Ilhan Omar Defends AOC’s Comments Comparing Border Crisis to ‘Concentration Camps’

  Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) recently defended fellow freshman Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY-14), who’s facing ongoing criticism for calling immigrant detention centers “concentration camps.” Ocasio-Cortez made the comment during a Tuesday night live stream on Instagram, and has continued to stand by her remarks. “This administration has established concentration…

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White House Asserts Executive Privilege in Census Fight

  President Donald Trump has asserted executive privilege over documents that were subpoenaed by Congress related to the Trump administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, the Justice Department said Wednesday. The claim comes as the House Oversight Committee considers whether to hold Attorney General William…

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Jason Lewis Considering Another Run, Possibly for Senate

  Former Rep. Jason Lewis confirmed this week that he’s considering another run for office, this time possibly against Sen. Tina Smith. Lewis told The Star Tribune that he won’t officially make a decision until early fall, but said “that’s plenty of time to run a vigorous campaign against a…

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Rashida Tlaib Gave Every Freshman Congressman an Anti-Trump Welcome Gift

by Molly Prince   Democratic Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib revealed on Tuesday that she gave every freshman member of Congress a book on impeaching President Donald Trump when she arrived in Washington, D.C., for orientation week in November. “It was such a great gift,” Tlaib told interviewer John Nichols on…

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Commentary: The Rise of Administrative Law Over Legislative Law

by William Haupt III   “We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” – Abraham Lincoln Administrative law is the procedure of creating laws by bureaucratic bodies in our municipal, state and…

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Commentary: Skyrocketing Debt Too Important to Be Paired With Spending Deal

US Capitol

by Justin Bogie   Two major issues that Congress will be forced to confront in the coming weeks and months are the debt limit and the future of the Budget Control Act discretionary spending caps. A report from The Hill indicates that negotiations are underway between Congress and the Trump…

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Liz Cheney Fires Back After Ilhan Omar Accuses Her of Lying: ‘An Anti-Semitic Socialist’

by Molly Prince   GOP Conference chair Liz Cheney had some strong words for Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar on Friday after the freshman congresswoman accused Cheney, without evidence, of lying. “Liz Cheney is accusing a committee investigating Russian election interference of…helping Vladimir Putin,” Omar tweeted. “This is an impressive…

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Angie Craig Facing Criticism for Impeachment Comments

  Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN-02) hosted her fourth town hall last week and received several questions from constituents on moving forward with impeachment hearings against President Donald Trump. Up until Tuesday’s town hall, Craig had taken a relatively moderate position on the issue of impeachment and believed it shouldn’t be…

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Trump Throws Threat to Congress If It Moves to Impeach

by Henry Rodgers   President Donald Trump threatened Congress over impeachment Wednesday morning saying he would immediately head to the Supreme Court and alleging that the Democrats were the ones who committed crimes. Trump mentioned special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which found no collusion or obstruction by the president, saying…

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Minnesota Dems ‘Deeply Disturbed’ by Mueller Report, Republicans Say They’re Throwing a ‘Temper Tantrum’

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election was officially released to the public Thursday. Reactions from Minnesota’s congressional delegation were predictably divided. Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) said she was “deeply distributed” as she reviewed the report, claiming it has “proved Russian interference…

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Kamala Harris Spearheads Bill to Let ‘Dreamers’ Work in Congress

by Molly Prince   Presidential hopeful and Democratic California Sen. Kamala Harris is set to introduce legislation later in the week that would allow individuals who were brought into the country illegally as children the ability to work in the United States Congress. The proposal, co-sponsored by Democratic Sens. Dick…

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Analysis: Congress Shapes the Institution to Protect Incumbents through Secrecy and Legally Questionable Bureaucracies

US Capitol at night

by Luke Rosiak   Members of Congress are old. Really old. The House Democrats’ top three leaders are all 78 or 79. Democrat John Dingell was re-elected to the House every two years from 1955 to 2014, even though he represented Detroit during the period in which the city sank…

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Commentary: Congress Is to Blame for the Trump Administration Reverting Back to ‘Catch and Release’

by James Carafano   Reports have surfaced, citing government officials, that border officials no longer will refer detained migrant families to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Instead, due to constrained resources, they will “begin releasing hundreds of families caught each day in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.” As a result,…

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Commentary: The Clarity Accompanying the Democrats’ Takeover of Congress

by Julie Kelly   Months before the midterm elections last fall, several self-described “conservatives” implored Americans to vote for Democrats. Still stung that Republicans ignored their advice to reject Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy and unmoved by Trump’s solid record of conservative accomplishments in office, these embittered outcasts claimed that a…

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Dean Phillips Jokes About Giving Guest ‘Chocolate Cake’ to Celebrate ‘Diversity’

Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN-03) hosted a town hall Saturday in Minnesota where he joked about giving a guest a piece of “chocolate cake” in the “spirit of celebrating diversity.” The town hall was called to discuss HR 1, or the For the People Act, a radical election-reform package introduced by…

