Free Republic

Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell today told President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland that the Senate will not hold a vote on his nomination. The call came after McConnell took to the Senate floor to announce that Republicans will not back down in their pledge to not hold a vote. McConnell (R-KY) said of the nomination in his Senate floor speech: “It seems clear that President Obama made this nomination not with the intent of seeing the nominee confirmed, but in order to politicize it for the purposes of the election.” “What the president has done with...

.@SenateMajLdr McConnell responds to SCOTUS nomination: "Give the people a voice in filling this vacancy" https://t.co/Yfu961lwAS — MSNBC (@MSNBC) March 16, 2016 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday shot down the idea of Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland getting a hearing. McConnell insisted in a floor speech that the vacancy should be filled by the next president. “The next justice could fundamentally alter the direction of the Supreme Court and have a profound impact on our country, so of course the American people should have a say in the court’s direction," he said. "The Senate will continue to...

Senior Senate Republicans are calling on Sen. Ted Cruz to rebuild his strained relationships with his colleagues and apologize to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell before the party establishment considers consolidating behind his presidential bid. Cruz has increasingly called for Republicans to unify behind his candidacy in order to take down front-runner Donald Trump. But in interviews Tuesday with CNN, it's clear Cruz's fellow GOP senators are not willing to do that, at least not yet. Republican senators said that Cruz must return to Capitol Hill and make the case directly to his colleagues to help ease long-festering tensions. And a...

Ted Cruz fought his way to second place in the Republican primary as the conservative who never compromises. But already, he’s learning to stretch. Behind closed doors, Cruz’s aides are talking about how to draw more centrist supporters as Republican rivals drop out. They have given former Jeb Bush donors access to the entire campaign leadership team. And Cruz has made overtures to Senate colleagues who despise him, praising Mitch McConnell and Marco Rubio and talking by phone with Lindsey Graham.

The Senate voted 49-40 Monday evening to confirm John B. King Jr., President Barack Obama’s nominee, as secretary of education. A total of 11 senators did not vote on King’s confirmation, while those who voted against him cited his loyalty to the system and support for Common Core education standards. King, 41, has been the acting secretary of the Department of Education since January, after Arne Duncan stepped down from the Cabinet post at the end of last year. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush, spoke in support of King on the Senate floor....

Am I losing my mind? Donald Trump gives me the creeps at times. He offends my Christianity. His persona turns me off. He can be all other the map in terms of consistent principles. But there is something inside of me that wants him to kick the stuffing out of the powers that be. Even though I am a Cruz man I could see myself voting for the guy. Am I losing my mind?

Ohio Gov. John Kasich stuck by his desire for a path to legalization for illegal immigrants in the United States during a Q&A with the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday. He described the idea of deporting millions of illegal immigrants from the U.S. as unacceptable. "The idea that we're going to pick these people up and ship them out is unbelievable," Kasich said. "It's just not acceptable in America." Kasich, eighth in the Washington Examiner's power rankings, did not explicitly rule out a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants during his remarks to the Hispanic group, but said...

There are few things that keep me up at night, but this is one of them. It may be cynicism, but more likely it’s the long sad experience of watching the courts over the years. So when your side finally wins one that should have you celebrating, and yet you walk away with a knot in your gut, it’s probably warranted. Senior Judge Laurence H. Silberman’s majority opinion in Parker v. District of Columbia was a thing of beauty, affirming armed self-defense as an individual right pre-existing the Constitution. It was almost hard to believe. Maybe that's what’s bugging me....

If Ted Cruz is to come from behind and win the Republican nomination, it's "gonna take an entire unity effort" to win support from the establishment, Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show Thursday. The comment from Limbaugh, who has not formally backed any candidate, is the latest indication that the iconoclastic Texas senator will have his work cut out for him as he seeks to cut off Donald Trump. Limbaugh presented two theories, the first of which assumed that Cruz accepts the premise that he still has time to get to 1,237 delegates before the Republican National Convention, adding...

In last June’s Mississippi GOP runoff, liberal Republican Thad Cochran engaged in mass election fraud to defeat conservative primary challenger Chris McDaniel.

From Michigan to Louisiana to California on Friday, rank-and-file Republicans expressed mystification, dismissal and contempt regarding the instructions that their party's most high-profile leaders were urgently handing down to them: Reject and defeat Donald J. Trump. Their angry reactions, in the 24 hours since Mitt Romney and John McCain urged millions of voters to cooperate in a grand strategy to undermine Mr. Trump's candidacy, have captured the seemingly inexorable force of a movement that still puzzles the Republican elite and now threatens to unravel the party they hold dear. In interviews, even lifelong Republicans who cast a ballot for Mr....

