Free Republic

Democrats have hit back at veteran GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley for calling President Barack Obama “stupid” in a weekend Twitter message. “Ive know @ChuckGrassley a long time. I am saddened he would embarrass himself like today with his comments about the President,” Obama's campaign manager, Jim Messina, tweeted. Meanwhile White House senior adviser David Axelrod said, “Heads up, Sen. Grassley. I think a 6-year-old hijacked your account and is sending out foolish Tweets just to embarrass you!” ABC News reported. But the senior senator from Iowa was unrepentant. “In his Tweet on Saturday, Sen. Grassley said that it doesn’t speak...

The Obama administration appears to be attempting to defend Attorney General Eric Holder as the Justice Department dumped more than 650 pages worth of Operation Fast and Furious documents on congressional investigators late Monday. There are two reasons why the timing of this release is significant: first, 28 members of Congress are currently calling on Holder to resign immediately. Second, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday — and this appears to be an attempt to divert pressure for Fast and Furious away from Holder. The new documents, according to Iowa Republican Sen....

Hours after making his speech on energy and jobs Friday in Pittsburgh, Pa., Texas Gov. Rick Perry parachuted into Waterloo, Iowa, in the hopes of currying favor with one of the state’s most influential kingmakers. Perry attended a fundraiser Friday evening for Iowa State Rep. Pat Grassley, grandson of Iowa’s senior U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley — a key GOP endorsement for the candidate who receives it. “I have a great deal of respect for Gov. Perry. I think he’d make a very good president,” Grassley told ABC News in an exclusive interview. But it “could be a couple of weeks”...

The 18 Senators Who Approve Breaking The Internet To Protect Hollywood from the not-cool dept Last fall, we noted that the Senate Judiciary Committee had unanimously voted to approve COICA, a bill for censoring the internet as a favor to the entertainment industry. Thankfully, Senator Ron Wyden stepped up and blocked COICA from progressing. This year, COICA has been replaced by the PROTECT IP Act, which fixes some of the problems of COICA, but introduces significant other problems as well. A wide cross section of people who actually understand technology and innovation have come out against PROTECT IP as written...

Several months ago, Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Charles Grassley began an investigation of Project Gunrunner, the disgraceful ATF practice of deliberately “walking” guns across the border and into the waiting hands of Mexican drug cartel members. The Senator was alerted by ATF whistle blowers, outraged and fed up after weapons traced to the Project had been found at the scene of the December 2010 killing of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. And how has Acting ATF Director, Kenneth Melson (Obama stooge and vehement gun-grabber) answered Senator Grassley’s requests for information about Gunrunner? He has informed agents that they “are...

There was a ton of great information this morning when U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, spoke at Sergeant Bluff-Luton High School. After some initial hesitancy, the kids asked a lot of interesting questions, about political access, national issues like spending and climate change and presidential politics. Grassley was asked his views of possible 2012 campaigns by businessman Donald Trump and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Grassley said if he decides to publicly endorse a candidate, it won’t happen until late summer at the earliest. As for Palin, Grassley said he doesn’t know her well, adding up that he’s had three...

The pursuit of endorsements from Iowa’s key GOP politicians creates a new dynamic for presidential candidates. Unlike the 2008 Caucus, when Steve King was the only major elected office holder who offered an endorsement, Iowa has four top Republican officials who could play a key role in 2012. Last week’s news that Senator Charles Grassley plans to endorse a candidate as early as this summer has campaigns angling for his affection. The key to an impactful endorsement is whether or not it comes with the full political weight of the endorser. Will the endorser’s staff, advisors, donors, and top volunteers...

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Tuesday that President Barack Obama is “not quite ready to be president,” but he ducked a question about whether former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is suited for the White House. Grassley met with the Quad-City Times editorial board while spending the day in the area. He praised the president’s ability to relate to people one-on-one, but he said he was naive about foreign affairs. “I imagine he’s darned intelligent, but I think he’s in over his head,” Grassley said. “He’s just not quite ready to be president. But he is president, so you don’t...