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Seven Pharma Execs Who Testified Before Congress Tuesday Make a Combined $116 Million Per Year

by Evie Fordham   Five of the seven pharmaceutical companies who sent executives to testify on drug pricing before the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday have the top-25 highest-paid pharma CEOs for companies in the S&P 500. CEOs from AbbVie, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, Pfizer and Sanofi plus Johnson & Johnson’s…

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Commentary: Congress Shirks Its Powers and Then Cries ‘Thief!’

by Rachael Bovard   A bipartisan howling is coming from Congress about President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to build the border wall. And while hypocrisy in Washington is always in the water, on the question of immigration, there is enough of it to make your hair curl. Both…

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Angie Craig Refuses to Condemn New York Abortion Law at Town Hall

Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN-02) hosted her second town hall Saturday in Red Wing, Minnesota, where she was asked about a number of issues, including universal health care and abortion. “The other thing that I wanted to ask you about is we’ve seen states recently that passed laws that legalized abortions…

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US Can’t Afford Public Lands Congress Wants to Bring Under Federal Government Control

by Tim Pearce   A lengthy public lands package sitting in Congress adds hundreds of thousands of acres of federally protected wilderness without securing funding to manage it. The House is preparing to vote on a bipartisan land package next week that is roughly 660 pages and composed of 118…

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Rep. Angie Craig Issues Joint Letter to Trump Admin to Oppose Funding of Christian Foster Agencies

Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN-02) recently issued a joint letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar in response to his department’s decision to allow a South Carolina foster-care agency to refuse housing children with same-sex couples. In January, Azar granted a waiver to Miracle Hill Ministries, a Christian agency…

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Trump in State of the Union Address: ‘We Must Choose Between Greatness and Gridlock’

President Donald Trump delivered his second State of the Union address Tuesday night in front of a bitterly divided Congress. His address touched on a number of sensitive issues, including the southern border wall, and the recent pro-abortion legislation passed in New York. He began, however, with a call for…

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Commentary: Congress Has a Little Time to Get Immigration Right

by Rachel Bovard   After refusing for weeks to negotiate over border security “until the government is open,” the bluff has been called on congressional Democrats. Congress has until February 15 to craft a border security package ahead of what could be yet another partial government shutdown. Talks among the 17…

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Zero Democrats Co-Sponsor Bill That Would Tackle Female Genital Mutilation in Minnesota

Minnesota Rep. Mary Franson (R-Alexandria) recently introduced a bill that would expand the criminal definition of female genital mutilation (FGM), but zero Democratic House colleagues have signed on as co-sponsors. Under current Minnesota law, it is illegal for doctors to perform FGM, but there are no penalties in place for…

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Ilhan Omar Lands $250K Book Deal Amid Outcry Over Past Comments

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) has landed her first major book deal with Dey Street Books and will receive an initial commission of up to $250,000. The deal was announced on Publishers Marketplace and is said to chronicle Omar’s “journey fleeing war in Somalia as a little girl, becoming a refugee…

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Commentary: Trump Is Right, Congress Needs to Do Its Job

by Rachel Bovard   As the partial government shutdown enters its third week with little hope of an end in sight, President Trump continues to demand funding for a southern border wall. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) flat out refuses to pass any funding at all. In the Senate, Majority Leader…

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Minnesota Democrat Says Most People Calling His Office Support ‘The Wall’

Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN-07) told Fox News that the overwhelming majority of calls his office is receiving are from constituents who support President Donald Trump’s border wall. “From what I can tell, they’re still hanging with the president. Today, we got 67 calls for building the wall and five…

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Daines Introduces Bill Withholding Pay from Congressmen During Government Shutdowns, Others Join

by Henry Rodgers   Republican Montana Sen. Steve Daines introduced a bill on the Senate floor Thursday that would withhold the pay of members of Congress during future government shutdowns. Daines’s introduction of the bill, sponsored by Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn, comes hours after Daines announced he sent a…

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Ilhan Omar Pictured With Anti-Semitic, Sharia Law Apologist Who Partied With Muslim Brotherhood

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) was pictured with anti-Semite and alleged Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer Linda Sarsour on Thursday, Omar’s first official day in Congress. “These past two years have been difficult. So much heartache, exhaustion, pain, losses, drama, bad policy after bad policy yet today was all worth it. Today was…

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Who Said ‘Congressional Salaries Should Be Furloughed’ During Shutdown, Not on List of Those Refusing Paycheck

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY-14), who previously called for a furlough of Congressional salaries in response to the partial shutdown of the federal shutdown, apparently has not followed through and has even ducked a reporter’s question about it. The New York Post reported on Thursday that Oscasio-Cortez ran away when…

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Dean Phillips Goes Back on Campaign Promise and Votes for Pelosi As Speaker

Both Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN-03) and Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN-02) voted for Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-12) as the next speaker of the house Thursday in one of their first official acts as members of Congress. Craig and Phillips both indicated on the campaign trail that they would like to see…

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President Trump’s Executive Order Freezing Federal Pay Saves Taxpayers from Double-Digit Pay Increases

