Free Republic

David Vitter, the only conservative up in 2016 is running for Governor in 2015. Grassley is good for his state's leanings and he needs no help to win big. Harry Reid's seat is going to be contested by 1 of the pro-amnesty or pro-driver-card Nevada Republicans Sandoval, Heck, Amodei, Cresent or Hutchison. Portman is a conservative because Ben Carson endorsed him apparently. John McCain (R) Johnny Isakson (R) Mark Kirk (R) Chuck Grassley (R) Roy Blunt (R) (Harry Reid) (D) Kelly Ayotte (R) Richard Burr (R) Rob Portman (R) Pat Toomey (R) Ron Johnson (R)

Loretta Lynch, after being kept waiting in the wings by the Senate for five and a half months, was confirmed Thursday as the first African American woman to serve as Attorney General. Lynch was approved 56-43, one of the narrowest margins in history for an attorney general nominee. The vote ended an unusually partisan episode in modern Senate confirmation history, in which a largely uncontroversial nominee to one of the top cabinet posts was kept out of office for a lengthy period over issues extraneous to her job.

On the Senate floor a few moments ago, Ted Cruz SLAMMED the new Senate Republican majority for refusing to block Loretta Lynch’s nomination to Attorney General. He said that the Republican majority could continue to block the nomination if they wanted to and it’s something he’s urged them to do do because of her admissions to run the DOJ in a lawless fashion just like Eric Holder. He pointed out that more than a few voters are asking what is the difference between a Republican and Democratic Senate majority when someone promising the exact same lawlessness as Holder will be...

A Senate staff member told me yesterday there is a classified version of the nuclear framework with Iran that members of the Senate are having difficulty assessing because it has been classified secret and is locked up in the Senate security office. I was told that few Senate staffers are being allowed to read this classified version of the framework. This revelation raises several serious questions about President Obama’s desperate effort to get a nuclear deal with Iran. First, this classified version of the framework agreement must be different from the fact sheet on the framework released by the State...

Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch joined a group of former U.S. attorneys in signing an amicus brief presented to the Supreme Court in 2006 in the case of Gonzales v. Carhart that argued that the federal ban on partial-birth abortion was unconstitutional because its language was too vague. In their brief, for example, Lynch and the other former U.S. attorneys argued that the term “living fetus” was too vague to be understood by those responsible for following and enforcing the law. Congress enacted the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2003 with broad bipartisan support. Senators Joe Biden of Delaware, Harry...

Surprised? Don’t be, as the confirmation vote for Loretta Lynch was never going to be stalled forever. Under pressure themselves, Democrats finally cut a deal on the human-trafficking bill to get the Lynch nomination completed: “I’m glad we can say there is a bipartisan proposal that will allow us to complete action on this legislation so we can provide help to the victims who desperately need it,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced on the Senate floor.“As soon as we finish the trafficking bill, as I’ve indicated for some time now, we’ll move to the president’s nominee for...

The Minnesota Senate will keep its rule forbidding members from looking at one another during floor debate and will continue to ban everyone from having drinks on the Senate floor. The issues arose Monday during the passage of the rules to govern the Senate. On a 15-44 vote, the Senate decided to keep its current requirement that all speakers must gaze at the Senate president. "I find this particular rule of the Senate, dare I say, antiquated," said Sen. Warren Limmer, R-Maple Grove. But Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, disagreed. When you can look at the senator speaking, he...

As the Framers knew, we are unlikely to outgrow human nature. So what happens when we decide we’ve outgrown a Constitution designed to protect us from human nature’s foibles? The question arises, yet again, thanks to Senator Bob Corker. The Tennessee Republican, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, is author — along with Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) — of a ballyhooed bipartisan bill that is being touted as the derailment of President Obama’s plan to trample congressional prerogatives en route to a calamitous “deal” that will facilitate jihadist Iran’s nuclear-weapons ambitions. (I use scare-quotes because...

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday unanimously approved, 19 to 0, legislation granting Congress a voice in negotiations on the Iran nuclear accord, The New York Times reported. The legislation will now go to the full Senate, after President Barack Obama earlier withdrew his opposition rather than face a bipartisan rebuke. Republican opponents of the nuclear agreement on the committee sided with Obama’s strongest Democratic supporters in demanding a congressional role as international negotiators work to turn this month’s nuclear framework into a final deal by June 30. The bill would mandate that the administration send the text of...

Mark Levin exposes the treachery in the US Senate today, who he says just capitulated completely to Obama by gutting their own constitutional duty to approve treaties, giving it solely to Obama. So in short, Obama can make a treaty with the Islamo-Nazis in Iran without submitting it to the Senate and the Senate can only stop it if they can get enough nays to vote against it.

