Free Republic

Praising Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), now battling brain cancer, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday said McCain is thinking beyond the health care bill. “You know, I love the man,” Schumer (D-N.Y.) told a news conference on Tuesday, after the Senate vote on a motion to proceed to a health care bill that is open to amendments. “He's a great man," Schumer said of McCain. "We've been close friends. He even said to me when I called him this weekend, ‘Let's get immigration reform done,’ so he's thinking of the future. As you know, he and I worked on...

Multiple Republican senators broke with President Trump on Wednesday after he announced on Twitter than transgender troops would be banned from serving in the military. In separate statements, GOP Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Joni Ernst (Iowa), Richard Shelby (Ala.), and Orrin Hatch (Utah) all criticized Trump for his decision that Obama-era rules allowing transgender troops to serve would be reversed. McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, ripped the call and said that Trump shouldn't be making policy announcements via tweet. “The President’s tweet this morning regarding transgender Americans in the military is yet another example of why major...

House appropriators are including President Donald Trump’s full request to fund a physical border wall in their proposed 2018 budget — potentially setting up a shutdown fight this fall. The House appropriations committee released its homeland security bill on Tuesday and it includes the full $1.6 billion requested by the Office of Management and Budget to begin construction on a southern border wall. The bill also funds 500 new Border Patrol agents and more technology for securing the border, as well as money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hire 1,600 additional staff and increase detention capacity. While House Republicans...

In firm control of the federal government, President Donald Trump and his Republican Party have so far failed to deliver on core campaign promises on health care, taxes and infrastructure. But in New York’s Trump Tower café, the Gentry family blames Congress, not the president. Like many Trump voters across America, the Alabama couple, vacationing last week with their three children, says they are deeply frustrated with the president’s GOP allies, faulting them for derailing Trump’s plans. As the family of five lunched in Trump Tower, Sheila Gentry offered a pointed message to those concerned with the GOP’s ability to...

House GOP leaders are warning their rank-and-file members of the potential for heavy midterm losses next year that could cost Republicans their majority. The warning Tuesday was aimed at encouraging lawmakers to stay focused and not be “chasing all the different other shiny objects” — according to Republican Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina. It comes a week ahead of a special election in Georgia, where Democrats are spending heavily to contest what should be a safe Republican seat. …

Just days after launching a new political action committee, former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden will join Republican officials and donors at a weekend retreat hosted by former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Biden will be interviewed by Romney during a Friday evening event in Park City, Utah, at the invitation-only summit, according to a Biden spokesman and participants briefed on the schedule. The speaker lineup for what is traditionally a gathering of Romney allies is packed with high-profile Republicans, among them House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain. Ryan was Romney’s running mate in 2012....

Even members of his own party were quick to declare President Donald Trump’s budget plan dead on arrival in Congress last month. And in fact, lawmakers are facing a burst of overdue budget-related work this summer. Most of what’s on the budget agenda probably won’t bear much resemblance to Trump’s spending plan, which promised deep spending cuts on domestic programs, rapid economic growth, and a balanced federal ledger in a decade. Instead, they’re confronting an increase in the government’s borrowing cap, serious problems in advancing annual spending bills, and a smaller set of curbs on domestic benefit programs. […] Atop...

6.7K Romney urges Trump to support Paris climate deal 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Wednesday expressed his support for the U.S. to remain in the Paris climate accord, arguing it was an opportunity to remain a leader on the world stage. “Affirmation of the Paris Agreement is not only about the climate: It is also about America being the global leader,” Romney tweeted.

Pennsylvania State Rep. Jamie Santora (R-163) is pushing a ban on private gun sales nearly identical to the ones Michael Bloomberg-funded Moms Demand Action pushed in Washington state, Maine, and Nevada. Santora’s bill would bar the private sales that Americans have enjoyed since the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791 and would require that every sale be processed in front of an agent of the government via a background check. This means that law-abiding Pennsylvanians selling a gun to a fellow hunter, lifelong co-worker, or childhood friend would have to seek out a Federal Firearms License (FFL) holder and the...

Conservative Ralph Norman has beaten the more centrist, establishment candidate for the Republican nomination for an open U.S. House seat in South Carolina and now faces the task of keeping the seat in GOP hands. The State Election Commission certified the results of this week’s runoff election after a recount Friday. Not a single vote changed from Tuesday’s count. Norman finished with a 221-vote win out of more than 35,000 ballots cast. Norman defeated Tommy Pope, the second-ranking Republican in the state House and a prosecutor who received national fame for prosecuting child killer Susan Smith nearly 23 years ago....

