Free Republic

Video at link. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the longest-serving GOP senator in U.S. history, announced Tuesday that he'll retire at the end of his term. Hatch made the announcement in a video posted on Twitter. The announcement is a blow to President Trump, who has publicly encouraged him to run for reelection. The 83-year-old senator appeared to be signaling in recent weeks that he’d run for an eighth term in 2018, even though he previously said he’d retire when his term is up in January 2019. The powerful Senate Finance Committee chairman played a significant role in helping Republicans pass...

Mitt Romney: Your country needs you. The 2012 Republican presidential nominee has been reluctant to announce a primary challenge to Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the longest-serving Republican senator in history. But America needs Romney to step up, to restore dignity to the Senate -- and to save the country from the embarrassment Hatch has become. Hatch, long the picture of conservative rectitude, was once a conscientious legislator, even partnering with Ted Kennedy when he thought poor kids were getting a raw deal. But Hatch, the Senate president pro tempore, has undergone a grotesque transformation this year, his 84th...

Donald Trump is president. Mitt Romney isn't. And the individual mandate is now toast! Gloria in excelsis Deo!

President Trump’s trip to Utah Monday was ostensibly about eliminating national monument status for two Utah landmarks. But most speculate that the real reason for the trip was a subtle effort to block Mitt Romney from reentering politics. Romney has made noise about a potential run for Senator Orrin Hatch’s seat, should the longtime Utah senator choose not to seek reelection next year. Monday’s presidential visit seemed to turn into a full-on lobbying effort to get Hatch to stay put. Or perhaps more to the point, to get Romney to stay far away from Washington. And Romney was all too...

He’s not saying Moore should go “if” the sexual assault allegations are true. He’s telling him to get out now. Mitt Romney called on Roy Moore to step aside from the Alabama Senate race Friday, becoming one of the only Republican politicians to say, unequivocally, that Moore should go in light of accusations that he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl. (TWEET-AT-LINK) On Thursday, The Washington Post reported that four women said Moore pursued them when he was in his 30s and they were between the ages of 14 and 18. The most serious case involves Leigh Corfman, who was 14...

Mitt Romney told wealthy donors gathered at a high-dollar campaign fundraiser that there’s a group of voters he believes he can never win over: people who pay no taxes. "There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what," Romney said. "All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the...

 (KUTV) Senator Orrin Hatch basked in praise on Friday, speaking before a supportive crowd at the Women Tech Awards, downtown at the Grand America. Meantime, a report in The Atlantic, said Hatch has been telling friends he's leaving the Senate, to make way for a likely election victory for Mitt Romney. "Right now, you are planning to run?" KUTV2News asked the senator. "I'm planning on running again," Hatch replied, but added what seemed to be two caveats. First, concerns from his wife Elaine, who is against race number eight. "She's always worried about me," said Hatch. "Certainly I'm going to...

Should Mitt Romney run for the U.S. Senate? By all means. Indeed, Sen. Orrin Hatch should step aside. The Old Souls in the House and Senate will be taking a beating this coming year and Judge Roy Moore, newly nominated gunslinger from Alabama, will lead the charge. Possibly on horseback. For with the rise of Donald Trump to the Oval Office, America has entered a new age of Andrew Jackson. Trump has even placed a portrait of Jackson in the Oval Office to boldly indicate the dramatic shift in paradigm. But it was a long time in coming. I’d written...

Crooked Hillary, Low-Energy Jeb, Very Fake News - we've all seen Trump masterfully take down his opponents by re-branding them with names like these. And yet for some reason, as it relates to one of his major campaign promises, he has not yet used this effective tool against the label of "Obamacare" - which arguably serves the purposes of the left by associating "caring" with not only that horrific law, but with all things "Obama". So I propose that Trump and folks on the right start calling this law some other fitting name. Here are a few of my own...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., predicted Wednesday that President Trump would soon move on his own to make health insurance more affordable, after the Senate failed again this week to advance any bill to reform federal healthcare policy. Paul he has been pitching the idea of using the Employee Retirement Income Security Act to let people buy insurance across state lines. That law already allows corporations to buy insurance across state lines for their workers if they are located in several states. Paul's idea is to let individuals form associations and do the same thing, and he said Trump administration officials...

