a fundraising email from Ryan’s office asking for money, he decided to really let the Wisconsin congressman know how he feels. The scathing open letter, posted on Facebook last week, is going viral — and you only have to read the first few sentences to know why. It should be noted that because Wooten’s Facebook page is set to private, we weren’t able to...

Republicans in the Senate want to restore veterans benefits to the Paul Ryan – Patty Murray Budget plan. Harry Reid is blocking the amendment so Republicans are blaming Harry Reid for cutting veterans benefits. That is intellectually dishonest of the GOP. Paul Ryan, a Republican, drafted the plan with Patty Murray, a Democrat. House Republicans overwhelming approved the plan before it even made it to Harry Reid for a vote. The Republicans could have restored the cuts themselves in the House. Instead, they voted for the plan with the cuts to veterans benefits and went home. Were Harry Reid...

Above: Bob Clark, director of classic "A Christmas Story",and his son were killed by a drunk illegal alien on 4/4/2007. by John HillFor many Americans, Christmas means something else besides faith, family, food (and presents). It means movies: It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol (pick one), Miracle on 34th Street. On Christmas I often watch a modern classic: A Christmas Story, the irreverent adaptation of Jean Shepherd's memoir of Christmas memories from childhood. Many of our readers also caught this extraordinary film (at least) once yesterday, as the cable network TBS shows it non-stop for 24 hours every year at Christmas....

Pope Francis' controversial economic views have startled Republicans who are now having to rethink their relationship with the Catholic church, according to Politico. The pontiff has recently attacked "trickle-down economics, saying that the theory has never been confirmed by fact," and "that it expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power." The pope also criticized "the idolatry of money" and slammed capitalism as a "new tyranny." Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh has already called Time's "Person of the Year" a closet Marxist and now Republicans in Washington are taking aim at the pope,...

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) wants to look tough on budget issues. In an editorial published in USA Today explaining his decision to lead the passage of a budget that reduced vested veteran pensions by an average of $84,000 to $120,000, Mr. Ryan founded his message on the urgent need to “do the right thing.” In doing so, he created a painful irony; Ryan’s budget seeks to save $6B over the next 10 years – equivalent to less than six-tenths of one percent of projected federal spending over that period — by extracting it from compensation already guaranteed to people...

An illegal alien suspected of causing a traffic accident and killing movie director Bob Clark, whose “A Christmas Story” has come alongside “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Miracle on 34th Street” as a perennial holiday must-watch, has been placed under an immigration hold by federal authorities. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency placed the hold on Hector Velazquez-Nava, 24, a Mexican national who was living in Los Angeles as an illegal immigrant, according to a report from Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee. Agency spokeswoman Virginia Kice said the hold means Valezquez-Nava, when his Los Angeles court proceedings...

Veterans and conservatives are expressing outrage toward House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). The cuts to retired service members’ pensions embedded in the budget deal cut by him and Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) elicited an overwhelming surge of social media responses. Members of the retired armed services community and conservatives across America are swarming Ryan’s social media accounts to express their disgust. Thousands are stepping up to rip Ryan over the deal. For example, one disabled veteran, Nicole Vaccaro Julian, wrote Ryan that his actions have cost him her support. “This disabled vet will...

America’s veterans, those of us who were willing to give that last full measure of devotion, have been betrayed by the United States Congress, the Senate and the president. They have left us behind. Members of Congress and the president are home with their loved ones after telling current military retirees, medically retired service-members, and future retirees that they must sacrifice their benefits as part of a lousy budget deal. Today I received an email from my dear friend Dr. Dale Comstock, retired U.S. Army Paratrooper, Ranger and Special Forces soldier who served in combat operations from Grenada to...

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Sunday defended cuts to military retiree benefits, noting that Congress would change a provision for individuals who were “medically retired” or received “survivor’s benefits.” In a USA Today op-ed published on Sunday, the Republican budget guru, who spent weeks crafting a two-year bipartisan budget deal with Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D-Wash.), noted that the budget chiefs “have agreed to amend the law … well before the reform takes effect in December 2015.” “Many raised concerns that these reforms would affect the retired pay of service members who are medically retired and those...

<p>President Barack Obama said on Friday that while Congress' failure to pass immigration reform this year was disappointing, he is hopeful about the prospects for success in 2014.</p> <p>"Immigration reform is probably the biggest thing I wanted do get done this year," he told reporters at the White House during his year-end press conference.</p>

President Obama and his top Democrat on Capitol Hill appear to have reset their sights on the Republican-controlled House passing comprehensive immigration reform, instead of a step-by-step process, as lawmakers leave Washington for the Christmas holiday break. The president on Friday appeared to urge the House to back the comprehensive, bipartisan immigration bill the Senate passed this summer -- a departure from recent comments that suggested Obama was OK with the lower chamber’s apparent piecemeal plan.

The Ryan budget deal keeps getting better and better. And by “better,” I mean much worse. When I wrote about the cut for military retirees, I mentioned the possibility that this might be the only income some of them have. The original sequestration had wonderful priorities in exempting personnel. Ryan is sacrificing those who have already served for the sake of more war power abroad. We already have a military that spends as the next ten nations combined. Why take away from military retirees (some of whom are completely dependent on that income exclusively) to feed an institution that...

The National Journal’s Major Garrett is out with a new report detailing how House GOP leadership plans to push an immigration bill that would grant amnesty