Free Republic

A Republican congressman said Tuesday he’s rounded up enough GOP co-sponsors to force multiple immigration votes on the House floor. Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) told The Hill that he has secured support from more than 40 House Republicans on a resolution that would allow debate and votes on four separate immigration proposals. Etc...

HELENA, Mont. — It has been an iron rule for candidates in rural areas and red states for decades: Do not antagonize the National Rifle Association. But that was before the massacre at a high school in Parkland, Fla., galvanized gun politics across the country. Now, a striking number of Democratic candidates in coming midterm elections, from congressional contests in the Rocky Mountains to governor’s races in the Deep South, are openly daring, defying and disparaging the N.R.A., a group with deep pockets, a loyal membership and a record of Election Day score-settling. Those Democrats, but also a few Republicans,...

Rumors have been swirling for months on Capitol Hill that Speaker Paul Ryan will either resign his seat or not serve as speaker if he returns to Congress next year. This has set off something of a scramble among top Republicans to position themselves to replace him if the speaker exits the stage. Two top members of Paul Ryan's leadership team, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Majority Whip Steve Scalise, have begun angling for his job in the event the speaker calls it quits after the election. They're closely monitoring the moves of the other and quietly courting Republicans who...

During Sunday’s broadcast of “The Cats Roundtable” on New York AM 970 radio, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker weighed in on a liberal judge defeating a conservative in a Wisconsin Supreme Court election. He said that conservatives needed to “wake up” because the left was “angry and their rhetoric is filled with hate.” “We had a bit of a wake-up call on Tuesday. On Tuesday in our state, Wisconsin, had the elections for Supreme Court justices. And for the first time in about 20 years in an open seat for the Supreme Court, a liberal judge defeated a conservative judge,” Walker...

Congressional Republicans unveiled legislation on Monday that would funnel billions of dollars to Obamacare markets, and hope the provision can be attached to the long-term government spending that's due Friday. The new bill would fund insurer payments known as cost-sharing reduction payments for three years, and offer $30 billion in reinsurance funds distributed evenly for three years...

This is not a rose-colored view. The midterm elections are going to be dicey for Republicans in the House. Virtually all of modern American history, regardless of party i power, demonstrates this. Yes, the GOP could definitely lose the House. First, here are the numbers suggesting GOP vulnerability in the House. In 16 out of 18 post-WWII midterms, the president’s party has lost House seats. Importantly, the average loss for the president’s party is 25 House seats. The Republicans currently have a 23-seat majority. However, there is a counter case to the media narrative that muddies the electoral waters in...

Trump also criticized Democrats for opposing his proposed wall on the Southern border. “Eventually the Democrats will agree with us to build the wall and keep the damn drugs out,” he said, prompting chants of “build that wall” in the room. The president criticized sanctuary city policies for allowing illegal immigrants and drug dealers to remain in the country. He called on Congress to end funding for sanctuary cities. “If we are not going to get tough on the drug dealers who kill thousands of people and destroy so many people’s lives, we are just doing the wrong thing,” he...

It is time for Republicans nationwide to wake up to the very real threat of a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, the current House minority leader. This wake-up call is also for President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. Neither they, nor any other Republican, should underestimate how disastrous it would be for their policies and for the country to have a left-wing Democratic majority in the House. Under Speaker Pelosi, there would be two years of investigations, fights over spending (to reduce defense and increase liberal dependency programs), efforts to undo President Trump’s deregulation...

Niall Ferguson: The midterms are going to be worse, a lot worse. Because never again will the network platforms in Silicon Valley allow them to use them as Donald Trump’s campaign used them in 2016. The sound of heads exploding on November the 9th of 2016 was deafening in California. They couldn’t believe that Facebook advertising had been so vital to Trump’s success. Which it was. I don’t think he would have become president without Facebook. As people think more and more about this they will I think begin to grasp the power of the platforms. I think the Russia...

It’s a busy time of year, so we’ll keep this relatively short. But I wanted to echo and underscore a point made by FiveThirtyEight contributor Nathaniel Rakich in his article on Tuesday’s special election in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District. One reason that the results are especially scary for Republicans — Democrat Conor Lamb is the apparent winner1 in a district that President Trump won by 20 percentage points — is because it came on reasonably high turnout, the sort of turnout one might expect in this year’s midterms. As of early Wednesday morning, about 228,000 votes had been counted in...

