Free Republic

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday evening unanimously approved a criminal contempt report against Steve Bannon, an ally of former President Donald Trump's, for defying a subpoena from the panel. The vote sends the measure to the full House for a planned vote Thursday. If the chamber approves it, the referral would be sent on to federal law enforcement for potential charges. The nine-member committee, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, was united in their scathing response to Bannon's refusal to come before the panel. Bannon no-showed for a deposition...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi set a deadline of October 31 for lawmakers to pass President Joe Biden's $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill and the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package after delaying the vote on the legislation for a third time. In a letter to fellow Democrats on Saturday, Pelosi (D-Calif.) said 'more time was needed to reach our goal of passing both bills' after party leaders scrambled for the past two days to try and secure votes. Pelosi aims to pass the legislation by the end of the month when the 30-day reauthorization of federal highway programs — among other extensions...

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) in a Friday tweet called the “live-leaker” who sent the press details about the House Democratic Caucus’s meeting while it was happening a “schmuck” and “coward.” The California Democrat said that the member who was live-leaking information to Punchbowl News reporter Jake Sherman apparently likes the narrative that the House Democratic Caucus is in disarray. ...

Pity progressives. In 2018, a progressive wave swept into Congress led by the so-called Squad. They have never known what it is like to be in the minority. They are surrounded by a young, left-leaning press and celebrity bubble that tells them they are not only right, but in the majority. They now have sympathetic Democrats in charge of the House, the Senate and the presidency. They decided to go for broke. The result? The For the People Act died in the Senate. The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act died in the Senate. Amnesty died in the Senate. Corporate...

House Democratic leaders late Thursday postponed a vote yet again on the bipartisan infrastructure bill amid threats from progressives to tank it as leverage for a separate, larger package to expand social safety net programs. After a long day of meetings between Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the warring centrist and progressive factions of the caucus, as well as with White House staff, Democrats opted to delay a vote planned for Thursday rather than allow an embarrassing public failure on the House floor. A notice from House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's (D-Md.) office issued shortly before 11 p.m. Thursday confirmed...

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the annual defense bill that directs funding for our nation’s military. Unfortunately, this year’s bill contains two anti-gun provisions opposed by NRA-ILA. The first provision, included in the bill by Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), would ignore due process protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution and allow for the confiscation of firearms owned by those in the armed forces. The Speier language would allow the military judicial system to issue ex parte protective orders that prohibit firearm possession. In other words, military personnel could be...

Washington — The blame game has begun in Washington following the demise of police reform legislation that had been the subject of bipartisan negotiations for more than a year on Capitol Hill. Democratic lawmakers, led by Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and Representative Karen Bass of California, decided last Wednesday to call off negotiations with a group of Republicans led by Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.... ...Scott, for his part, said attaching strings to federal money was a nonstarter for Republicans in the latest debate. "We have about a billion dollars in grant money that goes to police,"...

Chalk this up as what may just be the death knell for Joe Biden’s legislative agenda.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said on Friday that she would bring up the bipartisan infrastructure bill for a vote on Monday. Moderates had been pushing that they wanted the vote on the infrastructure bill prior to any voting on the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill. Meanwhile, the progressives had wanted to link the two and/or have the reconciliation bill voted on first.But now, she’s backing off her pledge to do it on Monday, saying she wouldn’t do it if the votes aren’t there. She’s...

The House Budget Committee voted Saturday to pass the $3.5 trillion spending bill out of committee and send it to the House floor. The vote was 20 to 17 with Democratic Rep. Scott Peters of California joining Republicans to vote against the bill. It came as a necessary step for the bill to reach the full House floor, where it can be amended. Democrats have been struggling to pass President Joe Biden's economic agenda, including the massive tax and spending bill that would expand education, health care and childcare support, address the climate crisis and make further investments in infrastructure....

(CNN)Multiple lawmakers angrily stormed out of a classified briefing with members of the Biden administration on Afghanistan on Wednesday morning, according to three sources familiar with the briefing. The Republican and Democratic lawmakers grew frustrated after State Department, Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security, and Office of the Director of National Security officials failed to answer their basic questions during the briefing for members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the sources told CNN.... ...Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told CNN's Jake Tapper on "The Lead" on Wednesday that "everybody walked out"...

Former staffers of the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said the congresswoman’s office is a “miserable” and “harsh” environment, BuzzFeed News reported. BuzzFeed spoke with 14 anonymous ex-staffers who worked for Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington over the course of her nearly five years in Congress. The report, which took three months to compile, said the former staffers described the work environment as an “especially harsh office with a boss whose treatment of workers runs contrary to the public expectations she has set for others.” Ex-staffers speaking with BuzzFeed painted Jayapal as someone who publicly berated those who...

