Free Republic

From 1800 to 1801, the services were held in the north wing; from 1801 to 1804, they were held in the "oven" in the south wing, and then from 1804 to 1807, they were again held in the north wing. From 1807 to 1857, services were held in what is now Statuary Hall. By 1857 when the House moved into its new home in the extension, some 2,000 persons a week were attending services in the Hall of the House. 23 Significantly, even though the U. S. Congress began meeting in the extension on Wednesday, December 16, 1857, the first...

Congressional committees have agreed to include references to "In God We Trust" and the Pledge of Allegiance to the newly opened Capitol Visitor Center thanks in part to efforts from the Congressional Prayer Caucus and Virginian Senator J. Randy Forbes...

Later on Tuesday, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R – S.C.) criticized the CVC design in a press release, charging “it fails to appropriately honor our religious heritage that has been critical to America’s success.”

The annual tree lighting in December at the U.S. Capitol is representative of many things, including hope, faith, patriotism, Christmas and the birth of Jesus Christ, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said during the tree-lighting ceremony on Tuesday. The speaker attended the event with the Montana congressional delegation, the state which donated this year’s Capitol Christmas tree...

The Capitol Visitors Center was supposed to open in time for the inauguration. And it will, just one inauguration later than expected. Originally projected to be unveiled upon President Bush’s 2004 inauguration, this grand, underground visitors center is slated for a Dec. 2 open house for members of Congress and the public. The long-delayed opening ceremony marks the 145th anniversary of the day the Statue of Freedom was installed atop the Capitol dome. The next day the regularly scheduled tours will begin — tickets are required and can be obtained through the CVC website, which will go live Nov. 14....

Pelosi to Light Capitol's Energy-Efficient Christmas Tree @ 5:10 pm by Hill Staff This year's U.S. Capitol Christmas tree will bring the gift of light–energy-efficient light–to Washington, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office (D-Calif.) said Monday. Pelosi's office said the Speaker, joined by the Montana's congressional delegation and governor, will participate in a ceremony Tuesday, December 2 to light the tree, a 70-foot subalpine fir from a Montana national forrest. The tree won't be the only "green" component in the Christmas celebration, though. The tree will be decorated with energy-efficient LED lights, part of the Capitol's efforts to conserve energy. The...

E-mail down on Capitol Hill By Jordy Yager Posted: 10/10/08 12:35 PM [ET] House lawmakers and staffers were without access to e-mail Friday after a circuit breaker overloaded a House data center Thursday afternoon. Officials with the Chief Administrative Office (CAO) said they dispatched computer engineers Thursday night to resolve the failed service and expected the current e-mail outage to be resolved sometime Friday. They attempted to reinforce the “strained” system with new electrical equipment all morning Friday. The overload, which has not affected Internet service, occurred as the House has continued to add more servers to satisfy the increasing...

Sarah Palin has accused presidential candidate Barack Obama of "palling around" with terrorists - referring to his acquaintance with a former member of the Weather Underground. So who were the Weather Underground? Embroiled in an unpopular war in Vietnam, with many of the grievances of the civil-rights movement still unanswered, the US government was facing widespread protests in the late 1960s. Often those who rebelled were rich in idealism but unable or unwilling to take concrete action. On 8 October 1969, all that changed. A newly-formed group of left-wing extremists, dubbed the Weathermen, went on the rampage in a well-planned...

How the New Capitol Visitor Center Distorts American History by Gina L. DiorioWhile the media trains its cameras on the bailout proceedings on Capitol Hill, another fierce battle is being waged just a few feet away. A battle over our nation’s past, it has profound ramifications for our future. Yet, thanks to the mainstream media’s overwhelming lack of interest in telling the story – or perhaps overwhelming interest that the story not be told – most Americans will never hear it. The clash is over the glaring historical omissions of the soon-to-be-opened Capitol Visitor Center (CVC). The largest undertaking in...

American taxpayers have spent more than $600 million on a new visitors' center at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., and it will have acres of marble floors and walls, photographs of Earth Day, information about an AIDS rally and details about the nation's industrial sector. What it will not include is America's Christian heritage, raising objections from members of Congress and drawing an inquiry from Chuck Norris about whether he can help fix it. The new 580,000-square-foot center, mostly built underneath the grounds just east of the U.S. Capitol to protect the scenic views of the historic building, is about...

