Free Republic

I thought it might be fun to take a little survey and find out who is the most disliked Republican senator currently in Congress. Given that there are 52 Republicans, that gives us about 45 choices. However, in the interest of the upcoming Final Four, I thought I would come up with my top four choices and see where we go. #1. Representing the great state of Arizona Senator John McCain #2. Representing the great state of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham #3. Representing the great state of Kentucky Senator Mitch the Turtle McConnell #4. Representing the great state of...

President Donald Trump's call for $1.5 billion this year to help build a wall along the border with Mexico could be in jeopardy as fellow Republicans in Congress weigh delaying a decision on the request. Republican Senator Roy Blunt, a member of his party's leadership, told reporters on Tuesday that money for the wall likely would not be coupled with a spending bill that must pass by April 28 to avoid shutting down federal agencies whose funding expires then. Blunt said the must-do funding "comes together better" without Trump's additional request for the border wall and military programs and could...

It hasn’t been a good few months for the Democratic Party, and if its activists’ reaction to the Congressional Black Caucus meeting with President Donald Trump is any indication, it’s not going to get better. Under former President Barack Obama’s stewardship, Democrats lost the 2016 presidential election, House, Senate, governorships and state legislatures across the country. Now they’re dealing with an identity crisis with no clear solution — one that is primed to cause more intraparty conflict than the tea party caused the Republican Party. Despite all this failure, they succeeded at one thing: throwing away the old and creating...

Amid Democratic opposition, Republican leaders are retreating from President Donald Trump’s very popular campaign promise to build a border fence to block illegal immigration, drug smugglers, and criminals. A top GOP leader, Sen. Roy Blunt, told reporters on Tuesday that GOP leaders do not want to include Trump’s spending for the border wall in the spring budget, which is due by April 28. “All of the committees, the leaderships of the House and Senate, are working together to try to finalize the rest of the FY17 [budget spending] bill,” he added. “My guess is that comes together better without the...

President Trump's funding request for a border wall will likely be put on hold, Senate Republican leaders signaled Tuesday. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, announced at a leadership press conference that Trump's supplemental funding request will wait until later in the year. He said the Senate and House leadership are very close to negotiating a bill to fund government for the rest of 2017. Adding a supplemental spending bill requested by Trump to pay for military activities and a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border would complicate the talks and should be dealt with at...

PALM BEACH, Fla. - Police arrested a Florida woman Friday on a disorderly intoxication charge at Mar-a-Lago after Palm Beach police said she tried to rush toward a Secret Service-restricted zone inside the club and was talking to empty cars. Amanda Ayres Kerwin, 37, is charged with disorderly intoxication and resisting arrest without violence, both misdemeanors, according to a police report. The report said a Mar-a-Lago security guard saw Kerwin stumble toward an exit and tried to escort her outside late Friday. She insisted her friends were inside, and the guard brought her back inside. Kerwin then rushed toward a...

With control of House, Senate and the Presidency, and with so much that cries out to be done after eight years of Obama inaction and/or mismanagement, Republicans have a golden opportunity to advance their own electoral fortunes by doing well for their country. But all of this is endangered by the fact that their major congressional leader is a man without political instincts, skills, or judgment. It’s unfair to say that he is a RINO, or to question his value to the party as the source of ideas that are sometimes very useful. But it is not unfair to say...

Monday on Fox Business Network’s “Cavuto: Coast to Coast,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said the House Freedom Caucus saved House Republicans from a politically destructive vote when they refused to support the House Republican health care bill which only had a 17 percent approval rating among voters. Gingrich said, “Not voting on Friday was really good. The Democrats lost their majority for the first time in 40 years after they tried to push through Hillarycare. The Democrats lost the majority again in 2010 after they pushed through Obamacare. If we had all the House Republicans line up and vote...

The behind-the-scenes story of the staredown between a few dozen conservative true believers and a novice president. ....In a conference room in the Rayburn House Office Building, the group met that evening and made a secret pact. No member would commit his vote before consulting with the entire group — not even if Trump himself called to ask for an on-the-spot commitment. The idea, hatched by Freedom Caucus Vice Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), was to bind them together in negotiations and ensure the White House or House leaders could not peel them off one by one. Twenty-eight of the...

In 2015, Congress passed Obamacare repeal. Now, a replica bill has sat unaddressed in committee since March 8th and there’s a path to getting it to a floor vote quickly. The Trump spin mill has been in overdrive since House Speaker Paul Ryan pulled the abysmal first attempt of the new administration and Congress at the promised “repeal and replacement” of Obamacare. The Trump administration and the media sold the American Health Care Act as the last best hope for repealing Obamacare, which is a complete joke. The idea that Republicans in the House and Senate, who have largely run...

