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Alaska Republican party leaders plan to consider whether to reprimand U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski for opposing Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation. The party has asked Murkowski to provide any information she might want its state central committee to consider.

Consider the accused guilty until proven innocent. Judge a sober, middle-aged adult by his teen beer consumption. Insist on an FBI investigation then dismiss its findings because they don’t support the narrative. Demand that the opinion of enraged activists and Hollywood actors count more than weeks of hearings. Mob the capitol. Make Kavanaugh atone for every sexual assault that has gone unpunished. Consider revenge an acceptable substitute for justice whose recipient need not be guilty, just available. Something about that ever-changing narrative made me suspicious of other motives. An allegation of teen sexual assault from 36 years ago quickly morphed...

While everyone’s eyes were on now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s hearings and votes the Republicans grew government. Again.President Donald Trump signed into law the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 – a law which regulates everything from airline seat sizes to whether people can make cell phone calls on flights (something Jazz wrote in favor of earlier today). The bill also defined exactly what a Lactation Area is (they can’t be in restrooms) and includes money for studies looking at the design specifics of aircraft oxygen and on allergic reactions on board airlines. There’s also a study on what...

His fight for Brett Kavanaugh completed his transformation into Donald Trump’s slobbering manservant. The battle over Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court was an especially ugly episode of a reality-show presidency that degrades almost everyone swept up in it, and many characters stagger away from it looking worse than ever. That’s Senator Lindsey Graham you see at the head of the pack. That’s Graham you hear talking and talking and talking some more, in committee rooms and on stages and before the television cameras that he rushes to the way a toddler chases soap bubbles. His words are whichever...

The nomination fight over Judge Brett Kavanaugh has injected new volatility into the midterm elections, reshaping races across the country and sharpening the already bitterly partisan tone for the final four-week stretch before Nov. 6. But in the House, the Cook Political Report and other predictors have moved more than half a dozen seats in the Democratic direction in recent days, and Republican operatives are bracing themselves for an onslaught of Democratic money that they are calling "a green wave." Gubernatorial races - in which Democrats are trying to regain territory that they've lost in recent years, particularly in the...

Pop icon and activist Cher declared that the Republican Party will “bite down hard” on the jugulars of Democrats and non-white people “till they bleed out” in a tweet sent Saturday. “HOW LIMP R DEMS WHERE DO THEY HIDE THEIR EVIL GOP CONG,SEX& [BEER] SCOTUS,& [PUSSY] GRABBING PRES IS MARRIAGE MADE IN HELL BUT GOP WILL BITE DOWN HARD ON DEMS,& NON WHITES JUGULAR’S,TILL THEY BLEED OUT” she tweeted, in an emoji-filled post. **SNIP** She has also tweeted that Trump is a “lying con man,” a “criminal,” a “conspirator, collusionist, traitor, imbecile, adulterer, hypocritical, narcissist, lecher, coward, charlatan, bully, decaying,...

Rep. Mark Walker's (R-N.C.) office said this week that it reported Twitter messages from a supporter of his Democratic opponent to Capitol Police to investigate. Staff for Walker, the chairman of the powerful Republican Study Committee, said they asked for Capitol Police to investigate after the North Carolina Republican’s campaign received continuous threatening messages from a supporter of his Democratic opponent. The person behind the tweets – which included the "bomb" emoji and an attempt to track down information about the congressman’s daughter’s school and whether it was public or private – was identified as Andrew Cabaccang, a Montana-based man...

Just minutes ago, in the middle of a rambling and semi-incoherent self-justification on the Senate floor, Lisa Murkowski announced that she was Montana Senator Steve Daines’s Plan B. Daines, as I posted earlier today, was scheduled to walk his daughter down the aisle at her wedding tomorrow. I have to admit I respect a man who has his priorities straight. In the comments we’d speculated on who might step aside on the No side of the equation. My guess was Jon Tester would do it as he’s in a tough race, he’s a no vote on Kavanaugh, and stepping aside...

Fox News anchors said Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony was compelling. Republican strategists sent panicked text messages anticipating an electoral disaster. And even some Brett Kavanaugh supporters questioned whether he could rescue his nomination. But as Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court appeared to be crumbling under the weight of sexual assault accusations, President Donald Trump had already become convinced that abandoning the judge would come at too great a cost to his administration and his party’s chances in the midterm elections. The president, according to half a dozen officials and people working on the confirmation, came to the determination that...

