Free Republic

Author and Pennsylvania Senate candidate Kathy Barnette discusses her background, the African-American vote and the state of Democrat-occupied communities.

At just 44 years old, T.W. Shannon is mounting his second bid for the Senate. For the second time, the Oklahoma Republican is running in a special election to fill the remainder of a six-year term being vacated prematurely by a GOP incumbent. This time, it's Sen. James Inhofe, 87, who was first elected in 1994 and is resigning from Congress at year’s end. So, what dragged Shannon, now chief executive officer of a community bank in Oklahoma City, out of political retirement since his first (and unsuccessful) campaign for Senate eight years ago? ... “My story is unique, and...

The race for retiring Senator Jim Inhofe’s coveted seat added another Republican competitor on Thursday, with former Speaker of the Oklahoma House T.W. Shannon announcing his candidacy.

Herschel Walker, 59 — the Heisman Trophy winner and Georgia college football legend — tweeted a cryptic video last week suggesting he might enter the Republican primary for a chance to run next year against Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), the New York Times reports. The big picture: Former President Trump said in a March 10 statement: "Wouldn’t it be fantastic if the legendary Herschel Walker ran for the United States Senate in Georgia? ... Run Herschel, run!"

As Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Al Jazeera continue to haunt his Senate campaign, a fact-checker claimed that an ad from an outside GOP group highlighting those ties is “misleading.” The ad points to Ossoff’s business ties to both PCCW, a media company partially owned by the CCP, and Al Jazeera, which has been deemed a “mouthpiece for terrorists.” Ossoff’s business dealings with Al Jazeera also caused trouble for his 2017 congressional bid. The ad also points out Ossoff’s initial failure to disclose these ties in his filings with the Federal Election Commission...

As Democrat Amy McGrath was laying the groundwork for her Senate bid, she attended a dinner hosted by the Kentucky chapter of a radical anti-Israel organization that has been tied to funding of global terror networks. The Kentucky chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, known best as CAIR, posted multiple pictures of McGrath in attendance at its annual dinner on May 11, 2019. She is currently featured in the main photo of the group's Facebook page. McGrath launched her long-shot bid to unseat Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell in early July. Her first filing shows, however, that the campaign...

The battle for the Senate is running down to the wire. While Democrats hold a narrow edge heading into the final week of the election campaign, races in battleground states remain too close to call. Democrats need to pick up five seats — or four if they retain the White House — to win back control of the upper chamber. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report predicts that they’ll pick up as many as seven seats — though that was before the FBI announced Friday that it was looking into newly recovered emails from former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner’s account...

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes slightly ratcheted up her rhetoric Friday about the allegations of sexual harassment against a sitting Democratic state legislator but still declined to say whether the lawmaker should resign. ... Her comment comes as House Democratic Speaker Greg Stumbo, an ally of Grimes, announced that the five-legislator panel he convened to conduct an internal investigation into Arnold’s conduct will have its first meeting Sept. 17. That panel is charged for reviewing the allegations brought by two Democratic House staff members that Arnold inappropriately touched them and made sexual comments to them. ... Grimes has...

Original headline: Alison Lundergan Grimes… or Grinch? Kentucky Senate candidate blames donut burger for soaring health care costs Grimes, a Democrat vying to replace Mitch McConnell, blamed an indulgent American diet in her explanation for why Kentuckians need Obamacare. Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes was a buzz kill this week at the Kentucky State Fair. The 34-year-old Democrat blamed the best of American cuisine for rising health care costs, speaking to the press at the "Grannies for Grimes" event in Louisville. "You just have to look over to the right where you see the donut burger, the chili cheese-steak and...

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes on Thursday said in her first encounter with reporters in 17 days that she found “many things that are wrong” with the Affordable Care Act but blasted Republicans for their approach to the law. The U.S. House voted Thursday for the 38th time to repeal the Affordable Care Act. And Grimes said rather than wasting time and taxpayer money for one chamber to keep trying to repeal it, Congress should be focusing on ways to improve the health care system. Grimes said as secretary of state she has concerns about “the effects on...

The Republican party is full of rebranding efforts these days. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has his. And the NRSC is working on appealing to the young and hip with their Buzzfeed-style website. Now there’s Sen. Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, whose campaign is out with a new web video that splices inspirational lines from McConnell speeches and argues that the GOP is the party of opportunity for minorities and immigrants. But the video also has a decidedly Tea Party feel at times. It has gotten more than a million views in a day.

