Free Republic

We’re getting closer to the end of this impeachment circus, ladies and gentlemen. The four-year project the Democratic Party has cooked up against President Trump is about to fail. The writing was on the wall last night. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) signaled last night that was a solid “no” vote on new witnesses. He was the key vote. Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Mitt Romney (R-UT) were also mulling siding with the Democrats on this initiative. With Alexander’s decision, we could have lost Collins, Romney, and Murkowski and still block this motion. Instead, this morning Murkowski said...

Democrats are demanding Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell call a list of witnesses the Democrats believe will bolster their impeachment case against President Trump. In their rush to impeach the president before the holidays, the Democrats abandoned their legal fight to subpoena the witnesses they once proclaimed were central to building their case. Now Democrats want a do-over in the Senate.  Jonathan Turley, the Republican witness and legal scholar who testified before the House Judiciary Committee during the Democrat-led impeachment inquiry, wrote an op-ed explaining how the Democrats' weak case against the president is already collapsing as Senate Republicans continue to...

Justice Clarence Thomas remains a controversial figure. H was confirmed with one of the slimmest margins in history, whose confirmation battle devolved into a nasty fight when Anita Hill lobbed sexual misconduct allegations at him. Justice Brett Kavanaugh would face the same dirty Democratic tricks. The GOP blessedly held firm for this eminently qualified man who was the subject to the nastiest character assassination attempt since Thomas. Kavanaugh’s confirmation was extra sweet in that Republicans had long last avenged the failed nomination of Robert Bork. And in today’s politics, no matter what the Democrats say, your default position should be...

Today was supposed to be simple. The Senate Judiciary Committee was set to vote on advancing the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Senate floor. It was going to be a party-line vote. It was going to be dotted with Democrats once again whining about the process. They also want an FBI investigation to look into the sexual misconduct allegations lobbed against Kavanaugh. One of the women, Christine Blasey Ford, testified before Congress yesterday in an intense day of testimony. Judge Kavanaugh addressed the committee in the afternoon, in a fiery speech defending his name, reputation, and career....

Read Admiral Ronny Jackson, the personal physician to President Trump and former President Obama, may have withdrawn his nomination for Veterans Affairs secretary, but we’re now discovering that the allegations of impropriety, drunkenness, and pill pushing may have been both overblown and untrue. CNN’s Dana Bash and David Gregory warned against the allegation of Dr. Jackson being some “candyman,” doling out medication because other White House doctors have done this. Second, the allegations that he was drunk and wrecked a government vehicle, and that he banged so heavily on a female colleague’s door while on a foreign visit, which prompted...

Oh, I see we have another talking point coming from Senate Democrats: never in the history of this country has a shutdown occurred when one party controls both chambers of Congress and the White House. Uh, that’s not true. I know for some Democrats history began when Obama was elected president, but Jimmy Carter controlled both Houses during his presidency and government still shut down. It was over various projects in the defense bill, including funding for a nuclear powered aircraft carrier (via USA Today): Democrat Jimmy Carter was president, and his party held majorities in both the House and...

Another day has passed and we’re getting closer to a government shutdown. The money runs out midnight on Friday unless a deal is struck on immigration. Let’s not forget that Senate Democrats once thought tying immigration reform to matters of the budgets was insane. Sen. Chuck Schumer, now Senate Minority Leader, said it would breed “governmental chaos” five years ago. The negotiations have hit a snag after it was leaked that President Trump asked why are we letting in people from “s**thole countries.” The liberal media blew a gasket. While Sen. Dick Durbin has confirmed the president said this DHS...

This week, the government will run out of money on Friday, January 19. Once the clock strikes midnight, the government could be shut down, unless a deal over immigration is hashed out this week. Earlier this month, there was some hope. President Trump met with congressional leaders from both parties and allowed the cameras to capture the negotiation process for an extended period of time. There seemed to be consensus over border security and DACA recipients. How to move forward on the policy angle remained to be seen. Yes, there was an ulterior motive with that as well; Trump wanted...

Of course it will, Joe.  More than 80 percent of Americans will get a tax cut next year under the new law, with nearly as many taxpayers enjoying relief through at least 2026 (and very likely beyond).  Of the plan's tiny handful of 'losers' (less than five percent), most are high-income earners living in high-tax states who itemize their deductions -- as opposed to taking the now-doubled standard deduction, as 70 percent of filers currently do (a number that will grow).  It...doesn't sound like many West Virginians fit that profile.  Manchin knew all of this, of course, but he voted...

Tax reform is done. It’s about to be law. It’s the largest revamp in three decades, but not a single Democrat voted for it. Not even Democrats from states that Trump won by wide margins. It’s a big gamble for both sides. If it doesn’t produce the economic results the GOP has been pushing, they’re sunk. If it does maintain economic growth, and any patriotic American should hope so (we’re booming at four percent right now), then Democrats have to explain why they voted against the middle class, working families, more money in Americans’ pockets, and just overall relief. Why...

