Free Republic

A Kentucky Supreme Court judge struck down the state’s so-called school choice program Thursday. The state’s highest court unanimously ruled House Bill 563, officially called the Education Opportunity Account Act, as unconstitutional. The legislation creates an almost dollar-for-dollar tax credit for Kentuckians who donate to scholarship-granting educational nonprofit organizations. ... ...“It’s always been clear to the plaintiffs and their supporters that the Kentucky Constitution prohibits any attempt to divert tax dollars from our public schools and students without putting the question to voters,” Campbell said in a statement. ...“We simply can’t afford to support two different education systems — one...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) declared that Republicans have “emasculated” themselves by agreeing to a major spending deal and complained Republicans aren’t fiscally conservative. On Tuesday night, leading congressional Democrats and Republicans agreed on a framework to fund the government through most of 2023. The House is expected to vote on the measure Wednesday night. Meanwhile, the Senate could take up the measure as early as Thursday. Some Republicans have called on their leadership to wait until the next Congress convenes, when the GOP will control the House. Paul stated he is staunchly opposed to whatever deal emerges. Instead of one...

Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, settled a pair of lawsuits Monday against the city of Louisville, according to his attorneys. The city said it will pay $2 million per the settlements filed in federal and state court, according to Walker attorney Steve Romines, CBS News reported Tuesday: Walker and Taylor were settled in bed for the night when they were roused by banging on her apartment door around midnight on March 13, 2020. Police were outside with a drug warrant, and they used a battering ram to knock down the door. Walker fired a single shot from a handgun, striking...

Republican leadership in the House is barreling ahead with efforts to prevent Democrats from passing a lame-duck omnibus spending bill this year.“We’re 20 days before the new members are being sworn in. We’ve got two members leading appropriations in the Senate who will no longer be here or be able to be held accountable to the constituents,” Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said at a press conference on Wednesday. He was referring to Sens. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., negotiating what will be in the omnibus, despite the fact that they will be leaving office next month.“We’ve got an...

A small but vocal group of Republican senators is furious with GOP leadership over the agreement with Democrats to approve a massive year-end spending bill that will fund the federal government through next September. The bipartisan deal has created a schism between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republican colleagues in both chambers — including House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy — who accuse Mr. McConnell and his leadership of rolling over to help Democrats pass a major budget on the brink of a government shutdown and the holidays without knowing what’s in it. “I don’t see any reason why Republicans...

Incoming Oversight Committee chair Rep. James Comer (R-KY) announced the launch of the committee’s investigation into the origins of the Chinese coronavirus Tuesday by requesting interviews from Dr. Anthony Fauci and dozens of other virologists and government officials. Comer and committee member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who will also serve on the Judiciary Committee next year as chairman, launched their investigation by sending nine separate letters to various top officials, including Fauci and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra, naming other individuals within those letters as well. 🚨BREAKING🚨@RepJamesComer & @Jim_Jordan are pressing senior Biden admin officials, EcoHealth, &...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday lashed out at President Trump and blamed 2022 losses on support of the former president. Recall, Mitch McConnell held up funds for Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters and other solid MAGA candidates. McConnell funded RINOs like Murkowski from Alaska and dissed Trump-endorsed candidates. McConnell on Tuesday told reporters that the GOP didn’t do well in 2022 because of Trump. Not a word about the brazen Democrat voter fraud and disenfranchisement in Maricopa County. The GOP just needs more RINO/establishment candidates, according to McConnell.

During the Wednesday broadcast of Newsmax TV’s “Spicer & Co.,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) rejected Biden Supreme Court nominee Katanji Brown Jackson’s inability to define a woman. “[M]y main objection has been to her sort of inability to answer even the simplest questions,” he said. “You know, Senator [Marsha] Blackburn asked her a question and said, ‘Can you define a woman?’ Well, if you’re not even willing to answer that question and many of the questions she has been unwilling to answer — if you can’t answer the question, ‘What is a woman?’ or the definition of a woman, how...

Rand Paul said that even though Dr. Anthony Fauci is retiring, it does not disqualify him from being investigated or called to testify before Congress in any probe related to COVID-19. The Kentucky GOP senator brought up the prospect after new Twitter CEO Elon Musk called for the prosecution of Fauci in a tweet that poked fun at people declaring their pronouns. 'My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,' Musk wrote early Sunday morning. Fauci announced in August that he would be stepping down from his post in December 'to pursue the next chapter' of his career. He served as the Centers for...

