Free Republic

At 4 feet 11, former U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski almost stood a little shorter this week after a thief stole her famous footstool out of a car in Hampden. Mikulski’s signature footstool, which she uses for speaking engagements, was stolen out of an employee’s car on Falls Road in Hampden, according to an internet post from the employee Monday. The employee posted the story to the social media platform Nextdoor asking neighbors for help after a thief broke into her car and stole a bag containing the collapsible stool. She believed the thief mistook the bag for a purse and...

The best way to move Baltimore forward from its blight, unemployment and horrific three-year cycle of violent crime and record homicide rates is to stand up to it with gusto. "Stop whining and start winning," retired U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski told a group of about 75 business leaders at an informal panel Wednesday afternoon downtown. The event was sponsored by the Baltimore Efficiency and Economy Foundation, a nonprofit centered on civic advocacy, and held at 750 E. Pratt St. Mikulski took the microphone after nearly an hour and a half discussion about how the city could turn itself around and...

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) says women “pay more for everything.” “For we women, it costs more to be a woman. We pay more for everything,” Mikulski said during a rally for the Paycheck Fairness Act. “We continue to have to fight the battle of more expensive, medical care, child care, even dry cleaning. They charge us more to do our blouses than guy’s shirts. We women are tired of being taken to the cleaners. Pass Paycheck Fairness,” Mikulski said. …

Maryland's Democratic Senate race remains very much up for grabs three weeks before the primary, with voters sharply divided along racial lines, according to a new poll from The Washington Post and the University of Maryland. The rare open Senate seat, being vacated by Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski after 30 years, has sparked a heated and expensive battle between Reps. Donna Edwards and Chris Van Hollen. . . . likely black voters favor Edwards by a nearly 3-to-1 margin. More than twice as many white voters support Van Hollen as back Edwards. . . . "It would be nice if...

Following the unconstitutional executive orders of Barack Hussein Obama Soetoro Soebarkah, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) openly stated that she did not want to get into constitutional arguments regarding the matter. "I look forward to...listening to the attorney general and listening to this wonderful panel that you've invited to participate today," she said. "So let's solve the problem," Mikuski added. "Let's not get involved in constitutional arguments, and let's help our American people be safe and secure in their home, their neighborhood, their school and their house of worship." See the problem? She is switching out liberty for security and...

Some of the largest and most influential trade unions in the country are calling out Democrats for boosting guest worker programs and open borders policies. North America's Building Trades Unions--an umbrella organization representing three million workers and 15 major unions, including the Laborers and Teamsters--sent outgoing Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D., Md.) a letter Thursday accusing her of selling out workers by importing foreigners to work for "Close to Slavery" wages. Mikulski pushed for increasing the number of temporary H2B visas that allow companies to bring guest workers to the United States to fill seasonal jobs. "We wanted to express to...

 Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, the dean of Maryland's congressional delegation, will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom next week, the White House said Monday.The medal, the nation's highest civilian honor, will be awarded to Mikulski for her work on health research, women's issues, science funding and making higher education more affordable, the White House said. Mikulski is the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and is the longest-serving woman in Congress.First elected to the Senate in 1986, Mikulski shook up the state's political establishment once again this year by announcing her retirement in 2017. That decision has set off...

On Wednesday, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) 2% became the 34th Democrat in the U.S. Senate to support the Iran deal, handing President Barack Obama a veto-proof majority. In so doing, Mikulski drove the final nail into the coffin of the pro-Israel lobby, centered around the once-vaunted American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which had vowed in July to fight the deal “with the entirety of our institutional resources.” AIPAC’s loss proves that the so-called “Israel lobby” was never as strong as antisemitic conspiracy theorists said it was. But AIPAC was weakened even further, and deliberately, by the Obama administration, which...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Wednesday blasted the Obama administration for reducing the debate on the Iran nuclear deal to "a partisan contest" that "raises even more serious questions about its durability and merits." "While the president may be able to sustain a veto with the tepid, restricted and partisan support of one third of one House of Congress over Americans' bipartisan opposition, it will require a bipartisan Congress to strengthen our defenses in the Persian Gulf and to stand up to the inevitable Iranian violations of the agreement that will need to be addressed after he has left office,"...

