Free Republic

WASHINGTON — After months of negotiations, lawmakers in the House and Senate have reached an agreement on Wednesday on legislation that would address how sexual harassment claims are dealt with in Congress, it was announced Wednesday. The legislation would hold members of Congress personally liable for awards and settlements stemming from harassment and related retaliation they personally commit, including those who leave office. They can no longer pay out settlements with taxpayer funds and would be required to foot the bill within 90 days or their wages could be garnished.

If any lobby in Washington can be said to lead a charmed life, it is the pharmaceutical industry. Having co-opted everyone from Cory Booker to frequent Trump ally Chris Collins, the industry enjoys wide bipartisan support, despite frequently slicing away at every conceivable protection Americans can use against being priced into ruin. And, of course, then proceeding to do precisely that once those protections are gone.Again, this is an industry that most of Washington is afraid to cross, even though they have done such politically nigh-suicidal things as bleeding cancer patients dry for their money, testing opioids on children in order to maintain...

The reality is that until all Congress sexual harassers and Capitol Hill flashers are outed by name, the public can suspect all elected officials of dirty deeds The Canada Free Press (CFP) graphic of a man standing with his back to the camera flashing the White House says it all: Public officials, exposing their genitals and grabbing private parts—right on the House floor get away with it—their identities safeguarded by their own peers. Some of the peers protecting the identities of sexual predators in Congress are female—even with the #MeToo Movement up and running.

When the Democrats take over the U.S. House of Representatives in three weeks, their first order of business is expected to be a wide-ranging bill about political corruption, voter disenfranchisement and cleaning up campaign finance. An outline of the bill, titled H.R. 1, shows it would require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns, which Trump has refused to do despite decades of precedent. The bill calls for automatic, early and online national voter registration, as well as an end to partisan gerrymandering of House voting districts, the practice of changing electoral district boundaries to favor a party. Members of...

Which is worse: candidate, businessman, and then still private citizen Donald Trump using his own money to make what Hillary Clinton might call "bimbo eruptions" go away to protect his brand and himself from personal embarrassment, or Congress using taxpayer money in a slush fund to pay off those sexually harassed by sitting officeholders? As Penny Nance, president and CEO of Concerned Women for America, notes in USA Today: Literally a year ago – as the #MeToo era was erupting – the nation was waking up to news that a secret congressional "hush fund" had been used by Members of Congress to pay off...

Members of Congress will have to pay out of pocket to settle sexual misconduct claims under legislation that Congress passed this week. Lawmakers could previously use public funds to settle the claims. The House of Representatives and the Senate approved the bipartisan measure on a voice vote on Dec. 13. “Time is finally up for members of Congress who think that they can sexually harass and get away with it. They will no longer be able to slink away with no one knowing that they have harassed. … They will pay back the U.S. Treasury,” one of the House co-sponsors,...

Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that a House committee will “take the first steps” toward obtaining President Trump’s tax returns once Democrats take control of the House. Pelosi, who is expected to become the Democrats’ next speaker of the House, said the process could be “challenging” as Trump has vowed to resist their requests. “There is popular demand for the Congress to request the president’s tax returns,” Pelosi told reporters. “I’m sure the White House will resist, so the question is, ‘Where do we go from there?’”

One of the first two Muslim women elected to the U.S. Congress took a snide dig on Twitter at Vice President Pence for sitting with eyes closed during a heated Oval Office meeting, posting a photo with the caption, “Jesus take the wheel!” — and the other incoming Muslim congresswoman applauded the insult. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) tweet ended with the hashtag #BorderWall, a reference to the contentious issue discussed during President Trump’s meeting Tuesday with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) The second Muslim woman elected to the House, Palestinian-American Congresswoman-elect Rashida Tlaib,...

Members of Congress will have to pay out of their own pockets to settle sexual and other harassment claims made against them under compromise policies that lawmakers announced Wednesday. Currently taxpayers cover the cost of settling harassment claims made against elected officials. The new policy, a bipartisan response in the #MeToo era after nearly seven months of negotiations between the House and Senate, could get a Senate vote by the end of the week, said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.). Blunt said he had spoken with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Ryan told him that he would bring the...