C-SPAN will provide live national coverage of the Republican Party of Iowa’s Reagan Dinner Sept. 17 at Hy-Vee Hall in Des Moines, Chairman Matt Strawn said. C-SPAN’s live coverage on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Radio and www.C-SPAN.org will begin at approximately 7 p.m. Sarah Pailin will be the featured speaker. Tickets to the Reagan Dinner can be reserved online at www.iowagop.org/palin. The cost is $100 per ticket, or $1,000 for a table of 10.

As Commissioner Peter Kirsanow reported earlier, Rep. Lamar Smith sent a letter yesterday to President Obama asking him to appoint a special counsel to investigate not just the dismissal of the New Black Panther voter intimidation case but also “whether the Department has adopted a policy of enforcing voting rights laws in a racially discriminatory manner.”... ...all seven GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee... demanding an oversight hearing of the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ to investigate the dismissal of this case and the allegations of racialist enforcement of the civil-rights laws... ...Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes...

Longtime senator benefits from expected Republican-trending year. If there's an anti-incumbent mood in the nation, someone forgot to tell Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley. First elected to public office 52 years ago and sent to Washington in 1976, the Republican remains a favorite for winning his sixth Senate term despite strong competition from Democrat Roxanne Conlin. Republican incumbents elsewhere have lost primary elections, but typically they have been ousted by candidates viewed as more conservative. Grassley didn't face opposition in the GOP primary, and polls indicate he's maintaining a lead over Conlin, a Des Moines lawyer. Democrats said they remain optimistic...

Republican Senator Charles Grassley continues to enjoy more than 50% support in match-ups with three potential Democratic challengers. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of the race shows Grassley with 53% support when his opponent is U.S. Attorney Roxanne Conlin, who currently attracts 40%. Only four percent (4%) of Likely Voters are not sure of their choice given this match-up, and three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate. Over the past few months, Grassley has attracted as much as 59% support against Conlin, the best-known of his opponents and the Democrat who runs strongest against him. Grassley leads former Iowa...

After sending out an e-mail promoting Conservative Coming Out Week at the University of Iowa, Natalie Ginty said she received nasty e-mails calling her a Nazi-fascist and telling her she would burn in hell. Ginty, the chairwoman of the UI College Republicans, said she was hurt by the comments, but she didn’t let them deter her from voicing a perspective she said isn’t heard on campus frequently. “A lot of Republicans don’t speak up here,” she said, noting that many conservative students feel isolated in the predominately liberal Iowa City. Conservative Coming Out Week, which began Monday and goes through...

A top Republican senator said General Motors' announcement this week that it will repay its federal loans early is "nothing more than an elaborate TARP money shuffle." In a letter to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa said that the source of the funds for the $4.7 billion repayment is not GM earnings, but rather a Treasury escrow account. He chided GM and the White House for suggesting in recent statements that the money is from GM earnings. Mr. Grassley wrote that GM's early repayment of the federal loan is aimed at diverting attention from another uncomfortable...

Former Gov. Terry Branstad is maintaining a double-digit lead over incumbent Gov. Chet Culver, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports survey. Rasmussen’s telephone survey of likely voters in the state shows Branstad leading Culver by 16 points, 52 percent to 36 percent. Six percent prefer some other candidate, and 6 percent are undecided. Branstad, a Republican who served as governor from 1983 to 1999, held virtually identical leads over the Democratic incumbent a month ago and in the first survey of the race last September. Rasmussen found Culver is doing better against another Republican gubernatorial hopeful, Bob Vander Plaats, a...

Lawmakers need to scrap progress made so far on health-care reform and start anew, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, told those gathered on the UI medical campus on Tuesday. “There’s widespread agreement that our health-care system has serious problems,” he said before the crowd of roughly 200. “Unfortunately, Congress has spent a year creating bills that wouldn’t work.” Grassley’s position as the ranking Republican of the Senate Finance Committee has made him a poster child for opposition to the Democrats’ health-care agenda. Locally, Democrats say the Republicans’ position is indicative of a disconnect between politicians and their constituents. Iowa’s senior U.S....

