Free Republic

For a 56th birthday present to himself, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) (R-North Carolina) took perhaps the most aggressive step yet against the Republican Party’s establishment. It marked perhaps the most bombastic challenge to House Speaker Rep. John Boehner’s (R-OH) (R-Ohio) leadership, and another point at which long-simmering tensions within the Republican caucus have exploded out into the open.

All the political gridlock in Congress and name-calling during election season may not matter as much when Washington, D.C. sinks into the ocean. According to new research conducted by geologists at the University of Vermont and the U.S. Geological Survey, the land in the Chesapeake Bay region, including the nation’s capital, is sinking rapidly. The sea level in the Chesapeake is rising at twice the global average and faster than anywhere else on the East Coast, the researchers say, which means D.C. will sink 6 or more inches in the next 100 years. The sinking is caused by melting ice...

Defense Secretary Ash Carter has given his top commanders the green light to allow more troops to carry weapons at U.S. bases, with a focus on recruiting stations, Reserve centers and other softer military targets. Carter’s actions came two weeks after a Kuwaiti-born gunman killed four Marines and a sailor before police slayed him at the Navy reserve center in Chattanooga, Tenn. “The tragic shooting on July 16 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, illustrates the continuing threat to DOD personnel in the U.S. homeland posed by homegrown violent extremists,” Carter wrote in a memo released Thursday by the Pentagon. In the memo,...

Wow! Suddenly this week Politico reporter Mike Elk shook off his cloak of extreme lethargy and became like the Energizer Bunnie. Gone was his PTSD and STSD (Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder) which he claims inhibit him from working. Despite not having done a bit of work for six months, there he was front and center at a press conference asking Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders questions. So what was the subject of Elk's inquiry? It was about how badly treated he is at his employer Politico because they haven't approved card check in voting on whether to form a union shop....

People who insist that climate change isn’t happening often try to disprove it by pointing to what they see as contradictory phenomena. One of their most visually compelling arguments has centered upon Antarctic sea ice, which expanded to reach record levels in 2014. If the planet really is warming, they ask, then shouldn’t the ice in the southern ocean be melting? But now, in a new, not-yet-published paper, James Hansen, former director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and colleagues push back even harder. They argue that the increase in Antarctic sea ice not only doesn’t refute climate...

Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz had some harsh words for EPA Chief Administrator Gina McCarthy during a hearing Wednesday regarding the agency’s handling of an employee who repeatedly sexually harassed interns. For the past couple of years, Republican lawmakers have been investigating reports of misconduct at the EPA from employees watching porn everyday while on the job to an agency employee who sexually harassed interns and was not reported to the authorities and continued to work at the agency for years. “This is a predator who was fed a steady diet of interns,” Chaffetz told McCarthy during the hearing. “The...

There have been dozens of questions surrounding the disappearance of emails belonging to former IRS official Lois Lerner, the woman at the center of the IRS targeting scandal. Some of Lerner's emails have been recovered, after IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said under oath they were lost forever. Thousands are still missing. But perhaps the most compelling questions that have been asked since the IRS targeting scandal broke in May 2013 are 1) Exactly where were Lerner's emails and backup tapes destroyed? 2) Who destroyed them? Now, we have an answer. According to Americans for Tax Reform,Lerner's hard drive was...

WASHINGTON (WJLA) — A car has crashed into the South Barricade of the U.S. Capitol Building, according to U.S. Capitol Police. The driver, who is the only occupant of the car, is in custody. Police say the car did not enter the secure perimeter.

The founder of StemExpress, the private company that has engaged with Planned Parenthood in the sale of aborted baby body parts, is the younger sister of the health policy director of House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH). The founder and CEO of StemExpress is Cate Dyer, the younger sister of Charlotte Ivancic, Boehner’s health policy director, as originally observed at the conservative site ForAmerica. In response to Breitbart News’ request for comment, Emily Schillinger, Boehner’s press secretary, said, “Charlotte Ivancic is a dedicated public servant who enjoys the utmost respect among her peers and Members of Congress. She has the...

Hillary Clinton’s greatest strength, the candidate explained in an interview with the morning newsletter The Skimm, is her “passionate commitment to helping people.” The passion was on display in 2009, for example, when Clinton personally intervened to help Swiss bank UBS settle a lawsuit with the IRS and thus protect the identities of tens of thousands of Americans who may or may not be evading U.S. taxes through Swiss bank accounts. Clinton was also asked about her greatest weakness. Here’s what she said: Got that? Clinton’s biggest fault is her inability to deal with you idiots who can’t comprehend why...