Which is worse – candidate, businessman and then still private citizen Donald Trump using his own money to make what Hillary Clinton might call “bimbo eruptions” go away to protect his brand and himself from personal embarrassment, or Congress using taxpayer money in a slush fund to pay off those sexually harassed by sitting office holders? As Penny Nance, president and CEO of Concerned Women for America, notes in USA Today: Literally a year ago — as the #MeToo era was erupting — the nation was waking up to news that a secret congressional "hush fund" had been used by Members of...

U.S. Attorney for Utah John Huber won't testify Thursday before the House Oversight subcommittee as its chairman had announced previously. Huber had been assigned by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate several controversies Republicans have raised about Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, many of them stoked by right-wing activists who believe she should be prosecuted. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the Oversight’s subcommittee on government operations, had hoped Huber would provide an update on his probe. “Mr. Huber with the Department of Justice and FBI has been having an investigation — at least part of his task was...

California Senator Kamala Harris was at risk of losing her seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee but kept it with the assistance of Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer

And just to think that Reps. Speier, and Sánchez will be part of the attack when the Democrats try to impeach President Trump for allegedly paying “hush” money to Stormy Daniels from campaign finances when new members are sworn in on January 3, 2019 Salacious accusations that Donald Trump paid “hush” money from campaign finances to adult entertainer Stormy Daniels, who claims she had an affair with him, have suddenly become the latest drive to impeach him. But the burning unasked question to the media of the day should be: How can we take seriously any of your accusations when...

Dear Socialist Barbie, Congratulations on your quick rise to political success. In a world full of stuffy old codgers spouting nothing but focus-grouped talking points, you came in like a wrecking ball. A Prada-pump, Armani suit-wearing, wide-eyed wrecking ball. Based on some of your delicious tweets, you seem to think criticism of you stems from your fashionable penchant, your racial heritage, or your reproductive wonders down under. Allow me to address each assertion. Sure, sure, there are plenty of people who’ll take aim at your pricy wardrobe, considering you’re a socialist champion for the working class, who rocks those four-figure...

Fourteen of the 23 GOP members who signed the cheap-labor Discharge Petition amnesty in June will be gone from Congress in January. The group’s wipeout came after they worked with House Speaker Paul Ryan to block the pro-American, compromise immigration reform bill prepared by Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the chairman of the House judiciary committee.

If Mueller's witch hunt is dumb enough to try and take down Trump by claiming that hush money paid to the two women was a campaign finance law violation, then Mueller must also go after all the Congressmen who secretly used taxpayer funds to silence claims against them of sexual harassment. Such a secret use of taxpayer funds is also embezzlement and they all should be prosecuted.

On Saturday, Congress released the 234-page transcript of closed-door testimony from ex-FBI Director James Comey before the House Judiciary and Oversight Committee the day prior. This is a summary of notable moments with page number citations so you can read for yourself. Hillary Clinton probe Comey confirmed that controversial FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page served both on the team investigating Hillary Clinton’s email practices and the team investigating Trump-Russia connections (p. 18). Context: Strzok and Page were pulled from the Special Counsel Robert Mueller probe in summer 2017 after the DOJ Inspector General discovered they had exchanged many,...

Do you recall, back during the initial rush of the #MeToo moment, when we discovered that legislators in the House and Senate had slush funds available to pay for the silence of sexual harassment accusers? There was a general uproar over that and we were assured that the members were going to get right to work on cleaning up their act. Good times, my friends. But what happened to that project?As it turns out, not much. There were proposals written, and the House actually passed a bill, but when it hit the Senate, nobody could ever seem to agree on...

The whistleblower submission cited many of the same concerns as the internal legal reviews, but also alleged that evidence from foreign governments showed that some charity transactions were commercial in nature and therefore should have been taxed. The evidence amassed by the private investigators should give Congress plenty to explore at its hearing next week, and put the Trump Justice Department on the spot to answer what it has done to address concerns that the foundation’s lawyers raised and the private investigators uncovered. Quid pro quo donations, a culture of noncompliance, travel abuses and commingling of personal with charitable business...

John Dingell knows a thing or two about how Congress works. First elected to the US House of Representatives at age 29 in a 1955 special election, Dingell left office in January 2015, nearly 60 years later. The last president he served with, Barack Obama, was born six years after Dingell entered office. His tenure was the longest in the history of the House or Senate, outlasting stalwarts like Strom Thurmond and Ted Kennedy by more than a decade. So his call to abolish the Senate, announced in an Atlantic excerpt from his new memoir, is pretty notable. He pairs...