Traitor is strong language, but in the aftermath of Tuesday’s vote on a bill that was supposed to reaffirm the Senate’s constitutional power to consent to President Obama’s as yet still undefined and undisclosed nuclear treaty with Iran there is no other way to describe the actions of Senator Bob Corker, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations The bill Corker rammed through the Foreign Relations Committee is worse than no bill at all. What Corker’s bill does is, in its post-markup form, require the president to submit for congressional review the final nuclear agreement reached between Iran, the...

Bowing to pressure from Republicans and his own party, President Barack Obama on Tuesday relented to a compromise empowering Congress to reject the emerging nuclear pact with Iran. The rare and reluctant agreement between the president and the Republican-led Congress came after the White House maintained for weeks that congressional interference could jeopardize sensitive negotiations with Tehran. But lawmakers refused to back down from their insistence that Congress have a formal role in what could be a historic nuclear weapons deal. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved the compromise bill shortly after White House spokesman Josh Earnest conveyed the...

The US Congress will have a say on a nuclear deal with Iran, under a new agreement reached with the White House. President Barack Obama withdrew his opposition to a bipartisan bill that was unanimously passed through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The bill means the administration must immediately send text of a final deal to Congress. An outline agreement on the future shape of Iran's nuclear programme was reached after marathon talks in April. The US, Iran, and four other nations have set a deadline of 30 June to finalise a deal which would ease western sanctions in exchange...

National conservative groups may get one of their first-choice recruits this year in Florida's open Senate race, if Rep. Ron DeSantis follows through on his initial interest in replacing 2016 presidential candidate Marco Rubio. DeSantis, a 36-year-old Iraq War veteran and founding member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said in a statement Tuesday that he will consider running to replace Rubio next year. "As it became clear that Senator Rubio was likely to run for president, I received encouragement to consider running for the Senate," DeSantis said, adding that he and his wife "will use the next several weeks...

Today, the Obama Administration announced that it had finalized its nuclear agreement with Iran and had agreed to sell the Iranian government a wide range of nuclear weapons and specific delivery systems with a range of less than eight hundred miles. The administration hailed the agreement as the best possible result available and challenged Republicans to develop a better alternative. In turn, the Ayatollah delivered a speech in Tehran explaining that the American Administration's announcement misstated the agreement and that the delivery systems promised had a range of seven thousand miles. Both parties have indicated that Iran's word is its...

It may be as soon as today when the Iran Bill finishes its journey through the Senate and comes to a vote. If enacted, the bill will give Congress the right to review any agreement with Iran made by John Kerry and the White House and either approve or deny the lifting of any sanctions imposed on that country by Congress. (How it was ever a question as to how sanctions imposed by Congress wouldn’t be lifted by Congress is a question for another day.) From the sound of things, Bob Corker is hopeful that things may be wrapped...

[ .... " Bayh, though, suggested the friction now could give way to better times soon for Democrats. “I do think with a new president, potentially new leaders, certainly for Democrats in the Senate --who knows about the House -- there may be a season for governing where people might actually find more common ground,starting all over with a blank sheet of paper,” Bayh said. “That would be a good thing for the country.”

WASHINGTON – Sen. Marco Rubio has filed legislation to repeal gun control laws he considers too restrictive — not in his native Florida but specifically in Washington, D.C., despite overwhelming support for the statutes by residents of the nation’s capital. “In order to achieve the American dream, people need to be able to live in safe communities and be able to protect themselves, their families and their properties from danger,” Rubio said. “The lawful exercise of the Second Amendment is part of what makes this possible. For years, the District of Columbia has infringed on its residents’ Second Amendment rights...

BALTIMORE - Democratic primary voters should find little difference in political ideology between the two candidates running to replace retiring Sen. Barbara Mikulski, according to outside analysts. Both U.S. Reps. Donna Edwards and Chris Van Hollen are ranked “hardcore liberals” by On The Issues, a political website that analyzes policy issues supported by federal, state and local politicians. Both Edwards and Van Hollen are considered reliable Democrats, who vote with their party 100% of the time, according to The Sunlight Foundation, a national, non-partisan organization that focuses on transparency and accountability in government and politics. Rep. Elijah Cummings, 7th, ranking...

Republican operatives were wringing their hands with concern re the 2016 Senate races  before 2014's congressional victory was even secured- Senate Republicans will have to work hard to retain their recently won majority as they face a tough 2016 electoral map. They have 24 seats up compared to Democrats' 10, including seven in states President Obama carried twice. Democrats won't have any red-state senators facing reelection and could be buoyed by a favorable presidential-year electorate. Republicans do have some margin for error after their sweeping 2014 win netted them nine seats for a 54-seat Senate majority. Democrats won't have it easy...