In less than two years, the Illinois tollway has hired six Republican insiders for high-level jobs that collectively pay nearly $916,000 a year, including a former elected official, political operatives and the relative of a state GOP leader. That troubles some government watchdogs who say they are concerned about favoritism in an agency with a history of patronage. Tollway officials said the agency is staffed with qualified professionals. "More and more the Illinois tollway is becoming the 'Who's Who' of Republican political hires," said Illinois Campaign for Political Reform Chairwoman Susan Garrett, a former Democratic state senator. Tollway spokesman Dan...

(CNN)Hurricane Florence reminded Americans of something that we in coastal areas know all too well -- the impact and depth of natural disasters are unpredictable. Some people are lucky enough to ride out the storm. For others, underestimating it is a dangerous mistake. Such are the storms of politics. Snip More than one-fifth of the voters say Kavanaugh is their most important issue, ranking well above health care and immigration.

GOP senators hold press conference on Kavanaugh nomination and FBI investigation and background check (10/4/18) Oct 4, 2018.

Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Live,” actress Alyssa Milano said she was “filled with rage” because when people like President Donald Trump and Supreme Court associate justice Brett Kavanaugh are put in positions of power, it means “sexual abuse has been institutionalized in this country.” Milano said, “I’m filled with a lot of rage. It started last night. I couldn’t sleep at all last night. I can’t believe this is where we are. We are making distinct choices about what we want to be as a country. We’re making distinct choices about the people we’re putting in positions of power, whether it...

A proposal to repeal Obamacare entitlements and replace them with grants to states would reduce premiums for individual coverage by as much as 32 percent, according to an analysis by the Center for Health and Economy.The Health Care Choices Proposal also would modestly reduce the deficit, increase the number of people with private health insurance, and cut Medicaid spending, according to Center for Health and Economy.The proposal, the product of national and state think tanks, policy analysts, and others in the conservative community, embarks on a new path to empower consumers and return authority to the states to provide people...

A new round of Fox News battleground polls shows a Republican trend in the fight for the U.S. Senate. The GOP candidates are helped by increased interest in the election among Republicans and pro-Donald Trump sentiment. Arizona Kyrsten Sinema: 47% Martha McSally: 45% Indiana Joe Donnelly: 43% Mike Braun: 41% Missouri Claire McCaskill: 43% Josh Hawley: 43% North Dakota Kevin Cramer: 53% Heidi Heitkamp: 41% Tennessee Marsha Blackburn: 48% Phil Bredesen: 43%

"Multiple sources tell The Federalist that the New York Times is prepping yet another attack piece on Brett Kavanaugh for his party planning efforts in the 1980s. Having failed to corroborate any allegations of rape against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, The New York Times is now preparing to smear him for organizing party planning and logistics more than 30 years ago. This comes on the heels of a blockbuster Times report alleging that Kavanaugh might have thrown ice at someone at some point in the 1980s."

Immigration, impeachment, trade and a full-bore effort to portray Democrats as hard-line leftists in thrall to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — that’s the recipe for success for the GOP in the midterm elections, according to a new poll obtained exclusively by The Hill. Those are the issues that can shift voters nationwide and shore up Republicans in endangered GOP districts, the poll suggests. But the survey will be controversial for two reasons. First, its findings suggest that the GOP’s best chances for keeping the House in November lie in stoking hot issues even further. Second, it was commissioned...

Monday, the White House announced a new agreement among Mexico, Canada, and the USA to end the NAFTA treaty and replace it with the USMCA treaty. Donald Trump has managed to confound the pundits again and get an agreement likely to expand the economy of the USA. His genus is that he managed to give both Canada and Mexico a winning situation, so all nations benefit. The loser is likely to be China, as more material sourcing and manufacturing will occur in North America. With improved economic conditions, the Republicans hope to maintain control of both houses of Congress. This...

Georgetown University Distinguished Associate Professor Christine Fair tweeted that white Republican senators in the Brett Kavanaugh hearing deserve to die. “Look at thus [sic] chorus of entitled white men justifying a serial rapist’s arrogated entitlement,” Fair tweeted on Thursday. Referencing a video of “Lindsey Graham’s tirade,” Fair, who is a victim of sexual assault, added, “all of them deserve miserable deaths while feminists laugh as they take their last gasps.” “Bonus: we castrate their corpses and feed them to swine? Yes,” she concluded the tweet.

Voters in most Southern states are expected to back Republican candidates in the upcoming midterms, according to a new NBC News/SurveyMonkey online poll. The poll found that voters in most Southern states are more likely to support a Republican for Congress than the nation as a whole, with 48 percent of Southerners saying they would vote for a GOP candidate if the midterms were held today compared to 43 percent that would back Democrats. Forty-nine percent of voters nationally would vote for a Democratic candidate if the elections were held right now while 42 percent would vote for a Republican,...