From Michigan to Louisiana to California on Friday, rank-and-file Republicans expressed mystification, dismissal and contempt regarding the instructions that their party’s most high-profile leaders were urgently handing down to them: Reject and defeat Donald J. Trump. Their angry reactions, in the 24 hours since Mitt Romney and John McCain urged millions of voters to cooperate in a grand strategy to undermine Mr. Trump’s candidacy, have captured the seemingly inexorable force of a movement that still puzzles the Republican elite and now threatens to unravel the party they hold dear. In interviews, even lifelong Republicans who cast a ballot for Mr....

“We need a new crew leader in the Senate,” former Congressman Mark Foley (R-WPB) told a recent meeting of the Martin County Republican club. This reporter asked the final question of the evening, namely, “What’s wrong with McConnell and Boehner…our readers and commenters on our conservative threads are furious with the Republicans…we gave them victories in 2010 and 2014 and nothing has changed...Boehner won’t stand up to Obama.” That’s when the West Palm Beach resident said it was time for a change in Washington. Foley suggested that John Thune, a newer, younger face, would move the party forward. “Boehner is...

From Michigan to Louisiana to California on Friday, rank-and-file Republicans expressed mystification, dismissal and contempt over the instructions that their party’s most high-profile leaders were urgently handing down to them: Reject and defeat Donald J. Trump. Their angry reactions, in the 24 hours since Mitt Romney and John McCain urged millions of voters to cooperate in a grand strategy to undermine Mr. Trump’s candidacy, have captured the seemingly inexorable force of a movement that still puzzles the Republican elite and now threatens to unravel the party they hold dear. In interviews, even lifelong Republicans who cast a ballot for Mr....

Ted Cruz, celebrating a big win in Kansas, said on Saturday that it's time for Marco Rubio and John Kasich to drop out and for their supporters to rally behind him. "We’ll continue to amass delegates but what needs to happen is the field needs to continue to narrow," Cruz said during a press conference Saturday night, adding that he hopes the remaining candidates who are underperforming will ask themselves, “Do I have a path coming forward?” "If we’re divided, Donald wins," he said. The Texas senator has been advertising himself as the candidate best placed to beat Donald Trump,...

It would appear Trump fever has broken. It would seem the down, dirty, and ugly attacks by Rubio particularly, but also Romney, Cruz and others have kicked in. I sense that Trump has become a figure of ridicule, and no politician survives that. Plus his latest flip flops, like on torture, have weakened him as a serious person, although that may not have been obvious at the time. I think the teflon has worn off. If true, Chris Christy gets the bad timing of the year award

resident Obama is not only expected to close Guantanamo Bay, but rumor has it he is prepared to give our U.S. Naval Station in the region to Cuba. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce has prepared legislation to halt this potential dangerous transition. The United States Naval Station Guantanamo Bay Preservation Act would require the president to seek approval from Congress before making anymore dangerous decisions. “In just a few weeks, President Obama will meet with the communist government in Cuba.  The White House says our Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay is ‘sure’ to be a part of discussions. ...

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) on Friday praised Donald Trump for his last-minute decision to skip the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). CPAC organizers announced Friday that the GOP presidential front-runner had dropped out of his commitment to speak at the conference on Saturday morning. The real estate mogul's campaign issued a statement shortly after saying he would instead be campaigning in Kansas and Florida. “Because of this, he will not be able to speak at CPAC as he has done for many consecutive years,” the statement read. “Mr. Trump would like to thank Matt Schlapp and all of...

The New York Times leaked off-the-record conversation with Donald Trump in January recently to Buzzfeed. Buzzfeed’s editor in chief Ben Smith wrote this week that Mr. Trump reportedly told the NY Times that his extreme position on deporting immigrants was fluid and developing. Senator Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio lashed out at Trump and immediately demanded that Donald Trump order the release of the off-the-record conversation.

Over the past number of years we rank and file conservatives have learned a number of hard lessons. We have learned that the liberals were far more greedy and self-absorbed with “White guilt” than we could ever have imagined. We learned that Democrats really will stop at nothing to get and keep power. While both of these lessons could have been predicted, a far more profound lesson about the insidious nature of politicians has been shoved down our throats by the very people we trusted to help us fix the damage caused by Democrat governance: The “conservatives” in Washington. They...