Free Republic

President Donald Trump weighed in on Michigan's U.S. Senate race Friday, announcing on Twitter that he was endorsing veteran and businessman John James in the race. In two tweets, Trump called James "SPECTACULAR" and praised his credentials as a "West Point graduate, businessman and African American leader." "Rarely have I seen a candidate with such great potential," Trump tweeted. "John is strong on crime and borders, loves our Military, our Vets and our Second Amendment. He will be a star. He has my full and total Endorsement!" Also on Twitter, James thanked Trump for his support and said he looks...

President Trump blasted Pakistan in his first tweet of 2018, saying its leaders have given the U.S. “nothing by lies & deceit.” “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools,” he said Monday morning. “They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!” he added. The New York Times reported late last week that the Trump administration might withhold $225 million in aid over frustration with...

Michigan Republican Senate candidate Sandy Pensler trashed President Donald Trump at a meet and greet with Republican Party activists in early 2018, as seen in a video obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller News Foundation. In the video Pensler is seen describing a business deal with Trump that went bad, at Roadside B&G restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. The GOP candidate questioned Trump’s wealth and claimed Trump tried to buy the Mets baseball team from him, but did not have the money. Pensler also criticized the way Trump speaks, saying he spoke at a “fourth grade level.”

Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow (Mich.) had a tracker from the conservative America Rising PAC tossed out of a public press conference on Wednesday. The tracker, an individual who records events of political candidates, took audio of the encounter at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Alex Smith Profile in courage: @stabenow just had an America Rising tracker escorted out in handcuffs for peacefully attending and taping a public event on her official (taxpayer-funded) schedule. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgeUm3d-ai0&feature=youtu.be … When tracker Brad Minor attempted to move to the area of the hospital where the press conference was taking place, America Rising said a "police...

In 2018, conservative Republicans are looking forward to challenging ten incumbent Senate Democrats in states President Donald Trump won in 2016, in hopes of defeating them with bona fide conservatives. In one of these states, Michigan, the Senate Conservatives Fund has endorsed a candidate to oust liberal Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. The SCF announced Tuesday it would back political outsider John James for U.S. Senate. James, a husband and father of two young children, businessman, and combat veteran is running in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate. He is a West Point graduate and served in Iraq as a Ranger-qualified...

Let's support John James for U.S. Senate in Michigan against Debbie Stabenow. Veteran, Conservative, Businessman. https://johnjamesforsenate.com/

Kid Rock is ending months of speculation about a possible Senate bid, saying, “F--- no, I’m not running for Senate.” “Are you f---ing kidding me? Who couldn’t figure that out?” the “All Summer Long” singer said on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM radio show on Tuesday. “I’m releasing a new album. I’m going on tour, too. Are you f---ing shitting me?” he asked Stern. The performer, whose real name is Robert Ritchie, had flirted for months with a possible Republican bid against Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, hawking “Kid Rock for U.S. Senate” T-shirts and criticizing the Democrat, saying Americans were “sick and...

Kid Rock teased a potential U.S. Senate run on Thursday, tweeting that '[t]he 2018 Political Revolution is nearing.' The musician, who was born Robert Ritchie and lives in suburban Detroit, has already said on social media that a website touting his Senate candidacy against Democrat Debbie Stabenow is real. He said in July that he would make a 'major announcement in the near future.' Ritchie wrote on a Kid Rock for US Senate website that '[t]he democrats are "shattin’ in their pantaloons" right now…and rightfully so!' 'We will be scheduling a press conference in the next 6 weeks or so...

The head of a group backed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., revealed Friday that they are "very interested" in Kid Rock launching a Senate campaign to take on Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., in 2018. Steven Law, president of the Senate Leadership Fund, made the revelation when asked about the rock star, who has teased a potential run on social media over the past month. He also told Kid Rock that "we hope you run" for the seat.

Lena Epstein, co-chairwoman of Donald Trump's Michigan campaign, has announced her candidacy for U.S. Senate. If Epstein wins the Republican nomination in 2018, she would be up against U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who first won her Senate seat in 2000 and won easy re-elections in 2006 and 2012. Epstein is the first Republican to declare candidacy for the seat. A 35-year-old Bloomfield Hills resident, Epstein is co-owner of Vesco Oil Co., a distributor of automotive and industrial lubricants. The company has more than 200 employees and annual revenues of $175 million, according to Epstein's personal website. In a press release...

