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Sen. Lamar Alexander‘s polling shows him with a 30-percentage point lead over tea-party challenger Joe Carr in Tennessee’s Republican Senate primary, according to a polling memo prepared for the two-term incumbent’s campaign. The poll, conducted by Republican pollster Whit Ayres from July 20-22 ahead of the state’s Aug. 7 primary, found Mr. Alexander leading Mr. Carr 53% to 21%. Mr. Ayres wrote that despite attacks against Mr. Alexander from Mr. Carr and longshot challenger George Flinn, Mr. Alexander’s stature among Tennessee GOP voters has remained stable. “The fundamentals remain the same,” Mr. Ayres wrote in a memo for the campaign,...

NASHVILLE — Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander told cheering supporters Monday that he learned as governor he sometimes had to work with Democrats to get things done for Tennessee and has found it necessary sometimes in Washington to do the same. "If I stood up before you today and said I by myself brought in the auto industry, and I by myself paid teachers more for teaching well and built the best road system, I wouldn't be telling you the truth either because I had to work with other people to do it," the two-term senator told some 150 or...

According to news reports, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce plans to support Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) in the Louisiana Senate race. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)This is the same group that said it was going to spend $50 million against conservatives in primaries to elect more Republicans. That was a huge lie. The U.S. Chamber doesn't care about electing Republicans. It just wants more big government politicians who will force taxpayers to pay for their corporate bailouts and corporate welfare programs. THE GOP RESPONSE? ... NOTHING The Chamber's support for Mary Landrieu isn't what's so surprising. It's the lack of any meaningful...

A ballot initiative that would support breaking California into six smaller and more coherent states is being backed by Timothy Draper, a tech investor. It’s a great idea. But why stop with California? Breaking up all of the too-large states would increase both the accountability and efficiency of the U.S. government. America’s state governments are too big to be democratic and too small to be efficient. Given an adequate tax base, public services like public schools and hospitals, utilities and first responders are best carried out by cities and counties. Most infrastructure is either local or regional or national. Civil...

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the 17-foot cross beam salvaged from the wreckage of Twin Towers will remain in the National 9/11 Museum, despite the very best efforts of American Atheists Inc. In “American Atheists v. Port Authority of New Jersey and New York” the group asserted that the artifact's positioning in the museum towered "over any other symbols in the vicinity, expressing Christian primacy." It charged that the Latin cross's dominance violated the First Amendment Establishment Clause and the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. The judges found, however, that the...

Everyone knows how safe the streets of Washington, DC are [where as of 2010 violent crime was three times the national average], and how DC criminals scrupulously respect the District's very restrictive gun-control laws. So of course the last thing you would want is to permit law-abiding citizens to exercise their Constitutional rights to keep and bear arms. Why, that would only lead to the Gunfight at the DC Corral. No, better to keep all the guns in the hands of criminals. Such seems to be Eugene Robinson's logic. On today's Morning Joe, the Washington Post columnist bemoaned a federal...

Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington, D.C.'s non voting delegate to Congress, has a novel definition of the separation of powers. Becoming exasperated at House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa's insistence that a subpoena to David Simas, director of the administration's Office of Political Strategy, should go forward, Holmes Norton dressed down Issa by claiming the Oversight Committee, which oversees the executive branch, didn't have the right to investigate the White House. Washington Examiner: "You don't have a right to know everything in a separation-of-powers government, my friend. That is the difference between a parliamentary government and a separation-of-powers government," Norton...

Boulder County is moving forward with plans to refund $5.6 million in assessments paid by homeowners after officials announced they won't appeal a judge's ruling that the county exceeded its authority in forming a local improvement district to pay for the repaving of roads in rural subdivisions. ...

A federal judge's ruling barring enforcement of a key District of Columbia gun law seems likely to be put on hold, after lawyers for the district asked that the decision be delayed and the plaintiffs in the case signaled they're amenable to a 90-day delay. In a filing Monday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Washington, attorneys for the city said granting the delay will allow the city to preserve public safety while it pursues an appeal and considers possible responses to Saturday's decision by Judge Frederick Scullin, who found unconstitutional the district's ban on possession of handguns by individuals...

