Free Republic

Great to see how hard Republicans are fighting for our Military and Safety at the Border. The Dems just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation unchecked. If stalemate continues, Republicans should go to 51% (Nuclear Option) and vote on real, long term budget, no C.R.’s! 7:35 AM - 21 Jan 2018

Former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle says Democrats are more to blame in the destruction of “institutional pillars” of the upper chamber than Republicans. In a podcast interview released Sunday with Real Clear Politics Executive Editor Carl Cannon, the South Dakota Democrat described how Democrats and Republicans argued with each other over the filibuster and the nuclear option just a few years ago. (Skip) [Daschle:] Unfortunately, Democrats have far dirtier hands when it comes to the erosion of the institutional pillars of the Senate than Republicans going all the way back to–you know, they used to do filibusters in...

Now that the judicial filibuster in the U.S. Senate has been nuked, it’s time to look at the political fallout going forward. And for Democrats, the news is all bad. Here are three reasons why Democrats just made a dumb mistake by filibustering Neil Gorsuch. 1. The GOP is now free to put real Scalia-Thomas types throughout the judiciary The argument for years as to why Republicans needed stealth Supreme Court candidates like David Souter, Anthony Kennedy, and John Roberts (who have all gone on to be disappointments to varying degrees) was the filibuster. However, now that it’s no longer...

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch is about to become a reality Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell delivered on a key Trump campaign promise yesterday, brushing away an arcane procedural hurdle and in the process clearing the way for the swift Senate confirmation of originalist Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. It is also the first in what promises to be a long series of crushing major defeats for Democrats in the current Congress who are desperate to placate their increasingly rabid far left-wing base.

One of the greatest decisions of the 20th Century was the unflinching order by President Harry S. Truman to drop two bombs on Japan. It ended a war with a relentless and suicidal global aggressor. It saved countless lives of American soldiers, who already had suffered through years of the most savage and barbaric fighting ever known to man in the Pacific theater. The more than 200,000 Japanese killed by the atomic bombs came nowhere close to the millions and millions of innocent Chinese and others slaughtered by Japan during World War II. And for 72 years, the “nuclear option”...

"I could not help but notice a number of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle high-fiving each other," Blumenthal said on the Senate floor. "That image stays with me as I stand here now. It saddens me." . . . "There is no cause for celebration in what happened in the Senate just hours ago," he said. "No one should sleep well tonight. No one should underestimate the magnitude of what happened here. Damage was done to our democracy."

BREAKING: Senate votes 52-48 to repeal rule allowing filibusters against Supreme Court nominees, clearing the way for Gorsuch confirmation

Hillary Clinton's running mate is predicting Democrats will go "nuclear" if Republicans try to stonewall a potential Supreme Court nominee by Clinton. Tim Kaine on Friday said he believes Senate Democrats will change the chamber's rules if they run into GOP obstruction in 2017. Kaine, however, said Friday that there's a "significant likelihood" that Garland will get confirmed this year.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Republican-backed Senate rule change expected on Thursday could make it more likely that presidents will pick ideologically extreme U.S. Supreme Court nominees with little incentive to choose centrist justices, experts said. With a deep partisan divide in Washington, Democrats are using a procedural tactic called a filibuster to try to block confirmation of President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch in the Republican-led Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has threatened to change long-standing rules in the 100-seat Senate if the Democrats succeed with the filibuster in order to prohibit the tactic against Supreme Court nominees....

At 11:00 a.m, the Senate will VOTE on cloture for Exec. Cal. #33, Neil Gorsuch, of Colorado, to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

Perpetual GOP malcontent Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called lawmakers “stupid” who believed invoking the so-called “nuclear option” to confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court would ultimately improve the Senate, during a gaggle with reporters Tuesday. The Arizona senator was prompted Tuesday by an unidentified reporter to react to individuals who say “the Senate will be a better place” after the nuclear option is invoked. “I would like to meet that idiot,” McCain fired back, “I would like to meet that numbskull that would say that, that after 200 years — at least 100 years — of this tradition...

