Free Republic

House Democratic leaders are slamming GOP legislation aimed at discouraging sanctuary cities, characterizing the proposal as "The Donald Trump Act" in a bid to embarrass the Republicans bringing the measure to the floor this week. The proposal, which would withhold federal law enforcement funds for state or local governments that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration agents, comes in response to this month's fatal shooting of Kathryn Steinle along the San Francisco waterfront, allegedly by an illegal immigrant with a long criminal history. The House vote on the Republicans' sanctuary city bill is scheduled for Thursday, and it is expected...

It might be fun to poke fun at Texas Senator and GOP Presidential candidate Ted Cruz for signing up for Obamacare but he is far from alone. As a matter of fact some other top GOP candidates for the 2016 Republican nomination are right there with Cruz. In fact almost every member of the House and the Senate who have voted over 50 times to repeal Obamacare are enrolled in the plan. It is important to be clear there is no such thing as being “on Obamacare.” It’s not an insurance plan, or a single program like Medicare or Social...

Forty-seven Senate Republicans are signaling in an open letter to Iran and the White House that a deal over Tehran’s nuclear program will be at risk once President Obama leaves office. “It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system,” the senators wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Bloomberg. “Thus, we are writing to bring to your attention two features of our Constitution — the power to make binding international agreements and the different character of federal offices — which you should seriously...

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, delivered this week’s Republican address on bipartisan legislation to curb domestic human trafficking.  The legislation passed in the committee by a unanimous vote and will be considered by the full Senate next week.Grassley’s address is available in video and audio formats. You can view the video and a full transcript of Grassley’s remarks are below: “I’m U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa. “This year, thousands of minors will be sexually trafficked in the United States. “Through threats or deceit human traffickers will force children and teenagers into servitude for cheap...

It’s a question that will prove crucial next year when Mitch McConnell takes the reins of a new Senate: Just how big is the Ted Cruz caucus? Three votes on the “cromnibus” late Saturday night suggest it could be as large as 22 senators — a dangerously high number for McConnell — or as few as a handful. Let’s break down the three votes — on filibustering the $1.1 trillion package, on Cruz’s point of order aimed at targeting the president’s immigration action, and final passage. The high-water mark for the Texas Republican came on his point of order vote,...

**SNIP** The amendment's author, Republican Senator Charles Grassley, argued that if Obamacare plans were good enough for the American public, they were good enough for Congress. Democrats, eager to pass the reforms, went along with it. But it soon became apparent the provision contained no language that allowed federal contributions toward their health plans that cover about 75 percent of the premium costs. This caused fears that staff would suddenly face sharply higher healthcare costs and leave federal service, causing a "brain drain" on Capitol Hill. But Wednesday's proposed rule from the OPM, the federal government's human resources agency, means...

This is how partisan and corrupt Lois Lerner is: Here is more from Rep. , chairman of Ways and Means committee: Today, Ways and Means Committee Chairman (R-MI) announced the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) targeting of conservative individuals includes a sitting United States Senator. According to emails reviewed by the Committee under its Section 6103 authority, which allows the Committee to review confidential taxpayer information, Lois Lerner sought to have Senator (R-IA) referred for IRS examination. “We have seen a lot of unbelievable things in this investigation, but the fact that Lois Lerner attempted to initiate an apparently baseless IRS...

Nashville, TN – Today, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham introduced the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. The legislation currently has 33 cosponsors – but Senator Alexander is not one of them. Conservative Senate candidate Joe Carr called on Senator Alexander to change his stance and add himself as a co-sponsor. “I’m strongly pro-life and believe it’s imperative the Senate pass this important piece of legislation. When Senator Graham announced his co-sponsors and Senator Alexander’s name was missing, I was disappointed. I am hoping Senator Alexander will change his stance and add himself as a co-sponsor. This legislation is too...

It seems that the Republican camp’s hits on Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe and his oversight of GreenTech Automotive, currently under an SEC investigation, are at least hitting the target to some degree. Earlier this week, the Washington Post editors posed a rather uncomfortable question or two for the Democrat, who resigned as the barely-productive company’s chairman just last December and remains the largest shareholder.In answer, McAuliffe wrote a piece for Friday afternoon — ahem — that took some rather interesting positions on his fiduciary responsibilities as the erstwhile leader of the company. For instance: You might think that the...

