Free Republic

Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid joined a growing list of Democrats voicing regrets about various aspects of Obamacare when he said his party underestimated the damage done by the disastrous rollout of the healthcare exchanges. […] “We never recovered from the Obamacare rollout. I’m not going to beat up on Obama. The rollout didn’t go well. We never recovered from that,” conceded Reid, who insisted that he has no regrets about moving the Affordable Care Act (ACA) ahead of other issues. …

What lessons has Harry Reid learned from not one but two midterm wave elections that crushed his party and (finally) booted him into the Senate minority? Not much, it seems. Reid tells Jeremy Peters in a New York Times profile that the American people agree with Democrats on the issues, despite what the polls and two elections have made very clear to practically everyone else. If it hadn’t been for those darned kids at HHS, Reid would have gotten away with another election cycle, dagnabbit (via TWS): Mr. Reid’s remarks, which he made in an interview from his suite just...

Senate Democrats are "likely" to give anti-gun Surgeon General nominee Vivek Murthy a confirmation vote before they lose control of the Senate at year's end. This gives departing Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) an opportunity to poke midterm voters in the eye for supporting pro-gun GOP candidates over Democrats. According to Politico, a senior Democrat aide says Murthy "is likely to get a vote before Democrats hand control of the chamber to Republicans in January." In one way, he has his best chance for confirmation now because Democrat rule changes allowing confirmation by a simple majority are still in place....

The White House worked closely with liberal House Democrats last week to torpedo a tax deal that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-­Nev.) was negotiating with Republicans. The unusual move to kill a Reid­-backed proposal has raised suspicions among Senate negotiators about the White House’s motivations. They believe President Obama’s team is eyeing a broad corporate tax reform deal in 2015, when Republicans will control the Senate and the House. “It might indicate less about the merits of the package and more about the White House using progressives to kill a deal now in order to pave the way for...

Among Democrats, fighting is breaking out all over. The Senate’s third-ranking Democrat, Chuck Schumer (D-NY), is hurling criticisms toward the White House over Barack Obama’s handling of the recession and his myopic and politically ruinous obsession with reforming the nation’s health care system amid that economic downturn.In response, the White House took what Reuters called the “unusual step” of publicly pledging to veto an overdue plan to reform the nation’s tax code which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has been in the process of negotiating with House Republicans. When Obama announced his intention to extend legal status to...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Mormon, says he's an unabashed fan of Roman Catholic Pope Francis. "We sure do like this new pope," Reid gushed to the The New York Times. The veteran Democrat acknowledges that he can profess his admiration even though he's "had dealings" with Cardinal Raymond Burke, a powerful Roman Catholic leader who's been demoted twice from key positions by the pope.

Democrats hope to take back control of the Senate in 2016, but their plans could be complicated by potential retirements. The two Democratic senators most likely to retire are Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who represent both sides of the party’s ideological spectrum. Boxer, whose fourth term expires at the end of 2016, has a paltry $149,000 in her campaign account, less than almost every other senator facing election next year. As the nation’s most populous state, California is expensive to cover with advertising. If Boxer decides to run for reelection, she would face a major fundraising...

Treasury Department investigators completed but never released a 2011 law enforcement probe of White House economic advisor Austan Goolsbee, The Washington Examiner has learned. The investigation by the Treasury Department Inspector-General for Tax Administration was sparked by Goolsbee's remarks during an Aug. 27, 2010, White House news briefing in which he appeared to possess confidential tax information on Koch Industries, the private conglomerate controlled by the Koch brothers, Charles and David. "So in this country we have partnerships, we have S corps, we have LLCs, we have a series of entities that do not pay corporate income tax. Some of...

On a recent afternoon in the Senate majority leader’s office, Harry Reid decided he was done talking about his chief of staff, David Krone. Instead, he and his top aide wanted to chat about the Vatican. “We sure do like this new pope,” Mr. Reid said of Pope Francis. After a brief discussion about the pope’s opponents in the Catholic hierarchy, Mr. Reid, a Mormon from Searchlight, Nev., brought up the name of perhaps the pontiff’s most vocal critic, the American cardinal Raymond L. Burke, a once enormously powerful prelate who has lost key Vatican positions under Francis. “How about...

