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Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday rebutted Florida Sen. Rick Scott's plan "to rescue America," trying to keep attention on Republicans' perceived failures of the Biden administration as the party looks to take back the Senate this year. Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senate Committee, released an 11-point plan last week offering a range of fiscally conservative and Trumpian proposals, including ending imports from China, cutting the federal government workforce by 25% and building a wall on the US-Mexico border and naming it after former President Donald Trump.

Alas, no. McCain was defending Abedin against recent accusations made by Rep. Michele Bachmann that Abedin's security clearance should be questioned due to alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. "I understand how painful and injurious it is when a person's character, reputation, and patriotism are attacked without concern for fact or fairness," McCain said according to prepared remarks. "It is for that reason that I rise today to speak in defense of Huma Abedin."

The Hurricane Irene story ought to, but won't, shed light on our prejudices regarding science. The favored liberal Democratic narrative -- we've seen it trotted out against Rick Perry in the past two weeks -- goes like this: Democrats are the party of the enlightenment. They believe in science and facts. They know that Darwin was correct about the origin of species, and that human beings are responsible for potentially catastrophic global warming through production of carbon dioxide. Republicans, on the other hand, are the pre-modern party of superstition, religious explanations for natural phenomena and global warming denial. Gov. Perry...

[ Full five minute grilling of Rick Klein]GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Texas Governor Rick Perry under attack and not for his policies, nor his experience, nor what he is promising on the campaign trail. That would be fair and that is journalism. But name-calling? Is name-calling journalism? "Politico's" headline is, "Is Governor Rick Perry dumb?" So what's up with that? Joining us is Rick Klein, senior Washington editor for "ABC World News." And I'm putting you out on the end of a stick because we all know the author of it. But it's a terrible headline. Or we...

While the presidential horserace will consume much of the political media’s attention over the next year, muted Running Mate Match Game speculation is already underway. One figure that generates a disproportionate amount of discussion on this front is Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). Despite a series of public demurrals, Rubio-for-VP buzz is unlikely to dissipate any time soon. In Rubio, Republicans have a gifted politician, a very effective communicator, and someone who has earned near-universal admiration among conservatives. He also hails from a critical swing state, and could almost single-handedly put a coveted and growing demographic into play, virtually overnight. Rubio...

The news that Sarah Palin won’t be attending CPAC next week doesn’t come as much surprise. For those keeping score, she’s now been invited three times — and said no thanks each time. A Palin aide did not immediately return a request to explain why, but her reasoning is pretty evident. A Palin source bashed CPAC and its leader David Keene in an interview last year with POLITICO announcing that the former governor wouldn’t be attending – even though CPAC had listed her as an invited guest for the second year in a row. The source called the annual...

The Maine Republican senator says like the telephone, the Internet is a basic service that everyone should have access to. Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe says she favors expanding the reach of a "fee" that's been charged for years on telephone customers. Snowe and other members of Congress support adding the fee to cable and wireless phone bills to raise money to assure broadband Internet access in rural areas. "I've been a big advocate of making sure that rural communities have access to broadband," she says. "Because it's similar to telephone service, and what the Telecommunications Act was all about...

No one is calling California insurance commissioner Steve Poizner a "Fiscal Conservative in Name Only" -- not yet. But after U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina of California made mutton meat out of GOP rival Tom Campbell in a much talked about "demon sheep" television ad, Steve Poizner is clearly worried. Both Campbell and Poizner are guys taking on tough, entrepreneurial ladies in GOP primaries: Former Hewlett-Packard chief exec Fiorina is running for the GOP's Senate nomination against Campbell, while eBay founder Meg Whitman is battling Steve Poizner for the GOP's gubernatorial slot. At the moment Poizner is taking a beating,...

Critics of Michael Steele's tenure as Republican National Committee chairman are motivated by racism, Steele suggested in an interview published on Tuesday. Speaking to Washingtonian magazine (no online version), Steele wondered why his Democratic National Committee counterpart doesn't get the same criticism he does. "I don’t see stories about the internal operations of the DNC that I see about this operation," Steele said. "Why? Is it because Michael Steele is the chairman, or is it because a black man is chairman?”

When Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced her resignation two weeks ago it was after a series of strange, petty bouts with her detractors. Many "frivolous ethics violations" had been alleged against her, she noted. David Letterman had told an ugly joke about her daughter. A blogger had posted something that was probably not true. Someone had photoshopped a radio talker's face onto a picture of her baby -- a "malicious desecration" of the image, in the words of Ms. Palin's spokeswoman. Team Palin got duly indignant at each of these. They took special, detailed offense. They issued statements magnifying their...

Composite exchange of late seen too often at FreeRepublic: Petulant Poster #1 Juan McCain is not a conservative. The Republican party jumped the shark by nominating this open borders, gang of fourteen, amnesty liberal. He’s a RINO, a dem in pubby clothing. The only thing that would persuade me to vote for McCain is if he picks ______ (fill in the blank, Mitt Romney, Michael Steele, Duncan Hunter, Jindal, Palin, Pawlenty, etc.) as his running mate. Purist Poster #2 I’m not voting this cycle. It’s time for the Republicans to suffer for going so far leftward. The only way the...