Free Republic

The bill’s destined to be vetoed, of course, but unless the reconciliation process ends up eating lots of time, there’s really no harm to it. One conservative activist told Politico he’s worried that if the GOP uses the same arcane procedural move to undo O-Care that Democrats used to pass it, Obama will turn around and whine that Republicans are doing the same thing Democrats did when they were in power. But … why would he say that? If he means to imply that reconciliation is a dubious strong-arm tactic, then he’ll be forced to explain why it was okay...

Just days after Salon.com published a tasteless screed in which a relatively unknown author attacked the military and insisted that his freedoms were more threatened than protected by the armed forces (a piece delightfully eviscerated by our own Jazz Shaw), this online magazine has the strange honor of publishing an exclusive interview with incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). Beyond McCain’s odd decision to give the race and sex-obsessed Salon an exclusive interview, the senator made the even more perplexing decision to obliquely attack a fellow Republican in that interview. McCain spoke with Salon’s...

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and a chorus of GOP lawmakers say Loretta Lynch, President Obama’s nominee to serve as attorney general, should wait until next year for Senate confirmation. “Ms. Lynch will receive fair consideration by the Senate. And her nomination should be considered in the new Congress through regular order,” McConnell said in a statement. Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah), a senior Republican member and former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, warned in a Friday op-ed that Democrats should not try to rush Lynch's nomination through in the lame-duck session. “Properly considering a nominee to such a significant...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)One last Campaign 2014 maneuver and several intriguing post-election shifts and calculations made for a fun trip around the table. 1. New ground troops -- in Louisiana There is one more round in the 2014 election, and Republicans are heavily favored: the Louisiana runoff for the U.S. Senate between Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and GOP Rep. Bill Cassidy. So put this one in the "taking nothing for granted" file: A GOP source tells CNN the Republican National Committee is sending in 350 field workers to help with the December 6 get-out-the-vote effort. Democrats, too, say they will bolster their staff...

Unless the Better Schools, Better Jobs folks badly miscounted the number of signatures they gathered, their initiative to require eventual full funding of the Mississippi Adequate Education program will be on the ballot in November 2015. The Adequate Education Program, of course, is the funding formula that determines the amount of money each local school district is supposed to get from the state to support basic operations, such as salaries and maintenance. The poorer the school district, the larger its percentage of state funds is. The Better Schools, Better Jobs group was formed because since it was fully enacted in...

With a failed run for U.S. Senate behind her, a WKYT Herald-Leader Bluegrass Poll finds most Kentuckians don't think Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes should set her eyes on the governor's mansion. The poll - conducted for WKYT-TV, the Lexington Herald-Leader, the Louisville Courier-Journal, and WHAS-TV - looked at Grimes' future and thoughts about the three men who have already announced their campaigns for governor in 2015.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Tuesday night ruled out running for majority leader after Republicans captured the upper chamber. Asked on CBS if he would consider challenging GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Cruz replied, "under no circumstances." The Texas senator and Tea Party favorite, though has declined to say whether he would vote for McConnell for majority leader. Asked if there would be a challenger to McConnell, Cruz said, "I don’t think anyone has declared their intention to run, and that will be a decision for the conference next week, and we’ll see." "My practice has been not to...

Will American politics ever break free from its "Groundhog Day" nightmare? Someday -- but it might not be pretty. Everyone understood that the Republicans would make substantial gains in the 2014 midterm elections. That’s business as usual in the dumbed-down Newtonian physics of American politics. Almost every midterm since the current two-party system began to take shape at the end of the 19th century has involved the president’s party losing seats in the House and Senate. But this week’s calamitous wipeout came as a surprise to everyone, Republicans included. Even GOP strategists cautioned that the struggle for control of the...

It’s rarely worth much time crying or rejoicing over spilt political milk -- but it can be fun. Be they ever so virtuous, be they ever so malicious, the politicians who wore out their welcomes last week will be replaced. And the geniuses who devised the U.S. Constitution and the rules of the House and Senate arranged for new members of Congress to undergo ordeals of process that cool the passions of recent arrivals before they attain much power. Like it or not, it took Republicans four election cycles to retake the Senate majority after losing it in 2006. Once...

Obama met with Republican leaders today at the White House for a “bipartisan lunch.” This was his first meeting with Republican leaders after Democrats were shellacked in the midterm elections. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HxyrML3WkwwObama lashed out at Republicans when the cameras were turned off. The AP reported: Republicans attending the postelection lunch at Obama’s invitation said they asked him for more time to work on legislation, but the president said his patience was running out. He reiterated his intent to act on his own by the end of the year if they don’t approve legislation to ease deportations before then and send it...

