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If you are a Bob Dole Republican, as I generally am, it is oh-so-difficult to be gung ho about where the GOP is headed these days, which seems like straight to hell. The party all too often has abandoned traditional Republican principles. The gargantuan tax bill, touted by President Donald Trump and passed by the House of Representatives, is being debated in the Senate. Only one aspect of the bill personifies Republican principles, and that is a pro-business tilt, which I can embrace, but only to a point. When the result is higher taxes on the middle class, they lose...

John McCain received medical treatment for a minor tear to his right Achilles tendon suffered over the weekend, his office said in a statement Monday.

ABC News political analyst Matthew Dowd said on Sunday that the efforts of congressional Republicans to confirm Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court amid sexual harassment allegations levied against him "empowered" former President Bill Clinton's alleged sexual misconduct. Dowd, a former Republicans strategist who now identifies as a "proud independent," made the remarks on ABC's "This Week," Newsbusters reported. "Some things are not about the tribe we're in," Dowd said of sexual misconduct allegations in general during a conversation about Clinton, who some liberals and journalists have criticized in recent weeks amid the ongoing national discussion about sexual harassment. Dowd...

The top Senate Republican campaign official said Monday that the Senate should move to expel Roy Moore should he manage to win the special election next week for senator from Alabama. “I believe the individuals speaking out against Roy Moore spoke with courage and truth, proving he is unfit to serve in the United States Senate and he should not run for office,” said Sen. Cory Gardner, Colorado Republican. “If he refuses to withdraw and wins, the Senate should vote to expel him, because he does not meet the ethical and moral requirements of the United States Senate.” It’s the...

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said Monday that he would vote for Democrat Doug Jones over Judge Roy Moore in the Alabama special election for Senate and would support expelling Moore if he wins. “I don’t think it will get to that,” Flake said regarding expulsion. “But if it does, yes.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. Pat Toomey urged Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore on Sunday to drop out of the race, adding to the party’s growing disavowal of the controversial judge in a pivotal election following allegations that he initiated sexual contact with a 14-year old girl decades ago. Toomey said Moore’s explanations have been inadequate so far in response to The Washington Post report last week and that Republicans should consider current Sen. Luther Strange as a write-in candidate to run against Moore. “You know, this is a terrible situation, nearly 40-year-old allegation, we’ll probably never know for sure...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday called for GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore to "step aside," according to the Associated Press. His comments come after a woman accused Moore of initiating sexual contact with her in 1979, when she was 14 and he was 32. McConnell was asked if he believes the allegations to be true. "I believe the women," he said.

Fervent Trump-trashing Senator Bob Corker blasted the people of Alabama on Saturday for voting to make Judge Roy Moore the Republican nominee for Senate, calling their decision “a bridge too far.” Retiring Sen. Corker broadcast his jab to Twitter, “Look, I’m sorry, but even before these reports surfaced, Roy Moore’s nomination was a bridge too far.” Senator Bob Corker ✔ @SenBobCorker Look, I'm sorry, but even before these reports surfaced, Roy Moore's nomination was a bridge too far. 11:29 AM - Nov 11, 2017

@MittRomney Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections. I believe Leigh Corfman. Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside.

Politics is about addition, not subtraction. I don't know who first said it (the internet offers many possibilities), but it's an iron law of politics, not just democracy. You gain power by adding forces to your coalition, and you lose power by subtracting forces from your coalition. That's the lesson of the recent election results in Virginia and elsewhere across the country. But again, that's the lesson of pretty much every election, because of that whole iron law thing. It's not complicated. For years now, the GOP has been losing support among its natural primary constituency -- middle- and upper-middle-class...

President Donald Trump called from South Korea on Tuesday to share with Democrats what his accountant told him about the GOP tax measure, namely that he is "going to get killed in this bill." According to NBC News and other news outlets, the exact quote made by the president as he spoke to 12 Senate Democrats during a phone call was: "My accountant called me and said 'you're going to get killed in this bill.' The deal is so bad for rich people, I had to throw in the estate tax just to give them something."

Mitt Romney told wealthy donors gathered at a high-dollar campaign fundraiser that there’s a group of voters he believes he can never win over: people who pay no taxes. "There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what," Romney said. "All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the...

....“I don’t know how you get around that this wasn’t a referendum on the administration, I just don’t," Taylor told reporters at Gillespie's election night party. "Some of the very divisive rhetoric really prompted and helped usher in a really high Democratic turnout... "I’m telling you that from someone who is from Virginia, who watched these races, who watched people lose tonight against opponents who are completely no name.” ....Taylor admitted that Trump could threaten the GOP's House majority. When asked whether Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) would retain his speakership if Trump doesn't moderate, Taylor said it was an "interesting...

Meghan McCain's new gig on ABC's The View has bumped up ratings for the long-running talk show, but her presence has created some new behind-the-scene drama for the series, DailyMail.com can reveal. The trouble-prone daytime show has become as popular for its high co-host turnover rate and off-camera squabbles, as it has for their fiery hot topics discussions. The show had found some peace among the talent over the last year with co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines, and Jedediah Bila, until Bila was fired earlier in September to make way for Meghan. But the addition of...

Is there a more annoying politician today than Evan McMullin? Here’s his latest on Ed Gillespie and the Virginia gubernatorial campaign:

The party’s drift in that direction began years ago, the Arizona senator said, explaining, “We could not be the party of fiscal conservatism when we were ballooning our debt. So we started to wage in the cultural wars, started arguing about flag burning. And we’ve gotten further and further down that road. Donald Trump latched on to that and put it into hyper-drive. Unfortunately, voters have gone along with him.”

Well....today is the day...Election Day in Virginia. Virginia voters "all", the future of our nation is in your votes today. If you turnout in massive numbers and cast your votes for Republican Ed Gillespie to become the next Governor of Virginia, you will accomplish three great positive things immediately, for your state and for your country This election is a "critical path one" because it can set the tone and direction of all politics in the USA for the next ten to twenty years. If your elect Ed Gillespie as your Governor, he brings, beside his election, two things with...

The View welcomed Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) to the table on Monday. As expected, the outgoing Senator received plaudits from the anti-President Donald Trump–View panel, and a warm reception from the largely progressive-leaning studio audience in the wake of his dramatic speech bashing Trump on the Senate floor. After the hospitable greeting, Flake dropped some harsh truth — talking about the state of the Republican party, and the reason he’s not running to retain his seat. “I felt that I could not run the kind of race I would need to run to be competitive,” Flake said. “I could not...

Sen. John McCain's office says he suffered a minor tear in his right Achilles tendon and was treated over the weekend at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. A statement from his office says the 81-year-old Arizona Republican also was treated for "other normal and non-life-threatening side effects of cancer therapy." McCain is in his sixth Senate term and has brain cancer. McCain was limping badly last week. The statement says he's back at work and will wear a walking boot until his injured tendon is fully healed.

I want to point out the dangers that loomed in the 2016 campaign. First, during the GOP primaries, the Republican National Committee and other senior elected officials [#RINOs] were floating trial balloons about nullifying the votes of their own base. They kept saying that the Party leadership has the right to choose their own candidate -- over the clearly expressed will of their electorate. As Herman Cain pointed out, if that had happened, the Party of Abraham Lincoln would have proven itself to be as corrupt and irrelevant as the Whig Party it replaced -- having violated the principles of...