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When someone challenges the Speaker of the House (by a technical procedure known as declaring the office of the speakership "vacant"), usually the leadership holds what is basically a vote of confidence immediately to show that a majority of the members still support the Speaker. Otherwise it raises doubts about whether the Speaker still has the support of the majority of the members. But that's not what happened when Rep. Mark Meadows declared the office of the speaker vacant in late July in protest against the accomodationist policies of Speaker John Boehner. The House didn't hold any kind of vote...

I need the recommendation of an HR attorney / law firm in North Texas regarding an HR issue. At work, you can get 20 notices of "yeah, same sex marriage!" postings on the internal intranet. I posted one link to an article discussing why Obgerfell was such a radical decision, didn't even post the text. Was reprimanded that this was: A. a violation of diversity policy B. offensive to lbgta C. politicking at work Had a separate issue where a woman asked for advice regarding her husband wanting to cheat on her with a man, but keep the family together....

Could an app motivate marijuana users to exercise? The National Institutes of Health is giving $357,750 in taxpayer dollars through its National Institute on Drug Abuse to State University of New York at Buffalo to find out. “Currently, marijuana (MJ) is the most popular illicit drug, but there are few effective interventions to help young adults (age 18 to 25 years) to reduce their MJ intake and avoid negative consequences, including dependence,” the grant noted. “This study will develop and initially test an intervention [personalized feedback on MJ use + a smartphone app to promote exercise/physical activity (PA) as a...

During a Saturday briefing, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said her city government “gave those who wished to destroy space to do that,” seemingly approving of the rioters who smashed the city’s police vehicles in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray.

And if Marian was willing to admit publicly in 2004 that she was not happy with Barack having a white mother, we can only surmise that Craig and Michelle must have gotten an earful about white people behind the closed doors of the Robinson home. After the release of the WTTW video, the question is: what kind of racist messages did the siblings hear from Mother Robinson while growing up?

Former U.S. postal worker who says he got ‘lazy’ sentenced It’s long been said that mail carriers deliver through snow, rain, heat and gloom of night. Maybe that’s because if they fail to do the job right, they could end up charged with a federal crime. A now-former U.S. Postal Service worker from ­Eugene learned that the hard way after police recovered nearly 1,000 pieces of undelivered mail from two bins on his front porch in July. The bins contained primarily merchant advertisements (or “junk” mail), but included 27 voter ballots from May’s primary election and more than 200 items...

Reddit users were asked “What’s the laziest thing you’ve ever done?” And one former sailor’s response is so incredible we had to share it. We usually only write about Alabama-related things, so let’s just assume this took place aboard one of the Alabama-built Littoral Combat Ships. I was once on a US military ship, having breakfast in the wardroom (officers lounge) when the Operations Officer (OPS) walks in. This guy was the definition of NOT a morning person; he’s still half asleep, bleary eyed… basically a zombie with a bagel. He sits down across from me to eat his bagel...

The Neenah mail carrier who dumped hundreds of GOP political mailers in an apartment complex Dumpster wasn’t politically motivated; the postal worker just didn’t feel like delivering the stacks of campaign advertisements, according to preliminary findings from the U.S. Postal Service Office of the Inspector General. “Based upon our investigation, this was nothing done toward a specific candidate or party. It looks like it was a decision made by the carrier, and it was not a good decision,” to not deliver the campaign advertisements, Robert Rukes, special agent with the inspector general’s office in Chicago, told Wisconsin Reporter Monday. “A...

First Lady Michelle Obama showed signs of increasing impatience with the Democrats’ voter base in her efforts to drum up enthusiasm for the Party’s candidates. “Too many of the voters who helped put Barack in office seem to be asleep at the wheel for these mid-term races,” she complained. Michelle speculated that “poor diet may play an even bigger role than we thought. I mean, if a person is overweight feasting on junk food, getting up to go to the polls and vote may be too daunting a task. We’ve done all we could to try to eliminate impediments to...

You can tell that Democrats are starting to panic. They are saying stupid things. Add to the list that includes Wendy Davis, Alison Grimes, and Mark Udall the name of First Lady Michelle Obama. She resorted to mocking Democrats as lazy and ungrammatical in hopes of motivating her dispirited base to the polls. Jeryl Bier reports in the Weekly Standard: In speeches designed to fire up Democrats to vote in midterm elections, President Obama has at times described voters in his party as having a "congenital defect." Wednesday, First Lady Michelle Obama suggested the problem might just be that they're...

