Free Republic

Rumors have been swirling for months on Capitol Hill that Speaker Paul Ryan will either resign his seat or not serve as speaker if he returns to Congress next year. This has set off something of a scramble among top Republicans to position themselves to replace him if the speaker exits the stage. Two top members of Paul Ryan's leadership team, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Majority Whip Steve Scalise, have begun angling for his job in the event the speaker calls it quits after the election. They're closely monitoring the moves of the other and quietly courting Republicans who...

House GOP leaders are forging ahead with their own hardline immigration bill, as the Senate threw in the towel Thursday on legislation to protect hundreds of thousands of young, undocumented immigrants from deportation. The main author of the House bill, Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), said Thursday that he’s building support for his measure, even as other GOP colleagues said an initial vote tally this week was well below the 218 votes needed to pass the bill. Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) “instructions to me are ‘get this bill done,’ and we’re working hard to accomplish that,” Goodlatte said in an...

Does House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy think it’s funny to have to delay border wall funding? Apparently so. In a Tuesday appearance on Fox Business News with Maria Bartiromo, McCarthy giggled when revealing funding for President Trump’s top campaign promise was being pushed back months.

House GOP leaders have launched an internal review into how someone secretly recorded and leaked audio of a private 2016 leadership meeting in which Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) jokes about how Russia is paying off President Trump. SNIP Leadership sources suspect the leaker is former CIA officer Evan McMullin, who attended the June 15 meeting in the Capitol in his capacity as a top policy aide to GOP Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.)

At first RINOs complained that they could not accomplish anything unless they had control of the House, then the next excuse was that they needed control of the Senate, then the next excuse was that they needed control of the Presidency, then there excuse was that we can't risk shutting down the government, then the next excuse will be that the Democrats will retake over everything, including the Congressional restroom....br>GET SOME BALLS, YOU COWARDLY BASTARDS

Entrenched GOPe Show Their Cards – Construct “Border Adjustment Tax” To Oppose Trump’s America-First Agenda Anyone who believes Democrats own exclusive opposition to Donald Trump are completely ignoring the deliberate construct of the 2015/2016 republican primary. There are just as many -if not more- natural enemies within the Republican apparatus as there are within the Democrat group. “America-First” is antithetical to the UniParty.Again, prior to Donald Trump there was one party in Washington DC, “The UniParty”. President Donald Trump represented a second party, an independent approach toward legislative and economic priority. He was not a third choice, he was...

WASHINGTON; If President-elect Donald Trump thinks he’s going to impose a 35 percent tariff on companies importing goods, he might want to check with Republicans in Congress. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) suggested Monday that Republicans would not be in favor of imposing the 35 percent tariff on foreign goods that Trump proposed Sunday in a series of tweets.  Trump may not understand how tariffs really work; it would be very difficult for the United States to impose them on specific companies that move jobs to a foreign country; or that Congress, not the president, sets them. But he...

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Monday refused to back President-elect Donald Trump’s push for a 35-percent tariff on companies that move operations abroad and then sell their goods back in the United States, saying corporate tax reform is the key to retaining American jobs. “I think that’s a better way to solve the problem than getting in a trade war over a 35-percent tariff,” the California Republican told reporters.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Congress isn’t waiting for President-elect Donald Trump’s swearing-in to move on the issue of immigration, saying the wheels are in motion on prepping legislation needed to build Mr. Trump’s pledged U.S.-Mexico border wall. Mr. McCarthy said he has helped put a team in place “so when we’re sworn in … we are able to move the legislation needed to start building the wall.” Mr. McCarthy also said Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who said earlier this week that Chicago will always be a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants, should focus on the security of his...

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said on Sunday that the lower chamber is not planning further congressional investigations of Hillary Clinton. “The agenda is going to be about job creation, it’s going to be about reforming and repealing Obamacare. It’s going to be on infrastructure,” McCarthy said on “Fox News Sunday,” adding that he would leave further inquiries regarding Clinton to law enforcement officials. Several House committees have investigated Clinton over her use of a private email server and her handling of the attack in Benghazi, Libya.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy vowed Sunday that his Republican-led chamber will indeed repeal and replace ObamaCare, after Donald Trump’s remarks that he would consider keeping certain parts of the health care law following his presidential election win. “We will repeal and replace ObamaCare,” McCarthy, a California Republican, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “It has to change.”   McCarthy, the chamber's No. 2 Republican behind House Speaker Paul Ryan, spoke one day before Congress returns to Washington for a so-called lame duck session, which will include passing a budget to avoid a looming government shutdown and preparing for several of...