Just a week after the Senate hashed out a compromise for approving seven of President Barack Obama’s nominees to run government departments, agencies and boards, Republicans on Wednesday signaled their opposition to Obama’s plan for filling vacancies on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony Wednesday from law professor and former senior Justice Department official Cornelia “Nina” Pillard, one of three Obama nominees to the D.C. circuit, often viewed as the second most influential court in the country after the Supreme Court. Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the...

Huma Abedin skipped town in the same month that the Heat was on last year and a U.S. Senator may be on to her (if so, his way of letting her know is absolutely brilliant). The date of a letter sent by U.S. Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), to Secretary of State John Kerry about Huma Abedin, the former Deputy Chief of Staff to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, matches the date on a letter sent by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and four other congressmen to the State Department’s Deputy Inspector General from one year earlier, about Abedin’s irrefutable familial...

Democratic senator Max Baucus is retiring because he is “fed up” with the Affordable Care Act, according to his Republican colleague Chuck Grassley. Speaking at Friday night’s Lincoln Day dinner in Iowa, Grassley told the audience the Montana senator is leaving office ”because he’s so fed up with the possibility of the implementation of Obamacare being a train wreck.” Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, played a key role in writing the 2010 law. Grassley said that dissatisfaction with the health-care bill exists across party lines, describing a “bipartisan coalition in Washington” that considers the implementation of the...

Leading Democrats are putting together fallback proposals if Washington fails to reach a deal on the “fiscal cliff” that would allow the party to cast itself as seeking to cut taxes. “Of course, I’ve got a backup plan in the event that we don’t succeed here,” Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said Friday. “I’m sure the White House has one too.” Tax rates are set to expire on most households in January if Congress does not act to extend some of the rates, something some Democrats have long seen as giving their party an advantage....

Yesterday Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa and Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee Charles Grassley issued a 211-page report and more than 2,000 documents, pinning much of the blame for Operation Fast and Furious on five ATF supervisors. This is the first in a series of three reports expected to be released. An initial look at the report and the documents reminds us of a few things and also brings us new information. First, it was just over a month ago when Attorney General Eric Holder became the first sitting cabinet member in history to be...

"Botched." That is the word the mainstream media too often associates with the federal gunwalking scandal known as Operation Fast and Furious—but in her new book, Fast and Furious: Barack Obama's Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-Up, investigative reporter Katie Pavlich fearlessly chronicles exactly why the only thing "botched" about the ill-fated operation was the Obama administration's shoddy attempt to cover their tracks. Having shared office space with Katie for well over a year now, I've witnessed her ferocious commitment to this story since before Fast and Furious was even a thought in the national consciousness. I wasn't always quite...

Constituents askd why i am not outraged at PresO attack on supreme court independence. Bcause Am ppl r not stupid as this x prof of con law 50+ Retweets 6 Favorites 11:51 AM - 7 Apr 12 via Twitter for iPhone

Remember the Gerald Walpin affair? Republican Sen. Charles Grassley does. Walpin was the inspector general of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the organization that runs the AmeriCorps service program. In June 2009, Walpin received a call from Norman Eisen, who was then the Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform. Eisen told Walpin he had an hour to either resign or be fired. Eisen's call appeared to violate the 2008 Inspectors General Reform Act, which is designed to protect inspectors general from political interference. The Act requires the president to give Congress 30 days'...

In case you missed it, Congressman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) had the following exchange with Eric Holder last week during the Judiciary Committees grilling of the Attorney General over the Fast & Furious gun running scandal.   Numerous Justice Department officials have been implicated in lying about the Fast & Furious scandal, including the Attorney General himself.  And, yet, the AG explains to Sensenbrenner that nobody lied because "lying" is dependent on one's "state of mind."   Had only generations of kids thought to try that defense with their mothers!  "Honest, mom, I didn't lie, because I wasn't in a lying state of...

The ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee says the Justice Department has refused to make available 11 of 12 department witnesses called by the panel for transcribed interviews in the ongoing investigation of the botched Fast and Furious weapons operation. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said that despite the department’s promises of good-faith cooperation in the probe, only one witness has been provided so far — former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke in Arizona, who resigned in August two weeks after he ended his testimony about Fast and Furious before a House committee, during which he took responsibility for mistakes....

The botched sting operation known as Operation Fast And Furious has claimed the careers of at least three Justice Department officials, with Republican lawmakers expecting even more fallout to come. The operation, run out of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives field office in Phoenix, allowed guns to knowingly fall into the hands of violent criminals in Mexico. A congressional investigation into the operation led by House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Senate Judiciary ranking member Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, is examining how high up within the administration the program was known about and authorized....