Free Republic

Do I agree with Obama's interpretation of Luke 12:48? No. Do I agree with Obama in his 2004 interview "I have a deep faith" in which he said that there many paths to heaven/the Father and his words which were contrary to Jesus saying He is the "Way, Truth, Life...no man comes unto the Father but by me." Absolutely not. Do I agree with Mormon teaching that Jesus and Satan are brothers? Again, absolutely not. (link below in comments section.) The point of the this thread is to point out that Orrin Hatch was wrong. In fact, I believe that...

Congressional support for controversial online piracy legislation eroded dramatically on Wednesday in the face of an unprecedented online protest supported by tech titans such as Google, Wikipedia and Facebook. Several key senators withdrew their support from the Senate's Protect IP Act (PIPA), including Tea Party favorite Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), an elected member of his party's leadership. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who leads the Senate GOP's campaign team, said the legislation should be put on hold, while Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a sponsor and the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, retreated from the...

Washington, DC --(Ammoland.com)- Two pro-gun conservatives recently announced they were running against Utah Senator Orrin Hatch. This is welcome news for gun owners. In a Senate career that has lasted more than thirty five years, Hatch has not been a particularly good friend of the Second Amendment. During negotiations over the 1986 McClure-Volkmer Firearms Owners Protection Act – designed to protect gun owners from abuses of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms -- Hatch sat at the negotiating table next to officials of the ATF and argued against the pro-gun positions of Sen. Jim McClure. Though a senior member...

Will it be enough to rein in FDA’s outrageous power grab? ANH-USA, together with a number of supplement trade organizations, went to Capitol Hill to plead our case about the FDA’s profoundly flawed NDI (new supplement) draft guidance in the offices of two powerful senators and longtime friends of natural health, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). Our visit was preceded by all the letters you have been sending to Congress, which have immeasurably increased the visibility of this issue. As you know, if this draft guidance stands, it would allow FDA to arbitrarily deny the sale...

1. Ben Nelson, D-Neb. 2. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. 3. Jon Tester, D-Mont. 4. Scott Brown, R-Mass. 5. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah 6. Dick Lugar, R-Ind. 7. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio 8. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. 9. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine 10. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.

Liberal group takes credit for audience member asking Obama to raise taxes By Alicia M. Cohn - 09/28/11 09:32 AM ET Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength, a campaign by the progressive group The Agenda Project, on Tuesday took credit for a member of the audience who asked President Obama to raise his taxes during a town hall meeting in Silicon Valley on Monday. “Will you please raise my taxes?” the man said. “It kills me to see Congress not supporting the expiration of the tax cuts that have been benefiting so many of us for so long." It was a...

Not only are factions of the Tea Party working to dump Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, but now they're attacking the movement's darling, Sarah Palin, for going all lovey-dovey over Hatch.

GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz had raised the hopes of grass-roots conservative activists outside the Beltway for months with strong indications that he would mount a David vs. Goliath challenge to the four-decade incumbent Hatch: The Chaffetz calculus is not simple. On one hand, Hatch is widely seen as vulnerable to a conservative challenger and Chaffetz is well-known and liked among Utah’s tea party base. However, Chaffetz was a leading spokesman for House conservatives during the recent debt ceiling debate and sponsor of the Cut, Cap and Balance proposal, which advocated slashing government spending and requiring Congress to pass a balanced...

Link only, per FR posting rules

As faithful readers of this blog know, I was reporting on the Tea Party movement long before it was even called the Tea Party movement — and long before a legion of Johnny-come-latelys in Washington had grabbed their fiscal conservative costumes and joined the parade. I can remember not being able to get mainstream media coverage on the day of one of the first taxpayer protests in Denver in February 2009. We’ve come a long way, baby. From day one, I emphasized that the grass-roots activists leading the Tea Party charge have been as opposed to Big Government Republicans as...

