Free Republic

By most accounts, Speaker Mike Johnson inherited a House Republican majority in disarray after the sudden ouster of his predecessor last month. But as Johnson, R-La., tries to rebuild that slim majority, he’s fast running into the same hard-right factions and divisions that Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was unable to tame. That’s disrupting the party’s agenda, shelving priorities and leaving gnawing questions about any leader’s ability to govern. Capitol Hill devolved into fresh scenes of political chaos this past week as tensions soared. A Republican senator challenged a Teamsters union boss to a brawl, one of several outbursts involving lawmakers,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley released an unclassified document Thursday that Republicans claim is significant in their investigation of Hunter Biden as they delve into the financial affairs of the president and his son, and revive previously debunked claims of wrongdoing. While lawmakers on the Oversight Committee have already been able to partly review the information, this is the first time the full document — which contains raw, unverified information — is being made public. Called an FD-1023 form, it involves claims a confidential informant made in 2020 about Hunter Biden’s alleged business dealings when he served on...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Handed some 41,000 hours of Jan. 6 security footage, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson has launched an impassioned new effort to explain away the deadly Capitol attack, linking the Republican Party ever more closely to pro-Trump conspiracy theories about the 2021 riot. The conservative commentator aired a first installment to millions of viewers on his prime-time show, working to bend perceptions of the violent, grueling siege that played out for the world to see into a narrative favorable to Donald Trump. He promised more Tuesday night. The undertaking by Fox News comes as Trump is again running for...

WASHINGTON (AP) — At least three Republicans running for the U.S. House attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021, and made their way toward the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection to stop Joe Biden’s election. Countless other House Republican candidates are skeptics and deniers of the 2020 election lost by Donald Trump. There are veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, small-business owners and the most geographically, racially and culturally diverse group of Republicans seeking House seats in the modern era — many of whom, like Trump in 2016, are political newcomers who have never held elected...

WASHINGTON (AP) — It would have been something never quite before seen in America — a defeated president, Donald Trump, standing at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, with a mob of supporters, some armed, contesting the election outcome. Trump intended to go there that day. His allies had been planning for the moment, envisioning the president delivering a speech outside the building or even entering the House chamber amid objections to Congress certifying the 2020 election results for Democrat Joe Biden. “He’s going to look powerful,” mused Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani to a young White House aide four days...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol played out for the world to see, but the House committee investigating the attack believes a more chilling story has yet to be told -- about the president and the people whose actions put American democracy at risk. With personal accounts and gruesome videos the 1/6 committee expects Thursday’s prime-time hearing to begin to show that America’s tradition of a peaceful transfer of presidential power came close to slipping away. It will reconstruct how the president, Donald Trump, refused to concede the 2020 election, spread false claims of...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Signs of Republican resistance are mounting over a $40 billion aid package to Ukraine, a reemergence of the Trump-led isolationist wing of the GOP that's coming at a crucial moment as the war against the Russian invasion deepens.The Senate voted late Monday to advance the Ukraine aid bill 81-11, pushing it toward President Joe Biden's desk by week's end to become law. But more vocal objections from Republicans in Congress are sending warning signs after what has been rare and united support for Ukraine as it desperately battles hostile Russia. All 11 no votes came from Republican...