When Jeb Bush said last December that the Republican nominee would have to be willing to “lose the primary to win the general without violating your principles,” it sounded like either a starkly realistic assessment of the dynamics of Republican presidential politics or an awfully naïve statement of what was actually possible for a Republican candidate. Most observers — myself included — thought that he’d have no choice but to mirror the anger of committed Republican voters. As the candidate perceived by base voters and the most moderate of the contenders, he’d have to go through the same ritual that...

Congress sent President Barack Obama a three-month bill to keep highway and transit money flowing to states on Thursday, one day before the deadline for a cutoff of funds.

Under resident Barack Obama's overhaul, taxpayers provided $2.4 billion in loans to get the co-ops going, but only one out of 23 -- the one in Maine -- made money last year ... Another one, the Iowa/Nebraska co-op, was shut down by regulators over financial concerns. The audit by the Health and Human Services inspector general's office also found that 13 of the 23 lagged far behind their 2014 enrollment projections. The probe raised concerns about whether federal loans will be repaid, and ... Just last week, the Louisiana Health Cooperative announced it would cease offering coverage next year

Standardized tests such as the ACT and SAT are no longer required by George Washington University. In its weekly e-mail newsletter, the school proudly announced this shift in its admissions process. The move is effective August 1st, 2015, meaning that “those applying to GW for the 2016-17 school year will have the option to include” the test scores in their application or not to. What is the reasoning behind this? The school claimed the following: “High school coursework and grades will continue to be the most important factors in GW’s holistic review process, along with a student’s writing skills, recommendations,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Billionaire Donald Trump has taken a commanding lead in the race for the 2016 U.S. Republican presidential nomination with the support of 25 percent in a Reuters/Ipsos poll, giving him a double-digit advantage over nearest rival Jeb Bush. The poll shows Bush, the former Florida governor, trailing at 12 percent. It is a huge jump for Trump, who announced his candidacy for the November 2016 election six weeks ago - and this despite the criticism political rivals leveled at him for remarks this month belittling the military service of Senator John McCain, the party's candidate in 2008....

“As we finish up the first seven months of this New American Congress, the statistics are in: This Congress is more accountable, more open, more productive and more effective,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told a news conference on Wednesday. He called it the “second most effective Republican-majority Congress in modern history,” and he used numbers to make his point. McCarthy said he judges accountability by the work that’s been done in committee: “The 30-year average is 7.4 percent of the bills get out of committee; this Congress is at 10.1,” he said. …

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew told Congress on Wednesday that he will extend for another three months the authority he is using to take emergency measures to keep from breaching the nation’s borrowing limit. In a letter to congressional leaders, Lew said he will extend the current debt-suspension period, which was set to expire Friday, through Oct. 30. He said he believes the emergency measures he is using may be sufficient to keep the government operating for a brief period after Oct. 30. Since March 16, Lew has been employing a variety of bookkeeping maneuvers such as removing investments from government...

Lyons claims in an explosive but little noticed federal lawsuit that he was fired as a District of Columbia Department of Public Works supervisor because black employees did not want to work for a “honkey,” as they repeatedly called him. Lyons says he was ousted for blowing the whistle on on fraud and waste at the DPW. Lyons’ complaint against the DPW, which handles trash collection and enforces parking regulations in the District, includes a two page chart describing all the racial harassment black he allegedly endured from black workers — as the DPW’s director, also black, looked the other way....

The controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood is escalating on Capitol Hill as Senate Republicans vowed Tuesday to vote to cut off federal funds for the organization as early as next week and keep campaigning on the issue this fall. After anti-abortion activists on Tuesday released a new video showing representatives from Planned Parenthood talking about fetal tissue sales, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) assigned a trio of senators to come up with a plan to defund the abortion rights group. Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) are trying to hash out a deal about how...

WASHINGTON — A House Republican often at odds with John Boehner launched a bid Tuesday to kick the speaker of the house out of his job — an almost unheard-of rebellion but one that has been simmering for months. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-North Carolina, filed a motion to "vacate the chair" — a parliamentary maneuver that could be used to depose Boehner, R-Ohio. The motion accuses Boehner of having "endeavored to consolidate power and centralize decision-making, bypassing the majority of the 435 Members of Congress and the people they represent," and of using "the power of the office to punish...