The U.S. Senate voted Friday not to allow new testimony and documents in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, as reports of new revelations surface from Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton.
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The Left has shown that the collusion exoneration last year by the heralded Robert Mueller investigation – all 22-months, the “dream team,” and $34 million of it – meant absolutely nothing.
The Left is hooked on Trump and cannot quit him. Ultimately, they hope to destroy him physically. He will be 74 in June. By the standards of senior medicine, they feel Trump is locked in a self-destructive cycle: little sleep, little exercise, poor diet, too heavy, too stressed.
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Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said he’s worried that his fellow Republican senators will block testimonies from the witnesses President Donald Trump wants called in his impeachment trial, Paul told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday.
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Republican governors around the country are working closely with refugee resettlement NGOs and contractors to circumvent President Trump’s efforts to lower the amount of refugees admitted to the United States, according to a memo obtained by Breitbart.
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We’re tolerating ourselves to death. There is no other way to say it, especially when it comes to immigration, specifically anchor babies, chain migration, and refugee resettlement. It’s as though our “leaders” have been fed stupid pills and chased them down with healthy quantities of idiocy.
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My 16-year-old recently texted me one of those where-do-you-fall-on-the-political-spectrum quizzes. She was curious to see how my results compared to those of a friend of hers who speaks fondly of socialism.
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The Republican National Committee heads into the 2020 election year with more than seven times as much cash on hand as the Democratic National Committee, the parties’ FEC filings show.
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by Judson Phillips 2020 and the gentle art of herding cats If there was ever an appropriate metaphor for getting conservatives to work together, it is herding cats. For 2020, conservatives are going to have to herd their cats or do whatever it takes to win. 2020 is the Flight 93 election part two. For this election, for conservatives, there are three goals. They are not negotiable and in the immortal words of the movie Apollo 13, “Failure is not an option.” First, conservatives must make certain that President Trump is reelected. Second, the Senate must be held and third, the House of Representatives must be retaken. None of those goals are really optional and if conservatives fail in either of the first two, it will be a disaster. For three years, Democrats have tried to undo the results of the 2016 election. What would they do if they took the White House, now that the Party is controlled by the Bolshevik Bernie wing? Losing the Senate would put a complete stop to one of President Trump’s greatest successes. That is the remaking of the Federal Judiciary. To keep the Senate, conservatives are going to have to do something…
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In next year’s U.S. presidential election, most voters will have one or more additional choice beyond the nominees of the Democratic and Republican parties. And there are indications that a relatively obscure third-party candidate has the potential to decide the election’s outcome.
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Democrats took control of the Virginia state legislature Tuesday for the first time in decades, flipping both the state Senate and House.
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Republicans who once criticized former President Barack Obama’s handling of U.S. debt quietly watched as the federal government debt hit $23 trillion for the first time in history.
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U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) told The Washington Post, “I’d be a juror, so I have no comment,” in regard to a question about impending impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.
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Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Manny Sethi on Thursday announced the campaign’s grassroots support in all 95 counties.
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If you’re just hearing about the “Intellectual Dark Web,” or if you’ve heard the term but never delved into its meaning, you might think there is an entire parallel internet out there, filled with subversive content that is too politically incorrect to weather the shadowbans and deboosting algorithms in our well lit, mainstream online world.
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An organization promoting American history says that the most widely used history book ever is jam-packed with partisanship and historical revisionism.
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Any Republican supporting a primary challenge against President Donald Trump for the Republican nomination in 2020, if it is successful or even if it just hampers the primary process, is virtually guaranteeing the next president will be a Democrat.
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When the protagonist in Ira Levin’s novel, The Stepford Wives, begins to suspect that other women in her Connecticut town are robots, she surmises:
That’s what they all were, all the Stepford wives: actresses in commercials, pleased with detergents and floor wax, with cleansers, shampoos, and deodorants. Pretty actresses, big in the bosom but small in the talent, playing housewives unconvincingly, too nicey-nice to be real.
Which brings to mind the viral video of Mitt Romney reacting to his Twinkie birthday cake. Lack of ample bosom aside, Mitt is a great example of someone playing a housewife unconvincingly, too nicey-nice to be real. He is a Stepford-Wife Republican.
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Should a politician compete for every vote? It depends on who you ask… and who the voter is.