I am not a Sarah Palin hater. As an Alaska native, I have some appreciation for the political skill needed to knock off Frank Murkowski and Tony Knowles in the same election – political skill that simply isn’t possessed by idiots. And I’ve watched with admiration as she has continually kept herself in the news while shaping the national conversation in subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) ways. But over the last several months, Palin’s unique brand of activism seems to have shifted – whether consciously or unconsciously – towards the will of the Republican Establishment. Consider: Palin’s first break with grassroots/TEA...

I just read a very bizarre blog post about entrenched incumbent Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch by Fox News anchor Greta van Susteren and then watched an equally distressing interview van Susteren conducted last night with Sarah Palin regarding Hatch. First, the title of van Susteren’s blog post: “Is someone trying to manipulate the UTAH Tea Party vote unfairly away from Senator Orrin Hatch?” Van Susteren absurdly suggests that dark, sinister, unnamed, and uninformed forces in Utah with outside backing are somehow trying to take away Hatch’s seat through nefarious means. She’s clearly talking about D.C.-based fiscal conservative groups like FreedomWorks...

Calling himself a tea party true believer, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) on Tuesday in the same interview both praised the debt ceiling deal and said he plans to vote against it. Hatch, who faces a looming primary challenge from the right from Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), took to Fox News’s “Fox and Friends” to tout his own tea party credentials. “Look, I think the tea party people deserve a lot of credit,” he said in response to a question about Democrats and Vice President Joe Biden reportedly calling freshman GOP members of Congress terrorists. “We wouldn’t be where we are...

The National Republican Senatorial Committee gave $43,100 to Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch’s campaign, despite recent pleas from Tea Party activists that the organization wait until a Republican nominee is selected before supporting a candidate. New filings show that the NRSC also contributed the same amount to Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar, who is also facing a GOP primary challenge. That candidate, Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, also enjoys the support of Tea Party activists. A spokesman for the NRSC said its standard practice for the organization to give money to incumbent senators. “The NRSC would not exist were it not...

Last week, we wrote about how Rep. Anna Eshoo (whose district covers much of Silicon Valley) is apparently so incredibly out of touch on what PROTECT IP is about (despite it having a huge impact on the economy of her district) that she thought it was really about immigration. We were willing to chalk it up to a busy staffer sending out the wrong form letter, but there's growing evidence that our elected officials simply don't know what PROTECT IP is about at all. David Segal from Demand Progress was kind enough to pass on that they've been watching the...

Welcome to extreme makeover, the Sen. Orrin Hatch edition. The Utah Republican — fearful that 3,500 locally elected grass-roots, state GOP delegates could boot him from office 10 months from now ­— has spent the past several months recasting his image in a bid for a seventh term. He’s shining a spotlight on his 34-year Senate voting record as a conservative stalwart while minimizing his penchant for bipartisan deal-making. (snip) Cognizant of his precarious position with grass-roots Republicans and tea party activists in a way that Bennett was not, Hatch is determined not to let the same thing happen to...

The door is that way, Senator. You can walk out it or be thrown out it. The choice is yours. This is closed circuit to Sen. Orrin Hatch, a good man who is facing a hard decision. Specifically, he is deciding how his political career will end. He may not understand that that is the decision he is making, but it is. In the coming weeks and months he is deciding how it all comes to an end. With his head held high and to the gratitude of constituents, or in the humiliation of public rejection and political loss. Don't...

SALT LAKE CITY — A majority of Utah voters believe Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has been in office too long and should be replaced, a new Deseret News/KSL-TV poll shows. The poll by Dan Jones & Associates found only 38 percent of registered voters agree that it's important to re-elect Hatch in 2012 because of his seniority. Fifty-nine percent said after 36 years, it's time for someone new.(snip) Hatch's most likely GOP challenger appears to be Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. In a primary race, 40 percent of poll respondents said they would vote for Hatch and 41 percent for Chaffetz....

On Thursday, Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced the Federal Land Asset Inventory Reform (FLAIR) Act into the Senate. The FLAIR Act would require the federal government to work with the private sector to create a single, up-to-date, inventory of federal land holdings. This bill will reduce waste, improve government operations, potentially help the economy, and benefit private property-owners. This legislation is long overdue, for several major reasons. First, the current system of government land inventory is a Kafkaesque amalgamation of literally hundreds of different databases, which are neither mutually compatible nor checked for redundancy. As former...

