Free Republic

When Thursday dawned, the conventional wisdom was that House Speaker John Boehner did not have the votes to pass the $1.1 trillion spending bill that would fund the rest of the government for FY2015. But, thanks to lobbying by the White House, the House scrapped up enough votes to pass the measure 219 to 206, according to a Thursday Washington Examiner story. The passage of the bill was a triumph of the establishment wings of both parties. However, Senate passage is by no means certain. Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Elizabeth Warren could still scupper the bill between them. The...

Not that the language was that harsh, but I scrubbed it for FR...

With only weeks before New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s first year in office comes to a close, the Big Apple’s voters are starting to sour on their famously progressive mayor. While a majority of voters continue to approve of the job the mayor has done in office (52 percent, according to the latest New York Times/Siena poll), a figure that remains largely unchanged from an April Siena poll, voters are turning on how the city is managed. 52 percent say that de Blasio’s New York City is on the “wrong track.” Only 41 percent disagree. That is a...

Change Your Mind Today's Scripture "Repent (think differently; change your mind, regretting your sins and changing your conduct), for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Matthew 3:2 AMP Today's Word from Joel and Victoria Do you have behaviors in your life that you want to change? Maybe it’s a habit, a bad attitude, or even negative thoughts. No matter what you may want to change in your life, you have to start by changing your mind. You have to change your thinking so that your thoughts are in line with God’s thoughts. When you make the decision to...

(CNN) -- A time capsule buried by patriots Samuel Adams and Paul Revere more than two centuries ago was unearthed Thursday in Boston. The box-shaped capsule was placed by the Revolutionary-era duo, along with Massachusetts developer William Scollay, in a cornerstone of the Massachusetts State House in 1795, the year construction began on the building, CNN affiliate WBZ reported. At the time, Adams was the Massachusetts governor.

Personality " …that they may be one just as We are one… —John 17:22 " Personality is the unique, limitless part of our life that makes us distinct from everyone else. It is too vast for us even to comprehend. An island in the sea may be just the top of a large mountain, and our personality is like that island. We don’t know the great depths of our being, therefore we cannot measure ourselves. We start out thinking we can, but soon realize that there is really only one Being who fully understands us, and that is our...

EU commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker has warned Greece against electing “extreme forces” into power and said he would prefer “known faces”—so far the strongest intervention of the EU top brass in the Greek campaign. “I think that the Greeks—who have a very difficult life—know very well what a wrong election result would mean for Greece and the eurozone,” Juncker said during an Austrian public TV debate with EUobserver and several other Brussels-based journalists. He steered clear of explicit political advice ahead of presidential elections in Greece next week, but said: “I wouldn’t like extreme forces to come to power.” The...

Has Scott Walker or Mike Pence come out to oppose the Ryan-Stutzman amnesty budget? Jindal told Ingraham they should defund amnesty and Jindal has a reputation as being the most liberal of the 3. Most the other Governors are liberals. Be funny if Chris Christie has some objection to some minor part of the bill.

Taxpayers pay their salaries — but that hasn’t stopped two Bronx public defenders from appearing in a vile online rap video that urges black people to kill NYPD cops. The sickening video, for a rap called “Hands Up,” shows black men holding guns to cops’ heads and features the disgusting lyric, “For Mike Brown and Sean Bell, a cop got to get killed.”

**SNIP** SCHOOL LUNCHES: Eases rules requiring more whole grains in school lunches and suspends the lower sodium standards due to take effect in 2017, while keeping other healthy-eating rules. Some school nutrition directors — and some students complaining of yucky lunches — lobbied for a break from the standards championed by first lady Michelle Obama. **SNIP** MARIJUANA: Offers a mixed bag for pot smokers. The bill blocks the Justice Department from raiding medical marijuana dispensaries in states that permit them. But it also blocks federal and local spending to legalize marijuana in Washington, D.C., where voters approved recreational use in...

The Obama administration will direct attorneys to not prevent Native American tribes on reservations from growing and selling marijuana even in states where pot is illegal, the Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday. Some federal restrictions will still apply. Marijuana can't be sold to minors, grown on public land, fall into the hands of drug cartels, or systemically spread to states where the drug remains illegal. It's unclear how many tribes will take advantage of the opportunity. Many are opposed to marijuana legalization. The federal government will continue enforcing prohibition for those tribes, at their request, even in states where...

Wondering how your Rep voted? Heritage Action has a nifty scorecard you can access. It has lots of sorting options. Check it out.

The recent executive order allowing 5 million immigrants to stay in the United States is now producing yet another undesired result. At least for hardworking Americans it’s undesired.Unfortunately it’s a huge blessing to these immigrants, one that Obama likely planned for when he pushed the ACA through congress.So what is this blessing?A $3,000 incentive for employers to hire illegals.As most people know, Obamacare requires any business who hires an employe who works for them full time, to provide their employees with health insurance.The financial burden on businsses has been monumental, and has forced many small business owners to either cut...

Craig Ferguson takes the oath of citizenship to the United States. Video at link.

These verses will have you saying "amen."

This clip is taken from an episode called 'The High Ground'. The result of this short conversation, and the general theme of the program being centered around insurgency as a means to achieve freedom, led to the BBC (The British Broadcasting Corporation- Britain's national broadcaster) and Sky TV (a Satellite Broadcaster) putting a ban on showing the episode. When Sky did show the episode they cut the part about Irish reunification in 2024. In Ireland on RTE (Raidió Teilifís Éireann-Ireland's national broadcaster) the showing of the full episode came with a warning describing the content as "Fictional and Aspirational." The...

Senate Republicans huddled over lunch Friday afternoon in the Capitol to discuss strategy on the House-passed spending bill and other pending legislation, exiting the meeting with a resounding message: Let's get this done and get the heck out of here. But that feeling of optimism was quickly squashed. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had been negotiating with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Friday afternoon to bring up a vote on the omnibus bill later in the evening, keeping the government's doors open and allowing senators to take the weekend off. Many members on both sides of the aisle were hopeful that...

--SNIP-- The new fence — constructed just inside an existing red brick wall and a wrought-iron fence ringing the historic property — was actually dubbed a “privacy fence” by de Blasio and first lady Chirlane McCray, sources told The Post. “So much for being mayor of the people. That brick fence was good enough for Rudy Giuliani and his family, and for Ed Koch and all the mayors before him,” a law enforcement source said. “They didn’t need a taller fence. That’s the same house where everybody else lived for years.

Speaker John Boehner's top aide for more than two decades, Dave Schnittger, has announced he is leaving Boehner's office and walking through Washington's revolving door to become a lobbyist at powerhouse Squire Patton Boggs--a move that will give Schnittger maximum leverage for the next two years of Boehner's speakership. "We always say that 'no one ever really leaves Boehnerland' and I'm particularly happy that Dave--the unofficial 'Dean of Boehnerland'--isn't going too far," said Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) in a statement to Politico. Boehner credited Schnittger as being the "beating heart" of Boehner's political apparatus. Schnittger, or "Schnit" as Beltway insiders...

In my home state of Maryland, there were rampant reports of fraud during early voting in November. A number of voters who cast ballots for Republican candidates witnessed the computer system automatically flipping their votes in favor of the Democrat candidate. Evidently, this turned out to be a national phenomenon. In other states, voters did indeed cast votes for Republicans, only to see the mandate overturned by the D.C. Oligarchy led by Barack Obama, John Boehner, and Mitch McConnell. It is hard to exaggerate what has just occurred in Congress. Democrats were completely repudiated and defeated in November. Then, Obama...