They can get you now, or get you later . . . Fifteen senators, including 2020 hopefuls like Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, are co-sponsoring Bernie Sanders’ single-payer health care bill. But even some of those not signing on have plans to eventually convert the country to single payer. On today’s Morning Joe, Dem Senator Chris Murphy [CT] described his plan, which Politico has called “stealthy single-payer.” Under it, people would be given the option of buying into Medicare or remaining with private insurance. Murphy expressed the belief that: “Given that choice, consumers would choose Medicare, and it would allow...

Alternate headline: “Orrin Hatch must retire.” And there’s a fair chance that he will! He’s 83 and said in March that he’d be more inclined to step down if he could get a “really outstanding person” to run for his seat. When asked if he had anyone in mind, he said “Mitt Romney would be perfect.” That lit the fuse on RomneyWatch 2018, leading to reports that Romney was thinking about it and had even spoken to Mitch McConnell about running. But then in May the speculation seemed to fizzle: Hatch himself claimed that Romney told him he wouldn’t...

Sources tell UtahPolicy.com that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is preparing to run for Senate in 2018 if Sen. Orrin Hatch decides to retire. Sources close to Romney say the two-time presidential candidate will jump into the 2018 Utah Senate scrum if Hatch opts not to. So far, Hatch has not made up his mind as to whether he'll run for an eighth term in 2018. He has previously said he was planning on running as long as his and his wife's health holds up. Dave Hansen, a longtime political advisor to Hatch, told UtahPolicy.com last month that he didn't...

Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, has excoriated President Trump for his equivocating response to the violence in Charlottesville, Va., and urged him to apologize or risk subjecting the country to “an unraveling of our national fabric.”

"Taking A Mitt" Romney wrote:Having created a natl inflection point of consequence, POTUS must apologize & repudiate the racists. Full statement: 6:12 AM - 18 Aug 2017https://www.facebook.com/mittromney/posts/10154652303536121

Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney has asked President Trump to apologize for his handling of the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA last weekend. JUST IN: Mitt Romney says President Trump should apologize for his statements on Charlottesville pic.twitter.com/sRVuDfJwuP — NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) August 18, 2017 Other top Republicans share Romney's sentiments. House Speaker Paul Ryan tweeted his disappointment in Trump's "moral ambiguity," while Sens. Marco Rubio (FL) and Tim Scott (SC) said condemning the real culprits should have been a no brainer.

Getting rid of Obamacare was one of Donald Trump’s key campaign commitments. Several Republican senators said this week they would not vote to support various forms of dealing with the controversial law. Political commentators have construed the announcements as another indictment of the president’s leadership. Yet this interpretation ignores the fact that congressional Republicans have built their majorities on promises to repeal the Affordable Care Act. If they fail, it’s not Trump who will be blamed by voters. he come-hell-or-high-water stance by leadership tells Murkowski and Capito in particular that they will not be protected from the appearance of flip-flopping....

Until now, I haven't been too concerned about the Republican Party's difficulties in passing a health care reform bill because delays have resulted in improvements to the proposed legislation. But enough is enough. No more games. It's time to quit the finger-pointing. Neither congressional leaders nor President Trump have done enough to whip votes and sell the bill. A major overhaul of Obamacare, whether a full repeal, or a repeal and replacement, is imperative for Trump and congressional Republicans. More than any other, Obamacare is the issue that has galvanized grass-roots conservatives since 2010, and the Republicans' failure to...

Totally useless, "Never Trumper:, Republican Senate Leader, Mitch McConnell should call for a Senate vote today to eliminate the "Sixty Vote" rule in the Senate. Simple, folks...Fifty One votes makes for a majority. End of story!!! Let's see if this weak sister of a back stabbing, lie telling, Republican leader has any spine or loyalty to his party, country and the American people. McConnell pass that law ...NOW, or resign this afternoon...you complete failure and Trump traitor to boot!!! You could lead your way out of a cardboard box.

Republican Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) and Susan Collins (Maine) said on Tuesday that they will not support moving forward with the plan to repeal ObamaCare with a delayed replacement. "My position on this issue is driven by its impact on West Virginians. With that in mind, I cannot vote to repeal ObamaCare without a replacement plan that addresses my concerns and the needs of West Virginians," Capito said in a statement. Collins added to NBC that she is still a "no" on proceeding to the House-passed bill, which would be used as a vehicle for any Senate action. The...