Conservative PAC FreedomWorks, a prominent Tea Party group chaired by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, is targeting Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch in the 2012 Senate race. The group, arguing Hatch has insufficiently conservative economic views, is launching the so-called "Retire Orrin Hatch" campaign at Utah's Republican Convention on Saturday. "It's clear that Senator Hatch is trying to capitalize on the popularity of the Tea Party movement by reinventing himself as a fiscal conservative," said Russ Walker, Vice President of Political and Grassroots Campaigns for FreedomWorks PAC, in a statement. "But his recent rhetoric and actions in favor of limited...

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...

(CNSNews.com) – Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) issued a press release today stating his intention to introduce a resolution next week disapproving of the policy concerning Israel that President Barack Obama announced on Thursday. “Israel is the United States’ strongest friend and ally,” Hatch said in the statement. “By calling for a return to the pre-1967 borders, President Obama has directly undermined her.”

Orrin Hatch, the senior senator from Utah, didn't mince words the other day on Hugh Hewitt's national radio show. The Democrats, he said, "play politics very, very tough, they play it well, and they don't give a damn about what's right and what's wrong." He was speaking about battles in Washington, but an even more vivid example can be found in Wisconsin, where the Democrats are still trying to overturn the 2010 elections. Blindsided last fall by the election of Gov. Scott Walker, the loss of both houses of the legislature and the US Senate seat held by ultraliberal Russ...

Several national publications recently speculated that Sen. Orrin Hatch was purposely deleting pages from his official website in an attempt to preserve his conservative bona fides. Hatch's office, however, squashed the rumors by thoroughly clarifying that the elimination of certain web pages was an "internal decision" related to the launch of "a brand new website." Here's a timeline of what transpired: Darren Elliot wrote a piece for Salon on Thursday revisiting the Presidential Eligibility Amendment, a 2003 bill introduced by Hatch that would allow foreign-born American citizens to run for president — a stance which at the time was primarily...

Suddenly Obama doesn't seem so unqualified... Top Senate Democrats sought to recruit Ken Jennings to challenge Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) back in 2004, the "Jeopardy!" contestant revealed Thursday. Jennings is famous for holding the record for consecutive wins on the quiz show. His streak of 74 straight victories brought him to the attention of the Democratic Senate leadership in 2004..... More at The Hill According to the article Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer PERSONALLY reached out to Jennings to run. Do you think Sharon Angle would've won if she was able to run ads showing how Reid thought...

“It’s good to allow them to work out their own problems rather than a one-size-fits-all federal government, dumb-ass program. It really is an awful piece of crap.” – Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) on POTUS Obama’s health care law.

"Every state has different demographics, every state has different problems. It's good to allow them to work out their own problems rather than a one-size-fits-all federal government stupid, dumbass program," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said at Utah State University.

This is a poor quality video to say the least... but here is a video showing Orrin Hatch at CPAC. Hatch defiantly says he would vote for TARP / bailouts again. Sadly, some of the CPAC crowd stand and applaud. It seems like only the Ron Paul nuts are heckling him. What the heck? Is it "conservative" to support TARP? Is it "conservative" to support bailouts? I hope the Utah Tea Party will show Hatch the door like they did Bob Bennett.

This is a tale of two senior senators, both Republican, both up for reelection in 2012, both eager to win. And their approaches to the tea party couldn’t be more different. Six-term Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) of Utah is wooing the populist conservative movement. At a Tea Party Express town hall Tuesday night at the National Press Club, Senator Hatch said that he’s “very impressed” by the role the tea party is playing in helping “America to take back America.” Sen. Richard Lugar (R) of Indiana, also in his sixth term, is pushing back hard, telling the tea party: “get...