Thus ends a breathtaking performance of Republican failure theater. Once upon a time, knowing that your party controlled both chambers of Congress would have given you great comfort that a terrible treaty negotiated with a terrorist power could never become law in the United States. I think this makes it official: I’m on the Trump bandwagon. Hail Caesar. What’d the GOP get out of all this? What did their huge advantage in the House and their eight-seat majority in the Senate ultimately amount to in terms of concessions? It’s one thing to lose a momentous fight on foreign policy, ceding...

U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski said Thursday that she and other members of Maryland’s congressional delegation support Baltimore’s mayor in asking for a broad federal investigation of whether city police engage in discriminatory patterns or practices—a request sparked by the death of Freddie Gray, a black man who suffered a fatal spinal injury in police custody last month. The Democratic senator told U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch during a Senate subcommittee hearing that Lynch would get a letter later Thursday from the Maryland delegation supporting Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s request, made Wednesday. “In many cities throughout the country, including my own city...

“Donna [Edwards] has to hope she remains the only minority candidate,” said one longtime Democratic Maryland strategist who has worked on multiple campaigns in the state. “The more white males that jump in, the better it is for her.” Maryland Democrats are bracing for a bitter primary battle split along gender, race, geographic and ideological lines. “It’s going to be a nasty, nasty primary,” one Democratic state legislator told The Hill. “When you have primaries with people that have such similar voting records, it usually comes down to character attacks.” That’s the scene Democrats fear is unavoidable after longtime Sen....

Meanest 1. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) 2. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) 3. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.)

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who has served in Congress longer than any woman in history, will announce at a news conference Monday that she is retiring from the Senate after five terms in office, three people familiar with her plans said. Mikulski, 78, was the first woman to chair the powerful Appropriations Committe, a post she had to give up this year when the Democrats lost control of the Senate. A social worker turned politician, she has been a forceful presence on many pieces of legislation, passionately liberal on certain issues but also committed to working closely with Republicans.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) signaled Wednesday she will not amend a 2008 human trafficking law with the emergency spending bill addressing the Texas border crisis. Mikulski also questioned Republican calls to deploy the National Guard to help secure the Southern border. She argued the 2008 William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Act did not cause the surge of unaccompanied minors from Central America, as some critics contend. Instead, she said gang violence in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador and human smugglers known as coyotes are to blame. “Our problem is not the children. Our problem is what causes...

The Democratic chairwoman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee moved aggressively Thursday to use gimmicks to fill in an unexpected $4 billion gap in the budget. Mikulski's maneuver came after congressional scorekeepers surprised lawmakers by predicting that the Federal Housing Administration will produce $4 billion less in revenues from the mortgages it insures than the administration believes. Sen. Richard Shelby said Mikulski's maneuvering amounted to an end run around a December budget pact between Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray, D-Wash., and House Budget Chair Paul Ryan, R-Wis. that replaced some automatic cuts to agency operating budgets with new fees...

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) wants us to know she's mad - angry, outraged, even - that her Senate colleagues didn't pass her Paycheck Fairness Act today. The bill failed to gain cloture by a vote of 53 to 44. "I'll tell you what I'm tired of hearing," she yelled, "that somehow or other we're too emotional when we talk." "To simply get a bill on the Senate floor, we have to vote on a motion to proceed on whether we're going to take it up. And because this is now going to take a 60 vote majority, because of the...

September 27, 2013 Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski Lashes Out At ‘Tea Baggers’ From U.S. Senate Noah Rothman Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) called into MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports on Friday after the Senate voted for a cloture motion to move forward with a resolution which would fund the government. She lashed out at the ‘tea baggers’ in Congress who have mounted an effort to defund the Affordable Care Act through the continuing resolution process. Mitchell began by asking Mikulski why the vote to move forward with a CR was happening on Friday rather than Thursday night. “The reason Ted Cruz stood...

Attorney Gen. Eric Holder testifies before a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Justice Department's FY2014 budget. He also discusses the seizure of Associated Press phone records and the IRS targeting conservative groups for investigation.

WASHINGTON, DC - President Barack Obama signed a spending bill, HR 933, into law, the "Monsanto Protection Act," that strips federal courts of the authority to immediately halt the planting and sale of genetically modified (GMO) seed crop regardless of any consumer health concerns. "The provision would strip federal courts of the authority to halt the sale and planting of an illegal, potentially hazardous GE crop while the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) assesses those potential hazards," explains a letter to the House that has been signed by dozens of food businesses and retailers, as well as interest groups and...