Free Republic

<p>House Republicans are facing a growing exodus of experienced and talented members that adds up to an alarming political maturity drain. A growing number of their well-respected members are fleeing Congress as the conference pulls further to the right, and the departures are starting to spark worries about a further erosion of GOP lawmakers' appetite for the basic tasks of governing. After a brutal year of their party's shaky stewardship of the House, 21 House GOP lawmakers have already announced their plans to retire at year's end — including five committee chairs. Many of the departing members share a common trait: They’re part of a loose coalition of governing-minded Republicans who are still willing to generally back leadership, support bipartisan deals and even defy former President Donald Trump at times. And while some Republicans have cited personal or health reasons for leaving office, others in the group are blunt as they lament their party’s inflated expectations for what’s achievable when the GOP controls just one half of one branch of the government.</p>

The Republican National Committee has confirmed the roster for the second primary debate: North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, tech mogul Vivek Ramaswamy, and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott. Former President Donald Trump will not attend, but will instead address striking auto workers in Michigan.

Trump wins a coronation. The alternative scenario for a 2024 without Ron was nicely articulated in late March by the Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last: The next thing that happens is Trump pops higher in both national and early-state polls. That’s because Trump is the second choice of about half of the voters who support DeSantis. Which means that you’d expect Trump to almost immediately add >10 points to his poll numbers, putting him close to the 60 percent mark nationally … The Republican establishment, which has been pushing DeSantis relentlessly for two years, would freak the eff out. Last figures...

Former President Donald Trump was arraigned in New York on Tuesday on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, but the largest blow to his hopes of reclaiming the White House might have occurred nearly 1,000 miles away in Wisconsin, where liberals secured a majority on the state's Supreme Court for the first time in 15 years. Hours after Trump became the first American president to face felony charges, Judge Janet Protasiewicz claimed victory over former Justice Dan Kelly, a major Trump supporter and one of the Wisconsin Republicans central to the former president's attempts to throw out the results...

Tennessee lawmakers on Thursday voted to expel at least one Democratic state representative over his participation in a gun control demonstration during which a trio of Democrats interrupted the floor session and used a bullhorn to lead supporters outside in chants. The chamber voted to oust state Rep. Justin Jones of Nashville, who disrupted the proceedings alongside Reps. Gloria Johnson and Justin Pearson of Knoxville and Memphis, respectively. Jones was expelled in a 72-25 vote. Lawmakers needed 66 to remove him, according to the Tennessean. Before his ouster, Jones warned that such a move would backfire on Republicans, "Your overreaction,...

TOPEKA, Kansas — The Kansas Legislature finally rallied enough votes on Wednesday needed to override Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of a bill banning transgender girls and women from girls and women’s sports at public schools and colleges. Lawmakers failed the last two years to override a veto to similar bills. Kansas now stands with 19 other states that have enacted laws limiting transgender girls to participating in sports that align with the gender they were assigned at birth. The Kansas law does not affect transgender boys. The Senate sealed the override with a 28-12 vote Wednesday afternoon. The House...

The majority of Texas Republicans want to see former President Donald Trump as their 2024 presidential nominee, according to a poll. The CWS Research poll, conducted for the Defend Texas Liberty PAC, shows that 52 percent of likely GOP primary voters in the Lone Star State support Trump for the nomination. He sits a whopping 32 percentage points ahead of his closest potential competitor, Gov. Ron Desantis (R-FL), who has 20 percent. A portion of the poll was conducted after a New York grand jury indicted Trump last week on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree....

Is Nikki Haley a true conservative, an establishment politician or something else entirely? That’s the question many conservatives have been asking since Haley officially announced she is running for president in February. Haley served as governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017 and as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President Trump. We can’t recall another Republican politician who has garnered such a mixed response from conservatives. Almost everyone in the conservative media and public policy world seems to have an opinion about Haley. But once pressed to explain the reasons behind those opinions, very few seem prepared...

Republicans on Saturday narrowly picked an activist who has promoted unfounded election conspiracies and promised a shakeup to lead the Kansas GOP for the next two years, following weeks of infighting that mirrors the acrimony in the party across the U.S. Within 30 minutes of the change in the Kansas Republican Party’s leadership, its state committee reviewed a resolution demanding that the U.S. House impeach President Joe Biden for “tyranny” over comments he and his aides made in the summer of 2021 decrying misinformation about coronavirus vaccines spreading within the GOP. The committee tabled the resolution until its next meeting....

