Free Republic

Remember that painting of protesters in St. Louis who have cops, depicted as pigs, pointing guns at them? The disagreement over the painting seemed to come to an end last month when the Architect of the Capitol concluded it violated rules for art hanging in the U.S. Capitol. Today the Hill reports that Rep. Lacy Clay will file a federal lawsuit against the Architect of the Capitol seeking to have it restored: . . . The painting was hanging in a hallway near the U.S. Capitol until early January when GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter took it down and returned it...

What goes with fast cars and lifestyles of the rich and famous? Apparently working in Information Technology for the House of Representatives! Remember Hillary Clinton’s IT guy? That dude got PAID! And he kept his mouth shut, and avoided prison…so far. We have another situation brewing with the Democrats, and we documented it recently. One family, three brothers and a wife, are the center of a criminal probe into their use of congressional information technology systems. Last week many Democratic lawmakers who employed the four learned they may have been a party to criminal activity. The foursome may have been...

Cornell William Brooks, President and CEO of the NAACP, was at loss for words Thursday night as former Reagan adviser Jeffrey Lord injected a hypothetical Congressional White Caucus into a debate on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360. The racially charged exchange began during a discussion of President Trump having asked an African-American reporter from a black-focused new radio outlet if she knew the leadership of the Congressional Black Caucus. (VIDEO-AT-LINK) “Frankly I used to think the Congressional Black Caucus, when it was first formed, was a good thing,” Lord began. “I changed my mind on this. I don’t think there should...

*Well now, the situation with the White House and African American political leaders is getting real interesting with Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings saying he’s “happy” to sit down with President Trump. Even though Cummings has no problem meeting with Trump, but he disputes the president’s assertion that he didn’t want to meet up, adding that, after all, Trump “is my president.” Thursday afternoon Cummings – who serves on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee – spoke with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer who inquired if he would go over to the White House “ASAP” if he were to get a call...

Al Qaeda has used America's 'preoccupation' with the Islamic State to regain strength in South Asia and preparing to spread its ideology in India from its 'home' in western Pakistan, top United States lawmakers have warned. "Al Qaeda has never changed, and it still sees itself in what it conceives as an existential struggle against the West and against the United States in particular," Bruce Hoffman, Director Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University, told members of the House Armed Services Committee. "I think that it's taken advantage of our preoccupation with ISIS (Islamic State) to rebuild its strength, particularly...

New Day Thursday, host Chris Cuomo attacked Republican Ohio Representative Jim Jordan over his party's handling of leaked allegations of communications between former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Russian officials, which led to Flynn's resignation on Monday. In an interview with the leader of the House Freedom Caucus, Cuomo said that Jordan and his party only want to focus on the source of the leaks instead of the substance of the calls between Flynn and the Russians. "We do not know that Michael Flynn was wiretapped, but it keeps being said by people that want these investigations into the leaks and it deserves to be called out," Cuomo said. CNN's Cuomo...

The Bush-Quartet Roadmap and the Bush-Congress Commitments is the only mutually agreed two-state negotiating process President Trump and Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders this week have the last opportunity to resuscitate the two-state solution laid out in President Bush’s 2003 Roadmap adopted by the Quartet—America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations (“Bush-Quartet Roadmap”). This can only happen if President Trump and the Congress re-affirm the commitments made to Israel by President Bush in his letter to Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dated 14 April 2004—as overwhelmingly endorsed by the House 407-9 and the Senate 95-3 (“Bush-Congress Commitments”).

Congressional Democrats on Tuesday tried but failed to pressure Republicans into seeking President Donald Trump's tax returns, saying the scandal over Michael Flynn made it imperative to find out whether the president has business ties to Russia. A day after the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee dismissed the idea, the panel's Democrats proposed an amendment demanding that the committee ask the Treasury Department for copies of Trump's returns by March 1. "Unless this amendment is adopted, we will never see the president's tax returns while he's in office," Representative Sander Levin, a Michigan Democrat,...

Nearly $3 billion in Obama-era federal regulations have already been slashed by President Trump and Republicans in Congress, a benefit that also saves Americans 41 million hours of paperwork. A new report from the regulation watchdog American Action Forum said that Trump's executive orders and congressional passage of cuts to regulation via the Congressional Review Act have saved $2.8 billion in potential costs.

President Trump has promised to eliminate regulations and rebuild the nation’s aging infrastructure. Federal agencies are awash with regulations and provisions based on the presumption that government is, and should be, the sole provider of infrastructure. But now that we understand the merits of public-private partnerships, which can provide more accountable public-purpose infrastructure, these numerous regulations and provisions serve as major obstacles preventing the improvement of highways and other infrastructure. Back in 1995, Reason Foundation published a policy study itemizing a number of these regulatory barriers. Sadly, most of them still exist today. If a state or municipal facility has...