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by Julie Kelly Republicans will have a chance to redeem themselves this week after the farce they helped create: The special counsel investigation into alleged “collusion” between Russia and the Trump campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election. Robert Mueller is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee and the House Intelligence Committee in a public hearing for a total of five hours on Wednesday—not nearly enough time to plumb the depths of his 448-page report or to grill Mueller about his tactics and partisan team of investigators. Republicans will need to make the most of the limited time they have. So, this seems like an appropriate time to remind Republicans that they are as much to blame as Democrats for foisting this costly, useless and destructive travesty on the American people. With few exceptions, Republicans capitulated to every single Democratic demand and the ongoing media-manufactured hysteria about the urgency required to investigate so-called “election collusion.” “Some of us very early on saw enormous conflicts [with Mueller], even conflicted as being a witness. We knew there was something wrong,” U.S. Representative Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), one of the few Republicans skeptical of the Mueller probe from the beginning, told…
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by Mary Margaret Olohan The top ten most popular governors in the United States are all Republicans, a Morning Consult survey shows. Second-quarter survey results from a Morning Consult survey reveal that the top ten most popular governors are all republicans. The survey also shows that all but three of the ten most unpopular governors are Democrats. The results, which are “respectively determined by total approval and total disapproval, with net approval (approval minus disapproval) serving as the tiebreaker,” reveal that on average, Republican governors are more popular than Democratic governors. While Democratic governors have an average net approval of +5%, Republican governors have an average net approval of +19%. 🚨The top 10 most popular governors are ALL Republicans🚨: Charlie Baker (MA)Larry Hogan (MD)Chris Sununu (NH)Phil Scott (VT)Mark Gordon (WY)Doug Burgum (ND)Asa Hutchinson (AR)Gregg Abbott (TX)Bill Lee (TN)Ron DeSantis (FL) https://t.co/xsHuzY765y pic.twitter.com/6TrL9VtO5r — Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) July 18, 2019 Several characteristics from the survey reveal surprising data. Massachusetts Republican Gov. Charlie Baker is not only the most popular governor in the United States, he also is more popular with Democrats than Republicans. Meanwhile, Republican Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin comes in as the most unpopular governor with 56 percent of…
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by Alveda King During this time in our nation’s history, there is a heightened demand to redefine America’s concepts of liberty, freedom, and justice. Independence Day is just behind us and before that, Juneteenth 2019. We are currently celebrating 400 years of African American history, so it’s likely not by accident that the “reparations debate” is rapidly gaining traction on the left. For those wondering, the proper response to liberal demands for “reparations” is not to say that slavery ended 150 years ago, as though the passage of time negates the whole debate. Instead, the right answer is to relate the historical facts and argue from the position of moral authority that the Republican Party has always held on the issues of abolishing slavery and repairing the damage it inflicted on our society. The GOP was explicitly founded as the anti-slavery party in 1854, and a majority of its first presidential campaign platform dealt with stopping the spread of slavery and extending civil rights to emancipated slaves. Four years later, Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican president, and the Democrats chose to divide the nation rather than accept limits on the expansion of slavery to new territories. After their…
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Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate have proposed nearly three dozen specific bipartisan provisions that will reduce the cost of what Americans pay for health care, according to U.S. Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. Alexander made this announcement Thursday on his Twitter page and posted a video to go along with it. The video touted “Better Outcomes, Better Experiences” and “Lower Cost.” Specifically, Alexander said the bill will do the following: • Stop Surprise Medical Bills – so Americans don’t get an unexpected $3,000 bill from an out-of-network doctor after a hospital visit. • Lower the cost of prescription drugs – for example, by bringing low-cost drugs to market faster for patients by increasing competition. • Restore discipline to the health care market– for example, by banning gag clauses that prevent employers from letting their employees know that a knee replacement might cost $15,000 in one hospital and $35,000 at another hospital. • Help Americans lead healthier lives – for example, by making it easier to access specialty care, especially for those living in rural areas. • Make it as easy to get your personal medical records as it is to book an airplane flight – Improving…
