Free Republic

President-elect Donald Trump’s broadside against the intelligence community is dividing Capitol Hill Republicans, with some ready to pounce on Trump’s skepticism that Russia interfered with the U.S. elections and others urging a more cautious approach. The resulting schism could widen as Congress begins probing the CIA’s charges that Russia intervened in the November elections in an attempt to help Trump, potentially becoming one of the first significant intraparty breaches of the Trump presidency. U.S. critics of Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, such as Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), want to go full-bore on holding Russia to account...

Shortly after meeting with President Obama on Capitol Hill Wednesday in a desperate effort to save Obamacare from repeal, Democrats pulled out their old political playbook and accused Republicans of wanting Americans to be sick.   "The Republican plan to cut healthcare wouldn't make America great again, it would make America sick again. " new Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. "They seek to rip healthcare away from millions of Americans, creating chaos in our entire economy."

When asked by ABC News what he feared the most about the incoming Trump administration, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich said it was that “they would lose their nerve.” […] “Look, they’re going to arrive in Washington, and for them to be successful, they have to stake out positions that Donna [Brazile] will not like and the Left will hate,” Gingrich explained. “And my deepest concern is they’re going to arrive and you’re going to have the Greens going crazy over the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] and Interior [Department]. You’re going to have the government employees going crazy about...

During an interview aired on Tuesday’s edition of CNN’s “The Lead,” Senate Minority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) stated of President-Elect Donald Trump, “The only way we’re going to work with him is if he moves completely in our direction and abandons his Republican colleagues.” Schumer said, “The only way we’re going to work with him is if he moves completely in our direction and abandons his Republican colleagues...."

The Trump effect has landed forcefully on Capitol Hill. Less than two hours after President-elect Donald Trump criticized House Republicans — in a tweet, of course — for trying to gut an ethics investigative unit on the first day of business in the new Congress, those plans lay in shambles in the Republican conference’s meeting room. The immediate outcome was to keep intact the independent Office of Congressional Ethics There was a broader outcome, too: The unruly Republican caucus that has wreaked havoc in the House for the entirety of Ryan’s tenure fell in line. And there were signs, judging...

The new Congress was sworn in on Tuesday, and the first thing it did was prepare to repeal Obamacare. Senate Budget Committee Chair Michael Enzi (R-WY) introduced a budget resolution Tuesday that includes "reconciliation instructions" that enable Congress to repeal Obamacare with a simple Senate majority. Passing a budget resolution that includes those instructions will mean that the legislation can pass through the budget reconciliation process, in which bills cannot be filibustered. That means Republicans will only need 50 of their 52 members in the Senate, and a bare majority in the House, to pass legislation repealing the Affordable Care...

Good luck Unless Chuck Schumer has a procedural trick in mind that will make repeal impossible, the only way the Democrats save ObamaCare is to scare off at least three Republican senators. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, I assume they’re looking at you, although you’d still need one more. But it might be a measure of how skittish they think Senate Republicans actually are that Obama still thinks it’s worthwhile to rally the troops at this point:

Since Nov. 9, I have heard people label President-elect Donald Trump’s voters as stupid, uninformed and cruel. I have heard people claim that they no longer recognize their country, that this America is not their America. And that is exactly why he won. Trump supporters can be split into four groups: the Never Hillary camp, the party loyalists, the “I just care about the Supreme Court” folks, and true supporters. To those who wonder how on earth Trump won, the answer is simple. Some people really didn’t like Hillary Clinton, some felt obliged to support the party, some wanted a...

After the shocking results of the 2016 election, most analysts focused on the shift among working-class whites towards Donald Trump. However, there was another seismic transformation on election day that may have longer repercussions: young black men are leaving the Democratic Party like never before. Exit polls of the nationwide House races showed two important numbers, black men and millennials voted for the GOP in numbers that hadn’t been seen in decades. According to CNN exit polls, 18 percent voted of black men for a Republican candidate for the U.S. House, which is more than three times the number of...

Trump has turned the enemy’s tactics against itself Can we say anything more about Donald Trump and his election campaign that has not already been said? Let’s look again at Saul Alinsky’s book RULES FOR RADICALS. Could it be that Trump used some of Alinsky’s ideas to win the election? RULES FOR RADICALS was first published in 1971. That’s almost 50 years ago.