A number of lawyers who work on terrorist issues at the Justice Department represented terrorist detainees before joining the Obama administration. At a hearing three months ago, Sen. Charles Grassley raised the possibility of a conflict with Attorney General Eric Holder. Grassley, a senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, posed three simple questions: Who are they, who did they represent, and what are their duties at the Justice Department today? At the time, Grassley knew from press reports that two high-ranking department officials now working on detainee issues had previously worked for detainees: Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal...

This pattern from Eric Holder shows contempt for process and the American people who's representatives are tasked with oversight of the Executive Branch. It is an abuse of power to simply fail to comply with Congressional requests such as Sen. Grassley has made. Holder is a dangerous loose cannon. But don't look for him to removed anytime soon. he carries out the wishes of his master just fine.

Incumbent Republican Charles Grassley – for now at least – is sitting comfortably ahead of his three leading Democratic challengers in the U.S. Senate race in Iowa. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in Iowa finds Grassley, who is expected to seek a sixth Senate term this fall, leading all three of his rivals by two-to-one margins or more. Capturing roughly 60% of the vote in every case, he is well above of the 50% danger mark for incumbents. Unlike some Democratic incumbents in seemingly safe seats, Grassley as a Republican seems immune so far to the...

FORT MADISON –– Candidates kicked off the Lee County Republican Party’s caucuses Saturday afternoon and many eyes in the state were on Lee County awaiting the results of the party’s only gubernatorial straw poll. “We’re going to be holding the only straw poll for governor in the state today,” Don Lucas told the group meeting at the Fort Madison Middle School. And, at the Fort Madison caucus, Republicans clearly favored a familiar name — Terry Branstad, over his fellow GOP candidates, Rod Roberts, Bob Vander Plaats and Chris Rants. At Fort Madison Middle School, Branstad received 16 votes; Vander Plaats,...

The 2010 Iowa caucuses at 1 p.m. this Saturday will be more low-profile because party activists won’t be caucusing for a presidential candidate, but there is a possibility in this off-year that delegates elected could play an important role in the state’s gubernatorial and congressional races. “I certainly anticipate both the gubernatorial campaigns and the congressional primary campaigns are getting their most active supporters out to precinct caucuses, in addition to preparing for the potential for these nominations to be decided at conventions,” said Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Matt Strawn. Iowa law calls for a convention if a single...

ACORN is using a tangled web of tax-exempt organizations to funnel tax money to itself according to a detailed review released last night by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.Some or all of them may be nothing more than shell companies used to pass money from the government directly through to ACORN and its affiliates. “This analysis regarding the vast number of charitable organizations that ACORN set up to funnel money to itself raises questions about whether ACORN used the entities to advance the charitable mission of helping poor people get housing, or whether...

Midlands lawmakers are back home listening to constituents this August, with health care expected to dominate the discussion. Here's a listing of scheduled events at which the public can tell hear from their elected representatives on the issue. NEBRASKA Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb. Saturday, Aug. 15, 8:30-10 a.m., Coffee with Lee, Homestyle Café, 8807 Maple Street Advertising Tuesday, Aug. 25, 6 p.m., Town Hall Meeting, Millard North High School Auditorium 144th and Pacific Streets Saturday, Aug. 29, 8-9:30 a.m., Coffee with Lee, Vidlacks Café, 156th and Bob Boozer Drive Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb. Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2:15 p.m. MDT, Meet...

"I think that he is a good person, and good-intentioned," Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a radio interview. "But I believe he didn't serve in government long enough to understand really how things work." "Remember, he was in the Senate four years, but effectively only two years because he spent two years where he was hardly ever here at all — he was campaigning for president," Grassley said. "He really does not have an understanding of how Congress operates."

Forget Max Baucus, Henry Waxman and Rahm Emanuel. If there's one guy who may hold the whole health-care world in his hands, it's Sen. Chuck Grassley. That ought to have President Barack Obama worried... That determination gave Republicans heartburn. Conservatives saw Mr. Obama's sweeping health ambitions, and saw no good coming from the Grassley-Baucus powwow. Fresh in their minds was Mr. Grassley's past work to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which the left marked as its first big step toward greater government health care. Mr. Baucus knows that most major sustainable legislative achievements -- from the Reagan tax...

