Free Republic

Honestly, I’d much prefer a pure party-line vote in which the GOP’s bid to block the deal goes down in flames rather than some excruciating Senate kabuki where they almost — but not quite — get enough Democratic votes to reach a two-thirds majority. If Chuck Schumer’s going to let his caucus force America to swallow this sh*t sandwich because it would be too embarrassing for poor Barack if they joined Republicans in stopping it, he should have the balls to vote with them. Instead we’re almost certainly going to be treated to a Democratic version of “failure theater,”...

The ringleader of GOP Failure Theater is accessory to mass infanticide and must be purged from office Let me prefix my next few sentences by pointing out: I am not the executive editor of Redstate and I cannot unilaterally set or change policy for this site. So what I write here is simply my own personal opinion and not necessarily that of this station or its leadership. After today’s latest episode of McConnell-sponsored GOP Failure Theater, there is only one conclusion to draw: Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) 58% must never be re-elected to office. I do not care if it’s...

Question: On Cloture on the Motion to Proceed (Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to S. 1881 ) Vote Number: 262 Vote Date: August 3, 2015, 05:36 PM Required For Majority: 3/5 Vote Result: Cloture on the Motion to Proceed Rejected Measure Number: S. 1881 Measure Title: A bill to prohibit Federal funding of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Vote Counts: YEAs 53 NAYs 46 Not Voting 1 Alphabetical by Senator Name Alexander (R-TN), YeaAyotte (R-NH), YeaBaldwin (D-WI), NayBarrasso (R-WY), YeaBennet (D-CO), NayBlumenthal (D-CT), NayBlunt (R-MO), YeaBooker (D-NJ), NayBoozman (R-AR), YeaBoxer (D-CA), NayBrown (D-OH), NayBurr (R-NC), YeaCantwell (D-WA), NayCapito (R-WV), YeaCardin (D-MD), NayCarper (D-DE), NayCasey (D-PA), NayCassidy (R-LA), YeaCoats (R-IN), YeaCochran (R-MS), YeaCollins (R-ME), YeaCoons (D-DE), NayCorker (R-TN), YeaCornyn (R-TX), YeaCotton (R-AR), YeaCrapo...

Unfortunately, a bill to de-fund Planned Parenthood died today on the Senate floor. A procedural vote to advance the bill failed to get the required 60 votes needed, so the anti-life lobby won — today. Despite this setback, Christians should not despair. We may have lost this battle, but the fight is far from over. And truth is, the pro-life cause is actually faring quite well. Here are five reasons to not lose heart even after this defeat. 1. GOP Senators are Vowing to Continue the Fight and So Should We. Even though today's bill to defund Planned Parenthood failed,...

Pro-Abortion Minority Blocks Senate Bill to Defund Planned Parenthood Despite Bipartisan Majority’s Vote to Cut Tax Dollars BREAKING: The U.S. Senate has voted to continue the federal funding of Planned Parenthood despite the fact that they harvest and sell the body parts of aborted babies. Did your Senator vote to continue this barbarity? We have the list here. A pro-abortion extremist minority in the U.S. Senate has filibustered a vote to defund Planned Parenthood. A bipartisan majority of the Senate voted to close debate and vote to cut off the abortion giant’s taxpayer funding, falling short of the 60-vote threshold...

Planned Parenthood survived a procedural vote Monday in the U.S. Senate on a bill to defund the organization, after a series of undercover videos emerged to suggest that the organization may have been willing to sell fetal organs from late-term abortions to tissue companies. The vote for cloture was 53-46, meaning that it fell well shy of the 60 votes needed to end debate and proceed to a vote. The vote was largely along partisan lines, with Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) 28% crossing over to vote with Democrats, and Sens. Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-IN) 7% and Joe Manchin (D-WV) voting...

Chuck Schumer is getting an earful from opponents of the Iran nuclear deal. More than 10,000 phone calls have flooded his office line the past two weeks, organized by a group looking to kill the deal. Another group has dropped seven figures on TV in New York City to pressure Schumer and other lawmakers to vote against the plan. The powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee has put its muscle behind an effort to lobby the New Yorker against it. And Dov Hikind, a state assemblyman from Brooklyn, was arrested for disorderly conduct while protesting the deal outside Schumer’s office....

President Obama signed a three-month highway bill Friday while chastising Congress for failing to approve long-term transportation funding and other legislative business before lawmakers’ summer vacation. “We can’t keep on funding transportation by the seat of our pants,” Mr. Obama told reporters in the Oval Office. “It’s a bad way for the U.S. government to do business. I guarantee you that’s not how China, Germany and other countries around the world handle their infrastructure.”

Entrenched U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) 43% may be in for the fight of his life in his 2016 re-election bid, as he uses the term “crazies” to describe the approximately 15,000 border security-advocating Arizonans who showed up for Donald Trump’s July appearance in Phoenix. Breitbart News spoke exclusively with Maricopa County Republican Party (MCRP) Chair Tyler Bowyer regarding McCain’s comments and the makeup of the crowd for the Phoenix event. McCain’s “crazies” comment came in an interview with a New Yorker reporter in which the Senator said, “This performance with our friend (Trump) out in Phoenix is very hurtful...