Now that the 538 electors have voted -- and, with only the most minor of exceptions, for the expected candidates -- we can marvel at how such a huge difference in public policies can be made by just a few votes, the 77,744 votes by which Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton for the 46 electoral votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Trump's narrow victory means a significantly more conservative Supreme Court, a rollback of Obamacare and reams of regulations, abandonment of policies disfavoring fossil fuel usage -- and hundreds of consequences that can only be guessed at. This isn't the...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, did you see the final popular vote tally? Donald Trump won the election by three million votes, if you throw out California and New York. You throw out California, New York, Trump wins by three million votes. If you include California and New York Hillary wins by, what was it, 2.5 or 2.2 million votes. It's a perfect illustration of why we have the Electoral College. Now, my question is a simple one. Since Hillary won the popular vote, why are they complaining about the Russians hacking the election? I mean, Hillary wins the...

“There, I said it. Mark it Down. Write it.” That was Joe Scarborough on today’s Morning Joe predicting that Republicans will be “wiped out” in the 2018 elections if they govern as far right as the Trump cabinet selections suggest. Scarborough drew the analogy to the 1994, and more specifically to the 2010 midterm elections, when Dems suffered cataclysmic losses after an emboldened Obama admin governed from the left in its first two years. Scarborough misses an important point, in the view of this Insurrectionist. Dems didn’t get punished in 2010 because of the abstract notion that they governed too...

Pressure on members of the country’s electoral college to select someone other than Donald Trump has grown dramatically — and noisily — in recent weeks, causing some to waver, but yielding little evidence Trump will fall short when electors convene in most state capitals Monday to cast their votes. Carole Joyce of Arizona expected her role as a GOP elector to be pretty simple: She would meet the others in Phoenix and carry out a vote for Trump, who won the most votes in her state and whom she personally supported. But then came the mail and the emails and...

Automatic voter registration bill dies in Illinois House after veto, but similar legislation could follow SPRINGFIELD – Gov. Bruce Rauner’s veto of a bill that would automatically register voters across Illinois has held up in the General Assembly, leaving unclear whether such a bill can secure enough votes to become law amid the current political environment. The Illinois State Senate easily topped the total needed to override the veto with a 38-18 vote in favor. The parties, however, were more divided in the Illinois House of Representatives. The bill received 67 yes votes. However, 71 votes were required to override...

The Republican National Committee is overseeing an expansive whip operation designed to lock down Donald Trump’s Electoral College majority and ensure that the 306 Republican electors cast their votes for the president-elect. Two RNC sources familiar with the effort said the committee — with the assistance of state Republican parties and the Trump campaign — have been in touch with most of the GOP electors multiple times, and has concluded that only one is a risk to cast a vote against Trump on Dec. 19, when the Electoral College meets. The RNC’s elector head count, the sources emphasized, is standard...

Republican lawmakers are increasingly at odds with Donald Trump across a range of ­high-profile domestic and national security issues, an early sign that the GOP-led Congress might resist some elements of the ­president-elect’s un­or­tho­dox agenda. Although Trump maintains enthusiastic backing in many corners of the party, key members of the Senate and House have been outspoken in challenging his views of Russia and its interference in the U.S. election, warning of potential conflicts of interest arising from Trump’s far-flung business interests if he does not fully divest from his company, and criticizing the tough approach that he has taken to some...

Great news out of Louisiana tonight. With 80% of the vote in, John Kennedy (R) is blowing out Foster Campbell (D) by a 64-36% margin. Some insurance for the Republican majority and this virtually guarantees that President Elect Trump gets the Cabinet he wants.

County leaders are hopeful that the $1 trillion infrastructure investment promised by Republican president-elect Donald Trump will have a big impact on the region. Trump has promised to prioritize infrastructure spending in his first 100 days in office. The move is one that Democrats, now in minority positions in both houses of Congress, have said they're willing to support. The plan, which is not yet fully fleshed out, looks to rely heavily on billions of dollars of infrastructure tax credits to private entities. And while Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen warned recently that weighing down the national debt with...

State Republicans are seeking to prevent a recount of ballots in some Allegheny County precincts on Monday, arguing that petitions seeking the recount were filed in the wrong place. “The Elections Board has no power or authority to conduct any further recount or recanvass,” said a Wednesday filing in Common Pleas Court by Republican attorneys Ronald Hicks and Lawrence Tabas. The arguments involved are technical, and rely on a close reading of the timeline according to which votes are counted and challenges may be permitted. But in essence, Republicans argue that those seeking the recount were in the wrong place...