Sen. Chuck Grassley on if cap-and-trade is "dead" in the Senate: "When you've Democrats that are leading this Congress, and Gore pushing them in the religious way he's pushing them, they're going to want to produce something."

WASHINGTON – Senator Chuck Grassley today said that in a time of economic downturn, American workers must be a top priority for American companies. Grassley reiterated those words after he sent a letter to Microsoft urging the company to make efforts to retain qualified American workers during the recently announced lay-offs. Microsoft employs thousands of people through the H-1B visa program. This temporary work visa program allows American companies and universities to employ temporary foreign guest workers who have the equivalent of a U.S. bachelor’s degree in a job category that is considered by the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services...

It hasn’t generated a lot of headlines, but in the world of religion and politics, it’s a pretty big deal. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, recently asked six high-profile, hyper-wealthy Pentecostal televangelists for their financial records, under the suspicion that they’re using their ministries for personal gain. (Imagine that.) Not surprisingly, most of the televangelists’ ministries have been loath to cooperate with the inquiry. One in particular is pledging a holy war. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has gone after more than a few iconic nonprofits during his tenure atop the Finance Committee, including...

Via the folks at the Trinity Foundation/Wittenburg Door, there is a report that GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee reached out to televangelist Kenneth Copeland for some fundraising help. Copeland is one of several televangelists under investigation by U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and a proponent of the so-called "prosperity gospel." Trinity cites a blog post by former George H.W. Bush staffer Doug Wead to the effect that Huckabee called Copeland during a ministers' conference last week that Copeland was hosting. Wead reports: "Copeland, carefully observing all the laws governing non profits, as a private citizen, re-convened a private meeting, turned...

An Atlanta megachurch took in $69 million in 2006, according to a financial statement the church's minister released in response to a Senate investigation into him and five other well-known televangelists. The Rev. Creflo Dollar disclosed the World Changers Church International's financial information to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, but said the money he spends is his own. Dollar said his income comes from personal investments, including businesses and real estate ventures. But the church gave him a Rolls Royce, which he mainly uses for special occasions, he said. "Without a doubt, my life is not average," he said. "But I'd like...

Procedural snares and ``killer'' amendments threaten to disrupt the fragile coalition in the Senate that's holding together the most sweeping overhaul of U.S. immigration policy since 1986. Supporters are scrambling to address the legislative obstacles before debate resumes next week. Opponents plan to try to derail the legislation by using procedural delays and offering poison-pill amendments that may split the coalition that sustains the measure. Passage of the legislation would give 12 million undocumented immigrants a chance at legal status while handing President George W. Bush a victory on his top domestic priority. ``This is a delicate balance. The wheels...

ABC News' Rick Klein reports: Former senator Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., has been out office for more than four years now, but he chose this past weekend to close the political action committee he’s had open since his days in the Senate. Might he have another office in mind? Thompson filed his "termination report" with the Federal Election Commission on Saturday, formally shutting down the Fred D. Thompson PAC. He'd barely been using the account anyway, and he was prohibited from using money raised for the PAC for his presidential bid. It just might be an attempt by Thompson to clean...

Moderate RINOS Undermine the GOP November 11, 2005 Download Windows Media PlayerListen to Rush Conduct Broadcast Excellence BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Well, now the White House has fought back. Will the congressional Republicans get their acts in gear? It looks like they're falling part. This gang of moderates under the tutelage of George Soros that killed the ANWR drilling project-- (interruption) You are unaware that the Republican mainstream partnership is funded by George Soros? I kid you not. It's on Michelle Malkin's website. I pulled it down last night. Here we go. She writes, "Many of you were asking for...

The FBI and Capitol Police are investigating the vicious attack of a top Senate staffer at her home last week amid concerns that the assault might be related to her work on the Finance Committee. Emilia DiSanto, chief investigator for committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), arrived at her suburban Virginia home after work Wednesday about 6:30 p.m. As she was unloading belongings from her car, a 6-foot-1-inch white man dressed in black struck her repeatedly with an unidentified object believed to be a baseball bat. After she screamed to her family inside the house, the assailant fled. DiSanto was transported...