Free Republic

Appeals to authority among the political class are substitutes for actual policy arguments, especially when it comes to funding Ukraine.Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina apparently thinks you have to be a “well-briefed U.S. senator” to understand the nuances of the Ukraine war, and that ordinary voters are simply too ignorant to have an opinion on the matter.“Our base cannot possibly know what’s at stake at the level that any well-briefed U.S. senator should know about what’s at stake if Putin wins,” Tillis said on Monday, according to Punchbowl News. He then blasted fellow Republicans who “are being driven just...

America last! The U.S. Senate has cast a contentious vote, advancing a massive $95 billion foreign aid package that supports Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, and Taiwan, but notably omits any provisions for bolstering U.S. border infrastructure. In a 67-32 cloture vote, the Senate crossed party lines, with several RINO senators joining Democrats to move the foreign aid bill forward. Republicans who joined Democrats in voting in favor include: Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Bill Cassidy (R-LA) Roger Wicker (R-MS) Todd Young (R-IN) Susan Collins (R-ME) Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) John Kennedy (R-LA) John Thune (R-SD) Dan Sullivan (R-AK) Mitt Romney...

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) argued it is “immoral” for Republicans to reject a border deal to help former President Trump. “I didn’t come here to have the president as a boss or a candidate as a boss. I came here to pass good, solid policy,” Tillis said Thursday, first reported by NBC News. “It is immoral for me to think you looked the other way because you think this is the linchpin for President Trump to win.” Members on both sides of the aisle are upset with Trump’s attempt to kill the border deal to deny President Biden a legislative...

Senate Republicans on Monday recoiled at former President Trump’s comments at a rally in New Hampshire over the weekend, where he said the thousands of immigrants streaming into the United States on a daily basis are “poisoning the blood of our country.” They also balked at Trump quoting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s criticism of the American political system as a defense against the 91 felony counts he is facing in Washington, D.C., Miami and New York. “I think it’s unhelpful rhetoric,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a member of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s (Ky.) leadership team, when asked about...

@ChadPergram 1) Tillis: It was helpful that President Zelensky focused on some of the myths around yachts being bought with the money coming from the United States. They have implemented reforms based on IMF recommendations. They have implemented reforms based on EU recommendations. 2) Tillis: We know what's happening on the ground..I believe that by and large, the money is being well spent. And if we fail to support Ukraine, we will spend a lot more and regret this moment in history when we walk away from it.

Roughly 30 Republican senators are backing the House’s H.R.2 migration stabilization bill — but a gang of six senators, including three Republicans, are drafting a giveaway “compromise” bill. “H.R.2 should be the focus,” said a policy analyst who favors pro-American migration laws, adding: There’s no reason to preemptively surrender good border security legislation before we’re forced to negotiate [with the House]. What the Senators who are supporting that [compromise] package are doing essentially is preemptively surrendering, preemptively giving away very important pieces of H.R. 2 before they’re even being forced to do so. “They’re negotiating with themselves” instead of with...

But any new Republican speaker will inherit the divided government that befell the last one, as fears grow about how to prevent a shutdown on Nov. 17, approve new aid to Ukraine and advance other must-pass bills to keep agencies functioning. McCarthy spent his nine months as speaker dancing on a knife edge of functionality and paralysis, constantly struggling to balance the demands of his aggressive right flank and the necessity of dealing with a Senate and a White House run by Democrats. “So you get more conservative and that attracts more liberals to work with you on consensus policy?”...

Earlier today Senator Rand Paul went on with Maria Bartiromo on FOX Business Network. Senator Paul does not support impeachment for Joe Biden at this point. He wants to see more evidence. And, being such an upstanding American citizen, Paul does not believe every president should be impeached. He leave that to Democrats. Later on Thursday morning Senator John Thune joined Stuart Varney and also pushed back against impeachment. Senator Thune and Senator Paul need to see more evidence before they support impeaching Joe Biden. They are upstanding citizens. FOX News later reported that Senators John Kennedy (R-LA) and Thom...

Republican delegates in North Carolina voted Saturday at their annual convention to censure Thom Tillis, the state’s senior U.S. senator, for backing LGBTQ+ rights, immigration and gun violence policies. . . . . Several delegates in Greensboro criticized Tillis, who has held his seat in the Senate since 2015, for his work last year on the Respect For Marriage Act, which enshrined protections for same-sex and interracial marriages in federal law. . . . . Several state legislators, including Sen. Bobby Hanig of Currituck County, criticized the decision, saying it’s a bad idea to create more divisions within the party...