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on Monday called on members of the House and Senate to vote down any border supplemental bill that doesn’t include language blocking President Barack Obama from extending an amnesty and work permit program for millions of illegal immigrants. “I’m calling on all members of Congress today to stand up to these lawless actions and sponsor legislate that will block them,” Sessions said on the Senate floor Monday. “I’m calling on all members of Congress today to oppose any border supplemental that does not include such language.”

p>The Legacy Lives On! Mark’s Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation “Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.” --Mark Levin in Liberty and TyrannyWelcome to “The Levin Lounge”… Step in and have a virtual FRink.Taking the country by storm, one radio station at a time – and kicking the BUTTS of the competition! Welcome all, to the most FUN LIVE THREAD on FreeRepublic.com! You can call Mark’s show: 1-877-381-3811

The phone lines are jammed. The American people have risen up in response to a rallying cry from Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), overloading the phone lines on Capitol Hill to pressure their members of Congress to fight against President Obama’s planned executive amnesty for millions of illegal aliens. ~snip~ “This shows the American people are going to resist,” a Sessions aide told Breitbart News. “The crescendo will grow. They are only beginning to be heard. They will get louder in the coming days.” The calls are coming in response to Sen. Sessions, who last week asked...

(CNSNews.com) – At a House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation on Thursday, ranchers from Western states testified that they are routinely threatened and bullied by federal land management officials, including the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife. “I sit before you today to let you know what’s going on up there, and I hope that we can come to some kind of agreement on what needs to be done and move forward on it, because enough is enough when it comes to bullying people that have been on this land for...

Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes' chances of upsetting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's re-election bid may have brightened with the release of new polling data and a pledge from former President Bill Clinton to campaign on her behalf. A July 19 Human Events/Gravis poll of 1,054 registered Kentucky voters found McConnell running even at 45 percent with Grimes. "With only 10 percent of the voters undecided, it is hard to see either candidate breaking out. It really looks like it will be close through to the end with the decision turning on turnout," Doug Kaplan, the president of...

Michelle Nunn — the Democrat running in the very close U.S. Senate contest in Georgia — has a problem on her hands now that an exhaustive campaign plan drafted by aides has leaked in the media. The document, revealed online Monday by the National Review, describes the candidate’s liabilities likely to be exploited by opponents. It also specifically describes the necessity of raising money from Jews, Asians and gays while working to increase turnout of African-Americans and Latinos. Speaking of the Jewish community, the document notes: “There is tremendous financial opportunity.” “Michelle’s position on Israel will largely determine the level...

Eliana Johnson broke news today with the release of a confidential campaign plan from Georgia Democratic Senate candidate Michelle Nunn. The campaign plan details the demographic models, special interest groups, donor targets, and the assumption in the campaign plan that Nunn will have a compliant media. This is what Johnson focused on in much of her post. For me, the real news comes in the second half of Johnson’s post. While the campaign strategy memo stressed the importance of the Jewish community for volunteers and fundraising, with a projected goal of $250,000 from Jewish donors, it also noted that any...

The US Chamber of Commerce has for years viewed the GOP as its personal political party. Sure they supported the now-extinct “Blue Dog Democrats” but when most of them disappeared in the maelstrom of 2010 they were left with GOP candidates and communists. Unfortunately for the Chamber, the GOP caucus has been getting progressively more conservative each year. And not merely conservative but populist. This has caused a tension between the Chamber’s members and conservatives. Many of the Chamber’s larger members and its leadership worship stability as though it were a deity, preferring even double digit deficits reaching as far...

Eleanor Holmes Norton, the non-voting congressional delegate for the District of Columbia, angrily sputtered during a congressional hearing Friday that the White House should not be held up to scrutiny, saying that there was no right to know what it was doing behind closed doors. "You don't have a right to know everything in a separation-of-powers government, my friend. That is the difference between a parliamentary government and a separation-of-powers government," Norton said during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. It was, to put mildly, a significant departure from the more traditional liberal stance that openness and transparency...

Barack Obama famously declared that as a former teacher of Constitutional law, he actually respects the Constitution, unlike his predecessor in the Oval Office. Subsequent events make it fair to wonder exactly how he shows this respect. Some on the Left barely conceal their disdain for the world-changing handiwork of dead white males. Reverence for the Constitution isn’t universal even among its chief custodians. Justice Ruth Ginsburg raised eyebrows when she advised Egyptian civic activists she wouldn’t look to the US Constitution as a model today. She pointed instead to the constitutions of South Africa, Canada, and the European Charter...

Britain’s Farnborough Air Show wrapped up last week after seven ear-splitting days. To impress the excited kids and jaded dealers in attendance, the U.S. sent an F-8, an F-15, and a pair of F-16s. But the much anticipated F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter was a no-show. After a runway fire grounded the fleet earlier this month, the Department of Defense suspended negotiations to purchase the next batch of the planes. The troubled fighter is only the latest in a growing number of cases where the DOD has bought poorly designed and massively overpriced equipment for the nation’s armed forces....