Free Republic

An anonymous ally of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) told CBS News that the House Ways and Means chair is warming up to the idea of running for House speaker, but will not engage in any "horse trading" with the conservative hardliners who so far have roiled GOP leadership in recent months. According to the report, Ryan will only run if he can gain the support of his caucus on his conservative record alone, which has been questioned by some on the hard right. CBS News' source said Ryan would consider meeting with the hardliners -- oft associated with the House...

Sen. Ted Cruz continued to slam congressional leadership Sunday, equating Republicans in charge to Democrats. "The truth of the matter is Republican leadership are the most effective Democrat leaders we've ever seen. They've passed more Democratic priorities than Harry Reid ever could," Cruz said of the Senate minority leader on NBC's "Meet the Press." Cruz has ramped up his attacks on Republican leadership in recent weeks, trying to set himself apart from the rest of the Republican presidential field by painting himself as the only candidate who has stood up to the current political establishment. The Republican from Texas paints...

Former Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn slammed what he called "the Cruz effect" — saying Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz's rhetoric and the Texas senator's inability to follow through on his promises have caused great disenchantment among Americans toward Congress. "I call it 'the Cruz effect,'" Coburn, a Republican who retired last year after 20 years in the Senate, told Sirius XM host Pete Dominick on Thursday. The interview was reported by BuzzFeed News. "When you tell people you can accomplish something that you can't — for example, shutting down the government over the Affordable Care Act," Coburn said. "When, in...

Roughly half of Republicans think Congress is seriously interested in finding out the truth about the Benghazi attacks, according to a recent Economist Group/YouGov Poll. Only 49 percent of GOP respondents agreed that the 17-month investigation into events surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012 assault on the U.S. diplomatic consulate in Libya represents a “mostly serious attempt to find out what really happened.” The poll, conducted Oct. 8-12, surveyed 2,000 Americans on whether the Benghazi probe is politically motivated, in the wake of sniping about House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s rhetorical flap. House Select Committee on Benghazi Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.,...

What the heck is going on? First of all, Huma Abedin was allowed to testify behind closed doors. That should not have been sanctioned. She should have had to testify in public. The FBI is stone walling the case and not aggressively going after Hillary Clinton and her lieutenants like Huma Abedin. Now, Trey Gowdy doesn’t even show at her hearing and says there is no particular reason for it. This morning I heard that Clinton warned the GOP to lay off Abedin and now this. Abedin should have been raw meat for a prosecutor like Gowdy. This makes no...

Paul Ryan is still reluctantly mulling a bid for speaker. But his adversaries on the far right want to discredit his campaign before it even begins — and they’re using Ryan’s extensive pro-immigration record as their key weapon. From his days battling a restrictive California immigration ballot measure in the early 1990s, to his quiet efforts the past two years to help build GOP consensus for immigration reform, Ryan has a lengthy history of pushing for an overhaul that runs counter to the most conservative wings of his own party. There will be a “major intraparty battle over immigration if...

[1]Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson urged Congress to pass legislation guaranteeing “religious rights” for all Americans in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision on gay marriage.Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, said the court “essentially” changed the definition of marriage, which has worked well for “thousands of years.”“The legislative branch, however, I would have thought would have been already prepared with legislation in case the Supreme Court came down with that decision, to make sure we preserve the rights, the religious rights of everybody. Not everybody agrees with their new definition of marriage, and it’s a conviction and a...

With unacceptable candidates Kevin McCarthy and Paul Ryan now smushed-up in our wheelwell, America's resurgent right rolls-on, retaining effective veto power over the Republican Party's choice of new leader in the US House as we all now contemplate wiser, far more palatable candidates. Darrell Issa always gave me high hopes with all his investigations- inquiries which never seem to result in nailing the bad guys to the wall. Isn't that a microcosm of today's weak-kneed Gee-Oh-Pee establishment? Lot of noise, but no effective challenge whatsoever? Alas, we need a dragon-slayer in the Speaker's seat, and Rep. Issa seems to lack the charisma and ability to punch-it-into-the-enzone...

Donald Trump said President Obama usually gets what he wants because so many Republicans in Congress are on his side. "Here's the problem," the presidential contender said on CBS on Sunday. "You cannot win when you have a group of 25 or 30 percent on this side, and you have a group of 70 percent on this side," he said, referencing congressional Republicans. "It's so sad. Because if they were really going to fight, and if they took that 30 percent stance, assuming they wanted to really make changes and do it right, and cut the budget, cut the deficit,...

