Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Senate Republican leaders were poised on Thursday to unveil a fresh proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, revising their bill to help hold down insurance costs for consumers while keeping a pair of taxes on high-income people that they had planned to eliminate. With the revised bill, the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, is trying to keep alive his party’s seven-year quest to dismantle the health law that is a pillar of former President Barack Obama’s legacy.Republicans said the revised bill would provide roughly $70 billion in additional funds that states could use...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Friday warned Republican voters to steer clear of nominating Tea Party candidates who can't win in next year's general election. "The way you have a good election year is to nominate people who can win," he told reporters during his final Capitol Hill press conference of 2015. He urged Republican primary voters to avoid the mistakes of the past, mentioning several Tea Party candidates who went down in flames in recent Senate elections. "What we did in 2014 was we didn't have more Christine O'Donnell's, Sharron Angles, Richard Mourdocks or Todd Akins. The...

Mitch McConnell has a game plan to confront President Barack Obama with a stark choice next year: Accept bills reining in the administrations policies or veto them and risk a government shutdown. In an extensive interview here, the typically reserved McConnell laid out his clearest thinking yet of how he would lead the Senate if Republicans gain control of the chamber. The emerging strategy: Attach riders to spending bills that would limit Obama policies on everything from the environment to health care, consider using an arcane budget tactic to circumvent Democratic filibusters and force the president to 'move to the...

Sean Hannity says that three senators confirmed Ted Cruz’s account of a conversation he had with Senate Majority Liar Leader Mitch McConnell about a possible deal with Democrats about the Export-Import Bank. You may recall that Cruz blasted McConnell on the Senate floor for saying there was no deal, while there clearly was one. Although other Republicans have attacked Cruz for telling the truth — without denying his account of the conversation, by the way — a few have come out in support of him. Senator Mike Lee has been willing to go on record to confirm Cruz’s account. Sadly,...

--- It's impossible to look at the senator's vehement speech -- which our veteran man on the Hill, Paul Kane, said was "unlike anything I've ever seen" -- outside of the context of Cruz's presidential campaign. --- If it is purely a coincidence that the Bozell endorsement was released an hour before Cruz made headlines by attacking McConnell over the same issue, it's an extremely fortuitous one. (Editor's note: There are no coincidences in politics. At least not ones like this.) Cruz was reacting to McConnell's actions on the floor, but likely had some sense of where the wind was...

The $2 billion Kentucky Kickback is not the only treat in McConnell’s bag of Halloween tricks. The final deal to sell out the American people with Obamacare and perennial debt includes a hallmark of the 2011 McConnell debt ceiling plan. Section 1002 of the bill provides for McConnell’s infamous resolution of disapproval. Basically, within three weeks of the President’s official request for a debt limit increase (until Feb 7, 2014 in this case), Congress can force a vote to disapprove of the request. There’s one problem, though. That resolution must pass with 2/3ds majorities in both houses. So why slip...