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by Jason Hopkins Republicans in the House and Senate appear divided in their reaction to President Donald Trump’s threats to slap Mexico with incremental tariffs. “There is not much support in my conference for tariffs, that’s for sure,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday after a closed-door lunch between administration staffers and GOP senators, where White House deputy counsel Pat Philbin and Assistant Attorney General Steve Engel took heavy criticism from Republican lawmakers. “We are hoping that doesn’t happen.” Other Republican senators publicly voiced their concerns about taxing Mexican imports — a move the president is threatening to execute unless their government does more to stem the illegal immigration crisis. “When it comes to applying a tariff to Mexico, I for one would not support that. I do not favor tariffs being applied to friends like Mexico,” GOP Utah Sen. Mitt Romney said, according to Politico. “If there’s a vote I think it’s a very difficult vote for those of us who oppose tariffs. I would not be inclined to vote [for] a tariff against a friend.” Discussing the closed-door talks in a harsher tone, Republican Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford reportedly said the White House “is trying to…
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by Jason Hopkins Republicans uncomfortable with the idea of a tariff war are reportedly mulling whether to vote against the president’s proposed tariff hikes against Mexico. A number of congressional Republicans could join their Democratic counterparts in a vote to block President Donald Trump if he moves forward with threats to slap tariffs on all Mexican goods, according to a report from the Washington Post. Such a move would serve as a sharper GOP rebuke to the president than the failed attempt earlier this year to revoke his emergency border declaration. Similar to the resolution condemning the emergency declaration, a vote to block Trump’s tariffs would likely begin in the Democratic-controlled House and then move to the Senate, where enough Republicans could defect. “I know he’s, sometimes in his frustration, expressed his intention to do certain things but after calm reflection and consultation with the members of the Congress has decided maybe to pursue a different course, so that’s what I hope would happen here,” Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn said to reporters on Monday. Other Republican senators have also publicly expressed their disapproval of the plan. “He’s a tariff guy,” Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst stated Monday after…
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A shocking new report found that state employees who are under investigation for crimes and misconduct are paid millions in taxpayers dollars while they are on administrative or investigative leave. KARE 11, who uncovered the scandal, is dubbing the controversy “stay away pay,” since state employees are effectively paid to stay away from their place of work. A.J. Lagoe of KARE 11 found that Ramsey County Correctional Officer Travis VanDeWiele, for instance, received $121,555 in pay over a two year period while he was on administrative leave. VanDeWiele was placed on leave for using excessive force, and continued to receive pay for a year after he plead guilty to disorderly conduct. Former Minneapolis Police Officer Thomas Tichich, meanwhile, was paid $65,000 over a 13 month period while awaiting trial for sexually assaulting a passed out woman. Tichich was convicted and is now in prison. In total, the investigation found that between January 1, 2015 and May 31, 2018, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Ramsey County, and Hennepin County paid out $3.7 million in “stay away pay.” “Well I think it’s a scandal. I think people are rightly outraged when they find out that many public employees in this state have been…
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by Rachael Bovard The evidence that Democrats are now an unapologetically open borders party is piling up, and Republicans need to start calling them on it. From opposing expanded detention facilities, actively blocking legislation to fix family separation policies, and even voting against legislation that would prohibit illegal immigrants from voting, it’s becoming abundantly clear what Democrats want out of U.S. immigration policy: open borders, new voters, and a system that never actually gets fixed, so they can use it as a cudgel against Republicans. Consider that just days after the family separation policy erupted, Republicans brought bills to the floor to fix the 1997 Flores settlement—the governing legal agreement which doesn’t allow children to be detained longer than 20 days. In practice, this means that individuals or families who show up with a minor are either separated from that minor and detained for processing, or the entire family unit is simply released into the interior of the country while awaiting a court date. Republicans brought legislation to the floor of the Senate which would vitiate the Flores settlement and allow family units here illegally to be detained and processed together. But Democrats, after howling about the cruelty of…
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The City Club of Cleveland recently released an archived recording of a May 1973 address then Sen. Joe Biden gave to the city’s popular free speech forum. The recording reveals Biden, who was then a 30-year-old, first-term senator from Delaware, making sexist jokes, using the word “Negro,” and defending his Republican colleagues against criticisms surrounding the Watergate scandal. According to the City Club of Cleveland, the remarks were delivered on May 18, 1973, just as the Senate was beginning its televised hearings on Watergate. An audio clip of Biden’s address is now available on City Club’s website. Biden began his speech with several self-deprecating jokes about his lowly position in the U.S. Senate since he was then the youngest senator in office. “It should be noted and I hope you all are duly impressed with the fact that I am one of the most powerful men in the United States. And you ladies, are you aware of that, just how powerful I am? I am number 100 in seniority and don’t forget it,” Biden said. “This young lady knows I’m so powerful she wants to get close to me. She just moved right up front here. She probably has…
