Free Republic

Many in the Republican conservative base have good reasons for disliking Senator McConnell. However, he is the leader of the Senate Republicans, making him the highest-ranking Republican in office. Republicans with more political power and a larger base are currently on the outside looking in. That can change. I would never pretend to know what is going on in my senior senator’s head, but I have observed him since the Reagan administration, so I know how he operates.*** Kentucky does not elect him as the Republican leader of the Senate. That is on the senators who vote for him as...

It was anti-Trump melodrama to the max on Jonathan Capehart's MSNBC show on Sunday. Michael Beschloss, the liberal historian turned Twitter troll, looked directly into the camera [see screencap] and beseeched the viewers: "Vote as if your life depends on it. Because it might."Then, a panicky Capehart asked Beschloss: "are we going to survive this?""I don't know," replied Beschloss. Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

The brother of a young Marine killed during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan reportedly died by suicide a year later during a recent memorial service for the fallen service member. Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, 20, from Norco, California, was one of 13 American troops killed on Aug. 26, 2021, when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive outside the Kabul airport as crowds of Americans and Afghan allies sought to flee Taliban fighters taking over control of the capital city.

The governing body of the ALGOP voted Saturday to approve a resolution calling for the Legislature to require voters to register with a party before they can vote in that party's primary. The resolution passed with 81% of the vote. The vote after an eventful primary season, which saw close calls and ballot errors. The vote does not bind the House and Senate, and the party left the details to the Legislature to figure out. "The direct implementation would be left to the legislation," said John Wahl, chairman of the Alabama Republican Party. Alabama is one of 15 states with...

Sen. Mitt Romney said he could see Rep. Liz Cheney running for president in the future. Still, Romney said he hopes Cheney wins her primary in Wyoming on Tuesday. Cheney has not ruled out a 2024 presidential bid. Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, a critic of former President Donald Trump and ally to GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, said he could see the congresswoman run for president in the future. Cheney is fighting to hold on to her seat in Wyoming's Republican primary on Tuesday. The three-term lawmaker faces a tough reelection challenge against her main rival, Trump-backed opponent Harriet...

A perp walk and a jail term might not be enough to satisfy Tiffany Cross's bloodlust for Donald Trump. Now we're talking the possibility of . . . the needle! As we've previously noted, MSNBC's Cross harbors a lurid fantasy of Donald Trump being arrested "COPS"-style. She broke that out again on her Saturday show, specifying "handcuffed" and with a "perp walk." A bit later in the show, Cross raised the possibility that Trump might be "trafficking" nuclear secrets to the Saudis or the Russians. Her guest, Andy Weber, a former Department of Defense official, said that Putin would be...

In Liz Cheney’s world, she’s the only one whose opinion matters – to the point where any competing points of view are not only discounted, but purposely suppressed and ignored. This is why all her preening over her self-described work to “protect the Constitution” is landing with a loud thud in Wyoming. Our voters are smart enough to see what she’s up to, and protecting the Constitution isn’t it.

Republicans are coming under fire for their rhetoric over $80 billion in funding for the IRS included a massive climate, tax and health care bill that Democrats in Congress are sending to the White House. The funding, over 10 years, is intended to help the IRS enforce various provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, which would raise more than $700 billion in new revenue by instituting a 15-percent corporate minimum tax, taxing stock buy backs and extending a cap on deductions for business losses, in addition to helping the IRS enforce existing tax law. Of the $80 billion, more than...

UPDATE: (Aug. 12, 2022, 3:13 p.m. ET): NBC News on Friday obtained a copy of the warrant used in the FBI's search of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, as well as the related property receipt. The FBI recovered 11 sets of classified documents in the search, according to the documents. This week, in addition to having his private residence searched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, former President Donald Trump was deposed in an investigation by the New York Attorney General’s office. There he apparently didn’t say much other than that he was asserting his Fifth Amendment...

Even those who won Vermont’s Republican primary elections on Tuesday say they’re baffled by the results. In the race for U.S. Senate, GOP voters rejected former U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan, a moderate and institutional favorite, for Gerald Malloy, a Trump-aligned conservative. They nominated Sen. Joe Benning, an anti-Trump centrist, for lieutenant governor, intead of Gregory Thayer, who took part in the protests before the January 6 riots in Washington, D.C. And they turned down two conservative activists, Ericka Redic and Anya Tynio, in favor of a left-leaning independent, Liam Madden. “It's a head-scratcher to me,” Madden said of finding himself...

