Free Republic

In a complicated political season, nobody has more complications to worry about than the half-dozen Republican senators seeking re-election in tight, swing-state contests. Those senators–hailing from Illinois, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and North Carolina—are being buffeted by big forces largely out of their control as they try to hang onto their seats. Their fate will determine whether Republicans keep control of the Senate, where they currently have a 54-46 advantage. The predicament of these GOP senators comes into clearer focus in the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, completed just last week, which helps crystallize three big complications they...

Senator John McCain will not attend the GOP’s convention this summer. Instead he plans to use the time to campaign for reelection. Politico reports: “I have to campaign for reelection, and I have always done that when I’m up,” McCain said. “We have a late primary in Arizona.”Though the GOP convention is scheduled for July 18-21, the Arizona lawmaker also faces an Aug. 30 primary against state Sen. Kelli Ward and business owner Alex Meluskey. McCain’s real problem is his likely Democratic opponent Ann Kirkpatrick. Though polling is sparse, the RCP average suggests the head-to-head match-up is currently a...

Phoenix, Arizona, April 15, 2016. Incumbent U.S. Senator John McCain is locked in a dead heat with Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick as both receive 42 percent of a test vote taken statewide in April. This leaves only 16 percent undecided as of the time of this survey, compared to 25 percent in January. It also appears that at least one traditional voting pattern is changing in Arizona. For many years, rural voters have tended to lean Republican in most races, but in 2016 Kirkpatrick is outpolling McCain by 43 to 39 percent in the state’s rural counties in a modest but...

Calgary Ted Cruz was humiliated on the floor of the U.S. Senate twice on Monday night, according to a report in Politico. Months of Cruz’s criticisms of his Republican colleagues is now reaping some nasty rewards for the Junior Senator from Canada. During a discussion of continuing funding for the government, Cruz tried to interrupt the proceedings with a roll call vote. The usually polite decorum on the floor of the U.S. Senate quickly turned negative as even Cruz’s fellow Republicans refused to grant him what’s called a “sufficient second” that would have allowed him to briefly call for the...

Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), a GOP Senate hopeful, has said he's not supporting Mitch McConnell (Ky.) as the leader of Senate Republicans. “I have declined to endorse McConnell for reelection, and let’s be honest — if he lets a liberal justice onto the Supreme Court, he’s not going to be the majority leader. We know that, that’s not going to fly,” DeSantis told attendees at an April 10 forum sponsored by the Republican Liberty Caucus of Central East Florida, according to footage obtained by The Hill.

<p>Ted Cruz said Thursday he will not apologize to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for accusing him of lying last year, despite suggestions from Senate colleagues it would help them unite behind his campaign.</p> <p>"That ain't gonna happen," Cruz told CNN's Dana Bash in an interview that aired on "Erin Burnett OutFront." "And if the Washington lobbyists want to see that happen, they can hold their breath a long, long time. My focus is on the American people and uniting Republicans behind shared values and a shared vision." Cruz has presented himself as the candidate best poised to unite the Republican Party against Hillary Clinton in November. But he has struggled with his own colleagues in the Senate, winning limited support from Republican senators.</p>

Stereotypes asserting Jews "control the banks and the media" do not constitute anti-Semitism, a member of the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) Senate claimed this week. During a hearing on renewing a resolution banning anti-Semitism, Stanford senior Gabriel Knight insisted that a clause defining negative Jewish stereotypes is "irresponsibly foraying into another politically contentious conversation." "Questioning these potential power dynamics, I think, is not anti-semitism," he said. "I think it’s a very valid discussion." He also maintained that the bill should include “some language to acknowledge Palestinians’ rights to self-determination." Knight backtracked twenty minutes later, the Stanford Review reported...

Let's not be coy. There's a certain population in this country that expects unlimited government handouts despite its piggish unwillingness to work. Don't tell me this is about their child-care responsibilities, or lack of access to transportation or education. Nonsense. These people simply don't want to work. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the new welfare queens: your democratically elected U.S. legislators, the laziest, most do-nothing generation of federal politicians in decades. Sure, they talk a big game about work ethic and personal responsibility. With the stated goal of promoting personal responsibility, the House Republicans' 2017 budget proposes newly attaching work requirements...

Ted Cruz will Bow to Wall-street and stab every working american family in the back. His idea of 'Improving Immigration' is to _ 1) Double Legal Immigration. 2) increase worker Visas 500% 3) Grant all Illegals here RPI Status, so they can stay and work Legally. Ted is against Citizenship, yes, but he is all for allowing those millions to stay and work...but under the Law they can get Citizenship in 13yrs - How is that a good idea? The simple truth is there is no STEM shortage or labor shortage in the USA. In fact we are flooded with...

