Free Republic

Mark Levin eviscerated Mitch McConnell tonight, telling him that he’ll have blood on his hands for the rest of his life over this Iran Deal, and so would the Republican Party because of his unconstitutional leadership. Levin said McConnell is worse than Obama because at least we know who Obama is, as McConnell pretends to be someone he clearly is not. ... Levin’s opening segment on the horrible Iran Deal that essentially passed today because of Republicans like McConnell who sold out

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Friday he will back a plan to fund the government into December with no conditions, rejecting in his strongest terms yet calls from within his party to defund Planned Parenthood as part of a larger budget bill. “It’s an exercise in futility," the Kentucky Republican told POLITICO in an interview. "I’m anxious to defund Planned Parenthood" but "the honest answer of that is that’s not going to happen until you have a president who has a similar view." "It’s better to be honest with the American people and say, ‘That won’t get it done,’”...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said this morning that President Obama will win the "short-term battle" because Congress will not be able to block the Iran nuclear deal. But he said Republicans, and the Democrats who oppose the president, have "won the argument with the American people." "There is overwhelming opposition to the deal. The Israelis oppose the deal. Our Sunni Arab allies are nervous and apprehensive now, feeling they can't trust us anymore," he told Bill Hemmer. McConnell said he believes the issue has a "long shelf life" and that the debate will continue until Americans "render judgment"...

The specter of a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic of Iran is the single greatest threat facing our nation, and if President Barack Obama's catastrophic nuclear deal with the mullahs goes forward, there will be nothing to stop them from obtaining a nuclear bomb. Astonishingly, we do not even know how bad the deal is because the Administration has not released all of the information relating to side deals with Iran as they are obligated to do under the terms of Corker-Cardin, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act that Congress passed and the President signed into law. Today I sent Senate Majority...

Kim Davis is the clerk of Rowan County, Ky. After Anthony Kennedy and four other justices of the United States Supreme Court decided that they know better than the more than 50 percent of Americans who either oppose gay marriage or think the states should have decided things, Davis decided to stop issuing marriage licenses in Rowan County.Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, now running for governor of Kentucky, had refused to represent Kentucky in federal court in the gay marriage case. He needed to consolidate the political left to his side. Defending Kentucky's constitutional provision in support of real marriage...

ThereÂ’s much talk of late about Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. She actually stopped issuing all marriage licenses, to avoid the charge of discrimination. SheÂ’s now out of jail, although itÂ’s possible sheÂ’ll be sent back. Among those who are sympathetic to her plight and the religious-liberty implications of the case, many (if not most) still think her decision to refuse to issue licenses was wrong. For example, Russell Moore and Andrew Walker carefully distinguish between private actors (like bakers and florists) and agents of the...

Nothing more poignantly epitomizes the present tragic course of the American Republic than the failure to make it clear that the fight over the Obergefell decision, and Kim Davis’s act of civil obedience (to God, reason and the Constitution) against it, is not about liberty for this or that person or group, religious or otherwise. Like the 19th century battle over slavery, it is a critical and potentially decisive battle over the premises of liberty itself. I think the problem centers on the notion that the obligation to respect unalienable rights, at all levels of government, comes from the Bill...

In a satirical essay appearing Tuesday in The Week, Michael Dougherty suggested that the only appropriate punishment for Kim Davis given her contumacy before the law is to “actually martyr her” by burning her alive.“Any normal punishment rewards her with the comfort of solidarity from right-wing Christians or her own sense of moral self-approval,” Dougherty notes. “Therefore the only way to avoid granting her such ‘martyrdom’ is to actually martyr her.”Comparing the current stand-off between religious liberty and state authority to the Protestant Reformation, Dougherty said that Christians who make a spectacle like this are “perverse” and declared that the...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is having a bad week. First, he is body-blocked from getting on camera in Mike Huckabee’s media circus with Kim Davis. Then he gets upstaged by Donald Trump at a purported Iran rally that Trump converted into a campaign event. It is a sad state of affairs for a media hog like Cruz when he gets overshadowed by even hoggier opponents. How long will Cruz play Robin to Trump’s Batman? It is not fun to be Ed McMahon when Mike Huckabee sits in the host chair. Cruz would like to think of himself as the smartest...

Ted Cruz says his hard-line strategy to defund Planned Parenthood and risk a government shutdown is about doing the “right thing” and following through on Republicans' vows to conservative voters. But many of his Republican colleagues say it’s really all about Cruz. Even some of his closest allies from past battles— fellow tried and true tea party Republicans like Sen. Mike Lee of Utah — aren’t exactly jumping to join Cruz’s latest crusade. Same goes for Cruz’s onetime allies-turned-presidential rivals, Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky. As the Texas Republican prepares for a potentially decisive month...

