Free Republic

Stuart Saves his Senate Seat For whatever reason, people in Minnesota really seem happy with their decision to keep Al Franken in Congress. Despite his nebulous messages, boring demeanor, and uniformly terrible speeches on the Senate floor, he trounced his GOP rival in 2014 and remains bafflingly popular. Couple that with the whole “famous comedian” thing and you had what many on the left thought was a recipe for a presidential run. We’ve been hearing rumors almost since Franken claimed his Senate seat - at least as far back as 2010 - mostly due to the fact that Dems have...

Referring to behind-the-scenes work among Senate Republicans on a healthcare bill, [U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell said, "I don't know how we get to 50 (votes) at the moment."

This week, while Donald Trump ensnares himself in the most serious threat to his presidency to date, Congress is, to some extent, continuing with the typical business of government. A series of hearings during “Infrastructure Week� are focusing on the administration’s rumored infrastructure plan.Although the White House has been talking up private infrastructure investment as a replacement for public funding, a panel of experts told Congress that, even with perfectly executed public-private partnerships, the federal government still needs to provide its own support — especially for projects, like transit lines, that aren’t guaranteed to generate toll revenue for profit-seeking investors.This...

Lena Epstein, co-chairwoman of Donald Trump's Michigan campaign, has announced her candidacy for U.S. Senate. If Epstein wins the Republican nomination in 2018, she would be up against U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who first won her Senate seat in 2000 and won easy re-elections in 2006 and 2012. Epstein is the first Republican to declare candidacy for the seat. A 35-year-old Bloomfield Hills resident, Epstein is co-owner of Vesco Oil Co., a distributor of automotive and industrial lubricants. The company has more than 200 employees and annual revenues of $175 million, according to Epstein's personal website. In a press release...

A candidate for the 2018 U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts tweeted out a video on Sunday challenging Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) to prove her claims of having American Indian heritage. V.A. Shiva, who is seeking the Republican nomination in 2018 and has claimed he invented email, filmed himself holding a "23andMe" DNA testing kit, which he claims requires only his saliva and a "few short days" to prove if he was a real Indian. Shiva was born in Bombay, India, while Warren's claim is about having American Indian, or Native American, heritage. "I want to challenge Elizabeth Warren...

It seems that the Senate Intelligence Committee couldn’t cut a deal with Michael Flynn after all. The Associated Press reports this morning that the former national security adviser will refuse to provide any testimony, and will invoke the Fifth Amendment instead: BREAKING: AP Source: Michael Flynn to decline Senate Intel committee subpoena, invoke 5th Amendment later today.— The Associated Press (@AP) May 22, 2017 Last week, the AP ended up with some egg on its face when it relied on Senate Intel chair Richard Burr’s contention that Flynn had decided to “defy� a subpoena. It turned out that Flynn’s...

Depends on who is President.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" that he would support an effort by Senate Democrats to refuse a vote on President Trump's nominee to be the new director of the FBI if a special prosecutor is not named to investigate Russian involvement in the 2017 campaign.Politico: The notion that Democrats might refuse to vote on any nominee put forward by Trump to be the bureau’s director was first floated last week by a handful of lawmakers including Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). Schumer, who spoke...

Ousted FBI Director James Comey will not appear in a closed session before the Senate Intelligence Committee next Tuesday. Comey had been invited by Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and top Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia. Their panel is investigating Russia’s election meddling and allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Warner announced that Comey would not be appearing before his panel in an interview on MSNBC Friday. The session would have provided Comey a first chance to discuss with lawmakers the circumstances of his firing. Warner’s announcement came after President Donald Trump issued a warning to Comey on...

(AP) - Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will brief the full Senate next week amid controversy over President Donald Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office confirmed Friday that Rosenstein had accepted the invitation extended by Schumer and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The time and date are not yet finalized.

Democrats are threatening to slow the Senate to a crawl in response to President Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat, launched the effort by objecting to the Senate GOP's routine request to allow 13 committee hearings to take place on Wednesday. "Because of the decision last night by the president of the United States to terminate the director of the FBI and the questions that its raised we gathered together, the Democratic senators on the floor, and listened as our leader at least suggested a path for us to follow...

The Senate has confirmed Heather Wilson as secretary of the Air Force. Senators approved Wilson’s nomination 76-22, making her President Donald Trump’s first service secretary nominee to be approved by the GOP-led chamber. ... Wilson is a former Republican congresswoman from New Mexico. She had faced scrutiny from several Democrats for defense industry consulting work she did after leaving Congress in 2009. She is the first graduate of the Air Force Academy to hold the service’s top civilian post.

Two GOP legislators are introducing legislation to let states annually import 500,000 foreign blue-collar workers and white-collar professionals to replace Americans who have fallen out of the workforce and into drug addiction. The American replacement bill is needed because companies can’t hire the employees they want amid the massive decline in the number of Americans who are seeking work, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson told an event hosted Wednesday by the CATO Institute.

Republican senators say they don’t see a way to get healthcare reform over the finish line, even if the House passes a bill this week. A senior GOP senator said the chances of getting 51 votes for legislation based on the House healthcare bill are less than 1 in 5.

Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice has reportedly declined an invitation to testify before a Senate panel investigating Russian attempts to influence the U.S. election, walking back her earlier acceptance. According to CNN, Ms. Rice’s initial acceptance of the invitation from Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, was based on the presupposition that it was a bipartisan request. However, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, reportedly told Ms. Rice that he did not approve of Mr. Graham’s invitation. According to a letter from Ms. Rice’s lawyer obtained by CNN,...

The top Republican in the Senate on Tuesday rejected President Donald Trump's suggestion that his party change the chamber's rules to undercut the ability of Democrats to block legislation with filibusters. "There is an overwhelming majority on a bipartisan basis that is not interested in changing the way the Senate operates on the legislative calendar," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters.

Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore resigned from the bench on Wednesday and announced he is running for the U.S. Senate seat made vacant by Sen. Jeff Sessions' appointment as attorney general of the United States. The state's primaries are scheduled for Aug. 25 and the general election is Dec. 15. In announcing his run, Justice Moore, a West Point graduate and veteran who served in Vietnam, said, “My position has always been God first, family, then country. I think I share and I know I share the vision of our president, Donald Trump, to make America Great Again."...

Think about this for a minute. The 17th was about having state governments have a voice in Washington for legislation to protect the states' interest in reigning in central powers. The 17th took control of selecting Senators from the state's legislative body and gave it to the masses (democracy in action). As it stands today, there are 32 Republican-controlled state legislatures. This would presumably translate into 64 Pubbie seats, likely more conservative and 10th Amendment-conscious than the corrupt, treasonous bastards we have now in both parties. Throw in 6 more split legislatures, and we likely get 6 more from that;...

With a big assist from John McCain How, you ask, can we be at risk of a government shutdown? Republicans control the House, the Senate and the presidency. All the Republicans have to do is hold together and they can avert a shutdown, you reasonably assume. But it doesn’t work that way. It should. And it could. But as it stands today, it doesn’t. That’s because Senate Republicans under the leadership of Mitch McConnell continue to tolerate the abuse of what was once a tool used only in extraordinary circumstances - the filibuster.

Early in this video, yet again, Secretary Ross clearly states he is waiting on congress to accept the letter; ie. it was sent mid-March. Republicans control the Senate. Republicans, not democrats in the Senate, do not want the Trump administration to renegotiate NAFTA. This is one of the clearest examples of the UniParty at work and the anti-American principles behind the U.S. Chamber of Commerce corporate lobbyists – lobbying directly against the Trump administration.