Free Republic

The conservative Club For Growth released its annual scorecard for 2013 on Monday, bestowing two Republican U.S. senators — Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah — and four GOP congressmen with 100 percent ratings for their voting records “based on issues relating to limited government and economic growth.”The four congressmen with perfect ratings for 2013 are Republican Reps. Matt Salmon, Trent Franks and David Schweikert of Arizona and Tom McClintock of California. Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan got a 99 percent rating in 2013 “but because of rounding has a 100 percent LifeScore,” the group said.“2013 saw...

Forty-seven Senate Republicans are signaling in an open letter to Iran and the White House that a deal over Tehran’s nuclear program will be at risk once President Obama leaves office. “It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system,” the senators wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Bloomberg. “Thus, we are writing to bring to your attention two features of our Constitution — the power to make binding international agreements and the different character of federal offices — which you should seriously...

Few congressional observers ever expected that U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) would cosponsor the “Corn Ethanol Mandate Elimination Act,” to abolish the corn ethanol Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which requires that increasing volumes of this biofuel be blended into gasoline. Their collaboration again proves the adage that politics often makes strange bedfellows. The RFS was a mistake when enacted ten years ago. Since then, despite attempts to curtail it, the program has expanded and had more lives than Freddy Krueger. Perhaps the senators are now paraphrasing William Shakespeare and Marc Antony, saying “I come to bury...

Unless there is any doubt, the vast majority of Democrats value partisan support for a failed president over support for our own national security and for that of Israel. Hence, they want to delay once again a vote on the Menendez-Kirk bill imposing sanctions on Iran unless it agrees to an acceptable final deal. The bill was introduced more than a year ago. The timing just isn’t right, you see. Will it ever be? A letter by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) signed onto by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.),...

WICHITA, Kan. — Tea Party favorite Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) waded into the Kansas Senate race Thursday, touting beleaguered Republican incumbent Pat Roberts as the contest’s only true conservative. The conservative hero's support is crucial as Roberts tries to energize his campaign and ward off a challenge from well-funded independent Greg Orman in a race that could jeopardize the GOP's hopes of winning Senate control. Cruz vouched for Roberts despite raising money earlier in the cycle for the Madison Project, a conservative group that supported Roberts’s primary challenger Milton Wolf. Wolf has not yet endorsed Roberts in the general election....

Remember these sixteen names when they run for office again. The sixteen Republicans who voted to proceed were Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Richard Burr (N.C.), Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), Susan Collins (Maine). Bob Corker (Tenn.), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Dean Heller (Nev.), John Hoeven (N.D.), Johnny Isakson (Ga.), Mark Kirk (Ill.), John McCain (Ariz.), Pat Toomey (Pa.) and Roger Wicker (Miss.). List courtesy The Hill.com. As reported by RedState yesterday, this bill would allow doctors to add a person’s name to the national database currently used for background checks, and list them as...

Last year, Harry Reid invoked the nuclear option in the Senate in order to get Barack Obama’s appointees confirmed over Republican opposition. His latest appointee might be doomed anyway. Sen. Robert Casey (D-PA) announced on Friday that he will oppose the confirmation of Debo Adegbile to run the Civil Rights Division at Justice on account of Adegbile’s activism for convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal: Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) said Friday he will vote against Senate confirmation of Debo Adegbile, an Obama administration nominee who has been criticized for his role in trying to overturn the death sentence of Mumia Abu-Jamal,...

John McCain voted yea WASHINGTON, D.C., November 7, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – This afternoon the Senate approved a bill that could force business owners who adhere to traditional values to hire homosexuals, bisexuals, and those who do not dress in accordance with their biological sex or face litigation. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) passed following a bipartisan 64-32 vote. Supporters say it would forbid “workplace discrimination” against homosexuals and transgender employees and job-seekers. But critics say, like the HHS mandate, its religious exemption is unduly narrow and would force employers – including Christian schools and nurseries – to violate their consciences....

If you followed the recent goings-on in Washington this past month, you are aggravated. I understand. This has been a frustrating time for me, and for anybody who wants to see our country on a sustainable fiscal path. After almost three weeks in shutdown mode, Congress extended government funding and raised the debt ceiling by several hundred billion dollars with nothing to show for it - no reforms that rein in our country's deficits and debt, no spending constraints, no changes whatsoever. While this result is disappointing, I hope we will see a more fruitful outcome in December as members...

