Free Republic

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will support Donald Trump and thinks the business mogul can win the presidency, the Kentucky Republican tells "CBS Sunday Morning." To people afraid of a Trump presidency, McConnell sees protections in the system to prevent mistakes by the White House occupant. "What protects us in this country against big mistakes being made is the structure, the Constitution, the institutions," McConnell tells Jan Crawford. "No matter how unusual a personality may be who gets elected to office, there are constraints in this country. You don't get to do anything you want to. So I'm very optimistic...

WASHINGTON — There’s no love lost for outside conservative groups in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s new memoir that hits bookshelves this week. The Kentucky Republican, always a political strategist, makes the case in “The Long Game” that he could have ascended to majority leader earlier if not for forces like the Senate Conservatives Fund. “As more dollars from patriotic Americans rolled in, SCF staff would direct those resources exclusively toward campaigning against the most electable Republicans from the comfort of their townhome on Capitol Hill,” McConnell writes, according to excerpts posted by Google Books. “[R]eminiscent of what happened in...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has introduced an amendment to the Senate's fiscal 2017 defense policy bill that would do away with the draft entirely. The draft has played a major role in debate of this year's National Defense Authorization Act, the first considered by Congress since the ban on women serving in combat was lifted late last year. The House Armed Services Committee voted to add all women ages 18-26 to the Selective Service, but the provision was later stripped out in the full House. The House version of the bill still includes a requirement from Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas,...

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders BERNIE SANDERS Sanders requests recanvass of Kentucky primary Sanders fundraising for state-level candidates The Hill's 12:30 Report MORE ’s campaign is asking Kentucky officials to review the votes from last week's primary. Results currently show that Hillary Clinton beat Sanders by one half of a percentage point in the Bluegrass State. Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes announced Tuesday afternoon that the recanvass will take place on Thursday at 9 a.m. local time.

Congress passed a proposal on Thursday that essentially bans Confederate flags from national cemeteries. With a 265-159 vote, the proposal makes it illegal to display the Confederate flag in Department of Veteran Affairs cemeteries – even on individual grave sites that honor soldiers who fought for the Confederacy, except on Memorial Day and Confederate Memorial Day. Introduced by Rep. Jared Huffman (D) of California, the proposal received support from 84 Republicans and all but two Democrats. Rep. Sanford Bishop (D) of Georgia, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, voted against the amendment, while Representative Betty McCollum (D) of Minnesota...

LOUISVILLE (AP) — Days after securing a re-election match-up with a wealthy Kentucky Democrat, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul declared his support for allowing guns in every school, movie theater and supermarket in America in a speech to the National Rifle Association. Paul did not mention his opponent in November’s general election, Lexington Mayor Jim Gray. Instead, he focused most of his speech on displaying his pro-gun bona fides and urging the elimination of all gun-free zones, including public schools. “Look, I’ve got children. I can’t imagine one of my kids being killed at school by a deranged killer. But, as...

U.S. Senators Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., yesterday introduced the Stopping Mass Hacking (SMH) Act to protect millions of law-abiding Americans from government hacking. The Stopping Mass Hacking (SMH) Act prevents recently approved changes to Rule 41 from going into effect. The changes would allow the government to get a single warrant to hack an unlimited number of Americans’ computers if their computers had been affected by criminals, possibly without notifying the victims. Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Jon Tester, D-Mont., are original co-sponsors of the Senate bill.“This is a dramatic expansion of the government’s...

WASHINGTON – Sen. Ted Cruz is taking some time off from the Senate after his closely watched return to work last week... “After several months of a nonstop schedule, Sen. Cruz is taking some downtime this week with Heidi and the girls,” Cruz spokesman Phil Novack said... Where is Cruz going to unwind? Folks on Twitter say he’s been spotted relaxing in Mexico.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told Breitbart News exclusively on Tuesday that most American companies would not take the risk of hiring former President Bill Clinton in the wake of sexual assault and rape allegations from a litany of women including Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick, Gennifer Flowers, Kathleen Willey, and more. “I think most company policies in most American corporations wouldn’t even hire someone like Bill Clinton because of his threat to the young people in the workplace,” Paul told Breitbart News in the exclusive phone interview. “As CEO in any company in America, his behavior with an intern would be...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told Breitbart News he will honor his pledge to support the presumptive 2016 GOP presidential nominee, Donald Trump, in the general election against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—the likely Democratic nominee—in November. Paul, along with every other 2016 GOP presidential candidate, signed a pledge that they would back the nominee in the general election. “I took a pledge when I ran for president to not run as an independent candidate and to support the Republican nominee,” Paul said. “I stand by that pledge, and I think that anybody who signs their word to a document...