The straight skinny on the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act (FOPA) the law that saved gun rights Nearly a quarter century ago, the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act was signed into law.Looking back, it seems like an impossible victory.by Dave HardyWhen the struggle started in 1979, Jimmy Carter was in the White House. Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Rep. Peter Rodino of New Jersey controlled the two judiciary committees that would have to approve the bill. And when the long haul was ending some seven years later, the measure had passed through the Senate, but Rodino still chaired the House Judiciary...

A highly unusual move by the Justice Department to retry Florida nursing home owner Philip Esformes on health-care fraud criminal charges after then-President Donald Trump commuted his 20-year prison sentence is headed to an appeals court hearing as defense lawyers suggest prosecutors are motivated by anger at Trump. "The situation is entirely unique because the actions of the prosecutors here are incredibly outrageous," said Joe Tacopina, a leading New York criminal defense attorney. "There's no question in my mind that the [Justice Department's] flagrant disregard of President Trump's clemency order is motivated by acrimony towards him," said Tacopina. Tacopina is...

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry (R-Pa.) confirmed that he has received his cell phone back from the FBI after the agency had seized it a few days back. On Aug. 9, a day after raiding former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, FBI agents had taken Perry’s phone as part of a separate investigation. At the time, Perry was traveling with his family. Speaking to “Capitol Report” on NTD News, the GOP member confirmed that he has received his phone. He is still uninformed as to why the phone was confiscated by the FBI. However, Perry was informed...

Donald Trump’s long reach, effectively anointing political newcomer Leora Levy to challenge second-term U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, has changed the face of the Connecticut Republican Party while insinuating MAGA grievances into the entire fall campaign for governor, top-of-the-ticket constitutional officers and the 187-seat General Assembly. Political scientists in the state said that while Trump’s late-campaign support in blue-state Connecticut was surprising, it’s always the party base that is most-energized for primaries and Levy channeled it to handily defeat party-endorsed Themis Klarides, the former state House minority leader who won the endorsement at the May conventions. “The Trump effect was as...

Some of the 87,000 new agents whom Democrats propose to hire at the Internal Revenue Service could come with some extra firepower. On Friday, House Democrats gave final passage to the tax and spending bill they dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act, which, among other things, would double the size of the IRS with 87,000 new agents to beef up enforcement. As of two years ago, the IRS had an arsenal of 4,600 guns, reported OpenTheBooks, a government watchdog group. Two federal investigations in the past decade found that IRS agents had not been sufficiently trained and were accident-prone with the...

3,151,500 rounds of pistol ammo. Over 350,000 rounds of shotgun ammo. Almost 1.5 million rounds of rifle ammo. In just the last few months, the Internal Revenue Service has bought almost 5,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition — spending almost $700,000 in the process.The obvious question is why would a bunch of bean counters who spend their days staring at computer screens need to stock up on millions of rounds of ammo? ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided Congress gave final approval Friday to Democrats’ flagship climate and health care bill, handing President Joe Biden a back-from-the-dead triumph on coveted priorities that the party hopes will bolster their prospects for keeping their hold on Congress in November’s elections.

Former Trump national security staffer Kash Patel called in with Martha Maccallum on FOX News on Friday to react to the release of the warrant used by the FBI to search President Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort home. "If he says something is declassified, that's it, it is declassified," Patel explained. "He declassified a whole set of documents that should have come out... That's on the National Archives to sort that material out... Even if it was classified, they'll never meet the burden of intent because the president didn't pack it up and take it out himself, the G.S.A. has said they...

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona began moving in shipping containers to close a 1,000-foot gap in the border wall near the southern Arizona farming community of Yuma on Friday, with officials saying they were acting to stop migrants after repeated, unfulfilled promises from the Biden administration to block off the area. The move by Arizona comes without explicit permission on federal land, with state contractors starting to move in 60-foot-long (18.3-meter-long) shipping containers and stacking two of the 9-foot-tall (2.7-meter-tall) containers on top of each other early Friday. They plan to complete the job within days, and the containers will be...

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A federal judge has reinstated a moratorium on coal leasing from federal lands that was imposed under former President Barack Obama and then scuttled under former President Donald Trump. Friday’s ruling from U.S. District Judge Brian Morris requires government officials to complete a new environmental review before they can resume coal sales from federal lands. Among President Joe Biden’s first actions in his first week in office was to suspend oil and gas lease sales — a move later blocked by a federal judge — and he faced pressure from environmental groups to take similar action...