The continued — an increasingly curious — absence of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) from her duties in the upper chamber of Congress is becoming a growing thorn in the sides of the Democrats. Feinstein is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and her prolonged recovery from shingles has ground to a halt the Democrats’ ability to further pollute the judicial system with activist judges who have been nominated by Joe Biden’s puppeteers. Over the weekend, Matt wrote a VIP column about Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) asserting that the Republicans on the committee not let Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer...

Sen. Thom Tillis’ (R-NC) amnesty push is dead. That might be the best political Christmas gift in years—it’s undoubtedly the best news coming from the Hill in a long time. Tillis was working with Democrat defector Krysten Sinema (I-AZ) to get millions of illegal aliens on the citizenship track. You all know the details of the poison pill stipulation in the bill. The first 2 million Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients would be able to sponsor their extended family members when they’ve completed the process. It didn’t secure the border or remove the issue from the table. It just...

It has now been over a week since I wrote about the abominable border bill that Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) cosponsored with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), and Tillis’s motivation for doing this is still a head-scratcher for me. The particulars are in that column, so I won’t rehash them here. This is going to be a broader examination of the pitiful state of congressional Republicans.Immediately after the midterms, I told my colleagues that I truly believe that the GOP has maybe two election cycles to get its you-know-what together before it is relegated to permanent minority party status. That’s the...

12 RINOs …

As chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) had one job: win the Senate majority. Not only did he fail, but he did so in spectacular fashion — through calamitous mismanagement of the NRSC that left Republican candidates under fire without air cover in the final critical months of the midterm elections. Now Scott is trying to deflect blame for the GOP’s disastrous showing. So, it’s worth reviewing the record of his catastrophic tenure at the helm of the GOP’s Senate campaign arm. According to the New York Times, by July of this year, Scott’s NRSC...

The Biden administration has been hesitant to send the drone to Ukraine amid fears that sensitive technologies may end up in Russian hands. What's happening: A group of 16 bipartisan senators, led by Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), is urging Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to answer a series of questions on transferring the MQ-1C Gray Eagle, since the armed drone is Ukraine’s “highest priority” military transfer request. The Biden administration considered transferring the MQ-1C for the last several months across 24 assistance packages. During that time, Russia has started using Iranian TB-2 drones, and the technology is threatening...

It’s one of the worst betrayals conservatives have ever suffered at the hands of the Republican Party.On Tuesday, the House passed the so-called Respect for Marriage Act with a stunning 47 Republican votes and the blessing of GOP House leaders, and the bill is now rapidly gaining traction with Republicans in the Senate, shocking even Democrats and the liberal media. The Respect for Marriage Act would enshrine same-sex “marriage” into federal law, override duly enacted laws and constitutional amendments in 35 states, require the federal government to recognize polygamy or any other redefinition of marriage that a state may come...

Washington, D.C.— Today, after months of bipartisan negotiations led by U.S. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joe Manchin (D-WV), two proposals were introduced which include legislation to reform and modernize the outdated Electoral Count Act of 1887 to ensure that the electoral votes tallied by Congress accurately reflect each state’s vote for President. In addition to Senators Collins and Manchin, the senators involved in the bipartisan negotiations include: Rob Portman (R-OH), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Mark Warner (D-VA), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Todd...

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) Cornyn is a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who negotiated with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) last year on legislation to expand background checks for commercial sellers but without success. Cornyn scored one of the few notable accomplishments on gun violence legislation in recent years when he coauthored and helped pass the Fix NICS Act in 2018. The legislation required federal agencies to produce plans for uploading all relevant information to the National Instant Criminal Background Checks System. McConnell tapped Cornyn to lead the negotiations for Republicans shortly after a bipartisan group of senators met...

Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 @JackPosobiec BREAKING: Senate GOP and Democrats have signed off on a bill to provide funding to states for nationwide Red Flag Laws 6:19 PM · Jun 21, 2022

The Senate on Tuesday broke through nearly 30 years of stalemate on gun control legislation by voting 64 to 34 to advance an 80-page gun safety bill The Senate voted to proceed to the bill just more than an hour after negotiators unveiled its text, giving lawmakers little time to digest its details. The Daily Wire lists exactly what the bill would do, including provisions to grant the federal government the ability to deny you weapons based on “red flags” it defines. (Hint: Believing in the Constitution is a “red flag”) Notably, the 80-page legislation includes language on highly controversial...