@scotthortonshow YEMEN YEMEN YEMEN. I know I'm trying yall's patience with this, BUT The Senate is supposed to vote on the War Powers Act resolution SJ Res 56 TOMORROW TUESDAY. Sanders says he has the votes. We have to make sure. Please please please call your senators today. (202) 224-3121 We have a chance -- you and me, regular people -- have a chance to end a war. A terrible, disgusting, no-good, very-bad war. Genocide and Treason. And that's not hyperbole.* Please do what you can to drum up support today and tomorrow. Get you partner and co-workers to call....

Sen. Rand Paul leaned into the transgender issue during an interview Friday with FNC's Laura Ingraham: SEN. RAND PAUL: Who is also responsible for telling a four-year-old that we need to talk about their gender and whether they’re in the appropriate body? Who’s talking about giving picture books to six-year-olds with illustrations of surgery to remove their genitalia? It’s Democrat politicians and woke left-wing people. There’s not one Republican -- look, Republicans are not perfect. But Republicans are not pushing your child to have surgery to remove their genitalia as early as elementary school. No Republican is pushing this. These...

COVID-19 and the lockdowns during the pandemic had a significant impact on youth mental health, and the Left’s “woke” ideologies are to blame, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) believes. “The lockdowns are a big part of this. … But also you have to imagine … who's responsible,” Paul (R-KY) said Friday on Fox News's Ingraham Angle. “In June of 2020, three months into this, I said, ‘We’ve got to go back to school,’ that it was a mistake to take the kids out of school because they weren’t becoming ill with COVID and they weren’t dying from COVID,” he told host...

“The only way ur gonna learn is when ur f******* racist cracker kids are on the ground bleeding out.” Police and the FBI are investigating death threats posted online that appear to target Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul, as well as Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, with the perpetrator ranting about both being ‘fascists’ and threatening to kill the “cracker children” of “racist” people who voted for them. The threats, posted online, have all the hallmarks of a demented violent leftist, but have received virtually no media attention. The post reads “U want to vote mich mcconnell and rand paul then...

Manchin warns American consumers will pay the price for tribal politics.. Sen. Joe Manchin's legislation to spur oil and gas drilling was left out of the must-pass national defense bill after conservative Senate Republicans and progressive House Democrats raised objections. Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat who chairs the Senate Energy Committee, said the move would have serious and long-term consequences for American energy independence. "The American people will pay the steepest price for Washington once again failing to put common sense policy ahead of toxic tribal politics," he said. "This is why the American people hate politics in Washington." Democrat...

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) on Tuesday poured cold water on Democratic efforts to add language allowing banks to do business with state-approved marijuana businesses and permitting reform, a priority of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), to the annual defense authorization bill. McConnell called on Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to strip the pot-related language and Manchin’s permitting reform proposal, which he dismissed as reform “in name only,” from the defense bill.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D.-N.Y., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R.-Ky., have struck a deal to include the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), according to Axios. If the deal holds, it will move this essential piece of legislation to President Joe Biden’s desk. The NDAA must pass by year’s end to fund America’s military. The JCPA would allow news organizations to band together to negotiate fair fees from online platforms, such as Facebook and Google, who derive ad revenue from the hard work of newsrooms — mostly small, local, community-rooted...

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul provides insight on efforts to avert the rail strike on 'Kudlow.' Video... [5 min 46 sec]

The Warren County Sheriff's Office has released audio of the threats they received against the "Justice for Emmett Till" protestors that gathered in Bowling Green Saturday. We will have more in tonight's shows. https://twitter.com/wbkotv/status/1599856218578817029

Senate Republicans says they’ll withhold their support for the National Defense Authorization Act if they don’t get a vote on ending the military’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for service members. Seven GOP senators made the vow Wednesday at a Capitol Hill news conference, saying they would withhold the support if leaders of the Democrat-led chamber don’t allow a floor vote on their proposal, according to NBC News. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said the group will not vote to get on the NDAA “unless we have a vote on ending this military vaccine mandate.” The libertarian-mined Paul typically votes against the act...

Kelly Tshibaka, an Alaska Republican backed by former President Trump, is blaming Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for her failure to oust centrist GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski this election cycle. Tshibaka, a former Alaska state official, conceded the contest on Wednesday after the latest rounds of vote tabulations showed Murkowski winning. The race took weeks to call given Alaska's ranked-choice voting system, a process in which voters select their preferred candidates in order and the vote share is distributed to the top two after a process of elimination. While Tsibaka blamed ranked-choice voting for her loss, calling the system frustrating...