Free Republic

ABILENE, Kan. — Eric Cantor had just lost his job in astonishing fashion, and official Washington was trying to make sense of what happened. But the defeat of the House majority leader triggered a more visceral reaction from Republican Pat Roberts of Kansas. “I might be next,” a deadly serious Roberts recalled telling fellow GOP Sen. Bob Corker during a ride on the Senate subway. “You never know.” Roberts has emerged as a case study of the personal and professional toll even a nominal challenge from the right can take on a sitting senator — and a vivid illustration of...

A trio of Democratic senators called for quick action this month on agreeing to keep funds flowing to transportation projects through the end of the year as bipartisan, bicameral negotiations continue on finding a way to pay for the patch. “We have to. It is a necessity for the economy of this country, for our infrastructure and for everything else, to come to an agreement before the trust fund runs out,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer, the No. 3 Senate Democrat, said on a conference call. “Our purpose today is to urge both sides to come together, to put down any...

How an obscure Mississippi state senator became the poster boy for all that’s wrong with the right. There was a conservative NRA- and Right To Life-endorsed candidate in the Mississippi race, one who opposed Ronald Reagan’s 1986 amnesty for illegal immigrants, as well as any similar efforts by President Bush and Obama. Unlike his opponent, he was a veteran who fought the Obama administration’s cuts to the military, including plans to reduce the Navy to a dangerously low level of ships. He had a history of reducing spending when he was chairman of the Appropriations Committee. He had co-sponsored anti-Obamacare...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gave a strong indication today that the Democrats plan to take action on the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling when he said on the Senate floor, “We’re going to do something about the Hobby Lobby legislation.” Reid mentioned this hope the Democrats have as he went through a laundry list of issues Democrats want to get done as the Senate continues its current session.After the Supreme Court ruled last week, Reid reacted by saying, “If the Supreme Court will not protect women’s access to health care, then Democrats will.” Democrats have been mulling over several...

Milton Wolf started running a radio commercial Tuesday that dings Sen. Pat Roberts for spending more of his time out of the state, as part of his ongoing effort to paint the veteran lawmakers as out of touch with Kansas and desperate to reconnect with voters ahead of the state’s primary. The ad, which the campaign said will run statewide, highlights a recent radio appearance in which Mr. Roberts said, “Every time I get an opponent, Every time I get a chance I’m home.” “That is Sen. Pat Roberts, he doesn’t live in Kansas anymore,” the narrator says in the...

U.S. Senate candidate Terry Adams is criticizing Democratic primary rival Gordon Ball over Ball's rejection of a debate. "I'm very disappointed in Ball," Adams said Monday in a news release. "He puts an ad on TV that says the Democratic Party has no backbone but then refuses to debate the issues. It is clear that is Ball who has no backbone." Ball was quoted this week by the Knoxville News Sentinel saying that any Democratic candidate debate needed to be held before early voting on July 18, should be televised statewide and should also include lesser-known candidates Larry Crim and...

Mr. Carr’s goal for the final month of campaigning is to portray Mr. Alexander as too liberal for conservative Tennesseans. Mr. Carr blasted anti-amnesty TV ads into homes and offices from Knoxville to Memphis last month — his first message with the mass medium since his campaign began. Even when pollsters soften the term “amnesty” to “a path to citizenship,” a plurality of self-identified moderates and independents side with the majority of conservatives who say, in effect, that naturalizing people in the U.S. illegally is poison for Republican candidates. Able to claim authorship or support for a series of tough...

Imagine that you’re a state legislator thinking about running for Congress. The polarization in Congress is pretty apparent to you. Democratic members are increasingly liberals and Republican members are increasingly conservative. But here’s the problem: you don’t fit that pattern. You’re a moderate. What will you do? According to new research (gated version here) by political scientist Danielle Thomsen, you’re much less likely to run for Congress. Thomsen argues that in an era of polarized parties, how well politicians “fit” their party ideologically will affect whether they decide to run for higher office. Drawing on a 1998 survey of state...

Moderate Kansas Republicans survey the U.S. Senate primary like vegetarians at a barbecue. Dick Bond, the onetime president of the Kansas Senate from Johnson County, considers three-term incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts and finds him too far right. Roberts’ most serious challenger, tea party favorite Milton Wolf? Much the same. “I don’t even have a horse to ride,” Bond said. People who long represented the mainstream of the Kansas GOP find themselves in a party shifted decidedly to their right. That leaves them feeling abandoned, particularly in the Senate primary, which features two candidates who are striving to stake out the...

Meet the Senate’s newest odd couple: Sens. Cory Booker and Rand Paul. The duo of high-profile, first-term senators — one a New Jersey Democrat who came to Capitol Hill on Twitter-fueled national fame, the other a Kentucky Republican mulling a presidential bid in 2016 — will roll out legislation that comprehensively overhauls the U.S. criminal justice system. Continue Reading Text Size-+reset Latest on POLITICOCruz: Investigate Cochran primaryPerry to Obama: No handshakeIf Baghdad fallsObama urges 'restraint' in Middle EastBooker, Paul team up for justiceCordray's Ohio profile shrinks The measure, called the REDEEM Act, has several pillars: It encourages states to change...

