Free Republic

Congress’s two top tax chairmen warned President Obama on Wednesday not to claim unilateral executive powers to raise taxes on his own, saying it violates the Constitution and ruins chances for a lasting deal. Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said they were troubled by White House’s announcement earlier this month that Mr. Obama is “very interested” in exploring what options he has to raise taxes without going through Congress. “This would be a mistake, both constitutionally and politically,” the two lawmakers said, adding...

Did the 2014 midterms really happen? Less than three months after a red tide rolled over the country, the Senate Republican Rollover Caucus is back to its default position in Washington, D.C.: Hands up, bow down. Last week, senior GOP supplicant Sen. Orrin Hatch announced that he will support the confirmation of President Obama's attorney general nominee, Loretta Lynch. He praised her "qualifications" and decried the Justice Department's previous leaders who "have facilitated executive abuses by this president rather than upholding the rule of law." Guffaw. A Utah Republican, Hatch was one of the biggest, fattest facilitators of that lawlessness...

..............[U.S. Senator Jeff] Sessions last week accused the tech industry of perpetuating a "hoax" by claiming there is a shortage of qualified U.S. tech workers. "The tech industry's promotion of expanded temporary visas -- such as the H-1B -- and green cards is driven by its desire for cheap, young and immobile labor," wrote Sessions, in a memo he sent last week to fellow lawmakers. Last summer, Sessions attacked Microsoft's push for more H-1B visas as it laid off 18,000 employees. Now, as subcommittee chairman, Sessions will have the ability to conduct investigations and hold oversight hearings. That Senate memo...

On Tuesday, three Republican Senators joined three Democrats to introduce legislation that would expand the number of guest-workers for the tech industry even though there is a surplus of American high-tech workers. The Immigration Innovation (“I-Squared”) bill, introduced by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), would also enable companies to hire an unlimited number of workers with advanced degrees from U.S. institutions in science, technology, engineering and math, which critics have said would turn some universities into diploma factories for foreign students. Currently, the first 20,000...

Top Republican leaders in the House and Senate are gearing up to push legislation in the next Congress that would increase the number of foreign guest-workers even in industries that do not need them. They are hoping such legislation would "open the door" to a broader comprehensive immigration bill.

The campaign of Democratic candidate for governor Jack Hatch has suspended television ads in two Iowa markets, including Sioux City, and changed its advertising strategy in two others but denies it's a sign the campaign is struggling financially. "We're just redistributing how we're doing some things to reflect the polling that we're seeing," said Grant Woodard, Hatch's campaign manager... Television ad buys in the Sioux City and Davenport markets have been placed on hold and ad schedules on Des Moines and Cedar Rapids stations have been changed...

Incumbent Governor Terry Branstad (R) and State Senator Jack Hatch (D) met in a debate for Iowa’s gubernatorial race. The second of the series of three debates focused on economic prosperity and job creation. The debate, held at Edward Stone Middle School in Burlington, Iowa, was co-sponsored by the Greater Burlington Partnership, the local alliance of chambers of commerce, as well as KWQC Television in the Quad Cities and the Burlington Hawk Eye. [*The transcript for this program was compiled from uncorrected Closed Captioning.] THE BURLINGTON HAWKEYE NEWSPAPERS AND THE GREATER BURLINGTON PARTNERSHIP. FOR THE NEXT HOUR, TERRY BRANSTAD AND JACK...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is a shady operator. From changing the Senate rules which allowed him to increase the tax-raising power of the Senate Democratic majority, ties to shady lobbyists, and numerous scandals in Nevada, it is little wonder how a guy on a relatively modest public servant salary has become obscenely wealthy. Now, Reid has been linked to a new massive bribery case that had two state attorneys general arrested already. Utah prosecutors on Tuesday filed criminal charges against two former state attorneys general in a court filing that makes tantalizing references to a possible pay-to-play influence...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez would make a “great” 2016 Republican presidential ticket, longtime Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told reporters Wednesday. The endorsement of Martinez as a vice presidential nominee with Christie came after Martinez joined the New Jersey governor this week to help him campaign into the homestretch of his successful gubernatorial re-election bid. “Let’s face it: Susana Martinez has a lot of qualities that would help a lot of people to understand that the Republican Party is a broad base party,” Hatch said.

