Free Republic

The Republican senator who once campaigned against gays serving openly in the military is now the civil rights community's greatest bulwark against undoing LGBT protections in this year’s defense policy bill. Democrats and LGBT rights advocates will be keeping a close eye on Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) during upcoming negotiations on the defense measure. House and Senate leaders could clash over language concerning whether religious organizations with federal contracts should be exempt from nondiscrimination orders covering gender identity and sexual orientation. The shooting incident Sunday that killed 50 people in a popular Orlando gay bar and...

Most of the time, major political figures try to stay on the good side of the nation’s leading veterans’ organizations, but Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is comfortable going in a different direction. The Republican senator appeared on his daughter’s radio show late last week – just a few days before Memorial Day – and Meghan McCain asked about the need for improvements in the VA system. The GOP lawmaker, facing a tough re-election fight this year, didn’t hold back. JOHN MCCAIN: I blame some of the old veterans’ service organizations like the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Disabled American...

The following is a list of prominent Republicans who say they’re not planning to attend the Republican National Convention -- based on responses from their offices and previously published reports: Former President George W. Bush Former President George H.W. Bush 2008 Republican presidential nominee and Arizona Sen. John McCain 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney 2016 presidential candidate and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval Wyoming Gov. Matthew Mead South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson Kansas Sen....

SB 1266 allows for enforcement of the state preemption statutes.  Some local governments have been ignoring the preemption law because there were no penalties provided.  SB 1266 provides for penalties so that the preemption statute can be enforced.  The penalties are not insignificant, and has a provision for terminating employment of a person who ignores the preemption law.  Here is the change in the statute. From cqstatetrack.com: H. Any ordinance, regulation, tax or rule that is enacted by a political subdivision in violation of this section is invalid and subject to a permanent injunction against the political subdivision from...

Speaking in Washington, the former Republican presidential nominee pushed back at Trump’s criticism of Nato by praising the alliance’s response to 9/11 Senator John McCain, the former Republican presidential nominee, has taken a swipe at Donald Trump’s hostility to Nato by praising the alliance’s response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “I agree with him to this extent, that our Nato allies should pay more and I’ve been urging all of that, all of us have, for years and years. But let’s not forget that after 9/11, the United States of America was attacked, Europeans weren’t attacked, and yet we invoked...

They’re coming for your home. Right now. I suggest you save it. I can guide you, but you must do exactly as I say. Except, this isn’t The Matrix. You’re no actor, like Keanu Reeves, playing a distraught programmer-hacker named “Neo.” Nor am I an actor, like Laurence Fishburne, playing your guide “Morpheus.” This is real life, baby. Your home or apartment—and the neighborhood in which you live—is under siege. “Agents”—sans black glasses and black business suits—who work for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have written a new regulation called “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” (AFFH) that...

Ted Cruz and his allies are preparing for the coming National GOP Convention. According to NBC News, Cruz who recently attended a GOP convention in Texas told his supporters that the days ahead will be "challenging" for the Republican Party. He, however, expressed hope that those who remain loyal to him and the party "will be the remnant, will be the core of pulling this country back from the abyss." Aside from this pronouncement, [he] has remained mum about whether he will throw his support for presumptive nominee Donald Trump. According to the NBC report, the support of Cruz and...

The Arizona law increases penalties against protesters who block access to a political rally. Is blocking access to a political event a political statement in itself? In a Phoenix suburb in March, protesters parked about two-dozen cars in the middle of the highway to stop drivers on their way to an outdoor rally for Donald Trump and Joe Arpaio, the controversial Arizona sheriff. With posters that read "Dump Trump" and "Must Stop Trump," the protesters, in one sense, acted on their right to demonstrate against the Republican frontrunner and the sheriff who was sanctioned for refusing a judge's order to...

PPP's new Arizona poll finds that John McCain has a negative approval rating with Republican primary voters, and is at pretty serious risk of losing nomination for another term. Only 35% of GOP voters approve of the job McCain is doing to 50% who disapprove. He's in particularly poor standing with conservative voters. Among 'somewhat conservative' voters his approval spread is 33/52, and among 'very conservative' voters it drops all the way down to 18/67.

Pregnant, female, Navy SEALs was something many of us used to joke about as a way of exaggerating the absurd social engineering in the military. Yet, placing women in special operations and direct combat units has now become a reality under the Obama-led Pentagon. Sadly, not only have Republicans like John McCain refused to use their perches on the Armed Services Committees in the House and Senate to block this social engineering, they are now codifying it with a provision that could lead to a mandatory draft of all women. Earlier this week, I noted that the final House version...

