Free Republic

Bags of cash delivered to a Rome hotel for favored Italian candidates. Scandalous stories leaked to foreign newspapers to swing an election in Nicaragua. Millions of pamphlets, posters and stickers printed to defeat an incumbent in Serbia. The long arm of Vladimir Putin? No, just a small sample of the United States’ history of intervention in foreign elections. On Tuesday, American intelligence chiefs warned the Senate Intelligence Committee that Russia appears to be preparing to repeat in the 2018 midterm elections the same full-on chicanery it unleashed in 2016: hacking, leaking, social media manipulation and possibly more. Then on Friday,...

The most prominent candidate for the GOP nomination is former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. He's a prolific fundraiser and enjoys widespread name recognition, and he's the darling of the GOP establishment. George Will lists him as one of the few serious presidential candidates. But should Romney be the GOP's presidential nominee? The answer is "absolutely not." Although there is no "perfect conservative," and although conservatives have serious issues with every candidate running, Mitt Romney is nothing more than a strident liberal masquerading as a moderate. As Selwyn Duke rightly wrote in 2007, Romney is the Barack Obama of the GOP....

President Obama's role during the Israeli elections was larger than reported, according to a pollster for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party. "What was not well reported in the American media is that President Obama and his allies were playing in the election to defeat Prime Minister Netanyahu," John McLaughlin, a Republican strategist, said in an interview on John Catsimatidis's "The Cats Roundtable" radio show broadcast Sunday on AM 970 in New York. "There was money moving that included taxpayer U.S. dollars, through non-profit organizations. And there were various liberal groups in the United States that were raising millions...

The chief paradox of the upcoming elections in Russia is that everyone knows who the winner will be but no one knows what his policy will be – or even whether it will be completely 'his.' After establishing “a personalist dictatorship, Putin has watched as his system has drifted into one in which he will remain president, but “groups of siloviki” will fight over the spoils. Putin’s inability to protect members of his elite from the consequences of Western sanctions has given rise to this situation. Those sanctions have already led to the failure of three of the 15 largest...

The Committee to Defend the President released a poll late Friday that shows Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-07) trounces Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup in the Tennessee Republican U.S. Senate primary by more than 2-to-1, 55 percent to 26 percent. Corker announced on September 26 that he would not seek a third term in the U.S. Senate, but he has floated several trial balloons over the past several days that he is having second thoughts about that decision. The poll was released at almost the same time that former Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-TN-08) announced that he was...

Moderator: ...in Massachusetts although you backed away from mandates on a national basis. Mitt Romney: No, no I like mandates. Fred Thompson: Beg your pardon. I didn't know you were gonna admit that. Mitt Romney: Oh, absolutely. Fred Thompson: You like mandates. Mitt Romney: Let me tell you what kind of mandates I like, Fred. Fred Thompson: The ones you come up with! (nodding of heads and laughter)

This will be a weekly post. Count remains at 24. However, there are approximately thirty nominations awaiting votes on the Senate floor. If McConnell gets the wheels turning, he can confirm one a day over the next month or so and clear the backlog. It's also worthwhile to note that Chuck Grassley's committee voted to send Michael Brennan's nomination to the floor this week, which Tammy Baldwin tried to stop with her blue slip.

A group of leading senators is calling on newly installed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to immediately launch an investigation into efforts by the Obama administration to sway foreign elections by sending taxpayer funds to "extreme and sometimes violent political activists" that promote leftist causes, according to a copy of the letter. The lawmakers disclosed multiple conversations with foreign diplomats who outlined active political meddling by the Obama administration's State Department, including the use of taxpayer funds to support leftist causes in Macedonia, Albania, Latin America, and Africa. **SNIP** The latest disclosures of this activity mirror efforts by the Obama...

Former Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-TN-08) announced late Friday afternoon that he is withdrawing from the race for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Tennessee. Fincher’s withdrawal leaves Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-07) as the only viable candidate in the GOP race, unless Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) decides to change his mind and reverse his decision not to run for renomination. A recent poll by the Senate Conservatives Fund showed that Blackburn handily beats Corker should he enter the race by a 49 percent to 26 percent margin. In his statement of withdrawal, Fincher encouraged Corker to get in the...

Democratic opposition to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) has been increasing both in public and behind the scenes in recent months, and now even some of the minority leader's supporters predict she will soon step aside. Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell (N.J.) told the Atlantic he expects Pelosi to step down from leadership next year, no matter who wins the House. "She would love nothing more than to win, and then she’ll get out," Pascrell said. A number of Democratic lawmakers and insiders spoke to the Atlantic both on and off the record about the desire among some Democrats...