It’s always a sad day when someone you admire tremendously, who has entertained and challenged you for years lets you down and reveals themselves to really stand up only for themselves instead of the ideas of freedom they claim to support. Reason Magazine highlights some deeply discouraging remarks from Penn Jillette, the libertarian co-host of the extraordinarily great Showtime show “Penn and Teller’s Bullsh*t”: Are there any groups you won’t go after? We haven’t tackled Scientology because Showtime doesn’t want us to. Maybe they have deals with individual Scientologists—I’m not sure. And we haven’t tackled Islam because we have families.

Are there any groups you won't go after?We haven't tackled Scientology because Showtime doesn't want us to. Maybe they have deals with individual Scientologists—I'm not sure. And we haven't tackled Islam because we have families. Meaning, you won’t attack Islam because you’re afraid it’ll attack back ...Right, and I think the worst thing you can say about a group in a free society is that you’re afraid to talk about it—I can’t think of anything more horrific. [...]

I don’t speak for all Libertarians any more than Sean Penn speaks for all Democrats. I’m not even sure my LP membership card is up to date. I’ve voted Libertarian as long as I can remember but I don’t really remember much before the Clintons and the Bushes. Those clans made a lot of us bugnutty. When I go on Glenn’s show he calls me a Libertarian, I think that’s my only real credential. There are historical reasons and pragmatic reasons to be a Libertarian, but there are historic and pragmatic reasons to be a Democrat, a Republican or a...

The outspoken atheist Penn Jillette destroys the modernist Piers Morgan in a debate on Catholicism and the papacy.

Did Penn & Teller Set a World Record for Most Falsehoods in One Show? Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League, has said, "Penn & Teller's Nazi-like assault on Catholicism that took place on August 27 will go down in history as one of the most vile, obscene programs ever aired in any nation." However, will the show also go down in history for airing the most number of lies, falsehoods, and misleading statements in a single half-hour show? Not counting credits, the guilty episode runs less than 26 minutes. Here's a lie-by-lie list of the falsehoods that Penn Jillette...

From Tommy Smothers.

Jillette: "I sat on TV, while my hero Tommy Smothers yelled in my face how pissed off he was at me for appearing on Glenn Beck. It broke my heart."

According to the Washington State Marijuana Impact Report, the incidents of marijuana-impaired driving are increasing dramatically. Fatal driving accidents have risen 122 percent between 2010 and 2014, according to the Washington State Traffic Safety Commission. Marijuana is big business in Washington state. There are more marijuana businesses than Starbucks in Washington state (despite the fact that Starbucks was founded in Seattle). The traffic safety organization AAA has its own reports on marijuana use among drivers in fatal crashes, and the picture is equally bleak.

President Barack Obama on Friday called on Sen. Rand Paul to drop his “quirky” objections to pending international tax treaties so they can move forward in Congress. Obama said the treaties will help U.S. authorities investigate and crack down on offshore tax evasion. Paul has argued that they would infringe on Americans’ constitutional right to privacy because their tax data and personal financial information would be shared with other countries. Treaties cannot go into force unless ratified by the Senate, and the objection of any one senator halts action on legislative business pending in that house of Congress, as Paul...

Now that Donald Trump’s two main opponents are out of the way, the conversation is shifting to who his running mate will be. And, as ever, the good people of Reddit have it all figured out. Supporters of Donald Trump launched into a massive discussion on the Donald Trump subreddit, /r/the_donald, after Tuesday’s primary. And a Vocativ analysis of the over 4,300 comments reveals that Trump fans are most ready for joint ticket with Rand Paul. Users participating in the thread, which was tagged as a serious discussion, mentioned Rand Paul more than any other potential candidate, a total of...