Free Republic

Protesters stopped traffic on the San Francisco bridge for about 45 minutes Immigration protesters stopped traffic on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge for more than 30 minutes Thursday morning, urging Congress to pass a citizenship bill through the budget reconciliation process.... ...About 25 cars stopped traffic at around 7 a.m. on the bridge, and protesters delivered speeches from a bed of a truck and held banners reading, "Pass the $3.5 trillion spending bill," "Override the Parliamentarian," "Kamala: Override the Parliamentarian," and "Citizenship for All."... ...At least five people were arrested, according to the California Highway Patrol, and four vehicles were...

The Senate parliamentarian has nixed Democrats' back-up plan for getting immigration reform into a sweeping spending bill, handing them a second setback. Democrats had pitched parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough on legalizing millions of undocumented immigrants by making a change to the date for when undocumented immigrants within the United States can apply to adjust their legal status. But MacDonough told Democrats that the option was a non-starter, according to a copy of the guidance obtained by The Hill. Democrats are pursuing other back-up plans with the Senate referee, according to a source familiar with Democrats' strategy. Changing the registry date is...

The Democrats are trying to alter the basic nature of our Republic with the slimmest of congressional majorities. This alone violates the long held understanding that serious long-term changes properly ought to be supported by both parties. But, in trying to bypass Senate filibuster rules by including extraneous legislation under the rubric of "budget reconciliation," they have run into an obstacle from the nonpartisan Senate parliamentarian, who did not buy their argument that legalizing 8 million people is mostly about the budget. Marianne Levine writes in Politico:The Senate parliamentarian on Sunday rejected Democrats' push to include a pathway to legal...

The parliamentarian of the US Senate has issued a ruling declaring that an amnesty provision for millions of illegal aliens can’t be passed through the use of budget reconciliation, a legislative move allowing the Senate to pass laws with only 50 votes as opposed to 60. Politico reported on Sunday that parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that the amnesty provision is not a budget-related matter, and thus cannot be included in legislation passable through use of budget reconciliation. The Democrat amnesty provision would’ve granted a quick path to citizenship for as many as eight million illegal immigrants broadly designated as “essential...

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has effectively ruled that only one more automatic budget reconciliation is permissible this year, dealing a blow to Democrats who previously thought they would have two more chances to sidestep Republicans in advancing President Biden's agenda. MacDonough ruled that a revision to the 2021 budget resolution cannot be automatically discharged from the Senate Budget Committee, meaning Democrats would need at least one Republican on the 11-11 panel to vote with them. The bombshell ruling effectively means Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) will be able to use only one more reconciliation vehicle to pass Biden's key...

Guess she’ll have to take the bus. Funding for a rail project near House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s California district that Republicans denounced as wasteful was removed Tuesday from President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus bill. The Senate parliamentarian ruled the $140 million appropriation wasn’t allowed under the so-called Byrd rule that polices unrelated items in budget reconciliation bills. Republicans singled out the rail project as an example of unrelated “pork” in the bill, which is being rammed through Congress without Republican support using special rules that allow a simple majority vote in the Senate. On Tuesday, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.)...

The Senate parliamentarian ruled Thursday that the $15 per hour minimum wage cannot be included in the Democrats’ proposed $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus package. The controversial proposal in the House bill seeks to gradually raise the federal minimum wage, which has been at $7.25 an hour since 2009, to $15 by 2025. Elizabeth MacDonough, the chief Senate parliamentarian, has decided that the minimum wage increase cannot be included under the budget reconciliation process, according to multiple reports. Per the Byrd Rule—a procedural step for determining the eligibility of a provision to be included in a reconciliation bill—MacDonough and her team...

As Washington people go around doing Washington things and talking to other Washington people about Washington-focused health-care reform, we would do well to take a step back to simplify the debate in front of us. We are the most prosperous country in the history of the world. As such, we have many of the best hospitals, doctors, nurses, and medicines available. We have hundreds of insurers that take risk — for profit — to insure us. We have fairly broad, but expensive and not always effective, social safety nets in which we pool our resources through taxation in an effort...

Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders defended his views about Islam in an intense and extensive interview with The Daily Caller. “Because I spoke out against the ideology called Islam already for almost 10 years now, I was marked for death,” Wilders, who was in Washington to promote his latest book, “Marked for Death: Islam’s War against the West and Me,” told TheDC. “If you speak the truth — and I believe people should speak the truth about Islam — you pay a very heavy price.” Islamist clerics issued fatwas calling for Wilders death after he began speaking out against Islam. He...

In wake of renewed Turkish demands that Israel apologize for the deaths of nine pro-terror activists killed in a maritime clash with the IDF, MK Danny Danon of Likud offered his own “apology” in a letter he read aloud in the Knesset Tuesday. Danon's speech was as follows: To the Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, (by way of the Turkish ambassador to Israel) Regarding: The request for an apology to the government of Turkey for the events aboard the Mavi Marmara of the Gaza flotilla.

VIDEO: Pelosi: Senate Parliamentarian Ruling ‘Not Very Troubling’ Pelosi's remarks on the Parlimentarian.