In an announcement as obvious as hearing that the sun rose in the east this morning, Mitt Romney let America know that he’s running for the US Senate seat being vacated by a man who attended the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Okay, not really, but he is a poster child for term limits after “serving” in Washington longer than any Republican in history. Mitt’s decision to run has been a given since Hatch announced his retirement last month, which followed months of talk between the two about how to conduct Operation Switcheroo in a way where it wouldn’t...

State Representative, District 72 General Contest Results by County Compare State to County Candidate Party Votes Received James Vernon Buchanan REP 0 0% Margaret Good DEM 0 0% Alison Foxall LPF 0 0% Total 0

I wrote here about the void in the Trump/Sessions, where four nominees for Assistant Attorney General positions are being held up due to Senate inaction. The four positions are crucial ones: Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division; Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division; Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division; and Assistant Attorney General, National Security Division. Why can’t these nominees get a vote? Apparently, it’s because of marijuana. Sen. Cory Gardner is vexed with Attorney General Sessions over enforcement of Federal marijuana laws in Colorado. Alfred Regnery, citing just one of the four major gaps at the Justice Department, points out the...

Sen. Dean Heller said on Monday that “overall” he was inclined to support President Donald Trump’s immigration framework, the latest sign that the vulnerable incumbent is siding with the president in the legislative trenches of Congress. While the Nevada Republican did not outright say he would vote for the president’s proposal, he said in an interview that it was his “starting point” going into the immigration debate in the Senate. The move to support Trump will probably nullify some of the criticism from his conservative primary opponent, Danny Tarkanian, though it’s likely to be panned by Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen,...

The White House continues to nominate excellent nominees to fill the ever-increasing number judicial vacancies. Yesterday, President Trump announced his intent to nominate an eleventh wave of judicial nominees, which includes Court of Appeals nominees Andrew Oldham (Fifth Circuit), Michael Scudder (Seventh Circuit), Amy St. Eve (Seventh Circuit), and Mark Bennett (Ninth Circuit). As the Democratic minority continues its unprecedented insistence on time-consuming cloture votes for nominees—including the numerous judicial nominees who have been reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously—the number of judicial nominees awaiting full Senate confirmation votes continues to tick up: presently there are 29 judicial...

President Trump announced his 11th wave of judicial nominees on Monday, intending to nominate nine federal judges including four federal circuit court picks. Since taking office roughly one year ago, Mr. Trump faced an unprecedented amount of vacancies on the federal bench. He’s had 13 circuit court judges confirmed in the past year. His list Monday included five district court nominees and four circuit court picks, including: Mark J. Bennett for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Andrew S. Oldham for the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Michael Y. Scudder, Jr. for the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of...

resident Donald Trump has nominated two new federal judges for Minnesota. Nancy Brasel is a judge in Hennepin County, who was appointed to the bench by Gov. Mark Dayton in 2011. She was previously a prosecutor in the office of the U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, and a partner at the law firm of Greene Espel. She is also a graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School and a former managing editor of the school's law review. Eric Tostrud is with the Lockridge Grindal Nauen law firm and is also a faculty member at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law...

Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker has had conversations with a few colleagues in recent days about whether he should reconsider his decision to leave Congress and not seek re-election this year, GOP sources tell CNN. Whether it is a serious reconsideration, or just chatter with colleagues is the subject of some disagreement. There are also conflicting accounts of whether Corker has initiated the conversations, or whether he has had them with colleagues who are pushing him to think again. But several sources say the issue has come up in recent conversations Corker has had with fellow Tennessean Sen. Lamar Alexander and...

Liberal advocacy groups have mobilized in opposition to Ryan Bounds, President Donald Trump’s first nominee to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Though criticisms of his professional record are slim thus far, progressive interest groups claim his undergraduate writings are highly inflammatory, such that his temperament might be questioned. The Alliance for Justice (AFJ), a progressive advocacy organization, reviewed dozens of pieces Bounds wrote as a college student for a conservative weekly called the Stanford Review, that are intensely critical of student activist clubs and campus multiculturalism policies. Taken together, the Alliance says his writings betray an intolerant worldview.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania's Republican Party on Saturday endorsed candidates who are closely identified with President Donald Trump to run in contested primaries to challenge the state's two leading Democrats, Gov. Tom Wolf and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey. The endorsements of gubernatorial candidate Scott Wagner and Senate candidate Lou Barletta came a month before the deadline to file paperwork to get on the May 15 primary election ballot. The endorsements at the Republican State Committee's winter meeting were expected after both men performed well at regional caucus straw votes in recent weeks and come with the party's financial support...