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On Thursday, the United States Senate voted to confirm former Rep. GOP representative and former Director of National Intelligence under Trump 1.0 John Ratcliffe (R-TX) as the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The final vote tally by voice vote was 74 in favor and 25 against. Mr. Ratcliffe has now been officially confirmed as Director of the CIA. The one Senator who did not vote, for reasons as yet unknown, was John Fetterman (D-PA). As of this writing, the formal roll call tally has not yet been released. On Tuesday, President Trump said about John Ratcliffe:Trump touted Ratcliffe’s...

Now he wants unity

House Speaker Mike Johnson’s best chance to keep the gavel is to allow House Democrats to vote for him, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) told reporters Friday. If Democrats, along with some establishment Republicans, enable Johnson to retain the Speakership, he would be in a power sharing agreement with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who would demand something of Johnson in return for Democrat votes.

In yet another display of how establishment Republicans prioritize power and politics over their own base, RINO Susan Collins (R-ME) is set to take the reins of one of the most influential committees in Congress.Reports confirm Collins is poised to become Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, a role that wields unparalleled control over discretionary federal spending.This news comes on the heels of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s announcement that he will relinquish the chairmanship, paving the way for Collins, who currently serves as vice chair, to step into the position.The Appropriations Committee oversees billions of taxpayer dollars, deciding how...

NEW: Statement from Founder @Mike_Pence on the nomination of RFK Jr. to serve as Secretary of HHS.

Mike Pence says he will not endorse Donald Trump in 2024

The self-proclaimed "Never Again Trumper" Paul Ryan once praised President Donald J. Trump on CNBC's "Squawk Box," April 17, 2018 -- chatting with Joe Kernen. This is a dramatically different face than what Breitbart recently reported about Ryan, on the same Squawk Box program, with some very harsh things to say about the former president (chatting with Joe Kernan). Here is the Breitbart account of those mean-spirited comments:Ryan said, “It is a disaster if we nominate Trump. You know I think that. I have been saying that for a long time. But Liz [Cheney]is right, which is, that he could...

Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson announces on ABC news that he will be running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.Speaking in the customary tones of an evangelical minister trained in the dark arts of using a righteous serpent tongue, Mr. Hutchinson indicates that he carries a higher moral authority to sit in judgement of what the professional Republican Party truly needs. The professional Republican Party likely anticipates dozens of votes for Hutchinson. WATCH:He’s not running for President; he’s running to be the silver-haired serpent tongue of the professional Republican apparatus. Creepy vibes are all over this guy…[Transcript Below]JONATHAN KARL, CNN...

Old Joe Biden just boasted again about how powerless patriots are against his all-powerful and increasingly authoritarian federal behemoth. Biden practically thumped his chest as he declared: “I love my right-wing friends who talk about” – and here he mockingly imitated their dramatic tones – “‘the tree of liberty is water of the blood of patriots.’ If you need to work about taking on the federal government, you need some F-15s. You don’t need an R– AR-15.” Has any president in American history so delighted in taunting his citizens? And has anyone noticed how Biden, in a single mangled quip,...

Republican leader Kevin McCarthy was failing anew to win the House speakership Wednesday in dramatic fourth round voting as the chamber plunged into Day Two of the new Congress with no end in site to the political chaos Republicans have created. McCarthy fared no better than he did on opening day ballots as conservative holdouts rejected him with their votes. No minds appeared to have changed, and he was falling far short of the 218 votes typically needed to win the gavel. The California Republican vowed to keep fighting despite losing in multiple rounds of voting that threw the new...

Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is starting the new year making very clear whose side he is on–and it is not Republican voters. After betraying the incoming GOP House majority by negotiating a $1.7 trillion omnibus funding bill in the lame duck Congress last month to deny House Republicans the chance to control federal spending this year, McConnell is set to host Joe Biden in Kentucky on Wednesday at a “bipartisan” celebration of Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill passed in 2021 with help from McConnell. NBC News was first to report on the McConnell-Biden event which will...

3 “For the 28 years that he served as chancellor of Germany, Bismarck preserved what he had built by a restrained and wise diplomacy, which was the single most important element in maintaining the peace of Europe.” – Henry Kissinger Some people complain I never have a good word to say about the United States. That’s not quite true. I am sure if I dig deep enough, I can find a piece or two from a daily column that spans more than a decade where I said something nice. But today, I will change tracks: George H.W. Bush, the 41st...

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on the Senate floor he “looks forward” to hearing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s demands before Congress on Wednesday evening. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is scheduled to speak and claim the $45 billion worth of aid designated for Ukraine in the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill is not enough support. Congress is weighing whether to pass the massive spending bill in addition to the $66 billion lawmakers have already approved of taxpayers’ money for Ukraine.

It looks like the good ole boys in Tennessee don’t want outsiders taking their cake. The state passed a law that prevents outsiders from running for a US House if they haven’t lived in the state for three years. Tennessee Republicans changed the law which prevented President Trump’s pic for the House in the state from qualifying for office. A Trump-backed congressional candidate in Tennessee’s primary race was booted from the ballot after the local GOP voted to remove her because she had only just moved to the state. Morgan Ortagus served as the State Department Spokesperson under former President...

Former Attorney General William Barr claims in a new book that he yelled at his boss, then-President Donald Trump over a discussion regarding Hunter Biden shortly before the November 2020 election. “In his upcoming book, ‘One Damn Thing After Another,’ Barr recalled that in October 2020, Trump called soon after a Newsmax segment on Hunter Biden’s laptop,” Fox News reported Wednesday. “Reports about the computer revolved around emails that appeared to connect Joe Biden to his son’s business dealings when the elder Biden was vice president,” the report continued. “You know this stuff from Hunter Biden’s laptop?” Trump asked Barr,...

Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) blasted President Joe Biden for his withdrawal of U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. Graham said Biden “doesn’t understand the nature of the war on terrorism,” adding that he was the “most incompetent president in my lifetime.” He said that giving the Taliban, which took over Afghanistan as a result of the bother withdrawal, aid “would be the ultimate betrayal” of those harmed by the Taliban.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Republican colleagues at lunch Wednesday that he will make a new offer to Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on a path forward to raising the nation’s debt limit, marking the start of long-awaiting negotiations between the two leaders.

Former Vice President Mike Pence said Monday that he has a “strong relationship” with former President Donald Trump and added that the two had sat down and “talked through” their differences in the days after the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol. “Look, you can’t spend almost five years in a political foxhole with somebody without developing a strong relationship,” Pence told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “And, you know, January 6 was a tragic day in the history of our Capitol building. But thanks to the efforts of Capitol Hill police, federal officials, the Capitol was secured. We...

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan plans to condemn the populist appeal of former President Donald Trump during a Thursday evening speech at the Reagan library. “If the conservative cause depends on the populist appeal of one personality, or on second-rate imitations, then we’re not going anywhere,” Ryan plans to say according to speech excerpts released to Punchbowl News.

I took a beating on Twitter Thursday night for making what I thought was a commonsense observation that President Trump should be negotiating favorable terms for resignation "if there are 20 GOP senators who’d vote to impeach." In our current climate, this was taken as a call for Trump’s impeachment. But it wasn’t a value judgment. It was a mathematical calculation. As it happens, I do think the president has committed an impeachable offense, making a reckless speech that incited a throng on the mall, which foreseeably included an insurrectionist mob. These rioters ended up overwhelming security forces and storming...