Sen. Lindsey Graham paused for five full seconds and stumbled over his words pondering the question: When is the last time he split with fellow Republican Sen. John McCain on a major issue? “I don’t know, let me think about it,” Graham (S.C.) finally said of his closest Senate friend. “There have been several. I just can’t recall right now, right off the top of my head.” Yet that’s what has happened in the wake of Donald Trump’s ascendancy to presumptive Republican nominee for president. In the Republican civil war over Trump, this is perhaps the most glaring example of...

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin announced on Sunday she will work to defeat Paul Ryan in his Republican primary. This came after Ryan would not endorse the Republican nominee Donald Trump for president. On Thursday Republican Speaker Paul Ryan told Jake Tapper on CNN he was “not ready” to endorse Donald Trump yet. Donald Trump won the GOP nomination on Tuesday after his landslide victory in Indiana. Palin told Jake Tapper she believes Ryan will soon be “Cantored.” ** Republican businessman Paul Nehlen is running against Paul Ryan in the Wisconsin primary. paul ryan challenger paul nehlen CNN reported: Sarah...

(Trump) used the term "lightweight" to describe Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., once in the presidential race, and suggested former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, another former rival, was still licking his wounds from the vicious campaign. The party's 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, Trump said, "blew the election" that year and never even thanked Trump for his work on Romney's behalf. Arizona Sen. John McCain, the 2008 nominee, said it would take a lot for him to ever stand on stage next to Trump, even though McCain has agreed to support the party's nominee.

Sen. John McCain is chastising GOP leaders for failing to embrace Donald Trump as the choice of millions of voters, laying out his most extensive views to date about Trump at the top of the ticket. He's also repudiating some of the presumptive nominee's comments -- particularly about prisoners of war. In a wide-ranging "State of the Union" interview in his campaign office in Phoenix, McCain criticized party leaders who are reluctant to back Trump, saying they are "out of step" with voters who have chosen the controversial businessman as the GOP standard-bearer. He defended Trump for being a strong...

Washington (CNN) - Sarah Palin says she wouldn't want to be a "burden" on the Republican ticket by becoming Donald Trump's vice presidential running mate. The former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee acknowledged to CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" that she's a controversial figure, nudging Trump to look elsewhere and saying that there are "so many other great people out there." "I want to help and not hurt, and I am such a realist that I realize there are a whole lot of people out there who would say, 'Anybody but Palin.' I wouldn't...

Sen. John McCain reflected on his 2008 run with Sarah Palin: "The only thing I will ever resent about my presidential campaign is her treatment by the media. It was disgraceful."

No dynamic better embodies the internal conflict roiling the Republican Party today than the squeeze Trump is putting on McCain, the original independent and maverick of the party. On a larger scale, nobody has been a more consistent voice on American foreign policy for the GOP than McCain, whose views on conflict, diplomacy, and America's role in the world Trump has largely rejected. In McCain's home state of Arizona, the latest Rocky Mountain Poll shows Kirkpatrick tied with McCain at 42 percent, with 16 percent of voters still undecided. But the same poll shows the biggest hurdle between McCain and...

The GOP's 2008 presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, says the 2016 campaign is like none other because candidates in both parties are tapping into the "frustration and anger" of voters.[snip] "You see a frustration and anger which then rejects the establishment," he added. "[Sen. Ted] Cruz has tapped into it, [Vermont Sen. Bernie] Sanders has tapped into it, [Donald] Trump…" "Anybody that says he can shoot somebody and still get elected, that's beyond any framework of politics that I've ever seen," the Arizona lawmaker said, USA Today reports.

Dr. Kelli Ward clobbered 30 year incumbent John McCain 75% to 11% in the straw poll sponsored by the Maricopa County Young Republican Professionals at Saturday’s Arizona Republican State Convention. The poll was not paid for or conducted in coordination with any campaign. McCain has previously been censured by the Arizona Republican Party for abandoning conservative values and being “eerily silent against Liberals,” while publicly reprimanding conservatives in his own party. After 34 years, Arizona Republicans can see right through his six year cycle of campaign conservatism. They’ve had enough of his broken promises and the constant compromise and capitulation...

Publicly, John McCain insists Donald Trump will have a negligible effect on his campaign for reelection. But behind closed doors at a fundraiser in Arizona last month, the Republican senator and two-time presidential hopeful offered a far more dire assessment to his supporters. “If Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket, here in Arizona, with over 30 percent of the vote being the Hispanic vote, no doubt that this may be the race of my life,” McCain said, according to a recording of the event obtained by POLITICO. “If you listen or watch Hispanic media in the state...