At 8:45 a.m. EST, Hatch was being interviewed on Fox & Friends and was asked about the loss of Cuccinelli to Clinton clone McAuliffe. His response was "Cuccinelli would have won if two Senators had not shut down the government." Outrageous! It is unclear whether one of the two he was referring to was his fellow Republican senator from Utah, Mike Lee. The other, of course, was Ted Cruz of Texas.

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah), the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, delivered a blistering statement directly to the face of Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew in a committee hearing this morning addressing the legal limit on the federal government’s debt. Hatch told Lew that statements and arguments Lew has been making in defense of the administration’s position that it will not negotiate with Congress over the terms of increasing the debt limit were “not true” and “simply false.”

Ten days ago, I wrote a column that mentioned fresh New Mexico green chile would soon be available at a grocery store in Washington, D.C. Some readers in Washington – and some who had friends or family in Washington – wrote me asking that I let them know when the chile arrives. Well, here’s your notice. The Harris Teeter grocery store at Jenkins Row on Capitol Hill now has a small stash of genuine Hatch green chile in hot, medium-hot and (last I checked) mild. It’s $1.29 per pound. That’s probably more than New Mexicans are used to paying, but...

Wednesday morning, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions approved the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, as it’s commonly referred to. The bill prohibits workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It was first considered by the committee in 2002 and was the subject of hearings in 2009 and 2012. Three Republicans, Sens. Orrin Hatch (Utah), Lisa Murkowski (Ark.) and the bill’s original co-sponsor, Mark Kirk (Ill.) joined 12 Democrats to quickly approve what committee chairman Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) called “historic legislation.” In his statement, Harkin reiterated the main points of the bill, stressing that...

The NSA has a “brand new” technology that enables one billion cell phone calls a day to be redirected into its data hoards and stored, according to the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald, who said that a new leak of Snowden’s documents was ‘coming soon.’ Calling it part of a “globalized system to destroy all privacy,” and the enduring creation of a climate of fear, Greenwald outlined the capabilities of the NSA to store every single call while having“the capability to listen to them at any time,” while speaking via Skype to the Socialism Conference in Chicago, on Friday. Greenwald was the...

Republicans (and red state Democrats) used to tell voters amazing things about their opposition to amnesty. Then they got elected and supported legislation that actually weakens border security and puts people on a path not just to legalization, but to citizenship, before ever securing our borders. 1. Rubio: “I would vote against anything that grants amnesty because I think it destroys your ability to enforce the existing law and I think it’s unfair to the people who are standing in line and waiting to come in legally. I would vote against anything that has amnesty in it.” 2. Corker: “We...

Mr. President, when it rains it pours, but most Americans hold their own umbrellas. Today in the Rose Garden you dismissed the idea of a Special Counsel to investigate the IRS scandal. With that, your galling political hubris shined bright in the midst of today’s dark clouds. Mr. President, how can we trust your Justice Department to conduct an independent investigation when there is a systemic violation of the Hatch Act throughout your administration? Surely you are aware that the Hatch Act prevents certain federal employees from engaging in political activity. Specifically, it’s illegal for these federal employees to engage...

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday adopted a substitute amendment to immigration reform legislation with a strong bipartisan margin, signaling which Republicans are most likely to support the bill. Only four Republicans voted against the substitute amendment, which expands the legislation to 867 pages and increases funding for implementation of reform by $900 billion. It passed by a margin of 14-4. Sens. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the ranking Republican on the panel, Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) voted against the substitute, which sponsors characterized as a bundle of technical fixes. Four Republicans on the panel voted...

Senate Republicans say the Labor Department appears to be spending millions in taxpayer dollars to establish labor unions and promote collective bargaining in foreign countries and is asking top Obama administration officials for a full audit. The request was sent by Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the leading Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, and Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, the top Republican on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “At a time when our federal budget is deteriorating rapidly … it is troubling to us that the department appears to be spending millions of dollars of taxpayer funds to establish...

Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), three key Republican players on immigration, told The Hill they're ready to start working on broad-based reforms next year that could include a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently in the United States.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will soon be back to doing what she does best — campaigning for President Obama. Sebelius will travel to New Hampshire this weekend for a swing of “grassroots events” with Obama, according to the New Hampshire Union Leader. The campaign trip comes after the Office of Special Counsel found that Sebelius had violated federal campaign law by campaigning for Obama during an official event. “OSC concluded that Secretary Sebelius violated the Hatch Act when