U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey pledged Wednesday to vote against a Senate procedure that would lead to continued funding of the federal government if Obamacare remains fully funded or other measures delaying its implementation are not allowed to be offered up. Toomey, R-Lehigh Valley, said Senate leaders had yet to decide what rules they'll apply to the vote, but added that if they try to block any attempt at defunding, altering, or delaying implementation of Obamacare, they'd be responsible for the consequential government shutdown.(snip) Toomey also shied away from criticizing Sen. Ted Cruz's marathon 21-hour speech on the Senate floor that...

Alan Kessler has shaken the money trees for President Bill Clinton, Senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, and countless other Democrats, notably former Gov. Ed Rendell. Now the Democratic powerbroker and Center City lawyer is co-sponsoring a $5,200-a-ticket fundraiser July 9 for Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. And the Democrats’ 2010 nominee, who wants a rematch with Toomey in three years, is not too happy about it. “We need more Pat Toomeys,” Kessler said. “Time and time again he has reached across the aisle to work with Democrats and do what people are...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) hasn't given up on his bill to expand background checks for gun purchases, he said Thursday, signaling more willingness to return to the plan than he had publicly shown before. "If we could find a way to bring some more folks on board, then of course it would be worth bringing it up again," Toomey said in an interview. While he has largely returned his focus to the fiscal issues he has long been associated with, he said he still occasionally talked privately with fellow senators about the background-check bill that was defeated...

Democratic leaders are wooing staunchly pro-gun candidates to run in pivotal Senate races at the same time they are discussing a strategy for bringing gun control legislation back up for debate. The two-pronged effort has prompted Republicans to accuse the Senate Democratic leadership of hypocrisy, but Democrats say it is simply smart politics. The question is whether two of the Democrats’ most promising potential candidates in Montana and South Dakota will pay a price for the leadership’s political maneuverings in Washington. Or will recruiting candidates who do not support President Obama’s gun control agenda have any effect on Democratic fundraising...

His gun-control bill may have fizzled, but Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, isn’t giving up hope. “I was with Pat [Toomey] last night, and Pat’s totally committed to this bill. And I believe that with all my heart,” he said on Fox News Sunday. Manchin predicted that their legislation to expand background checks will “absolutely” come up for another vote. ”We’re going to work this bill,” he said. “I truly believe that if we have time to sell the bill,” it can pass, he said. In an interview last week with NR, Toomey shared Manchin’s perspective. “If we...

Posted from an Android. The fight is not over.

President Barack Obama delivered an impassioned speech Thursday at the memorial service for victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. But that was to be expected. We all know Obama can give a stem-winder. What wasn’t expected was that this would be by far the toughest week of the Obama presidency—the first time I can remember the president being dealt an unequivocal policy defeat. Only the “shellacking” of the 2010 midterm comes close, and even there a case can be made that achieving the decades-old progressive dream of universal health care was worth losing the House of Representatives and a filibuster-proof...

After two weeks in the national spotlight, Sen. Pat Toomey was ready to move on. Toomey, seeming refreshed Thursday after the deflating defeat of his background-check plan the day before, greeted reporters with a smile as he rode an escalator up from the Capitol's subway platform. But the Pennsylvania Republican did not want to talk much about the fight that had put him at the center of the political and cultural maelstrom on gun laws. "The Senate has spoken on this," Toomey said. "It's not obvious to me what alternative path forward there is. I gave this my best shot."

Organizing for Action (OFA) executive director Jon Carson said his group will now pour resources into opposing Senators who opposed gun control--especially Democrat Senators. This means Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Mark Begich (D-AK), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), and Mark Pryor (D-AR) are marked for defeat by their own party. While OFA does not engage "in electoral politics," they can go from now until the 2014 elections doing what they will to create a divide between these Senators and their constituents. Said Carson: "This is one of those moments where we have to prove that in the face of a setback we're...

As the Senate debated the merits of an assault-weapons ban, an emotional Dianne Feinstein urged her colleagues to “show some guts” and vote in favor of the measure. “I am really chagrined and concerned. If anybody cares, vote at least to prospectively ban the manufacture, the sale, the importation of military-style assault weapons,” she said in remarks on the Senate floor. Feinstein is the author of the assault-weapons ban, which was defeated earlier today by a margin of 60 to 40. The compromise on background checks introduced by GOP senator Pat Toomey and Democratic senator Joe Manchin was also defeated,...

The White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are shy of the 60 votes they need to move the bipartisan compromise bill on background checks for gun sales. Vice President Joe Biden has been personally calling senators to urge them to support the measure, Democratic aides say. Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) began a whip count on Monday, Democratic aides said, and Biden has been pressuring his fellow Democrats to fall in line. Biden’s office did not return an email seeking comment. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) are co-sponsoring the proposal that would expand background checks...