Free Republic

Arizona Republican Jeff Flake halted an appeals court nominee last week and he’s not publicly saying why, a behind-the-scenes move that takes aim at one of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s top priorities this year. The Senate Judiciary Committee scuttled a planned vote June 14 on the nomination of Britt Grant, a pick from Georgia for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. Flake’s hold throws a cog in what has been the Senate GOP’s smoothly operating judicial confirmation machine. “Oh, it’s just something I’m working out,” Flake said Tuesday, without offering any more details. The typically media-friendly...

WICHITA, Kan. — A federal judge has ruled Kansas cannot require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote, a setback for Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach in a case with national implications for voting rights. U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson sided with voters...

Mitt Romney on Monday came out against President Trump’s policy of separating migrant families at the southern border, saying that the U.S. needs a “more compassionate answer” to illegal crossings. The former Massachusetts governor and current Utah GOP Senate candidate retweeted former first lady Laura Bush, who wrote an op-ed criticizing the policy as “cruel” and “immoral.”

The race to elect new state’s attorneys in Maryland is heating up, including the reelection bid of Baltimore’s now famous (infamous?) Marilyn Mosby. If you’re familiar with that name it’s probably because she was the one in charge during the Freddie Gray riots and the subsequent failed attempts to prosecute six Baltimore police officers over their actions during Gray’s arrest and death. So you probably wouldn’t be surprised to find that the campaign literature making the rounds this month includes pictures of Mosby making her famous announcement and reminders of those ill-considered trials. But there’s a catch. Freddie Gray...

The odor of decomposing bodies has renewed calls to replace a county morgue in northern Illinois. The Daily Herald reports the Kane County morgue only has room for two bodies in its freezer. The facility has seen a sudden influx of decomposing bodies over the past few weeks. Officials have been storing the bodies in coolers, which doesn't completely mask the smell. Employees in neighboring buildings have started to complain.

This will be a weekly post. Count remains at 42.

A Texas woman plans to challenge a judge's decision to deny her a new trial after sentencing her to five years in prison for voter fraud. Crystal Mason was convicted in March of voting illegally in the 2016 presidential election. Texas law makes the 43-year-old ineligible to vote because she was on probation for tax fraud. Mason says she didn't know about that law. When Mason showed up to vote last November, her name wasn't on the voter roll, so she was asked to fill out and sign a provisional ballot. That's when elections workers discovered she was a convicted...

When the Republican Party elite don’t get their way, they will often retaliate, and that is what we are seeing in Virginia right now. After Corey Stewart defeated his establishment-backed opponent Nick Freitas by a narrow margin in the Republican primary race for US Senate earlier this week, the Republican establishment is now punishing Virginia for its choice. According to the Bull Elephant, Americans for Prosperity (AFP) spent $2.6 million in Virginia on behalf of establishment Republican Ed Gillespie as he tried to defeat Ralph Northam for Governor last year. They will be withholding their big money for Stewart, whose...

HARRISBURG — Republicans in the Pennsylvania Senate on Tuesday moved to capitalize on the political momentum behind adopting a less partisan redistricting system to overhaul how state appeals judges are elected, drawing howls of protest from Democrats. The GOP majority muscled provisions into a redistricting bill so that appeals court judges would be elected by district, rather than statewide. The measure would address long-standing Republican complaints that candidates from the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh regions win a disproportionate share of statewide judicial races, compared to candidates from the rest of the state. The vote was 31-18, with every Democrat and two...

Senior White House officials worked with House Republicans for weeks on a compromise immigration measure, but were careful to avoid saying anything publicly that would sink the measure. That changed Friday morning when President Donald Trump walked out to the White House’s North Lawn. House Republicans reached agreement on a sweeping immigration overhaul measure after conservatives, moderates and leaders negotiated behind closed doors for weeks — with White House legislative affairs director Marc Short also involved. Members said Thursday they had reached a deal to vote on two measures: a measure favored by conservatives and a compromise version in which...