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by Robert Romano Congressional Democrats are threatening to derail the new U.S-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade deal that is supposed to replace the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), saying that enforcement of Mexican labor provisions in the deal are inadequate. Under the new deal, Mexico would recognize the right of collective bargaining and all parties agreed that “40-45 percent of auto content be made by workers earning at least $16 per hour,” according to the U.S. Trade Representative. In 2016, average pay in Mexico for manufacturing was $3.91 an hour. “No matter how good a deal looks on paper, it doesn’t mean much if you can’t make sure the other countries live up to their end of the bargain,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oreg.) declared in February. In the meantime, both Canada and now Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) are demanding that the 10 percent aluminum tariffs and 25 percent steel tariffs against Canada and Mexico, which were levied on national security grounds by the Trump administration in May 2018, be lowered as a condition for ratifying the agreement. At first blush, the twin challenges appear to make ratification less likely, since both sets of demands by each…
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by Peter Hasson Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday attacked a Democratic colleague in the House after apparently mistaking him for a Republican. Ocasio-Cortez took a shot at Democratic Kentucky Rep. John Yarmuth on Twitter for posing next to a cardboard cutout of herself. She appeared to think Yarmuth — the chairman of the House Budget Committee — is a Republican. #ThrowbackThursday last month the socialists threatened the lone #Kentucky #Democrat in Congress if he didn't bend to their radical, extremist will: https://t.co/MdS3un7IIY looks like @AOC and #socialism are calling the shots for @KyDems now! pic.twitter.com/VIe6JWZZQy — Republican Party of Kentucky (@KYGOP) April 25, 2019 The freshman congresswoman’s swipe at Yarmuth came after the Republican Party of Kentucky tweeted a picture of Yarmuth standing next to the Ocasio-Cortez cutout. Ocasio-Cortez accused Republicans of posing “older male members next to cardboard cutouts of young female legislators,” seemingly not realizing that Yarmuth is a Democrat. Ocasio-Cortez apparently doesn't recognize Rep. John Yarmuth, the congressman in that picture. He's a Democrat. pic.twitter.com/MoXzxtX2eS — Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) April 25, 2019 Ocasio-Cortez deleted the tweet after she was mocked online for the error. It wasn’t the first time she spread misinformation…
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by Paul Ingrassia Young Republican and Democrat voters are united in their dissatisfaction with older politicians and overwhelmingly believe the country is heading in the wrong moral direction. Those were some of the findings of the new Spring 2019 Harvard IOP Youth Poll, which was released Monday in anticipation of Tuesday’s “youth-focused” CNN town halls featuring a number of 2020 Democratic presidential contenders, including South Bend Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. The results found that young voters are more energized and politically engaged for 2020 than in 2016. Forty-three percent of 18-29-year-olds, for example, said they were likely to vote in their state’s primary, a 7 percent increase from 2015. The poll also found that “The 2020 electorate is shaping up to be more progressive than 2016 on a range of social and economic policy related issues, including on health care, poverty, and trade policy.” Since 2015, the number of younger voters who agreed with the statement, “government should do more to curb climate change, even at the expense of economic growth” rose a whopping 14 percent to 46 percent agreement.…
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by Luke Rosiak Members of Congress are old. Really old. The House Democrats’ top three leaders are all 78 or 79. Democrat John Dingell was re-elected to the House every two years from 1955 to 2014, even though he represented Detroit during the period in which the city sank from America’s crown jewel of manufacturing to a symbol of urban blight. In 2014 he was replaced — by his wife. Republican Strom Thurmond was a racial segregationist born in 1902 who served in the upper chamber from 1956 until 2003. The nation changed, but he remained in office. By the end, his aides were dragging him around and propping him up like a marionette. Who did this serve? Congressmen have used their power to design an institution whose first order of business is keeping current members as current members for as long as possible. Protecting Their Own Inside Congress, members have shaped the institution to protect incumbents through secrecy and even creating bureaucratic offices that break the House’s own rules in order to do so. Shielding themselves from facing consequences for malfeasance isn’t about Democrat versus Republican, it’s about insiders versus outsiders. After all, with fewer than 10 percent of congressional districts “toss-ups” according to RealClearPolitics,…
