Free Republic

Former President Trump on Sunday doubled down on his criticism of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other Senate Republicans who voted in favor of passing a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. “All Republicans who voted for Democrat longevity should be ashamed of themselves, in particular Mitch McConnell, for granting a two month stay which allowed the Democrats time to work things out at our Country’s, and the Republican Party’s, expense!” Trump said in a statement. The former president called Republican lawmakers who voted in favor of the bill “RINOs” — a widely used term he favors that means...

And all at once, summer collapsed into fall. - Oscar WildeOctober runs hot and cold; sometimes as warm as a summer day in technicolor, other times gunmetal gray and stark. But mostly what we remember of October – indeed, what’s etched in perpetuity on our soul – is the glorious luminosity of its clear days, the rustle of crisp leaves on the wind and the musky-sweet smell of leaves piling up.As sure as it is the end of summer it is the beginning of something new – winter. Whether you love it or hate it is beside the point, it...

Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said he’ll support the nomination of Jeff Flake as U.S. ambassador to Turkey after meeting with Flake Tuesday. “My friend Jeff Flake is a thoughtful and accomplished public servant who will represent the United States well in a complex region of the world,” Romney said in a statement to Deseret News. “He understands the importance of standing for U.S. interests in Turkey, and I look forward to supporting his nomination when it comes before the Senate.” When his nomination was announced by the Biden administration in July, the former Republican senator...

A group of moderate Democrats is clashing with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over when to vote on a roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill – potentially imperiling a key part of President Biden's legislative agenda. The House returned from its August recess this week and is holding a crucial procedural vote Monday night on rules for debate on three measures: the budget resolution that will serve as the blueprint for Democrats' tax and spending plan, the infrastructure bill and a separate voting-rights measure. But a coalition of nine centrist Democrats has been at an impasse with Pelosi and progressive lawmakers...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell praised President Joe Biden on Wednesday for working with Republicans to pass an infrastructure bill. “I think the president deserves a lot of credit for getting the Democrats open to reaching a bipartisan agreement on this bill,” McConnell said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “MTP Daily,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) stated that by embracing “using growth projections to pay for some portions of the bipartisan bill,” Republicans have given Democrats a tool to argue the reconciliation bill is paid for. Kaine said, “I want to pay for this bill. Now, just remember, Garrett, there [are] a couple of different ways you can pay for a bill like this. So, first, is you raise revenues. And the Finance Committee is given the instruction that basically says, raise at least, I think it’s a billion dollars, and they’ll likely do that...

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has teed up a vote for the weekend on the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan, ending debate late Thursday evening by filing cloture on the sweeping measure. While the final vote time remains unclear, the Senate is scheduled to come back into session on Saturday at noon, with lawmakers out of session on Friday for late Sen. Mike Enzi’s (D-Wyo.) funeral. Top lawmakers in the upper chamber had hopes of passing the measure on Thursday evening, but parties remained at odds over votes on additional amendments.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) announced Wednesday that she would not support the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget bill after Senate Republicans and Democrats secured a deal for her bipartisan infrastructure bill. Sinema told Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that she does not support such an expensive infrastructure bill. In comparison, her and Republicans’ infrastructure bill costs $1.2 trillion. “I have also made clear that while I will support beginning this process, I do not support a bill that costs $3.5 trillion — and in the coming months, I will work in good faith to develop this legislation with my colleagues...

The group of senators working on a bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure framework have reached a deal, they announced Wednesday. “As of late last night — and really early this morning — we now have an agreement on the major issues,” Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), the deal’s chief GOP negotiator, said after meeting with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to inform him of the final details. “We are prepared to move forward,” said Portman, who spent Tuesday evening with White House counselor Steve Ricchetti holed up at the Capitol ironing out the kinks.

A major coalition of moderate House lawmakers is endorsing the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal in the Senate, it announced Tuesday, marking a huge step forward as lawmakers wrestle with how to push the legislation through the lower chamber. In a statement, the Problem Solvers Caucus — a bipartisan group of 29 Democrats and 29 Republicans in the lower chamber of Congress — said they supported the compromise agreement, adding it closely aligns with their proposal. “The bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus strongly supports the Senate infrastructure framework, which is closely aligned with our own ‘Building Bridges’ proposal released last month,”...

