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Senator Tom Coburn is the very first person I ever asked RedState readers to give money to support. We at RedState declared him Senator Trainwreck, endearingly, when he ran for the Senate. His book, Breach of Trust, is one of the best reads on the corrupting nature of Washington, D.C. Over the past year, with all the budget fights, I’ve said more than my fair share of critical things about Senator Coburn’s positions, but Senator Coburn has never let Washington change him from being a very fine soul. He is leaving the United States Senate early. His prostate cancer has...

U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn will finish out the current congressional session and then resign from his seat nearly two years before his term is scheduled to end, he said in a statement released late Thursday. […] Coburn, a physician from Muskogee, recently was diagnosed with a recurrence of prostate cancer, but said his decision was not about his health. …

WASHINGTON – A push to eliminate waste across government programs has been hindered by Congress’s own failure to do its job, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) told a congressional committee last week. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee heard testimony from Sens. Coburn and Tom Carper (D-Del.) and representatives from various think tanks about ways to reduce government waste. As part of the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act, Congress must conduct oversight hearings and hold agencies accountable for meeting program goals. Under the law, agencies are to determine performance metrics for programs together with Congress and ensure those goals...

It turns out that Senator Tom Coburn is a big supporter of Mark Levin’s new book The Liberty Amendments. When asked last night about this new 1000 plus page spending bill and the fact that the Senate will vote on it before anyone gets a chance to read it, Sen. Tom Coburn told Mark Levin that you can’t prevent this stuff from happening because all we have is a bunch of career politicians who only care about getting reelected. He says the only way to fix Washington is for the states to convene a Convention of the States and limit...

Sen. Tom Coburn doesn’t seem like a typical cancer patient. The Oklahoma Republican often arrives in his office two hours before his aides, sometimes as early as 4 a.m. He attends virtually all of his committee hearings. And in the evenings, he either dines with his senator buddies at Capitol Hill establishments or attends his weekly meetings of Christians, conservatives and others at his well-known C Street house. But for the past several months, the 65-year-old Coburn has privately been undergoing intensive treatment for a recurrence of prostate cancer, a battle that could end up cutting short his second Senate...

If there is one person I respect in Congress, it is Senator Tom Coburn, R-OK. Yes, he is one of my Senators and I voted for him gladly. That's not saying I haven't disagreed with him on issues before, but most of the time, I find myself in complete agreement. He is now being very vocal in his opposition to the budget deal worked out between Paul Ryan and Patty Murray. And unlike a lot of his colleagues in Washington, Tom Coburn is willing to highlight how government spending really works. He has consistently fought against wasteful government spending and...

Nicolle Wallace played the quintessential DC insider on today's Morning Joe, proclaiming herself a "groupie" of both conservative Senator Tom Coburn and liberal partisan David Axelrod, while also saying she was "inspired" by Paul Ryan's leadership in forging a budget compromise deal. But the Sooner senator wasn't letting the inside-the-Beltway bonhomie blunt his criticism, saying the budget deal "sells out" what needs to be done, and gives up "core values." View the video here.

There’s a new public enemy No. 1 in Senate GOP circles, and it’s not Ted Cruz. It’s the Senate Conservatives Fund, an organization that used to prop up underdog conservative candidates but now is training its fire mainly on Republican incumbents — rather than Democrats. The group has ginned up anger on the far-right towards Republican senators for refusing to use a government shutdown threat as leverage to defund Obamacare — a campaign that has been good for its bottom line. Since it started engaging in the defund Obamacare campaign, the group brought in the vast majority of the $3.5...

Nashville, TN – Today, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham introduced the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. The legislation currently has 33 cosponsors – but Senator Alexander is not one of them. Conservative Senate candidate Joe Carr called on Senator Alexander to change his stance and add himself as a co-sponsor. “I’m strongly pro-life and believe it’s imperative the Senate pass this important piece of legislation. When Senator Graham announced his co-sponsors and Senator Alexander’s name was missing, I was disappointed. I am hoping Senator Alexander will change his stance and add himself as a co-sponsor. This legislation is too...