**SNIP** We are now governed by elites, some the second and third generation of elites, who have decided the rest of us aren’t smart enough to govern ourselves. They believe modern society has become so complicated that government needs to be in every nook and cranny of it, making the decisions for us, for our own good. They know what’s best for us. This growing dissatisfaction hasn’t reached a boiling point, but it shows no signs of simmering down. The signs are everywhere. **SNIP**

I don't know if we sufficiently understand how weird and strange, how historically unparalleled, this presidency has become. We've got a sitting president who was just judged in a major poll to be the worst since World War II. The worst president in 70 years! Quinnipiac University's respondents also said, by 54% to 44%, that the Obama administration is not competent to run the government. A Zogby Analytics survey asked if respondents are proud or ashamed of the president. Those under 50 were proud, while those over 50, who have of course the longest experienced sense of American history, were...

In 35 years in law enforcement, said the Takoma Park Police chief, he's never had this happen. He's never had a store tell him that he would have to leave his service weapon in the car or leave the store -- especially when he was in his police uniform. But that's what happened July 4 in the Ikea in College Park, where Takoma Park Police Chief Alan Goldberg had stopped in with his daughter. Goldberg was in uniform because he had worked that morning at the city's July 4 parade, and would be back on duty that night for fireworks....

John Boehner’s plan, in which he proposes to sue President Barack Obama for violating the Constitutional role of the presidency, is important and brilliant. I am an attorney, with a keen interest in both politics and law. I have read and studied the U.S. Supreme Court precedents in question. Pundits with incorrect analyses make three wrong objections: (1) Congress does not have legal “standing” to be the plaintiff to bring a successful lawsuit. (2) The Courts are reluctant to get involved in disputes between Congress and the Executive Branch. (3) Congress has other tools and Boehner is off-base using a...

"The solution does not just include policing — although we'll continue to look for ways to put more police where they're needed. We also have to give our young people alternatives to the street, and as a community we need to demand more of ourselves and our neighbors." — Mayor Rahm Emanuel, on Chicago's blood-soaked Fourth of July weekend As Sunday night crept (no doubt cautiously) to Monday morning, residents of the South Chicago neighborhood endured a firefight. They witnessed a tide of mayhem worthy of urban war zones worldwide. This is not how Chicago wants to build its reputation...

Gun violence erupted in Chicago over the holiday weekend, with 14 people killed and another 68 wounded from Thursday afternoon to early Monday. Two of the fatal shootings were by Chicago police. It was the city’s highest concentration of gun violence this year, but in its wake it was ascribed to familiar suspected causes, depending on the source: inadequate policing, lax gun laws, and lack of economic opportunity. Most of the Chicago shootings took place in areas plagued by school closings and systemic losses in manufacturing jobs: Englewood, Roseland, Gresham, and West Pullman. Most of the fatalities were teenage boys...

Vice president Joe Biden has disparaged gun-rights advocates as “tea baggers,” CNN host John Walsh told reporters today. ... ‘They’re all scared sh*tless of the NRA, aren’t they?’” (said John Walsh) “‘John, every one of them,’” the vice president replied, according to Walsh. “‘Because the NRA will run a tea-bagger against you. . . . They’ll put 5 million bucks against you.’”

LAREDO - City leaders in Laredo say they will not use taxpayer money to help illegal immigrants released from Border Patrol custody. Laredo Mayor Raul Salinas said the city has to look out for its own citizens. Laredo's position runs counter to those of cities like McAllen, which has spent thousands in tax dollars helping Central Americans released from Border Patrol custody.

The Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge has issued a statement decrying a decision by the Louisiana Supreme Court that could compel a local priest to testify in court about confessions he might have received. The alleged confessions, according to legal documents, were made to the priest by a minor regarding possible sexual abuse perpetrated by another church parishioner. The statement, published Monday (July 7) on the diocese's website, said forcing such testimony "attacks the seal of confession," a sacrament that "cuts to the core of the Catholic faith." The statement refers to a lawsuit naming the Rev. Jeff Bayhi and...

WASHINGTON -- Returning from a one-week recess, the Senate voted 84-12 Monday to proceed with debate on legislation that would ease restrictions on hunters and fishers while continuing a popular wetlands restoration program. But final passage of The Bipartisan Sportsmen's Act of 2014 isn't certain, with some senators and environmental groups raising objections to a provision that would end an EPA requirement that ammunition makers limit use of lead and other toxic materials for guns used by hunters. That provision is sought by the National Rifle Association and some groups representing hunters who complain about ammunition shortages.