INDIANAPOLIS -- One of the two people killed in a crash early Thursday morning was a former FBI agent. The crash happened around 1 a.m., near the intersection of 16th and Illinois streets. A navy blue Tesla, headed northbound on Illinois Street, left the road, hit a tree and a building and caught fire. The driver was pronounced dead at the scene. The passenger was extricated and taken to Eskenazi Health, where he died. The Marion County Coroner's Office identified the driver as Casey Speckman, 27. The passenger was identified as Kevin McCarthy, 44. McCarthy was the president of KPMAC...

Holding up a copy of the U.S. Constitution to make his point, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said that a Republican-introduced gun bill will prevent terrorists from obtaining weapons while not infringing on Americans’ due process and Second Amendment rights. “There isn’t a person in Congress that wants a terrorist to get a gun. But we also want to make sure that we do not undermine those ongoing terrorist investigations that law enforcement is conducting,” Ryan said Wednesday at the Republican National Committee (RNC) in Washington. […] Ryan characterized the Homeland Safety and Security Act, which House Majority Leader Rep....

GOP Rep. Renee Ellmers and Rep. George Holding are facing a winner-take-all June 7 primary for the GOP nomination in North Carolina’s 2nd congressional District — and conservatives are rallying to defeat Ellmers. “In a [primary] race like this, I get to run on my record and she gets to run on her record,” Holding told Breitbart said. “I have a conservative voting record and she has a liberal voting record—and this is a conservative district.” Carter Wrenn, Holding’s campaign’s spokesman, said North Carolina conservatives once had high hopes for Ellmers. “She jumped on the Tea Party bandwagon in 2009,”...

Bye-bye Renee. The voters have a long memory. Perhaps you can get a job with Cantor. http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/house/north-carolina The infamous squabble with Laura Ingraham https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUwVAimKnIM

The Donald can now say he tried to help the GOPe maintain the House majority, but the conservative base are speaking and it's beyond his control in case he gets pushback from Ryan and his Chamber of Commerce peeps. Of course, the Left and reprobates like Erik Erickson (Thanks Mods/Jim for pulling that thread, Redstate is dead to me) will spin it and say that Trump has no coattails or whatever, but they couldn't be more wrong. Trump's not a traditional politician. He's going to make these types of moves because it's good to get criticism from the base, which...

Incumbent Republican Rep. Renee Ellmers has been defeated by another Republican incumbent, Rep. George Holding, in the 2nd Congressional District, the AP projects. Holding was ahead 52 percent to 24 percent with about two-thirds of precincts reporting. Holding represented the old 13th District, which covered the Raleigh area before moving west to the Triad. The 2nd District race featured the only two Congressional incumbents running against each other in an American primary this year. It garnered more national attention when Donald Trump endorsed Ellmers.

Democrats shouted "Shame! Shame!," but seven Republicans switched their votes and defeated a measure to protect gay rights. The final vote was 213-212 after the chaos on the House floor. That was enough to defeat an amendment by Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., aimed at upholding an executive order that bars discrimination against LGBT employees by federal contractors. Maloney and other Democrats were incensed. "They literally snatched discrimination from the jaws of equality," Maloney said. He said he had approached Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as McCarthy worked on GOP colleagues to vote against the measure. McCarthy told Maloney to...

Donald Trump will meet face-to-face with Speaker Paul Ryan at 9 a.m. on Thursday at the RNC, according to a GOP leadership source familiar with the schedule. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus will sit in the meeting, too. A second meeting including Ryan, Trump and a larger roster of GOP leadership will follow. Attendees will include Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), and Deputy Whip Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) There will be no press availability after, but Ryan will do an on-camera availability later that morning, the source said. Trump has no plans...

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy has signed up to serve as a delegate for presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump at this summer’s national convention in Cleveland. McCarthy’s move is notable in part because House Speaker Paul Ryan has said he is “not ready” to endorse Trump, even though he is the lone Republican remaining in the contest.