A man is under arrest in Washington after an improvised explosive device, a rifle and some ammunition were allegedly found in his jeep, Capitol Police said Friday. The man stopped to ask police for directions near the Capitol building at about 11 a.m. EDT Friday, at the intersection of 2nd and Independence Avenue Southeast, according to Capitol Police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider. The officer responding noticed a rifle case on the car seat and inspected the jeep, discovering the IED, rifle and ammunition. A canine unit was enlisted to help.

Now that Congress has recessed, and since the conventions aren’t for a couple of weeks, Thursday’s The Situation Room turned back to the "hot" issue of what many liberals are calling on congressional Democrats to do: arrest and lock-up Karl Rove for his failure to testify on the issue of the firing of U.S. attorneys in late 2006. CNN correspondent Jim Acosta, as part of a report on this possible move by the Democrats, conducted a search for the supposed jail inside the U.S. Capitol. He also addressed the little-used power of the legislature to arrest and try government officials...

United States Capitol Police early Tuesday resolved a situation in the Hart Senate Office Building atrium area, where a man had been threatening for hours to plunge himself from the seventh floor. The unidentified man turned himself over to Capitol Police at approximately 2:00 am, according to police sources familiar with the event. For more than eight hours, the man had stood about 50 feet above the ground on the outside ledge of the glass wall overlooking the building’s atrium as negotiators continued to speak with him through a translator in Mandarin Chinese, according to Capitol Police. He had climbed...

Students attending a youth leadership conference were reprimanded by capitol security on July 10 for singing the National Anthem and God Bless America in the state capitol rotunda. The patriotic expression was apparently so egregious that state troopers were called in to the rotunda to rebuke the students. As the students ended their singing, several armed troopers entered the rotunda along with capitol sergeants-at-arms. They confronted conference staff and informed them that such singing is prohibited in the state capitol without a permit from the Rules Committee. Undeterred by their shocking treatment at the hands of government officials, the students...

April 07, 2008 © 2008 WorldNetDaily A group of concerned citizens has been raising alarms about the Islamic elements planned for the Flight 93 Memorial near Shanksville, Pa., for years. And a member of Congress has demanded the National Park Service make changes in its plans. But there's been no substantive response, and now the activists say it's time for the American people to let officials know whether they want to pay for and have installed in the memorial a crescent that points to Mecca to make up a "mihrab," the foundational point for every Islamic mosque, a tower that...

An approving nod to the Sun-Times for finding it no big deal that Barack Obama is on friendly terms with Bill Ayers, even though, back in the day, Ayers was a Weatherman who "bombed the U.S. Capitol, a bathroom in the Pentagon, and even cased out the White House." The Sun-Times regrets that Ayers "remains sadly unreflective about his Weatherman days, as revealed in his memoir Fugitive Days. . . . But Ayers, it is also true to say, has since followed in the footsteps of the great Chicago social worker Jane Addams, crusading for education and juvenile justice reform....

WASHINGTON — Senator Obama's ties to a former leader of the violent left-wing activist group the Weather Underground are drawing new scrutiny as he battles Senator Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. As an Illinois state senator in 2001, Mr. Obama accepted a $200 contribution from William Ayers, a founding member of the group that bombed the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon during the 1970s. Mr. Ayers wrote a memoir, "Fugitive Days," published in 2001, and on the day of the September 11 terrorist attacks, he was quoted by the New York Times as saying: "I don't regret setting bombs....

A man carrying a loaded shotgun, a samurai sword and a bag filled with gunpowder was arrested near the Capitol yesterday, authorities said. The man, identified as Michael Steven Gorbey, 38, was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, Capitol Police said. They gave no address for him. He was wearing a vest like those used by police and military personnel and had a bow in his car, said Terrance W. Gainer, Senate sergeant-at-arms. -snip- Police said they found the man's truck parked at Louisiana Avenue and D Street NW. Officers were alarmed to see wires coming...

WASHINGTON - U.S. Capitol Police arrested a man carrying a rifle outside the Capitol building Friday, authorities said. The man was in custody and no one was injured, police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider. An officer first spotted the man near Union Station, about two blocks from the Capitol. A car belonging to the suspect was being searched.