Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) — First lady Jill Biden lamented the partisanship that permeates Capitol Hill and politics writ large, telling governors at the White House that she wished more lawmakers would follow their lead. She spoke on Friday in the White House’s East Room to state chief executives who were in Washington for the winter gathering of the National Governors Association. During her brief remarks, Biden recalled something that Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, had told her when she visited his state last year. “What you said really stayed with me,” Biden said. “You said pure partisan politics has never...

A pro-Palestine mob has created a New Years Day nightmare as they have blockaded the JFK airport and surrounding roads, causing a gridlock for travelers. The protest was arranged by the pro-Palestine group called WOL as they instructed participants to flood JFK Terminal 4 on Monday. Only passengers with boarding passes and employees with valid forms of identification are being allowed to enter the JFK Air Train at Jamacia Station. Cars can be seen driving on the highway leading up to the airport as protestors shout 'NYD KKK, IDF, you're all the same.' 'VICTORY! Port Authority has effectively shut down...

Rep.-elect Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., voted "present" on Wednesday during the fourth attempt to agree on a House speaker, saying that Republicans need to deliberate further and "stop wasting everyone's time.""We have a constitutional duty to elect the Speaker of the House, but we have to deliberate further as a Republican conference until we have enough votes and stop wasting everyone’s time," Spartz said in a statement Wednesday.

Going with the NBC forecast of a Republican 10-seat majority in the House, when the new Congress is seated on January 3, 2023, the cold hard facts on the ground will include the following: 1. The new Congress will be gridlocked. Neither the Ds nor the Rs will be able to enact legislation, the Ds because they lack a majority in the House, and the Rs because they lack the supermajority required to override a presidential veto. 2. Although the Democrats cannot enact any legislation without Republican support, their most important engine of law creation, the administrative agencies, can continue...

Port congestion — which dramatically worsened in the second half of 2021 — appears to have temporarily peaked, although it’s too soon to tell whether it’s a reprieve before the next runup, a high-level plateau, or the beginning of the end. The number of container ships waiting for berths at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach fell to 78 on Tuesday, the lowest tally in three months. That’s down down 23% from 101 ships on Feb. 1 (the average for the month of January was also 101) and down 28% from the all-time high of 109 ships on...

At the end of the day, senators care more about protecting themselves and their colleagues from unpredictable, inconvenient floor votes than they do about passing legislation.Official Washington’s conventional wisdom about the Senate filibuster is a fairy tale. It is utterly unmoored from the choices being made by individual senators, party caucuses, and the body as a whole. Every person who has ever told you that the mean, nasty, outdated legislative filibuster is the source of Senate gridlock and the obstacle to common-sense legislating in Congress has either swallowed, or is peddling, a lie. In an op-ed in the Washington Post...

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg doesn't appear to be concerned that U.S. supply chain issues likely will continue into 2022. "That's the one thing he is correct about," says Peter St. Onge, research fellow for The Heritage Foundation, a center-right think headquartered in Washington, D.C. "This administration has no plan, boots on the grounds are saying it's getting worse, and Wall Street and companies are warning [the issue could persist into] 2022, possibly even 2023." Buttigieg made his comments to Jake Tapper on CNN's "State of the Union" program, adding that part of what is happening isn't just the supply side:...

One clear outcome of the U.S. election was the collapse of the promised ‘Blue Wave’ – an implosion that marks the ‘beginning of the end’ to a powerful spell enthralling the West. It was the delusion which Ron Chernow, the acclaimed U.S. presidential historian, gave credence, as he contemptuously dismissed America’s “topsy-turvy moment” as purely ephemeral, and a “surreal interlude in American life”: No longer can it be said that there is one ‘normal’. Win or lose the White House, Red Trumpism remains as ‘President’ for half America. Biden, by contrast, served as the prospect for Restoration – a return...

Washington - The House's No. 2 Democrat announced Monday the lower chamber will not return for votes in Washington until mid-September after negotiations between Democratic leaders and the White House on the next coronavirus relief measure collapsed last week, leaving millions of jobless Americans without immediate relief. According to the schedule released by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Monday, the House will not convene for votes until September 14. Members will be working in their home districts and conducting committee work for the first two weeks of September. Lawmakers were initially scheduled to return September 8. Hoyer said lawmakers...

A protest of statewide policies intended to help prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus was planned in downtown Rochester today, according to social media posts. The call to block downtown streets, including four blocks of South Broadway and streets outside the city-county Government Center, for up to three hours echoes similar protest events around the U.S. the past week. Local law enforcement officers and Mayo Clinic did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment. Greg Gallas, who shared the post on social media, said he doesn’t know who is planning or organizing the protest, but added that he supports...