After several executive agencies in the Biden administration were sued for refusing to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests from conservative advocacy group Citizens United over the White House’s attempt to federalize elections, the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) Bureau of Indian Affairs finally turned over its first batch of requested documents. There’s one problem: More than half of the 54-page document is completely redacted. “The Biden administration is the least transparent in history, and these absurd redactions are just the latest example. What are they trying to hide from the American people?” Citizens United President David Bossie told...

The first sure loser has entered the race for 2024. Though an official announcement is not expected until February 15, we can say with all but certainty now that Nimrata Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and ambassador to the United Nations, will make a bid to succeed Joe Biden’s ghost in the coveted Oval Office. This makes Haley, a one-time rising star and Trump admin alumna, the first Republican to mount a race for the White House against 45, who declared back in November. Dead on arrival doesn’t begin to describe it. Polls are famously useless, but...

Call in the exorcist. Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib melted down as Republicans voted to remove raging bigot Ilhan Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. On Thursday Republicans voted to remove Ilhan Omar, a national security threat, from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The vote was 218 to 211. Ilhan Omar married her own brother in order to defraud US immigration. The Democrat was finally removed from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Ilhan Omar’s partner-in-crime didn’t take it too well. WATCH:

Former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr said Friday on FNC’s “America Reports” that it is “unprecedented” that former President Donald Trump had classified material at his Florida estate and he “jerked around” the Department of Justice for a year while they tried to recover the documents. Sandra Smith asked, “Do you think this type of this raid was avoidable? Do you think a second subpoena, for example, could have been issued?” Barr said, “I personally think for them to have taken things to the current point, they probably have pretty good evidence, but that’s speculation. And until we see that,...

Former President Donald Trump lashed out at evangelicals for not supporting his latest presidential campaign, saying it was a “sign of disloyalty” after he appointed three conservative Supreme Court justices and made their long-held dream of overturning Roe v. Wade possible. Trump, 76, told Real America’s Voice’s “The Water Cooler” Monday that the religious bloc of voters who were key to his 2016 victory have not yet come out to back his 2024 White House bid. “That’s a sign of disloyalty,” Trump told host David Brody. “There’s great disloyalty in the world of politics, and that’s a sign of disloyalty.”

This has been the long-term plan. Use Biden for two years, then get him outta there (somehow) and have Obama's preferred person be president for the remainder of Biden's term and then for TWO full terms thereafter. She's a dope but they don't care. The militant leftist minions in the agencies are running the government. And that's how they like it. 22nd Amendment text: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term...

The 2022 midterm elections were a catastrophe for Republicans, and a historic one at that. Every meaningful trend favored GOP candidates: uneasy economic conditions, an unpopular president who seems better suited to a bingo hall, a volatile foreign-policy environment, and a midterm voter pool that has consistently favored Republicans. Democratic candidates won many competitive Senate races, and the nearly inevitable Republican takeover of the House barely materialized. Some candidates, like Kari Lake in Arizona, snatched defeat from the jaws of certain victory. And President Trump vented his frustration at pro-lifers who fueled his 2016 victory. It might be time to...

I nominate The Mule as Prince of Our Democracy, for Person of the year in 2022. The Mule can legally vote 100 times or 200 times more than you or I can vote. He or she can show up at a voting facility or a drop box with that many ballots, and legally deposit that many votes. You or I, the commoner citizen only get one vote. How can this be happening? Maybe the Mule is on good terms with nursing home operators. Mules have been know to collect votes there, where in one state 92 nursing homes had 100%...

The House Republican Conference is still entrenched in an internal war over whether to reinstate an arcane rule that would empower any member to bring up a vote to oust a speaker at any time. The bitter divide is only heating up and has emerged center stage in House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy’s quest for 218 votes to win the position. For McCarthy’s backers, the so-called motion to vacate is seen as little more than a promise of hostage taking, a tool that could be used by the right flank to hamstring McCarthy’s ability to lead the conference and effectively...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday lashed out at President Trump and blamed 2022 losses on support of the former president. Recall, Mitch McConnell held up funds for Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters and other solid MAGA candidates. McConnell funded RINOs like Murkowski from Alaska and dissed Trump-endorsed candidates. McConnell on Tuesday told reporters that the GOP didn’t do well in 2022 because of Trump. Not a word about the brazen Democrat voter fraud and disenfranchisement in Maricopa County. The GOP just needs more RINO/establishment candidates, according to McConnell.

Elections, like corporations, have books everyone can see to make an election or investment decision… Republicans don’t understand that there are two sets of books…The hidden set of books contains the ballot and phantom and address inventory. These three ingredients win elections… There are great databases out there — for free. When cross-searched at silicon speed, they give a multidimensional view of every address and most people on the voter rolls… There may be two sets of books, but now the good guys can read them both.