Senators in both parties predict blowing up the Senate’s rules to confirm Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch will inflict serious damage on the institution. Democrats are mulling whether to employ the same retaliatory tactics that Republicans used in 2013 after Democrats triggered the “nuclear option” to prevent the GOP from filibustering President Obama’s executive branch and judicial nominees. “They used the age-old Senate tactic of slowing things to a crawl, which you can do under the rules of the Senate,” said Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), referring to Republicans. “I can’t tell you what’s going to happen next,” he...

From Facebook, from someone I trust: "Senator John Thune just confirmed on Fox News that Republicans will stick with the nuclear option, instituted by Reid and the Democrats to get their more controversial appointments through. In other words, there will be very little chance any of Trump's cabinet appointments can be stopped."

CNN was on last night at work as usual (24/7). They were talking about the confirmation of Gorsuch. The commentator talked about the voting process and said, "...for years it has taken 60 votes to confirm a judge. The Republicans are considering the Nuclear Option by changing the rules to allow a 51-vote majority to confirm Gorsuch." It took everything I had to not scream out loud that it was the Democrats who changed the rules. Now that the rules THEY made are being used against them, they are going nuts and so is the propaganda arm, CNN. Hope Rush...

U.S. Sen. John McCain on Monday announced that he will support an upcoming effort by his fellow Republicans to win Senate confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court by changing the chamber's rules in order to overcome Democratic opposition. McCain, in remarks to reporters, said he had "no choice" but to go along with a change in rules ending a tradition of 60 votes in the 100-member Senate needed to advance Supreme Court nominees to a final vote. He said he would support the rule change "because we need to confirm Gorsuch." In the past, McCain has strongly...

Senators in both parties are speculating that a blowup over President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court could lead not only to the end of the filibuster for such nominations, but for controversial legislation as well. While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the legislative filibuster is safe, lawmakers fear that pressure will grow to get rid of it if Democrats block Neil Gorsuch’s nomination this week. McConnell has all but promised to change the Senate’s rules to allow Gorsuch to be confirmed in a majority vote if Democrats filibuster him.

A deeply divided Senate panel favorably recommended Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch on Monday, sending the nomination to the full Senate for what is expected to be a partisan showdown — and eventual confirmation. The 11-9 committee vote for President Donald Trump's nominee, strictly along party lines, came shortly after Democrats secured enough votes to block the nomination in the full Senate. But that Democratic success was virtually certain to be a short-lived political victory, as Republicans vowed to change Senate rules to put Gorsuch on the court and score a much-needed win for their party.

“It’s highly, highly unlikely” that Judge Neil Gorsuch will get 60 votes for confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. But over on “Fox News Sunday,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said it doesn’t matter: “Yes, we're going to confirm Judge Gorsuch this week,” he told host Chris Wallace. McConnell said he doesn’t know if he can get eight Democrats to join 52 Republicans in confirming Gorsuch. “There are Democrats who have not yet announced their position,” he noted. (So far, only three Democrats have said they will vote...

As he tries to line up enough votes to block President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, the Senate Democratic leader is strongly warning Republicans against changing Senate rules to confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch. . . . "He's bound and determined to change the rules and trample on Senate tradition" to get a conservative nominee approved, Schumer said of McConnell. "Let the public judge whether that is a good thing." . . . Schumer conceded Thursday that "We made one mistake, we shouldn't have changed the rules for lower court judges ... but we never did it for Supreme Court. This...

Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said he is confident that he has laid the groundwork for Democrats to nuke the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees if they win back the Senate in November. Envisioning Hillary Clinton in the White House and Democrats controlling the Senate, Reid warned that if a Senate Republican minority block her Supreme Court nominee, he is confident the party won't hesitate to change the filibuster rules again. Such a move would be an extension of what Reid did in 2013 when he was still majority leader, eliminating filibusters (with a simple majority vote) on...