Of course it passed.
As I have been warning for 3 years here, the GOP are no better than the Dems. They follow the path they have followed for generations: increasing power to themselves in government and stealing it from the people.
Lucky people! We get all the immigrants that the muslim in chief wants us to have.
Welcome! Bomb strapped to your chest? No problem!

This is what you should expect from anyone in the statist party, even when they claim to have been "influenced" by Ayn Rand's work.
GOP. Nothing but lying looters.

One can hope, but don't hold your breath.

I heard Paul Ryan say that he is off to a good start as Speaker. I hope no one saw me laughing out loud while driving down the road. Ryan, as well as most elected officials are so out of touch with reality, I don't know if I should laugh or cry.

The video of Sen. Sessions objecting is almost all on immigration, including a big emphasis on his protectionist opposition to legal foreign workers.

Where is his concern for the rest? There is a lot in the omnibus bill that is objectionable besides funding Obama's illegal immigration policies and subsidizing illegal immigrants with "tax credits".

One big item almost no one is mentioning is extending the controversial anti-private property rights Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) first authorized in 1965 in Lyndon's Johnson "Great Society" and which expired a few months ago. It was last re-authorized in 1990 and the latest re-authorization had been held up.

Federal and state land is now about 40% of the land in the country and LWCF is used to fund eminent domain for expansion of the National Park Service and other Federal and state land agencies. The viro lobby has been pushing to make LWCF permanent, with no future authorizations required, as a step towards its agenda to turn it into an entitlement for government land acquisition of at least $1 billion per year. The viros want to bypass the annual Congressional appropriations process with a permanent entitlement in perpetuity, with no protection against eminent domain. Republicans in the House have been attempting to turn it into a primarily state subsidy and funding for maintenance while continuing annual appropriations, which would at least weaken it, even though the states have used it to fund eminent domain, too.

As usual, "deals were made" and LWCF was extended in another "compromise" for four years with funding appropriated for the next year, including Federal acquisition by the National Park Service. The seizing of private property trapped in Federal areas was cynically described in hearings last summer as "in fill" to remove inholders and "edge fill' for expansions.

These omnibus bills, usually lame duck at the end of the session, are always dangerous and are not restricted to funding. There are often attempts to slip through controversial new land acquisition programs that could not be passed in the regular session. A huge omnibus bill containing all kinds of controversial pressure group bills that could not previously pass on their own are lumped together so that each Congressman has an incentive to vote for it for his own political purposes without regard to the rest. Some are not coming back and have no accountability to voters at all. A lot of innocent Americans have been shafted by this process.

Yesterday on the radio Rush said Obama called Paul Ryan to state: "Thanks for making government work."
I keep wondering what RINO Ryan said when he puckered up to respond.

In my present state of disability, the worse I could do is beat the crap out of a pillow. As Sessions spoke, I found it difficult to control my anger. I thought that I couldn't possibly get more upset than with the Yale students petitioning against the 1st Amendment. To my surprise, I found that I could.I knew in the back of my mind that we had a one party system, but up until now, I refused to admit it to myself. Well, I cannot deny it any longer. It is even worse than the shameless one party systems found under totalitarian regimes in that it pretends to give you a choice. I guess I'm moving to the "dark side" because that's the only side left. It's hell to get old, because I can remember when this country hadn't fallen over the cliff into the abyss of totalitarianism.

Following the Goldwater loss in 1964 and the takeover of the Dems in 1968 by the Alinsky radicals, government looting became a full time profession. The Republicans had no answer to the Dems promise of free stuff for votes before a population not interested in ethics, history or morality, so they compromised. The cancer will only be cured when the patient is dead.

I watched the entire 9.12 minutes of the talk and was waiting to see if the camera would pan the chamber so we could see the number of other representative (?) sitting and listening. What I suspect is that there might have been 10 if that many. The only thing he accomplished was to get his say. And as we have seen it was passed so all could go home for the holidays. If we were to be lucky maybe they will not return.

It will not fail.

Republicans will not regain their party until enough of them stop looking for handouts, man-up and just support the success of a free market.

I don't get the tax breaks for states without local sales tax. So what? Seems to me all the states without sales tax are the least socialist. Is the implication that these states unfairly benefit from putting their tax burden on property tax receiving a break in federal taxes?