When President Obama first nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, Senate Republicans were united in their wall of opposition — no meetings, no hearing, no vote. And while Garland's path remains a very uphill battle, some Republicans are starting to shift their tone. Two weeks into the nomination fight, 16 Republican senators now say they will meet with Garland — over 25 percent of the GOP caucus — according to a running count by NBC News.

Arizona Republican Senator John McCain has branded himself as a “maverick” of Republican politics. For those who pay attention, such coy euphemisms as “maverick” betray a more-sinister label: turncoat. Though he represents one of the most-conservative states in the union in the Senate, McCain consistently works against conservative issues. Though a supporter of defense spending, McCain continues to undermine America’s safety on the most-basic of issues. What good is an extra F-18 or two if we’re consistently leaving the Southern border unsecured for the convenience of any illegal immigrant or Islamic terrorists who wish to enter the country without going...

Just slightly more than a third of the 21 Republican senators up for re-election this year say that they'd unquestionably support Donald Trump if he becomes the party's presidential nominee ... Another six GOP senators up for re-election have hedged on whether they'd stand behind Trump if he's the nominee, opting instead to observe the rest of the Republican primary season. . . . As for the remaining seven senators, they and their offices refused to answer the question, despite multiple attempts by NBC News.

America needs a leader who will stand for what is right, even if he’s the only one standing. The following is a summary of a particular fight between the Senate leadership and Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, taken from Cruz’s book, “A Time For Truth.” At a usually jocular Senate Republican lunch in February of 2014, Senators were turning purple and yelling at Ted Cruz and Mike Lee for refusing to go along with a scheme to raise the debt ceiling. Under Boehner’s leadership, 28 Republicans had joined with 193 Democrats to cut the legs out from under the 199...

In 2005, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) spoke on the Senate floor and insisted he and his colleagues had no constitutional duty to approve President George W. Bush’s Supreme Court nominee. Fast forward to 2016, he’s changing his tune. In a Washington Post article, Reid writes, “The Senate’s constitutional duty to give a fair and timely hearing and a floor vote to the president’s Supreme Court nominees has remained inviolable.” “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd felt compelled to point out the senator's hypocrisy on Sunday:Meet The Press confronts Harry Reid with past hypocritical postures on Supreme Court nominations “I guess I’m confused....

<p>The Republican party’s incoherent response to the Supreme Court vacancy is a partisan reflex in search of a justifying principle. The multiplicity of Republican rationalizations for their refusal to even consider Merrick Garland radiates insincerity.</p> <p>Because they have a right to be obdurate, there being no explicit constitutional proscription against this.</p>

To watch the recent happenings on Capitol Hill, you would think this was just another typical presidential election year—a few bumps here and there, but no sign of a major shake-up, no indication voters were in revolt, nothing to suggest business as usual in Washington was perhaps falling out of fashion among the American public. What else explains the lackluster, uninspiring, and I would suggest, “sell-out your base” agenda of GOP congressional leadership? For example, the Senate GOP sold out its base on the issue of Common Core this week...... That’s right, despite the fact Congress passed a Budget Control...

Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois on Friday became the first Republican senator to call for an up-or-down vote on Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, saying on a Chicago radio show that his colleagues ought to “just man up and cast a vote.” That Kirk would be first to break with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other GOP colleagues, who believe the next president should pick the replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia, is not particularly surprising: Kirk was already one of two Republican senators, with Susan Collins of Maine, to call for hearings.

With the selection of Merrick Garland, President Obama has exercised his constitutional power to nominate a justice to the Supreme Court. The Senate should now exercise its constitutional power not to act on that nominee. Garland’s record as a Clinton-appointed member of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals since 1997, and as its chief judge since 2013, offers no reason to believe that his addition to the Court would provide anything other than a reliable fifth vote to the Court’s liberal bloc. In 2002, dissenting from a ruling striking down the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Haze Rule,” he sought to expand...

Several of the Republican senators expressing a willingness to meet with Judge Garland were like Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Mark S. Kirk of Illinois, incumbents facing difficult re-election fights. Ms. Ayotte said she still opposed holding a confirmation vote. The willingness of Republican senators to meet with Judge Garland highlights how the degree of difficulty in blocking a nomination rises once there is a face and a résumé to go along with it. Judge Garland was confirmed in 1997 by a vote of 76 to 23 for his current seat on the United States Court of Appeals for...

How often does someone get pre-emptive Pinocchios? Barack Obama got three of them today in his speech regarding the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Obama offered a pre-emptive argument of his own, accusing Republicans of “an abdication of their constitutional duty” if they refused to give Garland’s nomination a hearing and a floor vote: resident Obama: The Senate must fulfill constitutional duty At a time when our politics are so polarized, at a time when norms and customs of political rhetoric and courtesy and comity are so often treated like they’re disposable — this is precisely the...