Free Republic

Let me repeat what I said last week after he clapped the NSA on the back for collecting Americans’ phone records: It’s not just the fact that he endorses ideas like this, it’s the ease with which he does it. There appears to be none of the usual angst you see from other pols about security/liberty trade-offs when he talks counterterrorism. He’s almost entirely on one side of that topic in much the same way Ron Paul is, but even if you think Paul’s naive about security risks, at least he’s on the side of personal freedom. You get the...

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) addressing the National Council of La Raza ("The Race") had the nerve to stand before this organization - that supports Hispanics above all - and tell them that by pushing through amnesty for all of the illegal aliens in this country that it'll "tell the bigots to shut up". Lindsey Graham says that I am a bigot because I want no amnesty and illegal aliens to be deported and our immigration laws to be enforced. Also since about 80-90% of you Americans out there reading this also have my views, Senator Lindsey Graham is also telling...

With Democrats holding a stiff majority in the House and the Senate, and with Obama chomping at the bit to sign some major bill into law to stave off criticism about a lack of accomplishment (though, personally, I’d be happy if we went on vacation for the next 3 years), we need every single Republican and Democrat vote against cap and trade we can find. Unfortunately, one Republican will be siding with the liberals on this issue. “ A top Senate Republican on Sunday announced his support for sweeping climate change legislation, disputing the “conventional wisdom” that says Congress simply...

Sen. Lindsey Graham spent his summer testing out lines on global warming. As the Republican hit the town halls in South Carolina, a state with a major military presence and one of the country's highest unemployment rates, Graham would ask people if they thought climate change was a problem. Few did. But Graham quickly followed with another question, asking for a show of hands from those concerned about energy security. The response was strong, and Graham wasted little time making the connection. "You can't look at it in isolation," Graham said in an interview last week. "I'm trying to say,...

When Barack Obama wanted to organize a dinner with Republican Senators he knew just who to call – Senator Lindsey “Tell the Bigots to Shut Up” Graham. Last night Lindsey and twelve other Republicans went to dinner with Barack Obama in an attempt to make the far left president look bipartisan. Lindsey spoke with reporters after the dinner. “So when the president asked to get together a group, I was willing and honored to do that.” While Lindsey and others were dining with Obama, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) was holding a thirteen hour filibuster against Obama’s unconstitutional domestic drone policy.

Vice President Joe Biden has reached across the aisle to offer some unorthodox campaign help to Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham: “I will rip your skin off for you.” The tongue-in-cheek pitch was made at a recent forum with Sen. John McCain as Graham was sitting in the audience. Biden joked that he wanted to give “my buddy Lindsey” some help with his re-election campaign. “I told him I’ll come to South Carolina and campaign for him or against him – whichever will help the most,” said Biden. “I know – against,” the VP added when the audience laughed. Graham, who...

As Republicans prepare for their likely takeover of the House and possibly the Senate after next Tuesday’s elections, at least one prominent GOP legislator thinks the party should prepare to work with President Barack Obama. That’s Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, The Hill reports. Lindsey Graham, ObamaHe says Republicans should engage the president on issues such as an energy bill that doesn’t include cap and trade, Social Security, and job creation. "My belief is that, if we get back power in the House, and get close in the Senate, that we ought to really clamp down on spending and...

The Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority sent out books to every junior in the state, outlining what they need to know while preparing for college.  There's only one small problem: the word "Kentucky" is misspelled on the spine of the book. The photos at right were provided by viewer Liz Palmer.  We talked with Erin Klarer with KHEAA. She tells us several schools, parents, and even state officials have let them know about the mistake, but to reprint and redistribute them would cost about $70,000, so they opted to just - in her words - "deal with the egg on...

But the celebration over one of the school's teams was just a ruse. That soon became apparent when Principal Chris Glass grabbed the microphone. "Somebody has made a huge mess again in this gymnasium," Glass told the gathered students and faculty. "Oh no. What to do?" Spaulding was called in to the gym and cleaned up in a much different way — students presented him with a check for $1,900, money that they had begun collecting earlier in the year. The funds will be used to fly his family to Italy to visit his son Jacob, who is stationed there...