The Tea Party doesn't have a leader, but it does play favorites. Several of them turned up Tuesday night for a Congressional town hall hosted by the Tea Party Express and billed as the first of its kind. Crammed into an airless conference room at Washington's National Press Club, the standing-room crowd was energized and eclectic. A tricorn-hatted revolutionary hovered near a woman in a hijab. Activists snapped pictures and gave rousing ovations as movement stalwarts Rand Paul, Michele Bachmann, Steve King, and newcomers Allen West and Mike Lee pledged fealty to Tea Party principles. The senior statesman of the...

Six-term Republican Senator Orrin Hatch is trailing in a hypothetical primary challenge. The Utah Republican just saw his counterpart Bob Bennett knocked out of office last year in a Republican primary. Hatch ran for President in 2000, but did not get more than 3% nationwide. Hatch's last competitive race for Senate was in 1982. Utah Policy came out with a new poll of that state's Republicans, in which Hatch was placed third against former Governor John Huntsman and current representative Jason Chaffetz.

(RTTNews) - A prominent Tea Party group sent a message to members on Monday identifying five current Republican Senators that they intend to target in 2012. Tea Party Nation named Sens. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, Scott Brown, R-Mass., and Bob Corker, R-Tenn., as Republicans that need to be sent into retirement, accusing them of being Republicans In Name Only, or RINOs. The message cited Lugar's vote against a ban on earmarks as well as a his votes in favor of the DREAM Act and the START Treaty. Hatch was also criticized for being a "pork...

The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act passed unanimously through the Senate Judiciary Committee this Thursday, but fortunately didn’t get much further. Oregonian Senator Ron Wyden exercised his power to place a hold on pending legislation to stop the bill from traveling to the senate floor, saying that Deploying this statute to combat online copyright infringement seems almost like using a bunker-busting cluster bomb, when what you need is a precision-guided missile. His hold will prevent the bill passing out of committee this year; proponents of the bill will have to wait until the next time Congress convenes, and then...

First came the Searchlight Brawler, Harry Reid. Now Orrin Hatch joins the ranks of the Senate tough guys . . . Asked whether—like fellow Utah Senator Robert Bennett—he might be defeated in his bid to obtain the Republican nomination, Hatch bragged "I'm a lot tougher" than Bennett, and considerably more conservative to boot. Hatch's macho moment came this morning during an interview with Chuck Todd on MSNBC's Daily Rundown. When Todd asked whether he intended to seek re-election in 2012, Hatch, to his credit, didn't mince words, saying he was definitely running, subject only to continuing to feel physically strong....

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said over the weekend that he expects former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will run for president in 2012 and that he "would be my preference" for the GOP nomination. It's one of the first statements of 2012 support from a congressional Republican.

Senator-elect Mike Lee has tapped one of Utah’s most prominent lobbyists to lead his Washington staff and coordinate his transition from candidate to senator. Spencer Stokes doesn’t officially become a Senate staffer until Jan. 5, but he plans to bounce between Utah and Washington in the coming weeks as he tries to hire staff, set up the Senate office and ramp down his lobbying activities. “It will be an exciting time to be back in D.C.,” said Stokes, who believes American voters used November’s election to protest government overreach. He said Republicans are now positioned to make an impact on...

Centrist Senate Republicans are likely to get a new ally in Sen.-elect Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), according to Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah will likely become the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee early next year. From that perch, he’ll oversee the GOP’s tax-writing policy in the upper chamber. Before then, however, Hatch is keeping busy: In coming weeks, he will be one of the leading figures in the battle over extending Bush-era tax rates, which are set to expire at the end of the year. As he looks ahead, Hatch predicts that there could be a “reasonable compromise” with Democrats and the White House. He urges the president to “come in good faith” to the negotiating...

More Utahns want Sen. Orrin Hatch replaced than want to see him re-elected to another six-year term, according to a Salt Lake Tribune poll of likely voters conducted the week before Tuesday’s vote. The survey noted that Hatch isn’t up for re-election until 2012, but asked if the vote were held today, would voters back him or someone else? Forty percent of likely voters would give him a seventh term, while 48 percent say they were inclined to favor another candidate. Twelve percent remained unsure. The poll, conducted by Washington, D.C.-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Inc. had a margin of...