The top Republican in the Senate on Tuesday rejected President Donald Trump's suggestion that his party change the chamber's rules to undercut the ability of Democrats to block legislation with filibusters. "There is an overwhelming majority on a bipartisan basis that is not interested in changing the way the Senate operates on the legislative calendar," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters.

Their timidity on Obamacare repeal has made them a national laughingstock. "....Yet the party that ended slavery and successfully championed women’s suffrage, both in the face of violent Democratic opposition, can’t muster the courage to repeal even the worst provisions of the Affordable Care Act. This cowardice has now inspired the law’s apologists to openly mock the GOP and President Trump."

The government will run out of money on April 28 unless Congress passes a bill to keep the funds flowing through the end of the fiscal year. Senate Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he’s “very confident” there will be no government shutdown on April 29, but that means Republicans will not press for some of their own — and President Trump’s — priorities, including money for a border wall. “The two appropriations committees are working on the bills on a bipartisan basis,” McConnell told “Fox News Sunday.” “I’m confident Senate Democrats are not going to want to shut down the government....

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday said he would not back slashing State Department funding as the Trump administration is expected to propose, adding that deep cuts would not pass the legislative chamber. Speaking to reporters, McConnell also said Republicans, who control both the Senate and the House of Representatives, are still not in agreement on a healthcare plan to replace Obamacare.

The last thing President Donald Trump needs on his 100th day in office is a government shutdown. So with four weeks to go, Trump and Republican leaders are trying to salvage priorities like his wall along the Mexico border and immediate increases in defense spending without stumbling into a politically toxic government shutdown in another month. The temporary government-wide spending bill runs out at midnight April 28, and since Trump needs Democratic help in getting the legislation done, Republicans are already tamping down expectations. Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., a Trump ally, predicted that the legislation would be kept mostly free...

“You cannot have major changes in major programs affecting things like health care without including Democrats from the very beginning and asking them to be constructive,” Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a former Republican presidential contender, told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “So, they have got to reach out across the aisle. And Democrats have to say, we will work with you to improve and fix this plan for people.” Kasich said it would be “pathetic” if Democrats put partisanship above the good of the country. […] Kasich said the “extremes” in both parties should be “marginalized” so “reasonable”...

After withdrawing his health care bill from the House floor in an embarrassing defeat, Speaker Paul Ryan said Friday that “Obamacare is the law of the land” and will remain so “for the foreseeable future.” “I don't know what else to say other than Obamacare is the law of the land,” Ryan told reporters shortly after House Republicans canceled a planned afternoon vote on their alternative to Barack Obama’s 2010 health care reform law. “It's gonna remain the law of the land until it's replaced,” Ryan continued. “We did not have quite the votes to replace this law. And, so,...

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he’ll fight a proposal to eliminate a 52-year-old federal agency that seeks to create jobs. McConnell told WYMT-TV Saturday that he’s opposed to the proposal to do away with the Appalachian Regional Commission, which is contained in President Donald Trump’s budget for Fiscal 2018. In fact, McConnell said, “We are not going to allow any cuts” to the commission. …

Darrell Issa, who built a reputation in Congress as an imposing conservative attack dog, has got a brand new bag. With Democrats closing in on his seat last fall, Issa mailed a campaign ad praising President Barack Obama for signing a victims rights bill Issa supported -- the same Obama he unrelentingly criticized while serving as the high-profile chairman of the House Oversight Committee. The pro-life congressman, who squeaked out reelection to a ninth term by 0.7 percentage points, told constituents at a town hall March 11 that he opposed fellow Republicans’ call to defund Planned Parenthood. Despite a lifetime...

Several key Republican lawmakers are expressing support for the programs, which, since their near-death experiences during the culture wars of a generation ago, have taken pains to counter accusations of coastal elitism by making sure to distribute their grants widely across all 50 states. -snip Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican who is the chairwoman of a crucial Senate appropriations panel that oversees the endowments, said in a statement, “I believe we can find a way to commit to fiscal responsibility while continuing to support the important benefits that N.E.A. and N.E.H. provide.” Her backing, like that of some other...