During the Senate confirmation hearings for Neil Gorsuch, several democrats suggested that Trump’s nominee was unfit to serve because he believes in the Constitution. Seeing as how the job of Supreme Court Justice is to determine the Constitutionality of things, this seems like a pretty bizarre argument, but democrats aren’t known for being rational. Speaking of which, California democrat Kamala Harris says she won’t be voting to confirm Gorsuch because he bases his decisions on the law instead of feelings. Harris tweeted out this stunning statement today: Judge Gorsuch has consistently valued legalisms over real lives. I won't support his...

It is hard to overestimate the damage the Freedom Caucus has done to the fledgling presidency of Donald Trump, and to the country. By blocking the American Health Care Act of 2017, the conservative group has guaranteed that Americans will struggle forward under the burden of Obamacare. In the next few months insurers will announce their premium hikes for the coming year; chances are, given the continuing withdrawal of major companies from the marketplaces and the ongoing failure of the bill to attract enough young and healthy participants, the new rates will not be pretty. Last year premiums went up...

Democrats are cheering a new poll which shows that likely 2018 voters shift 33 points away from incumbent GOP legislators once they are given negative information about House Speaker Paul Ryan’s healthcare bill. “Voters [in GOP districts] move from approving of their congressperson by 12 points(46% approve, 34% disapprove) to disapproving by 21 points (35% approve,56% disapprove) — a net shift of 33 percentage points,” says Priorities USA, which commissioned the poll of 1,001 likely voters into the popularity of Ryancare, or the American Health Care Act. The Ryancare bill is intended to supplant Obamacare’s takeover of the nation’s healthcare...

Cutting taxes isn't enough -- spending must be reduced Many Republicans still believe that tax cuts will unleash so much new economic activity that the tax revenue from that new activity will pretty much make up for any revenue foregone by cutting taxes. Columnist Megan McArdle notes that the GOP has been down this road before, most notably in the 1980s:

Gov. Matt Bevin of Kentucky was unrestrained in his praise for President Trump: Opening for him at a rally on Monday, Mr. Bevin, a conservative Republican, echoed Mr. Trump’s “America First” slogan and only gently noted the nagging divisions in their party. “We now have a president and a Congress that are united in party, and yet we still have disagreements among us,” Mr. Bevin said, insisting, “This is healthy and good.” In private, Mr. Bevin has been blunter about the party’s disagreements. Just days before appearing with Mr. Trump in Louisville, he joined a conference call with the president’s...

Josh Mandel will stop at nothing to keep the people of Ohio safe from illegal immigrant crime. But that is a little unusual when you consider that immigration issues don’t really fall into his job description. Mandel is Ohio’s state treasurer and is currently locked in a political fight with liberal politicians over whether or not two of the Buckeye State’s biggest cities should help illegals skirt federal law enforcement. He is coming up against a political machine that is thoroughly bipartisan. Earlier this year, the mayors of Columbus and Cincinnati announced that they wanted their cities to become sanctuary...

Diagnosis! Democrats are digging their political grave! ... Keep digging As Republicans in Congress continue to craft a legislative solution to the disastrous Unaffordable Care Act, the Democrats continue to mislead its defenders with more and more dishonest and deceptive rhetoric. The latest installment comes from Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), and is deserving of a complete deception diagnosis. By the way, Booker is considered by Democrats to be a future Democrat presidential candidate, and he won the un-coveted “Liberal Lunacy of the Week” last week on the Herman Cain Radio Show with the following litany of false statements:

Camouflaging legislation and foot-dragging in an attempt to distract our attention no longer works. We have to ask why republican leadership is making the delivery of the last gasps of a dying Obamacare so complicated Instant gratification (we all recognize that phrase) in modern culture is now being realized via the instant construction of a house (won’t go into energy consumption to produce the plastic materials), designer food or other “produced” items from 3D printers. “Instant” healthcare is just another take on the concept and government has been feeding the populace on the lie of its affordability for years now....

Welfare reform has been a high priority for Republicans and conservatives for many years, and now that President Donald Trump is in the White House, the possibility of such reform is finally feasible. In what was quite possibly the opening salvo on welfare leeches, Trump was ready to sign a bill passed by Congress that would allow states to perform drug tests on those applying for unemployment benefits, WITI reported. Under President Barack Obama, states weren’t allowed to test applicants for drugs unless they were applying for a job that already had mandatory drug testing. However, there’s a new sheriff...

Oh? Some trick if true, although it wouldn’t be the first time Trump has made a seemingly improbable declaration of himself as the winner only to turn out right. But if he actually pulled this off, I’ve got to know how: US President Donald Trump, after meeting with Republican lawmakers skeptical of the Obamacare replacement plan, announced Friday that he has succeeded in winning their support for the controversial healthcare overhaul.