Free Republic

Orrin G. Hatch, the longest-serving Senate Republican, will announce that he will retire at the end of the year, clearing a path for Mitt Romney to run....

1. How Will The Kremlin Handle Navalny's 'Campaign'? As expected, Aleksei Navalny won't be allowed on the ballot for next year's presidential election.And, as expected, Navalny plans to go on campaigning anyway -- just as if he were on the ballot. Navalny clearly isn't going away anytime soon. And with his charisma, his command of social media, and a loyal following ready to take to the streets, Navalny has an ability -- unique in Russia's opposition -- to spoil, if not steal, the show."Navalny is posing a challenge and a double question to the Kremlin: 'What will you do with...

Mitt Romney: Your country needs you. The 2012 Republican presidential nominee has been reluctant to announce a primary challenge to Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the longest-serving Republican senator in history. But America needs Romney to step up, to restore dignity to the Senate -- and to save the country from the embarrassment Hatch has become. Hatch, long the picture of conservative rectitude, was once a conscientious legislator, even partnering with Ted Kennedy when he thought poor kids were getting a raw deal. But Hatch, the Senate president pro tempore, has undergone a grotesque transformation this year, his 84th...

As his first term in the U.S. Senate comes to a close, Cruz is already gearing up for the next big election.

"As I listened to the end of the year "analysts," I was struck by how little they know, how little they have questioned their own mistakes, and how mutually reinforcing their false information has been."

The Los Angeles Times posted an article yesterday suggesting that Donald Trump's presidency and the future of the Republican Party is in danger...because of white college graduates. Their argument? This demographic, who once supported Trump, has had enough of the President's 'shenanigans.' Republican hopes for keeping control of the U.S. Senate next year will hinge on affluent, mainly white suburbs like Summerlin, Nev., where Trump’s unpopularity is weighing on GOP Sen. Dean Heller in his run for reelection. It’s an open question whether the Republican Party — encumbered by Trump’s often racially charged cultural appeals to blue-collar voters — has...

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that a privacy group lacks the legal standing to sue President Trump’s voter fraud commission over its collection of voter roll data. The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the lawsuit from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which sought to block the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity from collecting voter roll information from states, including birth dates, addresses, political affiliations and partial Social Security numbers.

Just before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 passed last week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told us what she thought of the bill in the proverbial "no uncertain terms." In this holy time, the moral obscenity and unrepentant greed of the GOP tax scam stands out even more clearly... This GOP tax scam is simply theft, monumental, brazen theft from the American middle class and from every person who aspires to reach it. The GOP tax scam is not a vote for an investment in growth or jobs. It is a vote to install a permanent plutocracy...

I ask this question on occasion, but wanted to hash this out again regarding the schizoid voting trends in some states which elect Presidents of one party, but then elect senators and/or governors of the other party. I cannot wrap my mind around this disparity. And it's not even close on the margins. Montana is one of them, electing Trump, but also electing leftists like Testor and a Democrat Governor. What am I missing?

This will be a weekly post. Count remains at 19 judges confirmed. Trump this week nominated 10 more judges, one for the 10th Circuit, and nine for lower court judges. The Senate will not be in session next week. The House does not reconvene until 1/8/18, so the Senate may follow suit, or may begin the 2nd session of this Congress right after the new year.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has lost over 700 employees during the Trump administration, including scientists, specialists, and department directors, according to a report from The New York Times and ProPublica. Over 200 scientists, 96 environmental specialists, as well as nine department directors, have left the agency, according to the report. The majority of the employees will not be replaced.

ABC, NBC, and CBS refuse to cover him. Left-leaning sources report on him with no integrity. PR tactics get employed at the hearing. And the DOJ spokesperson lashes out. The testimony of Christopher Coates before the United States Civil Rights Commission exposed a pervasive hostility to equal enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, as well as racialist policies at the Justice Department. He also exposed the intellectual bankruptcy of the defenders of the dismissal of the New Black Panther case. The testimony was covered by CNN and the Los Angeles Times, and was on the front page, above the fold,...

President Donald Trump nominated a new slate of judges Wednesday, including several more seasoned jurists than the controversial nominees that the administration has had to withdraw in recent weeks. The nominations reflect a determination by the White House to push forward with its goal of reshaping the judiciary, undeterred by criticism that the nomination process should slow down so the Senate can give closer scrutiny of nominees. Already, the Senate has broken records by confirming 12 appeals court judges in Trump's first year.

Donald Trump is president. Mitt Romney isn't. And the individual mandate is now toast! Gloria in excelsis Deo!

Conservative news sources were shaken up for a few days this summer when several outlets picked up Rolling Stone Magazine’s story on Tim Gill, “Meet the Megadonor Behind the LGBTQ Rights Movement.” The greatest concern was with Gill’s pledge to “punish the wicked” by passing laws in swing and Southern states that criminalize people who believe we are created male and female and that marriage is the union of man and woman. Yet after a brief period of fixation on this quote, the story has retreated into news cycle history. And so, since the circus surrounding Alabama’s Senate race is...

Former president working with Eric Holder to focus on redistricting efforts A group backed by former President Barack Obama participated at a D.C. gathering of deep-pocketed progressive donors strategizing to "restore progressive government" and to ensure fair redistricting in upcoming years. The gathering, hosted by the dark money Democracy Alliance network, is part of the network's spring investment conference and national donor summit held in D.C to plot resistance against President Trump and Republicans. The summit consists of numerous panels and discussions with key Democratic groups and players. Kelly Ward, the executive director of the Obama-linked National Democratic Redistricting Committee...

A bipartisan group of senators are introducing a bill early next week to improve and streamline information about cyber threats between state and federal entities, in the wake of Russia's believed interference during the 2016 election, according to a top aide to one of the senators involved. The bill, spearheaded by Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, and also sponsored by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, is intended to better the communication between the Department of Homeland Security, the intelligence community and state election offices, in efforts to thwart future interference in U.S. elections...

This will be a weekly post. Count is 19 out of 62 confirmed. 12 appeals court nominees confirmed in Trump's first year, a record!! Meanwhile, Judiciary had hearings, one very good nominee, and one total legal dope. And two lower court nominees withdrew their nominations.

Soon he'll be talking like Catherine Hepburn too!

For less than a half-million dollars, Russian President Vladimir Putin got what he most wanted out of the Kremlin's campaign to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election: a destabilized American democracy and Hillary Clinton out of his hair, U.S. officials say. The Kremlin views its influence campaign, which it called an "active measures" operation, as a remarkable return on investment, U.S. officials briefed on post-election intelligence told The Washington Post. Not only did it shake up Americans' faith in their democratic process, but the operation also achieved Putin's primary goal of stymying Clinton's White House aspirations, one official told the...