Free Republic

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has hired Rebecca Tallent to work on immigration reform. She is currently the immigration policy director at the Bipartisan Policy Center. "The Speaker remains hopeful that we can enact step-by-step, common-sense immigration reforms -- the kind of reforms the American people understand and support," said Michael Steel, a spokesman for Boehner. "Becky Tallent, a well-known expert in this field of public policy, is a great addition to our team and that effort." According to her BPC bio, Tallent has worked as a policy aide on immigration and energy issues to Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) and...

For over five years, a consistent media claim has been that former Alaska governor Sarah Palin hurt Republican presidential nominee John McCain in 2008 and that he would have fared better with anyone else on the ticket besides her. A recent study by political science professors at Bradley University debunks this claim concluding instead that Palin was a net plus for McCain including with independents and moderates. The first serious study on this matter was conducted by University of Central Florida political science professor Jonathan Knuckey and was published in Political Research Quarterly in April 2011: Using data from the...

The Senate's decision to invoke the "nuclear option" and limit Republican opportunities to use the filibuster had the side-effect of blowing up work on the annual Pentagon policy legislation the body was considering Thursday. Senators debated the defense bill into the evening on Wednesday, but the work came to an abrupt halt Thursday morning when Democrats moved to change the rules of the Senate. The move puts into doubt the fate of the National Defense Authorization Act, the one piece of legislation that has been signed by the president for 51 consecutive years. "This [nuclear option] blew it up," said...

After repeatedly bashing senators like Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) over their crusade to defund Obamacare, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called for the “total repeal” of the Affordable Care Act on Wednesday. It’s a stunning turnaround after the longtime senator in September proclaimed that it was “not rational” to think Obamacare could be defunded or repealed. McCain then laid out his “solution,” which culminated in an admission that he is now calling for “total repeal.”

Tuesday afternoon on The Laura Ingraham Show, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin took a swing at her former running mate, Sen. John McCain, after he likened the tea party movement to hobbits from the Lord of the Rings series. Though host Laura Ingraham referred to McCain’s words as “recent,” they were actually from a House speech in 2011, after that year’s debt ceiling crisis. Republicans who “failed to raise the debt ceiling” could escape all the blame, and “the tea party Hobbits could return to Middle Earth having defeated Mordor,” the senator mocked. “This is the kind of crack political...

Did anybody else watch John McCain today on Greta Van Susteren call for REPEAL of ObamaCare? If someone can get a video link or transcript of McCain's call for REPEAL of ObamaCare, please post here. Here is the observation of this by a commenter on the Gun & Game Website: Just turned on FOX News and Greta Van Sustern and John McCain was on with Greta and the headline said "Senator John McCain calls for total repeal of Obamacare." Was anyone else watching this? Did I read that right? I about fell over backwards when I saw what I thought...

It’s sad that Maverick’s taking this idea just seriously enough that he’d think to mention it to another human being. He’s 77 years old, ran a famously chaotic campaign in 2008 before getting crushed on election day, and would face a much stronger, younger field in the primaries than he did last time. That he forced me just now to devote even half a second of thought to how he might stack up against the 2016 contenders is frankly embarrassing, and something for which I’ll never forgive him. It’s like watching a 60-year-old pitcher announce that he’s thinking of coming...

John McCain voted yea WASHINGTON, D.C., November 7, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – This afternoon the Senate approved a bill that could force business owners who adhere to traditional values to hire homosexuals, bisexuals, and those who do not dress in accordance with their biological sex or face litigation. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) passed following a bipartisan 64-32 vote. Supporters say it would forbid “workplace discrimination” against homosexuals and transgender employees and job-seekers. But critics say, like the HHS mandate, its religious exemption is unduly narrow and would force employers – including Christian schools and nurseries – to violate their consciences....

Nashville, TN – Today, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham introduced the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. The legislation currently has 33 cosponsors – but Senator Alexander is not one of them. Conservative Senate candidate Joe Carr called on Senator Alexander to change his stance and add himself as a co-sponsor. “I’m strongly pro-life and believe it’s imperative the Senate pass this important piece of legislation. When Senator Graham announced his co-sponsors and Senator Alexander’s name was missing, I was disappointed. I am hoping Senator Alexander will change his stance and add himself as a co-sponsor. This legislation is too...