It seems the Republican National Committee’s cash advantage over the Democratic National Committee is even more pronounced than the numbers—$43.8 million to $3.4 million—indicate. As long as democrats like Nancy Pelosi vainly continue to attempt to ignore, downplay, or even bad-mouth good to excellent to record breaking economic numbers—and in the process be-clown themselves—the RNC will have to spend next to nothing when it comes to creating ads for the midterm elections. Pelosi, in particular, is the gift that keeps on giving to the GOP. Cementing herself as one of our nation’s most morally and economically ignorant citizens, just prior...

The Justice Department inspector general has referred five FBI employees for investigation in connection with politically charged texts, revealing in its report on the Hillary Clinton email case that more bureau officials than previously thought were exchanging anti-Trump messages. The long-awaited report largely dealt with the Justice Department and FBI's handling of the Clinton case but uncovered numerous messages that “appeared to mix political opinion with discussions about the MYE investigation." MYE, or "Midyear Exam," was the code used in the FBI to refer to the investigation into Clinton’s private email server. “Some of these text messages and instant messages...

Now, what this report does a great job of is setting the stage for the next report, which will be the climax of Horowitz’s work. It’s like Act I of a three act play. Here is the scene it sets:

Two Republican Senate nominees sought and received the support of an anti-LGBT group that links homosexuality to pedophilia and defends conversion therapy. North Dakota's Kevin Cramer and Virginia's Corey Stewart, who both won the Republican nomination in their respective states on Tuesday, filled out a "Senate Candidate Survey" for the group Public Advocate of the United States. The survey asks eight questions about a candidate's positions on LGBT issues, including whether a candidate would "oppose all efforts to make public restrooms and changing-rooms unsafe through so-called 'Transgender Bathrooms' legislation and regulations - which have the effect of encouraging and protecting...

Political allies of incumbent Gov. Doug Ducey are going to court to keep him from having to face a challenger in the Republican primary. A lawsuit filed by attorney Kory Langhofer cites a laundry list of what he says are irregularities and mistakes in the petitions submitted by Ken Bennett in his bid for the GOP nomination. The allegations range from signatures that do not match what is on voter registration rolls and the failure of signers to also print their names to incomplete or illegible addresses. There also are complaints that some petitions were not properly verified, meaning all...

Corey Stewart, Virginia’s voter-chosen Republican to fight for Democrat Tim Kaine’s U.S. Senate seat, is a divisive guy who calls it like it is, cares little for political correctness and who finds himself in frequent defensive stand-offs with a hostile press. In other words, he has a really good chance of winning this November. snip But all that, in this political climate, means zero-to-nothing. Stewart’s a guy whose entire political career with the Board of Supervisors in Prince William County, Virginia, has stirred pots of controversy. For instance: He was the face of hate to the left during the widely...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is making it clear: He wants Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, a potential re-election rival, to stay home. Bevin, a Republican, has yet to say whether he will seek a second term in 2019, prompting speculation he's interested in unseating McConnell in 2020 — or that he's hoping for a Trump administration gig. McConnell made it plain in an interview with the Lexington Herald-Leader that he'd prefer Bevin run for another four year term as governor. "I hope he runs for re-election and finishes the job by serving the full eight years that are allowed under...

The final GOP holdouts to Donald Trump whimper into oblivion. Put a blond combover on the elephant. Take down the pictures of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. It’s over. It’s Donald Trump’s GOP. The anti-Trump candidates are fleeing, and the ones who stick around are getting trampled. The chill has gone out among whoever’s left: there’s no more speaking up, and if there is, it’s just for the sake of a speech, a protest quote that quickly disappears. They chalk it up to party loyalty, or staying unified for the midterms. They say they still believe in the principles, but...

Seriously, the Democrat party should embrace this guy as their poster child candidate. ======================================= He believes in instituting a patriarchal system, with women under the authority of men; he supports abolishing age restrictions for marriage and laws against marital rape; he believes that white supremacy is a “system that works,” that Hitler was a “good thing for Germany,” and that incest should be legalized, at least in the context of marriage. And at one point in a conversation with The Post, he seemed to express admiration for the system run by the Taliban in Afghanistan, noting that the country’s birthrate...

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) has no plans to endorse Corey Stewart, the party's Senate nominee in Virginia, the group's chairman said Wednesday. "We have a big map, right now we are focused on Florida, North Dakota, Missouri, Indiana. I don’t see Virginia in it," Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), who leads the Senate GOP campaign arm, told CNN.