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Health care has re-emerged as a major focus of U.S. political parties with the Trump administration advocating striking down the entire Affordable Care Act and Democrats introducing legislation to strengthen the law that has been in place since 2010. The Justice Department on Monday backed a federal court ruling declaring the entire ACA unconstitutional on the basis that without the fines for not having health insurance, which a Republican-led Congress passed last year, the mandate for having coverage should not be allowed. That went against the administration’s earlier position that while some parts of the ACA should be struck down, not all of it should be thrown out. Trump told reporters Tuesday he wanted alternatives to the law, which was one of the chief policies enacted under his predecessor Barack Obama. “The Republican Party will become ‘The Party of Healthcare!’” he wrote on Twitter. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer signaled his party is happy to take on the issue, especially following the end of the special counsel investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with Trump’s campaign. Schumer said issues such as healthcare and climate change are much more important to voters. The issue was a…
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A joint committee of the Ohio House of Representatives and Senate was convened Wednesday in the hopes of reconciling the major divides in their respective transportation budgets. As they work towards a solution, one state think tank is reminding them not to forget the consequences Ohio citizens will face as a result of their decisions. House Bill 62 (HB 62), the 2020-21 Ohio Transportation Budget, the first major bill proposed of newly-elected Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine’s tenure, called for an 18 cent gas tax increase. It would go into effect immediately and carry no tax offsets. The Ohio House of Representatives revised the proposal to 10.7 cents and ordered it to be phased in over three years. Most recently, the Ohio Senate dropped the tax rate even lower to six cents. None of the proposals carry a complete tax offset. In this joint session, the legislators hope to reconcile differences, yet DeWine has maintained from day one that his 18 cent proposal is “a minimalist, conservative approach, with this being the absolute bare minimum we need to protect our families and our economy.” The Buckeye Institute, an independent think tank whose focus is “to advance free-market public policy” has acknowledged that a gas tax increase is…
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by George Rasley Jeb Bush is to Republican politics what the little mechanical moles are to the arcade game Whack-A-Mole; an annoyance that bursts forth according to some malevolent algorithm and the faster you beat it down the quicker it pops back up. Jeb! surfaced most recently to encourage some as yet unidentified sacrificial lamb to run against President Trump in the upcoming 2020 Republican primaries. Bush’s reason for encouraging the challenge was that it would be good for the GOP to “have a conversation about what it is to be a conservative…” “I think someone should run. Just because Republicans ought to be given a choice,” Bush said in an interview with Obama advisor David Axelrod on CNN’s “The Axe Files.” “But to have a conversation about what it is to be a conservative I think is important,” Bush added. “And our country needs to have competing ideologies … that are dynamic, that focus on the world we’re in and the world we’re moving towards rather than revert back to a nostalgic time.” Former Governor Bush has apparently forgotten, or maybe he never figured out, what such a conversation about what it is to be a conservative did…
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U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) joined Democrats in voting against President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to build the border wall and likened the president to King George III who was king of England during the American Revolution. Alexander was one of 12 Republican senators to join Democrats in a 59-41 vote against the president, The Washington Examiner said. Trump said he would veto the measure. Last month, 13 Republicans joined Democrats in the House to vote against Trump’s declaration. The Senate Republicans said Trump’s use of a declaration of a national emergency would open the doors for Democratic presidents to use the measure to push gun control or fight climate change. In a series of tweets, Alexander defended his break with the president. One tweet said, “I support the president on border security. I have urged him to build the 234 miles of border wall he has asked for in the fastest possible way by using $5.7 billion already approved by Congress.” I support the president on border security. I have urged him to build the 234 miles of border wall he has asked for in the fastest possible way by using $5.7 billion already approved by…
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Governor Mike DeWine aggressively condemned his fellow Republicans Monday for not supporting his gas tax increase in a candid interview with the Cleveland Plain Dealer Editorial Board. During the interview, he accused them of outright endangering the safety of Ohioans statewide by not supporting his plan. DeWine, in one of his first major bills proposed to Ohio legislature, chose to introduce House Bill 62 (HB 62), to the 2020-2021 transportation budget. Starting off his tenure as a Republican Governor with a tax increase was inevitably going to give many Republicans pause. However, this initial hesitation was greatly compounded by the fact that there are no tax offsets to the hike. In addition, the tax increase will not be gradually phased in over several years, as similar tax increases often are, but will into effect immediately. Lastly, the tax will be indefinitely pegged to the Consumer Price Index which could potentially see the tax increase every year. This is a tough pill to swallow for many Ohio Republican legislators. Conversely, DeWine is accurate when he notes the dire state of roads and bridges in Ohio. As previously reported: A 2018 study gave the state’s infrastructure an “A-” while the national state average came in at a “D+.”…