NEW YORK (AP) — “Senator,” she said, letting out an audible sigh. In that singular moment, Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson spoke for countless Black women who have had to gather all the patience, strength and grace within to answer insinuating questions about their credentials, qualifications and character. It was Day One of questioning at the Senate Judiciary Committee as the Harvard-educated Jackson, the first Black woman to be nominated for the nation’s highest court, was making history. The federal judge had to endure hours of public scrutiny from skeptics, namely the Republican senators who are erecting a wall...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is hoping to use his upcoming State of the Union address to nudge the pandemic into the nation’s rear-view mirror. But it could turn into yet another disruptive display of national tensions and frustration over trying to move past COVID-19. The White House has taken extraordinary precautions to keep Biden from getting the virus, including requiring high-quality masks in his vicinity and limiting his travel and participation in large events. A speech to a full House chamber would be by far the densest audience of his presidency to date.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court’s decision to halt efforts to create a second mostly Black congressional district in Alabama for the 2022 election sparked fresh warnings Tuesday that the court is becoming too politicized, eroding the Voting Rights Act and reviving the need for Congress to intervene. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority put on hold a lower court ruling that Alabama must draw new congressional districts to increase Black voting power. Civil rights groups had argued that the state, with its “sordid record” of racial discrimination, drew new maps by “packing” Black voters into one single district and “cracking”...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats who have played defense for the last three Supreme Court vacancies plan to move swiftly to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, using the rapid 2020 confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett as a new standard. Barrett was confirmed exactly a month after then-President Donald Trump nominated her to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — and just five weeks after Ginsburg’s death in September of that year. Democrats sharply criticized that timeline then, arguing that most confirmations had taken much longer and that Republicans were trying to jam the nomination through in...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Part political performance, part stall tactic, Republican leader Kevin McCarthy unleashed a long, rambling and vitriolic speech overnight, seizing control of the House floor and preempting passage of President Joe Biden’s big domestic policy bill. Sneering with disdain one minute, spilling sarcasm the next, McCarthy carried on for more than eight hours as Thursday night became Friday morning. He spewed a tirade of grievances that reached far beyond Biden’s legislative package, morphing into a monologue of complaints over what’s wrong with the country and the Democrats who control Washington. Far from the “happy conservative” he claimed to...

First, some blamed the deadly Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol on left-wing antifa antagonists, a theory quickly debunked. Then came comparisons of the rioters to peaceful protesters or even tourists. Now, allies of former President Donald Trump are calling those charged in the Capitol riot “political prisoners,” a stunning effort to revise the narrative of that deadly day. […] “Some people are calling it Jan. 6 trutherism — they’re rewriting the narrative to make it seem like Jan. 6 was no big deal, and it was a damn big deal, and an attack on our democracy,” said Heidi...

Once obscure, the Senate filibuster is coming under fresh scrutiny not only because of the enormous power it gives a single senator to halt President Joe Biden’s agenda, but as a tool historically used for racism. Senators advocating for changes to the practice say the procedure that allows endless debate is a Jim Crow-relic whose time is up. Among the most vivid examples, they point to landmark filibusters including Strom Thurmond's 24-hour speech against a 1957 Civil Rights bill, as ways it has been used to stall changes. Carrying echoes of the Civil Rights era, the Senate is poised to...

WASHINGTON - Despite President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday President Donald Trump is “100% within his rights” to question election results and consider legal options. The Republican leader’s remarks, his first public comments since Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election, come as Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill have been reluctant to congratulate Biden or push the president to accept the outcome. McConnell said the process will play out and “reach its conclusion.” Trump has declined to concede the presidential race and is mounting legal fights, but there has been no indication or...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker Nancy Pelosi once predicted she’d have the 2020 House Democratic majority secured by November — of 2019. Now, days before the Nov. 3 election, she seems to have done it, and she’s expanding her reach. With control of the House hardly contested, Pelosi is working to fortify Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and win extra House seats in case Congress is called on to resolve any Electoral College dispute with President Donald Trump. Pelosi said she feels so confident Democrats will keep the House this election, she’s already preparing to win the next one in 2022....

Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is vowing to bring no “agenda” to the court, batting back senators’ questions Tuesday on abortion, gun rights and the November election, insisting she would take a conservative approach to the law but decide cases as they come. “Judges can’t just wake up one day and say I have an agenda, I like guns, I hate guns, I like abortion, I hate abortion and walk in like a royal queen and impose their will on the world,” Barrett said at the second day of confirmation hearings before the Senate. The 48-year-old appellate court judge,...

Votes in hand, Senate Republicans are charging ahead with plans to confirm President Donald Trump’s pick to fill the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat before the Nov. 3 election, launching a divisive fight over Democratic objections before a nominee is even announced. Trump said Tuesday he will name his choice Saturday, confident of support. Democrats say it’s too close to the election, and the winner of the presidency should name the new justice. But under GOP planning, the Senate could vote Oct. 29. “I guess we have all the votes we’re going to need,” Trump told WJBX...

Top Republicans in Congress are expected to meet Monday with President Donald Trump at the White House on the next COVID-19 aid package as the crisis many hoped would have improved has dramatically worsened, just as emergency relief is expiring.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump was heading south to sunny Florida on Friday after his historic impeachment, while plans for his speedy trial back in Washington remained clouded. Senate leaders jockeying for leverage failed to agree on procedures and perhaps new witnesses for the trial.