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Friday affirmed the chamber will vote on the Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill on Sept. 27, signaling Democratic leaders are still plowing full speed ahead on their planned timeline even though the larger $3.5 trillion bill to invest in social safety net programs still faces tough hurdles. In a letter to lawmakers previewing this month's legislative session, Hoyer said the House will vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill the last week of September "pursuant to the rule passed in August." Under that agreement between Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and a small group of moderates,...

Last week, Ocasio-Cortez criticized Manchin for urging Democrats to slow down the passage of a $3.5 trillion social spending bill. "Manchin has weekly huddles w/ Exxon & is one of many senators who gives lobbyists their pen to write so-called "bipartisan" fossil fuel bills," Ocasio-Cortez said in a tweet. "It's killing people. Our people. At least 12 last night. Sick of this "bipartisan" corruption that masquerades as clear-eyed moderation." On Sunday, Manchin told CNN's Dana Bash it's "absolutely not true" that he has weekly meetings with big energy companies. "I keep my door open for everybody. That's totally false," Manchin...

House Democrats want to raise the corporate rate to 26.5 percent as part of nearly $3 trillion in tax increases to defray the cost of their next big spending package, while boosting to top rate for individuals to 39.6 percent. The Ways and Means Committee is also planning to call for a new 3 percent surtax on people making more than $5 million, sources familiar with Chair Richard Neal’s still-unreleased plan say, as well as increasing the top capital gains rate to 28.8 percent from 23.8 percent . Neal also wants to raise taxes on multinational corporations’ overseas profits, tighten...

“A bleak anniversary: Mao the mass murder.” – New York Times So, it is pretty widely accepted that Chairman Mao was a mass murderer. Most Americans, and probably 97 percent of Iowans, would be hesitant to honor Mao Zedong in any sort of way. But then there’s that pesky three percent that none of us can ever really understand. Enter Democrat Andrea Phillips who is running for Iowa House District 37. Late last week it surfaced that Phillips had a statue of Chairman Mao in her home through this Instagram post

Democrats' long-held hopes for providing a path to legal status for millions of immigrants is now in the hands of a little-known figure: The Senate parliamentarian. Democrats pitched Elizabeth MacDonough, a nonpartisan referee, Friday on their plan to provide permanent legal status, which paves the way for a path to citizenship, for 8 million immigrants, including Dreamers, temporary protected status holders, agricultural and other essential workers. After struggling for years to get a deal on immigration reform, and with President Biden’s sweeping comprehensive plan stalled on Capitol Hill, Democrats are ready to go it alone by including their smaller plan...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), despite losing numerous vulnerable members to retirements and seeking higher office instead of facing tough races, is confident Democrats will keep the House of Representatives in the midterms. “In terms of the elections … I know we will win in the Congress,” Pelosi said while speaking Wednesday in East Hartford, Connecticut, about the Democrats’ chances in the midterms.

The top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee said Monday the GOP has more than 50 amendments that seek to address the shortcomings Republicans see in the Biden administration’s handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. “We want to find out what happened to the equipment that was left behind. We want to know why specifically Bagram was abandoned,” Alabama Rep. Mike D. Rogers said, referring to U.S. military equipment left by U.S. troops that ended up in the possession of the Taliban, the Afghan political movement now running the country, and why the U.S. decided to leave Bagram...

House Democratic leaders are considering taking a page from a similar budget standoff a decade ago that led to the first-ever U.S. credit downgrade as they look for ways to lift or suspend the statutory debt ceiling amid near-unanimous GOP opposition. The maneuver under consideration is a resolution of disapproval process for suspending the debt limit, according to sources with knowledge of the conversations.... ...Doing so could, in theory, inoculate both Democrats and Republicans against charges that they voted directly for lifting the nation's credit card limit....

It is appropriate that House Democrats wore masks at their press conference following passage along party lines of their bill allowing Democrats to permanently steal every election in America. Gushing with platitudes about “voting rights” and “access to the ballot,” they gleefully celebrated the final House vote of 219-215, with no Republicans voting for the federal takeover and bludgeoning of the American voting process.Because not a single reporter likely bothered to read the “new” House Resolution 4, introduced only days before it was rushed through the House, the fake news loudly echoed Democrats’ false claims that this is a voting...