Our Number 1 Goal: Retire Harry Reid For Good In 2014, we were successful in firing Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader. We had historic gains in picking up 8 seats in the U.S. Senate, but we still have a lot more work to do. In 2016, Harry Reid is up for reelection and it's time that WE THE PEOPLE stand up and retire him from the Senate for good! Harry Reid embodies everything that is wrong with Washington, D.C. He has long forgotten about his oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, and has made clear that he will...

President Obama's executive actions on immigration threw gasoline on the fire of border politics — and nowhere is it burning hotter than in Nevada, where incoming Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is gearing up for a tough reelection. Obama chose the Silver State, which has proportionately more illegal immigrants than anywhere else in the country, to begin a tour aimed at winning support for his decision to stop deportations for as many as 5 million people. His first shout-out in a Friday speech at a heavily Hispanic Las Vegas high school went to Reid, who has been emphasizing his...

President Obama called Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, to broach a particularly delicate subject. It was during last year’s government shutdown and standoff with Republicans, but Mr. Obama’s frustration focused on one of their own. The president said he suspected David Krone, Mr. Reid’s intensely loyal and influential top aide, of leaking to the news media, and requested that he stay away from future meetings. It did not take much time for the president’s comments to reach Mr. Reid’s right-hand man. To Mr. Obama’s surprise, Mr. Krone was listening in on the call. Suddenly, the aide piped up and...

Washington — When President Barack Obama stands on the stage at a Las Vegas high school today and rallies support for his immigration policies, Sen. Harry Reid will be right by the president's side. And he wants to make sure you know it. This past week, Nevada's senior senator has hosted press conferences, given speeches and blasted emails and tweets about his support for the president's action to delay deportations and prosecution for millions of immigrants in the country illegally. "It's not about Democrats versus Republicans, or Republicans versus the president," Reid said Thursday. "It's about real families who are...

A major Democratic donor was arrested this week by the Sex Crimes Unit in Portland, Ore., for raping a minor. Terrence Bean, a liberal activist who bundled more than $500,000 for Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, is charged with having sex with a 15-year-old boy. Bean has made contributions to influential Democrats such as Hillary Clinton, outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin and Rep. Barney Frank, who has had his own smarmy brushes with the law. Bean’s Instagram account shows him on Air Force One with President Obama and getting chummy with Vice President Joe...

Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) argues that despite the fact that President Obama’s executive amnesty will not have the force of law, it would be very difficult for another president to rescind. “This is something that is fair and the right thing to do,” Reid said on Thursday. “They have the opportunity at some later time, some president to say, ‘I want this all changed.’ I wish that person luck to try to tell these millions of people and their families -- who many at that time will have many, many more United States citizens -- are going...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) President Obama has invited senior lawmakers to the White House for dinner Wednesday night so that he can explain his plans to use executive authority to change the nation’s immigration laws, according to several congressional aides. Obama has invited Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the leaders of the congressional Asian, Black and Hispanic caucuses....

The White House is exasperated with the major broadcast networks – ABC, CBS and NBC -- for skipping out on President Barack Obama’s Thursday primetime address on his executive actions on immigration. “In 2006, Bush gave a 17 minute speech that was televised by all three networks that was about deploying 6000 national guard troops to the border. Obama is making a 10 minute speech that will have a vastly greater impact on the issue. And none of the networks are doing it. We can’t believe they were aggrieved that we announced this on Facebook,” a senior administration official told...

According to a report in POLITICO, President Obama is expected to make good on his executive amnesty threat on Friday during an event in Las Vegas, despite saying repeatedly over the years that he does not have the authority to change immigration laws from the Oval Office. House Speaker John Boehner, who warned the President shortly after the 2014 midterm elections that acting alone on immigration would "poison the well," has taken notice of Obama's past statements. After some research, his office found President Obama directly claimed 22 times he couldn't take executive action on immigration because he doesn't have the...

President Barack Obama will finally be making public tomorrow night what his plan is to overhaul immigration. However, while his primetime speech will postpone part of the 15th annual Latin Grammys, it will not be covered by most of the Big 4 – if any of them. The administration announced today that POTUS will be speaking live from the White House at 8 PM ET on Thursday. ABC has the fall finale for Grey’s Anatomy on at that time while CBS has ratings powerhouse The Big Bang Theory, NBC has reality show The Biggest Loser and Fox has Bones. As...

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