A new ad from the liberal group Americans United for Change links the views of Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell to those of al-Qaeda senior operative Adam Gadhan. The ad attacks McConnell for his opposition to expanding criminal background checks on gun purchases and contends that Gadhan agrees. It goes on to play a clip of the al-Qaeda operative, reportedly used in a recruitment video for the terrorist organization, encouraging Americans to go out and purchase weapons. “You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without...

Former President Bill Clinton has spoken to both Ashley Judd and Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes about the U.S. Senate race in Kentucky, encouraging them both to take a hard look at the race. ABC News has learned that Clinton encouraged Judd to enter the race and promised he would help her, according to several Kentucky political sources. That conversation happened sometime between the November election and President Barack Obama's second inauguration. Earlier this month Clinton met with Grimes, who is also weighing a bid, after he spoke at an event for former Kentucky Sen. Wendell Ford in...

She’s not even a candidate yet. But the GOP opposition research machine is already in full froth over what it views as perhaps the juiciest 2014 target: Ashley Judd, who is exploring a challenge to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Republicans are homing in with glee on the actress and activist, picking apart her views and statements and compiling a thick compendium of speeches, writings and tweets. What they found: Judd may not have a legislative record, but she has left quite a paper trail. This early opposition research effort seems as much about scaring Democrats nationally about a...

Gov. Steve Beshear said Tuesday he has now talked with actress Ashley Judd about how “seriously” she’s considering running for U.S. Senate in 2014 against Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell. While Beshear would not go into detail on the conversation, he did say that he is convinced that Judd is “seriously considering a race for United States Senate in the Democratic primary.” Beshear told reporters Tuesday at a bill signing that he thinks Judd could be an “effective and formidable opponent” against McConnell in a general election. Beshear has a good idea of what that takes having lost by double-digit...

LOUISVILLE, Ky (WHAS11) -- After two decades in front of the camera as an actress and more recently as an activist, Ashley Judd has been unguarded in her comments -- a candor which might cause complications if she runs for U.S. Senate from Kentucky. As Judd inches closer to a decision, her outspoken nature is yielding decades of pointed and controversial comments which Kentucky Democratic strategists concede are a gold mine for the campaign of potential opponent, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R). Judd's essays and speeches are easily accessible on her website. In one, she criticized the tradition of a...

While some Kentucky Democrats have been skeptical of a potential Ashley Judd candidacy for U.S. Senate, House Speaker Greg Stumbo is no longer among them, saying Thursday he would encourage her to run. “When I talk to her I’m going to encourage her as I would any other candidate that this is a winnable race,” he said. Stumbo went on to blast Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, calling him “Dr. Doom” and “the father of gridlock.” Stumbo and Judd have traded phone messages in recent days. He said she left him another message on his work phone last night. Stumob...

Planned Parenthood is airing a new TV ad attacking Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The Kentucky Republican joined a brief with 10 other GOP lawmakers this week supporting the craft chain Hobby Lobby in its lawsuit seeking to avoid mandatory health coverage of birth control pills in its employee health plans. Utah GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch led the group of senators in their effort, The Washington Times reported. Planned Parenthood, displeased with that development, today unveiled this TV ad running on network affiliates in the Lexington and Louisville markets: The group did not say how much it is spending to...

A liberal group is again challenging U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s position on gun control in a commercial that began running Monday in Kentucky and Washington in advance of the Senate’s next hearing on guns. The group Progressive Change Campaign Committee is spending $100,000 to run the ad for at least a week. It began airing Monday in Louisville, Lexington, Bowling Green and Paducah markets plus Washington, D.C., as the Senate’s Judiciary Committee prepares for a hearing Wednesday on the “Assault Weapons Ban of 2013.” It features Edmonson County resident Gary Nutt telling viewers that, as a hunter, he doesn’t see...

Liberals may often accuse conservatives of being racist for making particular criticisms of Obama, but at least one liberal group appears to be more than willing to delve into actual racism when it comes to opposing a prominent Republican. The hitch? They’re not attacking the politician himself in this case. They’re attacking his wife. The politician in question is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who happens to be married to former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao. Chao, who is ethnically Chinese, but was born in Thaiwan, has been a fairly quiet figure relative to McConnell and hasn’t been known...