US Capitol

by Rachel Greszler   President Donald Trump issued an executive order effectively freezing federal pay for 2019 at current 2018 levels. Had the president not issued this executive order (and lacking congressional action on federal pay), federal workers would have received a 2.1 percent across-the-board pay increase, as well as a…

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Dr. Carol M. Swain Commentary: Congress’s Role in Creating America’s Healthcare Crisis

by Dr. Carol M. Swain   In 2017, President-elect Donald Trump sent pharmaceutical stocks into a nosedive by speaking an important truth. Drug companies, he said, are “getting away with murder” with their pricing of lifesaving drugs. True to his word, the president, since his election, has pushed for needed reforms  aimed at…

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Dr. Carol M. Swan Commentary: Congress’s Role in Creating America’s Healthcare Crisis

by Dr. Carol M. Swain   In 2017, President-elect Donald Trump sent pharmaceutical stocks into a nosedive by speaking an important truth. Drug companies, he said, are “getting away with murder” with their pricing of lifesaving drugs. True to his word, the president, since his election, has pushed for needed reforms  aimed at…

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Mark Meadows Says Trump Will Not Budge on Requested Amount for Wall Funding

by Henry Rodgers   Republican North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows said President Donald Trump will not budge on the $5 billion requested for a border wall Wednesday, as the government enters its sixth day of a partial shutdown. Meadows, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, said he does not believe…

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Commentary: Congress’ Dated Energy Regulations Have Outlived Their Purpose

by Robert Romano   At the height of 1970s inflation and in response to the 1973 Arab oil embargo, Congress passed the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) of 1978. The legislation requires electric utilities to purchase energy from small renewable generators. It has also outlived its usefulness. Since that…

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Commentary: Our Globalist Congress Cares More About Securing Syria Than Securing Our Own Southern Border

by Robert Romano   Congress apparently cares more about securing Syria than securing the U.S. southern border by building the wall. That’s about all that can be taken away from some of the Congressional outcry against President Donald Trump who has announced the U.S. will be withdrawing troops from Syria…

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ACLU Defends Chelsea Manning But Silent About FBI Raid Against Reported Clinton Whistleblower

by Richard Pollock   The American Civil Liberties Union and other left-wing civil liberties groups defend Chelsea Manning and other whistleblowers, but have remained silent about an FBI raid on a reportedly protected whistleblower. The Daily Caller News Foundation sought comment from a variety of organizations and advocates that defend…

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Congress Considered to Have Lowest Ethics of All Professions

by Evie Fordham   Members of Congress are considered the least honest and ethical of professions including telemarketers and car salespeople, according to a Gallup survey released Thursday. Fifty-eight percent of people said they had low or very low faith in the honesty and ethics of members of Congress, according…

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Trump Admin Works Around Congress to Raise Work Requirements on Food Stamps

by Tim Pearce   The Trump administration is proposing to limit states’ ability to exempt welfare recipients of abiding by the work requirements in the U.S. food stamp program, the Department of Agriculture announced Thursday. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue is pushing the reform to cut down on abuse within the…

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Jason Lewis’ Juvenile Justice Reform Bill Signed Into Law

Rep. Jason Lewis’ (R-MN-02) Juvenile Justice Reform Act (JJRA) was signed into law Friday by President Donald Trump as part of Congress’ sweeping criminal justice reform measures. According to Lewis, the JJRA hadn’t been “reauthorized or modernized since 2002.” Lewis’ reforms respond to the need for alternatives to detaining juveniles…

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Commentary: Art of the Veto: How Trump Can Force a Vote on the Wall

by Robert Romano   [Click here to urge Congress to build the wall!] There won’t be any vote on wall funding this year or any year at the rate we’re going — because nobody in Congressional leadership is apparently willing to stick it in a bill and simply vote on…

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House Freedom Caucus Opposes Short-Term Spending Bill Over Border Wall

by Henry Rodgers   North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows and House Freedom Caucus members will vote “no” on a short-term funding bill that would fund the government until Feb. 8, as funding is set to expire Friday, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned. “The time to stand up…

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James Comey ‘Thinks the Rules Don’t Apply to Him’, says Jim Jordan

by Nick Givas   GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio said former FBI Director James Comey “thinks the rules don’t apply to him,” on “Fox & Friends” Monday. Comey will reappear before Congress Monday to face questions about his handling of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email scandal and…

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Indiana AG Says Obamacare Ruling Gives Congress Another Shot at Fixing Healthcare

by Nick Givas   Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill said Friday’s Obamacare ruling from a federal judge in Texas gives Congress another shot at fixing America’s healthcare system. “The Individual Mandate can no longer be fairly read as an exercise of Congress’s Tax Power and is still impermissible under the…

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MN Gov.-Elect Tim Walz Has Missed 80 Percent of House Votes Since August Primary

Gov.-elect Tim Walz (D-MN), still a U.S. congressman until January, has missed 45 votes on the House floor since winning August’s Democratic gubernatorial primary in Minnesota. Between the days of September 4 and December 13, the U.S. House of Representatives has voted on 56 different measures, but Walz has been…

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