After one of the toughest nights at work I've had in a stone's age I came home to find an email from John McCain in my inbox. How he got my email address I'll never know, probably from some other Republican mailing list I suspect but he couldn't have picked a better morning to send it to me. First read his message and then read the response I sent back to him below it. Trust me; I think you'll agree it's an epic rants.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) gave the clearest indication that proponents of comprehensive immigration reform may make their final--and strongest--push to get legislation passed next year after House Republicans make it through their primaries. “I think conventional wisdom is that time is not on our side,” McCain told reporters on Monday after an event in Chicago. “But there are a number of members of Congress who have primaries and when those primaries are done, they may be more inclined to address the issue of comprehensive immigration reform.” President Barack Obama has urged Congress to pass immigration reform legislation this year. House...

Passing immigration reform is a way for Republicans to get on a positive agenda and regain some of the approval of the American people, Sen. John McCain said Tuesday during a town hall in Tucson. He said the prospects of passing comprehensive immigration reform this year are still strong despite some Republicans saying the government shutdown and the way it was handled by President Obama affected any chance for compromise. But “the same people that said that are the people that oppose immigration reform. They are just trying to find another reason,” McCain said after the town hall meeting attended...

If there is a country Saudi Arabia and Iran despise more than Israel, it’s each other. When it comes to Syria, Iran’s most prominent ally, the prospect of removing Bashar al-Assad has a pavlovian effect on the Saudis. ... Putin beat Barack Obama and John Kerry like a couple of drums. While Obama saw an opportunity to spin a resounding defeat into an opportunity to back down under the guise of a diplomatic stalemate as the preferred option, there were consequences. One of those consequences involves Saudi Arabia’s anger with the U.S. for not dealing with Assad. Consequences aren’t necessarily...

The Talk Shows October 20th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew; Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Mark Warner, D-Va. THIS WEEK (ABC): Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas; former Gov. Jeb Bush, R-Fla.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Cruz; Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

Senate Republicans huddled Tuesday to discuss the latest on the fiscal crisis engulfing the Capitol, but two key members of their conference were missing from the lunch: Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah. Multiple senators confirmed the absence of the two senators, who have led the crusade in the Senate to shred the president’s health care law. “I don’t account for their schedules,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) quipped when asked about Cruz and Lee’s absence. Cruz and Lee could become an obstacle to moving quickly on a fiscal deal in the Senate, where consent from all 100...

WASHINGTON (CBS DC) – The Senate has taken the lead from the House in attempting to devise a plan to reopen the government and avoid a potential default in the coming week. Speaking with Bob Schieffer on Sunday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said he is “cautiously hopeful” that the Senate can pick up where House negotiations have become deadlocked, and hopefully avoid the continued government shutdown through bipartisan Senate discussion. “I’m cautiously hopeful, optimistic that we can come to an agreement and open up the government and avoid default based on the bipartisan meetings that are going on,” Schumer said...

ObamaCare is at the center of a rapidly escalating fight that threatens to shut the government down this fall. [WATCH VIDEO]Senate Republicans, including two members of the leadership, are coalescing around a proposal to block any government funding resolution that includes money for the implementation of the 2010 Affordable Care Act.But such a move is a nonstarter for President Obama and congressional Democrats. Republicans have tried this maneuver in Obama’s first term, only to back off later to the chagrin of Tea Party leaders.This time, GOP lawmakers are emboldened by problems plaguing the administration’s ObamaCare implementation. But that zeal...

The Republican party is currently in the middle of a civil war of sorts, between moderate Republicans leery of tactics like defunding Obamacare and tea party conservatives sticking to their guns, crystallized by Louie Gohmert saying at the Values Voters Summit that John McCain “supported al-Qaeda.” Gohmert took a swipe at his Senate colleague, who has been highly critical of Republicans pushing for Obamacare defunding, even suggesting2 they should be held “accountable” for lying to the GOP. That didn’t sit too well with Gohmert.

While many people will attack GOP leaders in the Senate for not understanding what Sen. Ted Cruz is doing, don’t count me as one of them. You see GOP leadership has been handicapped for quite some time now. Mark Twain, who witnessed the impeachment debacle of Andrew Johnson in the House of Representatives in 1868, pegged it: “[I] was reporter in a legislature two sessions and the same in Congress one session,” Twain wrote, “and thus learned to know personally three sample bodies of the smallest minds and the selfishest souls and the cowardliest hearts that God makes.” You...

Had the Los Angeles Dodgers known the amount of controversy they would create by jumping into the Chase Field pool after winning the National League West division, they probably wouldn’t have done it. After being asked not to celebrate on the field by the Diamondbacks, members of the Dodgers ran out to the right field pool and jumped in – a celebration that irked many, including United States Senator and Arizona Diamondbacks fan John McCain, who called the Dodgers ‘spoiled brats’ – among a handful of other choice names. That didn’t sit well with Dodgers eccentric set-up man and former...