The Republicans have 8 seats, Dems have 23 seats, and the 2 Dem-leaning Independents are in this Class. With 44 seats in the other 2 classes for the GOP and Pence as VP this means the Dem's have to pick off 3 seats to get the majority. Utah Hatch, Texas Cruz, Nebraska Fischer, Mississippi Wicker, and Wyoming Barrasso are about as close as possible to being done-deals that their seats stay GOP in 2018. Picking off Corker in Tennessee would be super hard to do. Flake in Arizona could be vulnerable depending on fallout with immigration enforcement. About the only...

Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan tells Yahoo News that she believes race was a factor in the state's slow response to the Flint water crisis. "The sad, outrageous reality is that people were not paying attention to what the residents were saying because they weren't a priority," Stabenow told Yahoo News and Finance Anchor Bianna Golodryga. "[The state] would react differently when their friends that lived in those areas called ... that's just a fact that [Flint was] treated differently than others would be treated." ...

United States Senators Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow sent a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Homeland Security calling for robust funding in the fiscal year 2016 appropriations legislation for the U.S. Coast Guard to design and build a new heavy icebreaker for the Great Lakes regio

The Senate lent strong support today to a simply worded resolution calling on Iran to let four Americans come home. The bipartisan resolution from Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) passed 90-0. It states that it’s the policy of the United States that “the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran should immediately release Saeed Abedini, Amir Hekmati, and Jason Rezaian, and cooperate with the United States Government to locate and return Robert Levinson; and the United States Government should undertake every effort using every diplomatic tool at its disposal to secure their immediate release.” Washington Post bureau chief Rezaian, a California...

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) delivered a pitch-perfect trolling lesson to the Senate on Wednesday, filing an amendment calling to defund "the purchase of stationary [sic] or electronic devices for the purpose of members of Congress or congressional staff communicating with foreign governments and undermining the role of the President as Head of State in international nuclear negotiations on behalf of the United States." In other words, Stabenow wants to defund Tom Cotton letters.

EMINENCE — At the same time U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell toured Eastern Kentucky lauding his work on the passage of the Farm Bill, the Democratic chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee told a crowd in Henry County that she forgot McConnell was even on the committee. “Now, the reason that I had forgotten that is because he has never attended a meeting in the three years I have chaired the committee,” U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan. Stabenow stumped for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky farm country Monday afternoon and later at a town-hall style meeting in...

(CNSNews.com) -- One hour before the Senate voted on its sweeping immigration reform bill, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who supported the legislation, said she had “no idea” how many DUIs an illegal alien can have under the bill and still be made a legal resident of the United States. On Capitol Hill on Thursday, CNSNews.com asked Stabenow, “Under the Senate immigration bill, how many DUIs can an illegal alien have and still be legalized?” Stabenow said, “Gosh, I have no idea. I mean, I don’t -- how many DUIs?” “Did you vote on the bill?” Knopf asked. “You’re with who?”...

Michigan’s U.S. senators – Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow – are among those urging the Army Corps of Engineers to allocate money to help the Great Lakes recover from Hurricane Sandy damage. “While the Great Lakes navigation system is threatened due to underfunding, which has been worsened due to lakes levels that have hit record lows, the system also was damaged by Hurricane Sandy,” a group of Midwest senators wrote in a letter Thursday to Assistant Secretary of the Army Jo-Ellen Darcy. “This storm covered 900 miles, and impacted 24 states, including states surrounding the Great Lakes. Across the Great...

In the fall of 2010, the Michigan Economic Development Corp. — the state's "corporate welfare” arm — uploaded a video to YouTube highlighting the battery manufacturer A123 Systems. At the time, the company was promoted heavily by President Barack Obama, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow. Since then, A123 has shed money, laid off half its workforce, recalled products and seen its stock price plummet to about 26 cents this week from a previous high of $26. Now, just two years after the initial roll-out, A123 is...

ELK RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — Republican U.S. Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra couldn't have asked for a friendlier audience than the workers of Traverse Bay Manufacturing Inc., who are fighting mad over what they consider unfair competition — not from China or India, but from their own government. [Snip] "We're the underdog, we're behind," Hoekstra said in an interview after his factory visit in the Lake Michigan town of Elk Rapids. "It's been a very sleepy race ... pretty much been frozen in place for the last eight, nine weeks. But we think that as people start to focus and as...