Free Republic

GOP Sen. Scott Brown (Mass.) said Monday he won't support Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) budget when it comes up for a vote in the Senate. Brown, a centrist who is running for reelection in 2012, said that Ryan's plan helped jumpstart a necessary debate, but that Ryan's Medicare reforms go too far. "While I applaud Ryan for getting the conversation started, I cannot support his specific plan — and therefore will vote 'no' on his budget," he wrote in a Politico op-ed. "Our country is on an unsustainable fiscal path," he added. "But I do not think it requires us...

Really irritating, and I say that knowing it’ll damage my cherished RINO cred. From his letter tonight to Reid and McConnell: I am disappointed that despite passing six different FY 2011 Continuing Resolutions, each with the understanding that passage would move bi-partisan negotiations further along, that we are once again faced with the likelihood of a government shutdown. A government shutdown absolutely serves no purpose and is in no one’s best interests. I stand ready to work with each of you, to do what it takes—and to put politics aside—and work on behalf of a greater good to ensure that...

BOSTON (AP) -- U.S. Sen. Scott Brown defended his decision not to pursue a criminal investigation against the camp counselor he said molested him when he was a child, saying Tuesday that he's not looking to settle old scores. Brown details the encounter in his autobiography "Against All Odds," which tells the story of the Republican's troubled childhood and his election to the Senate seat held for decades by the late Democrat Edward Kennedy.

"You're talking about being an ideologue? If you're looking for one, I'm not it," said Sen. Scott Brown. Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) said he doesn't consider himself a member of the Tea Party movement and would welcome any primary challenger. Brown, the Republican senator from deep-blue Massachusetts whose win in a special election last year in part catalyzed the Tea Party movement, said he considers himself just a Republican, though one with sympathies toward some Tea Party issues. "Hey, nothing wrong with a primary. I welcome all challengers," Brown said Tuesday morning on MSNBC. He said Monday evening that he...

Six months have passed since Scott Brown shook the world with his upset victory over Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts special election to fill the people's seat once held by Ted Kennedy. Brown was elected to the United States Senate in no small part due to the energy and enthusiasm of Tea Party activists. In the intervening 180 days, the euphoria of sending a Republican Senator from Massachusetts to Capitol Hill has waned amongst Tea Party enthusiasts. Some thought the election of Brown would spell the death knell of Obamacare. As the 41st Republican senator, he put Republicans in a...

Scott Brown, with some justification, makes frequent claims to bipartisanship. But as the Republican senator from Massachusetts prepared to cast another vote next week against an extension of benefits for jobless Americans, he expressed frustration. Democrats, he said, never gave his alternative plan to extend benefits a serious look. “Why is it that I’m always the one that has to vote with the Democrats?’’ Brown lamented. “Bipartisanship is a two-way street, you know? Why can’t they also work together to pay for these things within the budget, within the monies that we already have? Why is it that we always...

Republicans were forced to "back down" from blocking Wall Street reform, according to a fundraising letter sent by the president. In the e-mail to his supporters, President Barack Obama wrote that pressure on lawmakers forced Republicans to "back down" from blocking the legislation, which the Senate passed Thursday. "This movement proved again that the strongest special interests, who for so long have called the shots in Washington, can be beat," he wrote. "When opponents in Congress tried to block the legislation altogether, you stood up -- and they backed down. When the lobbyists pushed for loopholes and exemptions just before...

ABC’s Z. Byron Wolf reports: Scott Brown is proving to be an elusive vote on matters of cloture. During his month in the senate, Brown is just about evenly split, siding half the time with Democrats and half the time with Republicans. For a man ushered into the Senate as someone Republicans should “exalt in” and signaling the death knell of Democrats’ super-majority, Brown has shown himself to be no fan of Senate Republicans’ slow-everything-to-a-snail’s-pace strategy. In two cases now Brown joined several other Republican moderates to buck his party and help Democrats narrowly defeat filibuster. The most recent occurred...