For three decades, Meshawn Maddock and her family have run A-1 Bail Bonds in Milford, Michigan. But just a few days ago, she said she was forced to lay off her last three employees due to courts being shuttered and jails being emptied to blunt the spread of coronavirus in the hard-hit state. Instead of staying in her house, adhering to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's stay-at-home orders, Maddock drove 60 miles from her residence to Lansing, the state capitol, to join a convoy of motorists Wednesday afternoon protesting the governor's pandemic directive and calling on state leaders to allow small businesses...

40-50 years of liberal education has taken its toll. This is a train wreck unfolding right now Nightmare: The Midterm results came pouring in and it wasn’t great news for red-blooded Americans. (This could happen) Andrew Gillum is the new governor of Florida: According to the tally from Aaron Klein of Brietbart, Gillum served as the director of a radical youth training organization whose mission was to challenge U.S. “predatory capitalism,” abolish the prison system, fight a “spiritual resistance” battle against “Christian hegemony,” redefine the meaning of “borders” while aiding “undocumented” aliens, and enact the “collective liberation” of “communities of...

Any Montgomery County voter looking for traffic relief will not get much hope from the transportation manifestos of Montgomery County’s “progressive” Democrats this primary season. Collectively, they all try to outdo each other in their opposition to anything involving spending for roads. Instead of supporting projects that will reduce travel times, they propose diverting more money to public transit. They push a strategy of “planned gridlock” that is intended to drive motorists from their cars. If alleging “planned gridlock” seems harsh, consider the Montgomery County Council legislation designed to slow traffic flow by significantly narrowing travel lane widths on some...

SULPHUR — After the Sulphur City Council adjourned their meeting Monday night, councilman Stuart Moss spoke at length about what he considers to be a “public health and safety issue.” “The traffic issues on Maplewood Drive have become outrageous,” said Moss. “Not one person can do this (fix the issue) and it’s not going to be resolved overnight.” Moss was referring specifically to the intersection at Prater Road and Maplewood Drive. Moss lives on Eveland — off of Maplewood — and said during peak time (from 3:30 p.m. until as late as 9 p.m.), it can take an hour and...

Gov. Larry Hogan never met a highway project he didn’t like. He’s a 1950s type of politician – solve all the state’s transportation gridlock and congestion by paving the countryside with lanes of new concrete.He’s got a $9 billion plan that is a lollapalooza: Let construction giants build and pay for toll lanes on the Capital Beltway and the busy I-270 corridor from the beltway to Frederick – 70 miles of exclusive Lexus lanes – and let those companies reap the toll rewards so they can recoup a staggering $7.6 billion investment (the actual cost is likely to be substantially...

Faced with ever-increasing traffic jams, South Florida's public officials have come up with a plan: Make it worse. Instead of fixing the problem, government officials are deliberately adding to it in hopes we'll all walk, ride the bus or take the train. "Until you make it so painful that people want to come out of their cars, they're not going to come out of their cars," Anne Castro, chair of the Broward County Planning Council, said during a meeting last year. "We're going to make them suffer first, and then we're going to figure out ways to move them after...

The filibuster is under attack again, this time by Senate Democrats who are hoping to win back that chamber as well as the White House in November. Carl Hulse, chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times, reported Wednesday that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid wants Democrats to “move to curtail the filibuster” if they win both the White House and the Senate “only to run up against persistent use of the tactic by Republicans.” Hulse wrote:

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WLS) -- President Barack Obama returned to Springfield Wednesday, addressing members of the Illinois General Assembly amid the state's ongoing budget impasse. The state capital is where President Obama launched his national political career exactly nine years ago. The lame duck/nothing-to-lose president chose the beleaguered Illinois state capitol - and many of his friends for an audience - to make his "building better politics" speech. He focused on the polarization and gridlock in Congress and in legislatures around the country. He called gridlock - and his inability to break it in Washington - his presidency's most frustrating constant....

Gov. Tom Wolf warned lawmakers on Tuesday that Pennsylvania's finances are a ticking time bomb amid a record-long budget gridlock, as he sent them a spending proposal for the coming fiscal year with no full plan in place for the year that began back in July. The first-term Democrat delivered an approximately $33.3 billion plan for 2016-17 to the Republican-controlled Legislature as he tries again to break down resistance to a multibillion-dollar tax increase that has held up passage of a budget for the current year. Wolf delivered his message in a blunt, 25-minute speech that prompted objections from most...

REPORT CARD First marking period Student: Thomas Westerman Wolf, governor Freshman, Class of 2018 Grading scale: 0.0-4.0 Overall effectiveness (weighted) Grade: 2.0 Comments: Thomas is an idealistic student and a hard worker. In the past, he has demonstrated skills that qualified him for this honors program. He has been successful in business and as a community leader, bringing together people with different viewpoints to cooperate and achieve common goals. So far, however, he has not successfully brought those skills to bear on his primary task: Passage of a state budget that reflects his governing philosophy. It would be unfair to...