The worst job in the world, it turns out, isn’t the U.S. presidency but speaker of the House of Representatives. “It’s where you go to die,” as one veteran Hill watcher put it to me. Volunteers? In the wake of Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) sudden withdrawal from his once-certain ascent to the speakership, several others are considering running for the job. McCarthy’s fall wasn’t only owing to his verbal blunder suggesting that the House select committee investigating Benghazi was primarily created to bring down Hillary Clinton. Like Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), he was shafted by the three dozen or...

Los Angeles (AFP) - President Barack Obama said the Republican Party has "gone off the deep end" with its messy failure to elect a new speaker of the House of Representatives. The Republican-controlled House was left in shock and disarray this week when Kevin McCarthy, the frontrunner to replace John Boehner, who has announced his resignation, suddenly withdrew from the race because of a revolt by conservatives. The challenge now is to find a consensus candidate who can soothe wounds and unite a fractious caucus. Obama addressed the drama at an expensive fundraiser at a private home in Los Angeles....

Under mounting pressure, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan emerged as the reluctant would-be savior of the fractious Republican House caucus yesterday, even being urged by 2012 GOP ticket-mate Mitt Romney to run for speaker. “I wouldn’t presume to tell Paul what to do, but I do know that he is a man of ideas who is driven to see them applied for the public good,” Romney said in a statement yesterday. “Every politician tries to convince people that they are that kind of leader; almost none are — Paul is.” Romney’s glowing endorsement of his former running mate came after the...

There’s some strange happenings afoot in Florida this week and the fallout from a pending court case could impact the careers of several Sunshine State legislators, including Daniel Webster. (R – FL 10) Webster is a favorite among the House Freedom Caucus and a rapidly rising star in the conservative ranks, but he may have some bigger fish to fry if the lines of his home district are suddenly redrawn in a way that will place him in the midst of a heavy Democrat majority. We won’t know for sure until it hits the state supreme court, but the...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The political careers of several members of Congress — including a Republican seeking to become the next U.S. House speaker — could come to an abrupt halt under a sweeping overhaul of Florida's electoral map. Florida Circuit Judge Terry Lewis on Friday recommended new boundaries for the state's 27 congressional districts, some of which would make it nearly impossible for U.S. Rep. Dan Webster — one of the hard-line conservatives who pushed John Boehner to resign as speaker and then turned on Boehner's No. 2, Kevin McCarthy — to win re-election from his current central Florida...

Just because you’ve been doing something for decades, that doesn’t mean that you need to keep doing it. Perhaps one of the best examples of this is the roughly forty year old ban we have on crude oil exports, enacted back when the Middle East oil barons decided to kick off an embargo, leading to skyrocketing gas prices and long lines at service stations. Congress seems to slowly be getting the message on this subject, and yesterday the House finally passed a bill to end the ban. (Yahoo News) A bill to repeal the U.S. oil export ban passed...

The current frontrunner for the nomination, who got where he is by demanding that the border be closed to Mexican rapists and that all illegals who are already here be deported, is okay with Luis Gutierrez’s friend running the House? Huh. What makes this doubly weird is that Trump has attacked Ryan in the past for trying to lead on entitlement reform, especially Medicare reform, instead of insisting that Obama do it. Normally I’d chalk it up to a would-be president not wanting to get on the wrong side of a would-be Speaker whom he might have to work...

Over at the GOP establishment's press release reprint service known as The Wall Street Journal, the panic over Kevin McCarthy's sudden withdrawal from the race for the Speaker's gavel is palpable. Decrying a "toxic crack-up inside the Republican conference", the Journal says the real issues in Washington are the fault of the "Refuseniks" (the party's conservative base and its representatives, albeit a better epithet than "hobbits"). According to the WSJ rocket scientists, conservatives blame the GOPe "for all the country’s problems, not President Obama." That kind of sheer unvarnished idiocy is not unexpected from the GOP, which now seeks to...

Today 42 House Republicans betrayed the American people and added their names to a discharge petition to revive the now-defunct Export-Import Bank.

Rush Limbaugh on Renee Ellmers/McCarthy rumor: “This is years old stuff ... I just totally stay away from it” Well, amid those rumors, there is now some inside-the-Beltway chatter indicating resignations are imminent.

Let’s look at the Kevin thing realistically. So the guy balked. Walter Jones (R-NC) sent around a generic letter to a select few influential House voters saying in effect, “Watch It, Guys.” “Generic” meaning he, a seasoned politico, knew to use common nouns, not Proper nouns in grammar speak, to avoid letting the masses in on a secret that allegedly the insiders have known for months. Gasp, here, take a deep breath. Those of you on oxygen, are your tanks engaged? Walter Jones was channeling the Robert Livingston extra marital affair; the Newt Gringrich extra-curricular activities that now are his...