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) stressed Friday he has no intentions of following down the path of his Utah colleague, Sen. Bob Bennett (R). During an appearance on Bloomberg's "Political Capital With Al Hunt" set to air this weekend, Hatch, who's up for reelection in 2012, talked down the prospect of losing to a conservative primary challenger the way Bennett did earlier this year. “I like Bob Bennett. I felt like he was a great senator. But I'm no Bob Bennett," Hatch said of his colleague, who lost at a state party convention to Mike Lee, the new GOP candidate for...

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) — who has been noted as a potential Tea Party target for 2012 — credited former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (R) for her endorsement record Wednesday, saying that as a result the GOP is "coming through" in spite of its internal struggles. "There's a lot of antagonism right now between both [Senate] Democrats and Republicans," he said in an interview on the Fox Business Network. "And sometimes between Democrats and Democrats, and occasionally we have a little fight in the Republican party as well." "But Sarah Palin has helped us all. She's endorsed a lot of...

Breaking ranks with fellow Republicans who have widely criticized President Obama’s First Amendment defense of the proposed Islamic center near ground zero, Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch weighed in Monday: HATCH: Let’s be honest about it, in the First Amendment, religious freedom, religious expression, that really express matters to the Constitution. So, if the Muslims own that property, that private property, and they want to build a mosque there, they should have the right to do so. The only question is are they being insensitive to those who suffered the loss of loved ones? We know there are Muslims killed on...

Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah has come out strongly in support of the controversial Islamic center proposed for construction in New York, even as his party appears to be using opposition to the so-called "Ground Zero mosque" as a campaign issue. In an interview over the weekend with Fox 13 News in Salt Lake City, Hatch noted that "there's a huge . . . lack of support throughout the country for Islam to build that mosque there, but that should not make a difference if they decide to do it." "I'd be the first to stand up for their...

Here is video of Sen. Orrin Hatch saying “there is no way” President Obama will get an Immigration Bill through Congress before the end of the year. Hatch says Obama knows that, and is just “pandering” for Hispanic votes by trying to make it look like he is pushing for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Hatch said Obama has done none of the needed groundwork to really get something done.

PULSE EXCLUSIVE: NEW SENATE REPEAL BILLS – Orrin Hatch will introduce legislation today to repeal "the unconstitutional individual mandate and the job-killing employer mandate, the most egregious elements of this devastating health law," the Utah Republican says in a statement provided to Pulse. Hatch's repeal effort will be the first in the Senate since shortly after the bill became law in March, when David Vitter and Jim DeMint tried. But no one is expecting Harry Reid to have a sudden change of heart and allow such a bill to come up for a vote.

People seeking unemployment benefits or welfare would have to first pass a drug test under a proposal Sen. Orrin Hatch will try to add to legislation extending the social safety net during this time of economic turmoil. Hatch, R-Utah, said his idea would help battle drug addiction and could reduce the nation's debt. He will try to get the Senate to include his amendment to a $140 billion bill extending tax breaks and social programs this week. "This amendment is a way to help people get off of drugs to become productive and healthy members of society, while ensuring that...

Here is video of Sen. Orrin Hatch talking to Don Imus, where Hatch said “many people believe the President (Obama) is responsible for the destruction of our country.” The out-of-control spending Obama has engaged in since becoming President has pushed the nation to the brink. Hatch cited the fact that “18% of all wages” in America are now paid out by the Federal Government. The Utah Senator pointed out that Obama “is creating jobs – but they’re all Government jobs.”

Here is video of GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah being asked if he is concerned about his ability to get re-elected in 2012 in light of Sen. Bob Bennett's rejection by Utah Republicans in their recent nominating convention. Hatch said he is "not concerned," and then reminded everyone, "I'm not Sen. Bennett. I'm a tough guy and people know it." Hatch said he believes the citizens of Utah will want someone with experience in Washington to serve them.