With the EPA's proposed new power plant rules posing a potential threat to Democrats running in coal-reliant states, Alison Lundergan Grimes is fighting back early -- and fiercely -- by attacking the president and the EPA in a new radio ad, unveiled Wednesday. In the ad, which will air mainly throughout Kentucky's coal counties in the east and west of the state, Grimes takes President Obama to task for the new regulations on carbon emissions, which would be phased in over the next 15 years. "Mr. President, Kentucky has lost one-third of our coal jobs in just the last three...

The Environmental Protection Agency’s new rule on carbon pollution is the latest headache for Democrats trying to defend a fragile Senate majority. With many vulnerable Democrats coming from energy-producing states, Republicans argued the Obama administration’s call for power plants to cut their carbon emissions 30 percent by 2030 would cost local jobs and increase energy prices. Democratic candidates in coal-rich West Virginia and Kentucky were among the first to try to distance themselves from the president after the changes were unveiled Monday.

Election 2014: Kentucky Senate Kentucky Senate: McConnell (R) 48%, Grimes (D) 41% Friday, May 30, 2014 Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell now holds a seven-point lead over Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky’s U.S. Senate race following last week’s state party primaries. McConnell earns 48% support to Grimes’ 41% in the latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Kentucky Voters. Five percent (5%) like some other candidate in the race, and seven percent (7%) are undecided. The two were tied with 42% support each in late January in Rasmussen Reports’ first look at the then-hypothetical race. McConnell, a...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is suggesting that Kentucky's health insurance exchange could survive repeal of ObamaCare, the law that created the marketplace.  In a statement, McConnell campaign spokeswoman Allison Moore said Kentucky should "decide for itself whether to keep" the exchange "or set up a different marketplace" if the healthcare law is repealed. The comment follows criticism of McConnell last week for arguing that Kentucky's exchange, known as Kynect, is not connected to the Affordable Care Act.  The healthcare law created a system of exchanges, including Kynect, where consumers in each state can purchase coverage, often while receiving assistance...

Rand Paul is defending his relationship with Mitch McConnell after helping his fellow Kentuckian defeat a tea party-backed challenger in a GOP Senate primary."I came out of the tea party movement. I'm very concerned about the debt. I'm very concerned about big government," Paul said on Friday. "But I think the misnomer is to think somehow Senator McConnell isn't. That's what his whole entire career has been predicated upon - fighting against big government."The comments by Paul, the state's junior senator, came at a news conference with McConnell in Louisville that was focused on building party unity following a bruising...

<p>LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but he would not say Friday what that would mean for the 413,000 Kentuckians who have health insurance through the state's health care exchange.</p>

According to one of the tea party's leading voices, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R), who is being challenged by conservative Matt Bevin in Kentucky's Senate GOP primary, is not an "Arlen Specter" Republican."It's not like we're talking about Arlen Specter here," said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), in an interview with The Washington Post. "Senator McConnell has a longstanding conservative record and for an opponent to beat him, they'll have to prove somehow that he's not a conservative."Specter, the late Pennsylvania senator who left the GOP for the Democratic Party in 2009, was a villain-like figure to many on the...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had vowed to crush the tea party in this spring’s primaries. His decisive win on Tuesday over a tea party challenger in Kentucky’s GOP primary has fueled plenty of establishment-over-tea party stories. Let’s just say the war ain’t over. “After the primary is over, it’s really the responsibility of everyone who wants to see a change in Washington, D.C., come November to support our candidates,” said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, McConnell’s deputy GOP Senate leader, who survived a much more tepid tea party onslaught in his own primary in early March. Cornyn singled out Kentucky’s...

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Between now and the end of June, more than two dozen states will hold primary elections. A major subplot of this year’s midterm elections is the competition between the Republican establishment and the tea party wing of the party. The establishment is fighting back, but has the tea party already won? The general election is still six months off. But Tuesday opens the summer preseason of intraparty contests, which starts with an important primary in North Carolina. Between now and the end of June, more than two dozen states will hold primary elections. After a July break, the preseason will...

The Republican Establishment always says conservative purists would rather lose than compromise. But the opposite is playing out in Nebraska. The moment Ben Sasse got endorsed by the Senate Conservatives Fund, Mitch McConnell went all in for Shane Osborn. Well, Osborn is now toast. He has extremely high negatives, extreme negative poll numbers, and outside groups have just finished him off with an ad blasting his involvement in a made up military memo. That leaves Sid Dinsdale who’d have you know he is a lifelong Republican despite years of significant giving to Democrats. Dinsdale too, however, is behind in the...