President Trump broke from his inspection of border wall samples on Tuesday to castigate California's Democratic state government, saying that Gov. Jerry Brown is "doing a terrible job running the state." Trump's first visit to the nation's most populous state is to be brief — just one day — but long on symbolism. He spent about an hour inspecting border wall prototypes built at his direction in San Diego, and plans to speak at the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and travel to a fundraiser in Beverly Hills that is expected to raise $5 million for the Republican National Committee.

Pres. Trump at CA Marine base: "Very soon we're going to Mars. You wouldn't have been going to Mars if my opponent won." https://t.co/7t9dGZXwSH pic.twitter.com/a3Cw5OIsue — ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) March 13, 2018 President Trump told troops in California on Tuesday that the U.S. would be going to Mars in the very near future. "Very soon we're going to Mars. You wouldn't be going to Mars if my opponent won, that I can tell you. You wouldn't even be thinking about it," Trump said. Trump signed a directive in December aiming to send Americans to the moon, and eventually Mars....

For months, Democrats promised to use their leverage on government spending to protect young immigrants at risk for deportation after President Trump canceled the program. More recently, they have demanded Congress pass universal background checks for gun buyers in the wake of another deadly school shooting. Now, with Congress less than two weeks from a funding deadline, Democrats are showing little willingness to corner Republicans on those issues. Their lack of appetite to provoke another showdown represents a shift after two previous fights resulted in brief government shutdowns and risks alienating the party’s liberal base crucial in midterm elections. But...

The Dow has now gained 326.38 points, or 1.3%, to 25,221.59. And why shouldn't it? No less than Gluskin Sheff's David Rosenberg, who has a reputation as something of a curmudgeon, notes that the increase wasn't just big--the largest since July 2016--but also broad based. Construction payrolls added 61,000 jobs, while the manufacturing sector produced 100,000 jobs, the most since 1998. And even retail added 50,000 jobs, a sign that sector might have finally stopped shrinking, Rosenberg says.has risen 1.2% to 2772.71, and the Nasdaq Composite has climbed 1.3% to 7524.73.

US employers went on a hiring binge last month, adding 313,000 jobs, the most since July 2016, and drawing hundreds of thousands of people into the job market. The Labor Department says wage gains, meanwhile, fell from the previous month to 2.6 percent year-over-year growth. Strong hourly wage growth had spooked markets in February because it raised the specter of inflation. But January's figure was revised one-tenth of a point lower to 2.8 percent. The influx of new workers kept the unemployment rate unchanged at 4.1 percent.

Trump's tariffs are a bad idea. President Donald Trump deserves applause for boosting the prospects for this country’s forgotten manufacturing workers, particularly in the steel and aluminum industries. Democrats lately have neglected these Americans. Hillary Clinton barely campaigned among them in Michigan during the 2016 general election, and she thoroughly ignored them in Wisconsin. Alas, President Trump is doing this all wrong. He likely will hurt the very middle class that he has championed since his escalator ride onto the political stage. Trump aims to protect U.S. metal makers with new taxes of 25 percent on foreign steel and 10...

Even if the Democrats find a way to steal the Special Election in Pennsylvania 18 CD, where the Republican holds a small lead, there will be no “Blue Wave” this cycle. A Republican loss will be a bad thing for sure, but it will not change the outcome of November’s election. There will be no “Blue Wave.” Democrats will lose seats in both the House and the Senate. This talk about a Blue Wave borders on silly. The same Democrat controlled media that lied to Democrats about Hillary Clinton “cruising toward certain victory” is churning out this talk to make...

Historically, the party that occupies the White House loses seats in the midterm elections although there have been several notable exceptions to this rule. And if 2018 proves to be one of those exceptions and the Republicans gain seats in the midterms, Charlie Savage of the New York Times already has an excuse at hand: Russian meddling. Savage provided this excuse to the potential sore losers a full eight months before the midterms in his March 3 article, What if Republicans Win the Midterms?

Hundreds of DACA supporters marched in D.C. Monday to mark President Trump's March 5 DACA deadline -- which passed with no action from Congress to protect DACA recipients facing deportation. One group of Dreamers held a sit-in in front of the Democratic National Committee, publicly revoking their affiliation with the party.

Dr. John Lott talked to Glenn Beck about Democrats pushing for gun control laws that aren’t going to stop these attacks.