It's (nearly) over.  By a 51-48, strictly along party lines, the US Senate has passed a GOP-backed tax reform package that will cut taxes for more than 80 percent of all Americans (raising taxes on a tiny, disproportionately wealthy fraction), benefit small businesses, and make America's extraordinarily high corporate tax rate -- both statutory and effective -- far more internationally competitive.  All Democrats, including every alleged "moderate."  voted 'no,' while every Republican voted 'yes.'  The only Senator not voting was John McCain, who is fighting cancer at home in Arizona.  This is a very significant victory for the White House...

There are a few topics that usually elicit startling hypocrisy from both major political parties, depending on whether or not they hold power. One is judges and filibusters (although the GOP's application of the Reid Rule seems to have ended that debate), another is deficit spending (after applauding President Obama for nearly doubling the national debt over eight years, Democrats have rediscovered this problem, wielding it to oppose a plan to let Americans keep more of their own money), and yet another is good governance 'process.' The party in control tends to prize victory over pristine process, whereas the 'out'...

FINAL UPDATE - The votes are in, and the ayes have it.  After a marathon evening of debating and considering amendments, the US Senate has approved the GOP's tax reform bill, which would simplify the tax code and cut taxes for the vast majority of American households, small businesses and corporations.  Every Republican voted yes, except for Tennessee's Bob Corker.  Democrats uniformly voted no.  This is a big legislative victory for the GOP, which overcame a great deal of ferocious opposition -- much of it rooted in misinformation -- to pass the legislation.  Up next, a conference committee with the...

The Democratic Party is regional. It’s mostly confined to the urban areas and states that touch salt water. That spells certain doom for a healthy party that’s incapable of winning rural areas. It’s not impossible. They’ve done it before, though it was before the toxic ethos of political correctness and identity politics were thrown into the mix. Now, the party’s hard left turn on immigration and abortion is starting to make moderate to right-leaning Democrats, ones who can win in these regions, difficult to find, let alone support. To complicate matters, there are still healthy numbers of Democrats who think...

Markey Claims That Dems will Restore Filibuster for Supreme Court NomineesSen. Ed Markey (D., Mass.) claimed Monday that Democrats will restore the 60-vote threshold for Supreme Court nominees once his party retakes the majority in the Senate. "When the Democrats return to the majority and capture the presidency, which we will," Markey said, "that day is going to arrive [and] we will restore the 60-vote margin." "We will ensure that for the Supreme Court, there is that special margin that any candidate has to reach because that is essential to ensuring that our country has a confidence in those people...

Sen. Jeff Merkley spoke for over 15 hours, protesting the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch, saying how this seat on the high court is stolen, and that the integrity of the courts would be undermined for decades if the Senate confirms him. Yes, a man who received the American Bar AssociationÂ’s highest rating is going to denigrate the courts. This is bath salts logic, but Merkley has been one of GorsuchÂ’s early (and vocal) opponents. HeÂ’s from a blue state. And his base is frothing at the mouth to go all-out war, even in the face of defeat....

Jennifer covered how Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-IN) will be joining fellow red state Democrats Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) in supporting Judge Neil Gorsuch’s Supreme Court nomination. Yet, as we took a step forward, Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) decided to join Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) clown show filibuster. He says he can’t vote for a nominee who can’t answer important questions, which is a milquetoast answer given that Ruth Bader Ginsburg decided 70 questions during her confirmation process: Jon Tester announces he'll vote against Gorsuch, and against cloture. 2nd deep red-state Dems to do so, following McCaskill— Alex...

Remember when Democrats insisted that incoming presidents had to get immediate confirmation of Cabinet appointments for the good of the nation? What a difference an (R) makes ... The Washington Post’s Ed O’Keefe reports on a plan by Senate Democrats to “slow walk” confirmation of Donald Trump’s appointments, including an insistence on nor more than two confirmations a week: Democratic senators plan to aggressively target eight of Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees in the coming weeks and are pushing to stretch their confirmation votes into March — an unprecedented break with Senate tradition.Such delays would upend Republican hopes of quickly holding...

Now that the election has settled the question of who will appoint the next Supreme Court justice, we have spent a considerable amount of time analyzing who might get Donald Trump’s appointment. Perhaps a better way to look at that question will be to recall the context in which it gets made. Earlier this week, Justice Samuel Alito laid out the potential agenda for a court in which an originalist replaces the late Antonin Scalia — and reminded the Federalist Society of the bullet conservatives dodged in the election: Justice Samuel Alito on Thursday laid out a possible agenda for...

The Senate seems poised to pass a bill that will gut parts of Obamacare and defund Planned Parenthood for a year. President Obama will most certainly veto this legislation, making this possible legislative victory a symbolic gesture. But it would represent some progress in Republican efforts to repeal the presidents' signature domestic achievement, which has been marred by failure. Just as Democrats used the process of reconciliation to pass Obamacare back in 2010, Republicans alluded to using it during their winter meeting in Hershey, Pennsylvania in January. After months of wrangling over deadlines for the reconciliation process, the Senate agreed to start...