Free Republic

On his radio show recently, Glenn Beck urged his listeners to “defund the GOP.” Sarah Palin has threatened to leave the Republican Party; Rush Limbaugh calls it “irrelevant.” The Senate Conservatives Fund has targeted mainly incumbent Republican senators for defeat. Erick Erickson, one of the right’s most prominent commentators, wonders if what's coming is “a real third party movement that will fully divide the Republican Party.” Conservatives have declared war on the GOP. Tired of feeling taken for granted by a party that alternately panders to them and sells them down the river, in their view, Tea Partiers and others...

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has floated a proposal for a couple years now as a last-chance way to avert a crisis and allow the president to raise the debt ceiling without congressional approval, with Congress having the ability to strip that authority with a two-thirds veto – and that’s sort of what the bill to be voted on tonight provides for (see pages 24 ff. of the bill).Assuming it passes tonight, the debt ceiling will be suspended until February 7, meaning the treasury can borrow what it needs to fund obligations until then. Then within the next 14 days, the House and...

One pocket of internal Republican opposition focused on Boehner’s plan to slash government contribution to health insurance for Capitol Hill aides. Boehner and his top lieutenants had already proposed that lawmakers, Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and political appointees at executive-branch agencies should lose the subsidy. But when Boehner expanded that ban to thousands of Hill staffers, a solid bloc of GOP lawmakers told Boehner they would oppose the bill. Boehner still tried to press on. Another rebellious faction believes repealing the medical-device tax was nothing but a giveaway to corporate America, not a part of Obamacare that should be...