It is a fairly safe bet that next to the Koch brothers, Heritage Foundation, Senate Conservative Fund, and the Club for Growth, no-one in Washington was as excited with the results of the midterm elections as corrupt Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell. It is also likely that McConnell has yearned to be Majority Leader throughout his political career, and although he may end up winning that coveted title, he will be Majority Leader in name only because pure conservatives at Heritage Action, Club for Growth, and the Senate Conservative Fund already have anointed Texas Ted Cruz as de facto leader of...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)On his Wednesday radio show, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh emphatically stated that it was not the job of newly elected Republican majority in both chambers of Congress to govern, work together, find common ground or compromise. Instead, Limbaugh told his audience the message was clear, which was the American people wanted Congress to stop President Barack Obama. On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday, host Joe Scarborough and Bloomberg Politics John Heilemann dismissed that suggestion from Limbaugh and warned Republicans not to follow that advice. “If you listen to talk radio and some of the right-wing, the far right...

President Obama firmly rejected advice from top congressional Republicans on Friday that he delay his promised executive action on immigration reform, dismissing calls from critics inside and outside his party to allow Congress to debate the issue next year. Over a two-hour lunch of Bibb lettuce salad, herb-crusted sea bass and pumpkin tart, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and their lieutenants warned Obama that his acting alone on immigration would spoil chances for bipartisan agreement on other issues in the new GOP-controlled Congress. Seated with 12 top members of the House and Senate...

House Speaker John Boehner and incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, outlining their legislative vision for the last two years of Barack Obama’s presidency, are vowing to try to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The Republican House speaker from Ohio and incoming Senate majority leader from Kentucky noted that a commitment to creating jobs “means renewing our commitment to repeal Obamacare, which is hurting the job market along with Americans’ health care.” The ACA remains a politically divisive issue, and further attempts at repeal would surely be met with significant Democratic opposition and a White House veto.

There were two messages from Republicans on the morning after their sweeping victory in the 2014 midterm elections. One was that voters had elected Republicans to stop President Barack Obama's agenda. The other was that voters had elected Republicans to depose Harry Reid and break the gridlock in Congress. Both messages are correct, and reconciling them will be the toughest task facing new Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The first, and decisive, test will be Obama's proposed executive amnesty, through which--it is suggested--he may try to defer indefinitely the deportations of millions of people who broke the law to enter...

LOUISVILLE — There were only two things Mitch McConnell didn't want to talk about Thursday — whether he will run for re-election in 2020 and his eventual legacy. In his first one-on-one interview since his landslide re-election to a sixth term and his expected ascendance to U.S. Senate majority leader, McConnell talked at length with the Herald-Leader about how he wants to use his new role to help Kentucky, a possible run for president by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and the conventional wisdom that McConnell is unpopular. McConnell, relaxed and in a great mood in his Louisville home, wouldn't say...

In the aftermath of the resounding Republican takeover of the Senate this week, most everybody agrees two things are true. The GOP is going to face a much tougher Senate map and electorate in 2016. and the upper chamber is going to be populated for the next two years by a number of prominent Republicans (Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio) with presidential ambitions. Of the three, Cruz is undoubtedly the biggest troublemaker -- and he relishes that role. But by positioning himself to appeal to conservatives in a Republican presidential primary, he could force his more moderate GOP...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. Mitch McConnell just put one election behind him that is expected to sweep him into the position of Senate majority leader, but he already knows who he'd back in 2016 if he decides to run: fellow Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul."I don't think he's made a final decision on that. But he'll be able to count on me," McConnell said of Paul's presidential prospects in an interview with the Lexington Herald-Leader published Thursday. McConnell, who called himself a "big supporter of Rand Paul" said the pair have "developed a very tight relationship.""And I'm for him," McConnell...

Americans have entrusted Republicans with control of both the House and Senate. We are humbled by this opportunity to help struggling middle-class Americans who are clearly frustrated by an increasing lack of opportunity, the stagnation of wages, and a government that seems incapable of performing even basic tasks. Looking ahead to the next Congress, we will honor the voters’ trust by focusing, first, on jobs and the economy. Among other things, that means a renewed effort to debate and vote on the many bills that passed the Republican-led House in recent years with bipartisan support, but were never even brought...

title continued: McConnell and Boehner promise showdown with White House over lame duck president's key policy