The Export-Import Bank is the height of crony capitalism. The bank uses taxpayer subsidies to make it possible for some American companies to sell their manufactured wares overseas at a lower price. It leads to absurd results like Boeing being able to sell its planes to foreign airliners at a cheaper rate than American aviation companies can buy them. There have been indictments and charges of corruption galore related to the Export-Import Bank. It disrupts the free market, wastes taxpayer dollars and is overwhelmingly unpopular with Republicans and even some Democrats. But Washington lobbyists love it, and they have been...

Before he took over as majority leader, Mitch McConnell was a harsh critic of Harry Reid’s use of a parliamentary tactic to block amendments on the Senate floor. The Kentucky Republican said it was an abuse of the chamber’s rules that stifled debate in the famously deliberative body. But in his first seven months as Senate majority leader, McConnell has employed that same tactic to push through a highway bill, trade legislation and a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security. McConnell has used the maneuver more often than past Senate majority leaders — Robert Byrd, George Mitchell and...

Mighty Mitch, having bamboozled not only Kentuckians but the entire nation into returning him as Senate majority “leader,” is displeased with his caucus: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell got his hands on something he believed to be damning: An email from Sen. Mike Lee’s aide to conservative activists plotting to use an Obamacare vote as a political weapon. So McConnell quickly summoned the GOP to a closed-door session in the Senate’s Mansfield Room Monday night. And he made sure his caucus read the email, placing a copy on every Republican senator’s chair before they arrived. A lawmaker in the...

A group of Republican senators, led by Iowa’s Joni Ernst, introduced legislation Tuesday to strip Planned Parenthood Federation of America of the more than $500 million of taxpayer money that it receives every year. The bill comes after the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress released undercover videos showing Planned Parenthood officials talking with disturbing frankness about selling the organs of unborn children to research facilities. The group’s affiliates across the country performed 327,653 abortion procedures in 2013, according to its most recent annual report. That report shows that Planned Parenthood took more $528 million in federal money, 41 percent...

  Summary of Bills Vetoed, 1789-present Additional information about veto power and procedure can be found on the Vetoes page. President (Years) Coinciding Congresses Vetoes Regular Pocket Total Overridden Barack H. Obama (2009-present) 114-111 4  0  4  0  George W. Bush (2001-2009) 110-107 12  0  12  4  William J. Clinton (1993-2001) 106-103 36  1  37  2  George H. W. Bush (1989-1993) 1 102-101 29  15  44  1  Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) 2 100-97 39  39  78  9  Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) 96-95 13  18  31  2  Gerald R. Ford (1974-1977) 94-93 48  18  66  12  Richard M. Nixon (1969-1974) 93-91 26 ...

Sean Hannity has just said that 3 senators confirmed Ted Cruz's account that McConnell lied. "There is no deal; there is no deal; there is no deal." Only Mike Lee is willing to be on the record. Unlike Rush, Sean Hannity started his program with Ted Cruz's audio and attacking GOP leadership.

The House will not vote on a multi-year Senate highway bill that revives the now-expired Export-Import Bank, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Monday. “We’re not taking up the Senate bill,” McCarthy declared to a roomful of reporters in his office. Instead, McCarthy urged the Senate to take up a short-term House-passed bill which extends federal highway funding for five months, without renewing the Ex-Im Bank charter. He called the House bill the “best option” for Congress before money for highways, bridges and mass transit runs out on Friday. McCarthy’s declaration is a blow not only to the Senate,...

It really shouldn’t be a surprise to see Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell allow the Ex-Im Bank to be revived after it expired in June. Nor is it really surprising to hear McConnell apparently made a deal with three senators (two of them Democrats) to get Ex-Im back on the calendar as long as they voted for Trade Promotion Authority. McConnell is just doing what some people believe leadership and compromise are all about: the ability to wheel and deal. He’s essentially following the same tactics House Speaker John Boehner did to get the “Doc fix” bill passed earlier...

Senate Republican leaders spent a rare Sunday session scolding Ted Cruz. The leaders wagged their fingers at the younger senator, accusing him of using his pedestal in the upper chamber to "pursue personal ambitions." Cruz, a Texas senator who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, drew the ire of his colleagues for claiming the top Republican in the Senate lied to him. He accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) of going back on a promise he claims McConnell made to him about the contentious Export-Import Bank. On Friday, McConnell set up an amendment vote to reauthorize the bank,...

AMERICAN PEOPLE ELECTED A REPUBLICAN MAJORITY BELIEVING IT WOULD SOMEHOW BE DIFFERENT FROM A DEMOCRATIC ONE WASHINGTON, D.C. – After speaking on the Senate floor today, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) issued the following statement: “We’ve just seen something extraordinary on the Senate floor. The American people elected a Republican majority believing that a Republican majority would be somehow different from a Democratic majority in the United States Senate. Unfortunately, the way the current Senate operates, there is one party, the Washington party. “Senate leadership consists of the McConnell-Reid leadership team. They operate as a team. They support the same...

Next week, Senate Republicans could pass Obamacare repeal with a simple 51-vote majority as part of the long-term highway bill, according to Sen. Mike Lee. The Utah Republican laid out the argument in a press release after party leaders set the sequencing of votes: "The first Obamacare vote on Sunday will have a 60 vote threshold, and Democrats will likely block it," Lee continued. "But thanks to the sequencing of the votes we just locked in, Republicans will have the opportunity resurrect that Obamacare amendment later on in the process, and put it back before the Senate in a manner...