...many of the presidential candidates weighed in. Hillary Clinton was unsupportive of Davis, saying that she needs to do her duty. Jeb Bush said that there is enough room for Davis to uphold the law and act on her conscience. It would seem that many would agree with them citing a difference between being a baker and an elected official. Others would say this is not a hill to die on.... Doug Wilson perceptively notes that: ....whenever we get to that elusive and ever-receding “hill to die on,” we will discover, upon our arrival there, that it only looked like...

September 9, 2015 (Catholic Culture) - So if she could not, in good conscience, issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, why didn’t Kim Davis resign from her job as county clerk? I’m not privy to her reasoning, but I have my own reasons why she should not be expected to resign. Ordinarily, when a public official faces a crisis of conscience, the cause is either a change of responsibilities or a change of heart. Suppose a building inspector is asked to approve construction under a new code, and he firmly believes that the new buildings will be unsafe. If he cannot convince his...

I’ve seen two polls on this and both of them were bad news for Davis. Yesterday Rasmussen asked people if an elected official should be able to a ignore a federal court ruling that he or she disagrees with for religious reasons and got a 26/66 split. I can’t see the crosstabs there but it sounds like they offered that as a binary choice, with no middle-ground option of accommodating Davis’s objection by taking her name off the marriage licenses. Then again, if you follow Huckabee-an logic on this matter, Davis doesn’t need to be accommodated because the Supreme...

Kim Davis walked out to Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” when she was released from jail Tuesday. A judge ruled that Davis should be released from jail as long as she doesn’t interfere with the licenses that her deputies have been granting. However, she infringed upon Survivor’s rights when she played the 1982 rock classic as she walked on stage to give a speech. Record label EMI has considered suing Davis, as well as her supporter Mike Huckabee, for publicly playing the song without permission. “They are well within their rights to hold a public rally in support of Kim...

Kentucky Republican candidate for governor Matt Bevin sparred with CNN host Don Lemon in a contentious interview on national television Tuesday night. Bevin appeared on CNN to discuss the controversy surrounding Democratic Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis’ refusal to issue marriage licenses and her incarceration on contempt charges. The back-and-forth between Bevin and Lemon became labored at times. During the interview Lemon played Bevin a clip from the TV show “The West Wing,” which has gone viral in response to the Davis controversy in recent weeks. The clip features actor Martin Sheen playing fictional President Jed Bartlet quoting Bible verses...

Texas Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX) fled from a press conference today instead of saying whether he would support House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) in a pending leadership vote. “I need to go to the my next [appointment],” he said, before shifting the subject back to a prior topic. “With respect to Iran, Ambassador John Bolton is our speaker, and I’m going to raise some of these issues with him regarding whether the Corker-Cardin is the right way to proceed or if we should proceed some other route,” he said, dodging Breitbart’s question in a cloud of words. “Not trying...

<p>Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee addressed claims Wednesday that one of his aides blocked fellow Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz from speaking at a Kentucky rally for Kim Davis on Tuesday.</p> <p>“Look, I invited him to come and meet with Kim Davis. It was our event. We were kind of surprised that he showed up. But you know, once he was there, we invited him to come and meet with her. So I’m not sure what the controversy is,” Mr. Huckabee said on Fox News, Politico reported.</p>

Kentucky clerk Kim Davis will return to work in Rowan County on Monday, her lawyers said today. Davis was jailed in Grayson, Kentucky, for nearly one week after she refused a judge's order to issue marriage licenses, including to same-sex couples. She was released from jail Tuesday and has spent today going through the hundreds of letters sent to her during her six days in jail, according to a statement from Liberty Counsel, which represents Davis. "I am deeply moved by all those who prayed for me. All I can say is that I am amazed and very grateful," Davis...

In Senator Ted Cruz’s excellent Senate floor speech against President Obama’s catastrophic Iran deal, he urged Republican leadership – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) – to reject the claim that Congress must vote on the deal in the next few days. He is absolutely right. By the unambiguous terms of the Corker law, the period for congressional review of the Iran deal has never begun because Obama has failed to provide the entirety of it.

Don­ald Trump and Ted Cruz showed up on Cap­it­ol Hill for the Stop Ir­an Rally on Wed­nes­day, os­tens­ibly united in their aim of ma­lign­ing the Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion’s nuc­le­ar deal. But once they ac­tu­ally star­ted speak­ing, Cruz soun­ded like the sen­at­or he is, while Trump soun­ded un­mis­tak­ably like a pres­id­en­tial can­did­ate. Cruz railed against the Ir­an nuc­le­ar deal in his roughly 12-minute re­marks, stick­ing largely to policy, and only briefly weigh­ing in on the pres­id­en­tial race. Trump, on the oth­er hand, was there only be­cause of the race. “We will have so much win­ning if I get elec­ted that you may...