Free Republic

Rep. Adam B. Schiff, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, wants a defense policy bill to include language blocking Congress from oversight of the military and National Guard in some cases of domestic deployment. The amendment is poised to be added to the National Defense Authorization Act, which the House plans to take up this week, and it has drawn criticism from Republicans who fear Mr. Schiff is trying to preemptively block them from oversight if their party wins the House majority in November elections. “This un-American amendment will fundamentally and irreparably erode Congress’ constitutional oversight responsibility,”...

Former President Trump is doubling down on claims the 2020 election was rigged in favor of President Joe Biden, telling a crowd in South Carolina he won the 2020 election. Mr. Trump made the assertion after telling a crowd of supporters in Florence, S.C., about a new state investigation in Wisconsin that found improprieties in the way the 2020 election was carried out in nursing homes and other residential facilities. The same report, produced by the Wisconsin Office of the Special Counsel, also accused a group funded by Mark Zuckerberg of committing election bribery when it targeted $8.8 million in...

ORLANDO — Former President Donald Trump may be one of the most important influencers in the 2022 election, but House Republicans are huddling without him in his home state of Florida as they craft a message that can help them win back the majority next year. Lawmakers gathered in Orlando beginning on Sunday for an annual, three-day issues conference to help chart a course on messaging and policy priorities for the next 18 months. There will be no pep talk from the former GOP president, who helped create a schism within the party on what role, if any, Trump should...

The Senate late Tuesday will hold a procedural vote on a bill that supports Israel by allowing state and local governments to divest from entities that boycott, divest from, or sanction Israel because of its occupation of the West Bank. The provision is part of legislation numbered “S.1” that was to be the very first bill senators debate in the 116th Congress. In addition to the BDS language, it includes several Middle East security provisions such as new authorities for sanctioning Bashar Assad's regime in Syria and reauthorization of security assistance to Israel. But Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ben Cardin,...

Senate Republicans, frustrated by delaying tactics imposed by Democrats on President Trump’s judicial and executive branch nominees, are on the verge of altering the Senate rules in order to speed up the process. GOP lawmakers told the Washington Examiner Tuesday that momentum is building for a change in the Senate rules that would shorten the time frame allowed for lawmakers to debate each nominee. One proposal by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., would reinstate a temporary rules change made by Democrats in 2013 that reduced debate time from 30 hours to eight hours for most executive branch nominations and from 30...

Mika Brzezinski: fired up and ready to go . . . for Donald Trump? Not exactly. It isn't that Mika's jumping on the Make America Great Again express. It's just that she wants "intellectual honesty" from her peers when it comes to admitting that Trump has gone from amusing sideshow who's sure to eventually crash to true frontrunner who is now likely to be the Republican nominee. You might not think of Brzezinski as being particularly data-driven, but on today's Morning Joe she repeatedly argued that there is no data supporting a Trump meltdown scenario. Going around the table with...

In South Carolina, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has been attacked in television ads for his support of immigration reform. In Tennessee, GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander is ducking criticism from Tea Party groups that his overall voting record is too moderate. Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, faces angry conservatives in his state for not joining an effort by some in his party to block the federal budget unless it defunds Obamacare. For these Republicans, the only uniting factor is that the criticism is coming from their own party. The reasons they are under attack vary from one group to...