Republican leadership said Monday that fewer than 10 House GOP lawmakers would vote to support a bipartisan Senate infrastructure deal. House Republican leadership sources told Punchbowl News that fewer than 10 House GOP lawmakers would vote for the bipartisan infrastructure deal if it were to come up for a vote. Although there tentatively remains support from Republicans and Democrats in the Senate for a bipartisan infrastructure deal, it remains unclear how many Republicans could back such a bill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has a historically slim majority, and the bipartisan deal could fail to get support from far-left lawmakers...

Republicans are hesitant to endorse Biden's plan — and for good reason.Congress is expected to take action on President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan any day now, but Republicans are hesitant to endorse the expensive plan, which is filled with Democrat agenda goals and progressive talking points.Biden originally said last week he would not sign the infrastructure plan that garnered GOP support unless the legislative body also passed a reconciliation bill littered with leftist agenda items. When Republicans promised to jeopardize Biden’s plan by pulling out of the “bipartisan” part of the deal in response, Biden walked back his statement and...

The bipartisan infrastructure agreement reached last week will get rid of all of the country's lead pines and service lines, according to a new White House memo, but it's not clear how long it will take. The memo, from National Economic Council Director Brian Deese and senior adviser Anita Dunn, says the bipartisan framework "will replace 100 percent of the nation's lead pipes and service lines." White House press secretary Jen Psaki also told reporters on Monday that "it will put Americans to work replacing 100 percent of our nation's lead water pipes" but wouldn't give a time period when...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Monday demanded assurances from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that the bipartisan infrastructure bill is not held “hostage” to reconciliation with “Green New Deal socialism.” “The President has appropriately delinked a potential bipartisan infrastructure bill from the massive unrelated tax-and-spend plans that Democrats want to pursue on a partisan basis,” McConnell explains in a press release. “Now I am calling on President Biden to engage Leader Schumer and Speaker Pelosi and make sure they follow his lead.”

Senate Republicans on Friday blocked the creation of a bipartisan panel to study the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, refusing to back down on their opposition to the independent investigation. The Senate vote was 54-35 — short of the 60 votes needed to consider a House-passed bill Democrats and some moderate Republicans had called for a commission to probe the events leading up to and on Jan. 6, when hundreds of people, some of them supporters of President Donald Trump, stormed the Capitol, fighting with police, urging violence against lawmakers and delaying the formal certification of President Joe Biden's...

The top Democrat and Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee reached an agreement Friday on legislation to establish a bipartisan 9/11-style commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol ahead of an expected vote next week. The bill is focused squarely on the Jan. 6 riot, not other episodes of political violence as GOP leaders have demanded. It’s unclear how much support the legislation has among Republicans who have defended former President Trump’s actions surrounding the deadly rampage. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Friday said he has not signed off on the bill.

During an interview aired on Friday’s broadcast of PBS’ “Firing Line,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) argued that President Joe Biden can still say he’s a bipartisan leader, but this requires redefining what bipartisanship means. Gillibrand said that Biden will still have credibility as a bipartisan leader even if both the coronavirus relief and infrastructure packages pass through reconciliation without Republican votes because “I think from a voters’ perspective, they see solving the COVID crisis, getting the economy up and running, the most bipartisan agenda you could have.” Host Margaret Hoover then asked, “Is that a little bit redefining what bipartisanship...

I haven't seen much humor in life during the past year or so, but one thing that has been uproariously hilarious lately is the orchestrated media narrative that President Joe Biden is bipartisan and conciliatory. Please give me a moment to catch my breath. I think it was Karl Rove who recently observed that the media's effective definition of bipartisan legislation is not that significant numbers of both parties' lawmakers support a bill but that some poll somewhere shows that a large percentage of Americans of each party support some vaguely described initiative, even if zero Republican legislators support the...

Speaker Pelosi made an extraordinary move and appointed a general to preside over a ‘9/11-style’ commission to purportedly ‘get to the bottom’ of the January 6th Capitol riots. The bold action came as Pelosi was facing heat over her knowledge and decisions about the Capitol riots’ planning prior to the attack on the Congress. The general that Pelosi has hand-picked for her mission to point the finger at Donald Trump for the planned attack is Lt. General Russel Honoré. It now appears that Honoré is a partisan appointment, as he not only had blasted Missouri Senator Josh Hawley for objecting...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Friday stated that Democrats cannot “indefinitely” reach out to Republicans, mere days after Democrats took control of the White House and Senate. “We cannot reach out to Republicans indefinitely. If they choose not to come on board to help the American people now, we have the majority. We should use that majority,” Sanders said alongside a clip of his recent appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, in which the Vermont senator reiterated the same sentiment. “Look I think we should do our best to reach out to Republicans, who represent communities that were suffering...