Taxpayers shell out $52,000 a year to maintain the home of Black History Month founder Carter Woodson. Yet the tiny, dilapidated row house in northwest Washington D.C., with a "No Trespassing" sign and iron bars blocking the front door and windows hasn’t seen a visitor in the seven years since the National Park Service bought it for $2.1 million and designated it a National Historic Site. Senator Tom Coburn, R-Okla.,points to the house as one tiny symbol in a sea of dysfunction in the National Park Service. The Service, with its comparatively small budget, is, he says, a microcosm for...

1) The more democracy we have, the better. As Benjamin Franklin once said, "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch." This is why our Founding Fathers made this country a republic, not a democracy. They believed that the people should have their say, but also that certain underlying rules should remain in place that should take precedence over the will of a simple majority. Ultimately, that's the only way that the wolves and the lambs can happily co-exist over the long haul. Unfortunately, we've moved so far away from the plain reading of...

The Talk Shows October 20th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew; Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Mark Warner, D-Va. THIS WEEK (ABC): Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas; former Gov. Jeb Bush, R-Fla.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Cruz; Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

Alternate headline: “RINO surprised to discover he’s a RINO.” No, no, kidding. It’s a testament to how much goodwill Coburn has earned with grassroots righties that he remains a minor player in the RINO/true conservative squabble over defunding despite having been one of the first big-name Republicans to publicly criticize Cruz’s tactics. Or maybe I’m wrong and he’s simply being ignored because a more attractive target for right-wing wrath has inserted himself into this. Coburn gets a pass vis-a-vis McCain, I think, not just because of differences in their record but because Coburn takes no obvious personal pleasure in rebuking...

The Talk Shows September 15==22nd, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz.THIS WEEK (ABC): Reps. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Tom Graves, R-Ga.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Chris Matthews marked the 50th anniversary of the speech of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the March on Washington today by suggesting that Republicans were racist for blocking President Obama’s agenda. “You’ve got people talking impeachment like [Tom] Coburn, you’ve got Ted Cruz out there – they never say their problem with Obama is that he is black but look at the pattern,” Matthews said. “The pattern is rejection of his legitimacy at the first point saying he is not really here legally.”

David Axelrod lashed out against Republican senator Tom Coburn for suggesting that President Obama is nearing a Constitutional crisis and potential impeachment, calling Coburn’s remarks “way out of bounds.” “He speaks to a kind of virus that has infected our politics that really has to be curbed,” Axelrod said, mockingly referring to Coburn’s suggestion as “his considered legal opinion as an obstetrician.” video at link

David Axelrod lashed out against Republican senator Tom Coburn for suggesting that President Obama is nearing a Constitutional crisis and potential impeachment, calling Coburn’s remarks “way out of bounds.”

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., explained to a town hall of his constituents that he wanted to call a national Constitutional Convention after reading Mark Levin’s new book, The Liberty Amendments. “I used to have a great fear of constitutional conventions,” Coburn said according to the Tulsa World. “I have a great fear now of not having one.” As the Tulsa World notes, a national convention is called by two-thirds of the state legislatures and is one of two ways the U.S. Constitution can be amended. Coburn made his remarks in Muskogee, Okla.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said Thursday it would not be “smart” to shut down the government over Obamacare, but it would make sense to do it over the debt limit. … Coburn was asked what the GOP would do in the next 12 months to “correct the course” and whether Coburn would go on the Mark Levin show to talk about Levin’s book, “The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic.” “I would if I was invited. Right now, I’m kind of out of favor with the Levin show,” Coburn said, explaining that he and Levin disagree on shutting down the...

August 22, 2013 SENATOR: OBAMA 'PERILOUSLY CLOSE' TO IMPEACHMENT Garth Kane WASHINGTON – The momentum to remove the president is growing rapidly, as almost every day another lawmaker raises the possibility of impeaching President Obama. Now, it’s Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla, who said Wednesday the president is getting “perilously close” to qualifying for impeachment. (Video at link below)