Chris Matthews criticized President Obama for being "intellectually lazy" and "listening to the same voices all the time" on Wednesday's broadcast of MSNBC's Hardball. Matthews singled out close Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett and even First Lady Michelle Obama. "Let's get tough here," Matthews said. "Is this the problem of a second term that presidents get lazy, intellectually lazy, and cut off from the country and they start picking deputies for jobs instead of looking for the best people?" "The lazy thing to do is somebody leaves, you promote their deputy. This is, I think, part of the endemic problem of...

In June 2014, there were 46,496,145 recipients of the food stamp program, which is enough to fill the Yankee Stadium 925 times, according to data from the Department of Agriculture (USDA). The Yankee Stadium is equipped to hold 50,291 persons, meaning that the 46,496,145 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients in June 2014 could fill the stadium 925 times. The number of recipients was up 270,999 since the previous month in May 2014 when there were 46,225,146 individuals participating in the program. Similarly, the number of households participating in the SNAP program has increased as well from the 22,590,393 participating...

Robot Couch Can Drive You to the Fridge and Back With a Raspberry Pi and USB gamepad controller letting you run riot on your sofa, this student project is couched in innovation. Sometimes, getting up off the couch to grab a drink is far too time consuming. What if you could drive the couch to the fridge instead? Well, your dreams of an automated couch have come true. Nine engineering students at the University of New South Wales in Australia have designed a robotic couch that can be controlled using a standard USB gamepad. Featuring a custom-built steel chassis with...

The wheels are coming off the bulldozer that is the Obama administration. But that's not a particularly new development. What's new is that some Democrats and liberal media figures are beginning to speak out. These groups previously have unquestioningly supported Obama. They've gone to astonishing lengths to protect him and conspired with him to deceive the American people in covering up and evading accountability for his multitudinous scandals and his rampant incompetence — all because liberals subscribe to an end-justifies-the-means philosophy of politics and governance. But is it conceivable that with the outrageously egregious Department of Veterans Affairs scandal, Obama's...

Posted a blank of this photo over the weekend, here are 11 of the best/favorite captions people came up with. (as usual the Freepers dominated)

Full Title:Cadillac fuels Parisian fury with 'anti-French' advert which takes a dig at countries who take the 'whole of August Off' U.S. luxury car maker Cadillac has provoked anger in France with an advert which pokes fun at countries where workers 'stroll home, stop by the cafe... and take the whole of August off'. The commercial features Desperate Housewives actor Neil McDonough as a successful businessman who compares 'hard-working' Americans to their counterparts abroad who in his words 'don't work'. He says: 'Why do we work so hard? For what? For this? For stuff? Other countries don't work, they stroll...

Am I judging a book by its cover when I say this kid is a future Dem...absolutely. So what?I'll post the best in a few days.

President Obama and his family are expected to leave Washington later this week for a 17-day vacation in Hawaii. This will be the First Family´s sixth Christmas in Hawaii since he was elected president, and in keeping with tradition they are expected to spend it on the island of Kailua. The White House announced on Friday that the Obamas will depart next week after what is expected to be a light work schedule for the president in Washington.The president and his family traditionally spend their Christmas break in a rented private beach front residence with spectacular ocean views.

Do any of you remember back in the day when, if you were a listless, visionless, slack-jawed, gum-smackin’ laggard, your parents and peers would look at you weirdly and they wouldn’t make excuses for you, or say you have some special disease like “lazyassotosis”, and that’s why you’re such a daft dasypygal? In addition, how many can hearken back to a bygone era when you actually would be held criminally liable, or at least looked at weirdly, by culture when you didn’t try to help, if able, to stop a crime or rescue a damsel in distress? Further, and...

President Obama has demonstrated leadership qualities ranging from poor to nonexistent. But is a president who lacks visible leadership qualities really such a bad thing? Or is he lazy like a fox? A lack of leadership -- whether deliberate or accidental -- can have a surprising upside, as none other than the French have historically exemplified. (And no, I'm not being facetious.) As a conservative whose heart leans firmly right, I would have thought the idea crazy until I moved to France four years ago, gaining insight into the mysterious French mind-set. I came to realize that there is a...