The ink on National Security Advisor Michael Flynn's resignation letter wasn't even dry when former Obama Chief Strategist David Axelrod announced the Left's new target. Speaking with CNN's Don Lemon Monday night, Axelrod essentially told the host that President Trump's Chief Strategist Steve Bannon is next on the hit list. After speaking of Flynn with Lemon, Axelrod suddenly and unexpectedly shifted to Bannon. From Daily Caller(Video), Axelrod said: "You know a name that we haven’t heard mentioned tonight in all of these discussions, the name of Steve Bannon, who has taken a role on national security, that is highly unusual...

Despite mounting pressure from the House Freedom Caucus to quickly repeal Obamacare, House Republican leaders insisted Tuesday morning that they would take a "step-by-step" approach to overhauling the Affordable Care Act. The Freedom Caucus, a group of influential conservatives, publicly expressed their impatience Tuesday with Republican leaders for failing to schedule a vote to repeal the sweeping health care law. But GOP leaders are concerned about the political backlash that could come from swift and wholesale repeal of the health care law without having a replacement plan ready.

Top Republican senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, said Tuesday that Congress should probe the circumstances leading up to the resignation of Michael Flynn as President Trump’s national security adviser, opening a new and potentially uncomfortable chapter in the uneasy relationship between Trump and congressional Republicans. McConnell (R-Ky.) told CNN Tuesday that it is “highly likely” that the Senate Intelligence Committee will examine Flynn’s actions. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), vice chairman of the Senate GOP Conference and a member of the Intelligence Committee, said lawmakers ought to look at the matter as part of an existing probe into Russian meddling...

While President Trump’s daily activities continue to consume much of the nation’s attention, Congress has quietly launched a legislating spree at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. The House and Senate are churning out a steady stream of bills — not the big-ticket items Trump promised on the campaign trail, but a hand-picked collection of discrete measures aimed at dismantling the regulatory agenda that President Obama put in place during his waning days in office

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus Monday night urged Republican Party leaders to swiftly schedule a vote to repeal Obamacare, a move that puts further strain on the already difficult effort to dismantle and replace the Affordable Care Act. "There's no reason we shouldn't be able to pass this ASAP -- there's also no reason we should send anything less to President Trump's desk than we did Obama's," one GOP source familiar with the vote told CNN. "No need to reinvent the wheel." The vote by Freedom Caucus members Monday night, confirmed to CNN by an aide, to press...

A Modest Proposal on What to do with the 9th Circuit Court. The 9th Circuit Court in it’s current embodiment is a disaster. The latest constitutional crisis is a perfect example. A rouge judge put a stay on the implementation of an emergency executive order without doing any of the necessary legal groundwork, foundations and augment. This was approved by a panel of three judges also without establishing the necessary legal foundations to support the stay. This is more than just angering, it goes against everything the Constitution stands for. The stay effectively takes power away from the Executive branch...

The word on everyone’s lips in Washington now — in newsrooms and advocacy groups, in congressional offices and embassies — is “firehose.” As in the high-pressure stream of White House orders. The daily deluge of Donald Trump’s tweets blaming “so-called” judges for future terror attacks and assailing Nordstrom for dropping his daughter’s clothing line for poor sales. The tsunami of statements inflating the murder rate and hyping the terrorist threat, while aides mind-bendingly blame the media for not covering massacres in Bowling Green and Atlanta that never happened. With each new volley, drinking from the Trump firehose feels ever more...

The two top lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee are joining forces to request an Office of Government Ethics review of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway urging TV viewers to buy Ivanka Trump's merchandise. A spokesperson for the Oversight Committee's top Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), confirmed Thursday that Cummings and Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) would jointly send a letter requesting the ethics review. Chaffetz said Conway's remarks on Fox & Friends" were "clearly over the line" and "unacceptable," according to The Associated Press.

BALTIMORE — In an escalation of Democratic efforts to highlight questions about President Trump’s potential conflicts of interest and alleged ties to Russia, a senior House Democrat is dusting off a little-used legislative tool to force a committee debate or floor vote on the issue. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) filed a “resolution of inquiry” Thursday, a relatively obscure parliamentary tactic used to force presidents and executive-branch agencies to share records with Congress. Under House practice, such a resolution must be debated and acted upon in committee or else it can be discharged to the House floor for consideration.

We told you on Monday about the special challenge Republicans face in what to do about the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. It’s a totally out of control administrative agency gifted with immense powers by Dodd-Frank, and designed by its architect - Elizabeth Warren - to be almost impossible for a Republican to get a job at. Oh, and Congress is required by statute to fund it. CFPB’s director, left-wing zealot Richard Cordray? The president can fire him only “for cause,” and that’s a lot more complicated than at-will employment. Democrats designed the CFPB this way intentionally during the Obama Administration,...