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Grover Norquist, President and Founder of the nationally recognized Conservative taxpayer advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), implored Ohioans Friday to reject the “straight up” gas tax currently being considered by the Ohio Legislature. In an open letter, Norquist warned; A gas tax hike does the greatest harm to households who can least afford it. Coupled with gas tax prices that have been creeping up in Ohio, a gas tax hike would have especially adverse effects on the state’s lower income earners. Additionally, the 2003 gas tax increase failed to meet revenue projections. Also consider that a state gas tax increase would counteract the benefits of federal tax reform and eat into Ohio taxpayers’ federal tax cut savings. This is one of the reasons why Congress has declined to raise the federal gas tax, despite pressure for them to do so. The bill has been a source of significant controversy, forcing a schism between many Ohio Republican legislators and the Ohio Republican Governor, Mike DeWine. While there is an overwhelming consensus that something must be done to address the rapidly decaying roads and bridges in Ohio, how best to fund these repairs is still up for debate. When DeWine first introduced House Bill 62 (HB…
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Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) will have to reexamine his budget proposal “line by line” after Thursday’s budget forecast came up $492 million short of November’s estimated $1.5 billion surplus. It’s only been nine days since Walz unveiled his first budget proposal for the 2020-2021 biennium, which capped out at $49.5 billion. But after Thursday’s announcement, Walz will need to do some trimming. “Minnesota’s budget and economic outlook has weakened since November. The projected balance for the upcoming biennium is $1.052 billion, which is $492 million less than the November forecast,” Minnesota Management and Budget revealed in a press release. “Slower projected economic growth and lower observed collections compared to prior estimates result in a reduced revenue forecast throughout the budget horizon,” it adds. During a Thursday press conference, Walz acknowledged that he’ll need to “go back through line by line” with his commissioners, but insisted that “today’s forecast validates the approach we proposed in our One Minnesota budget.” “Our budget looks to the future—with investments in education, health care, and community prosperity—and that’s exactly what we need to do when facing slower economic growth,” he wrote on Twitter. Today's forecast validates the approach we proposed in our #OneMinnesota budget. Our…
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by Rob Garver In 1895, Mark Hanna, a U.S. senator from Ohio, explained how politics worked in his times: “There are two things that are important in politics,” he said. “The first is money, and I can’t remember what the second one is.” Nearly 125 years later, things haven’t changed much. In every two-year federal election cycle in the U.S., candidates and their supporters spend billions of dollars to raise their public profiles, get their messages out, and discredit their opponents. By the best available estimates, the 2016 presidential elections cost $2.4 billion when spending by candidates and various interest groups are combined. And, by all accounts, it would have been much more except for Donald Trump’s unique campaign strategy, which relied in large part on “earned” (read: free) media coverage rather than paid advertisements. That’s an astounding amount of money — larger than the economies of dozens of countries around the world in that same year, including Lesotho, Bhutan and Belize. If you add in spending by candidates for other federal offices — members of the House of Representatives and the Senate — the total figure skyrockets to about $6.5 billion. Surge in campaign spending Historically, this is…
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by Henry Rodgers Democrats and Republicans in Congress are split on an “agreement in principle” regarding President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall funding after meeting Monday night as the government is days away from a potential shutdown. The agreement reportedly includes $1.375 billion for physical barriers, which would be bollard, or basically a concrete-filled barrier that protects office buildings and shopping malls across the U.S. It would also limit the number of beds in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers for violent criminal aliens, which Democrats have been using as a bargaining chip. “This is not a CR, this is funding for the seven bills … We hope [the president will] sign it. He talked to me about it, gave us some latitude. I think we’re — overall — we’ve got a pretty good deal considering who we’re dealing with,” Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby told The Daily Caller News Foundation in the Capitol Tuesday. Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham had a different message, telling TheDCNF it is likely the president will have to declare a national emergency, as he believes lawmakers will not be able to reach an agreement. “My whole construct was — open up the government…
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Minnesota’s Senate Republicans have introduced a bill that would ban abortions in the state after a fetal heartbeat is detected in a pregnant woman’s unborn child. Senate File (SF) 869 was introduced Thursday and is co-sponsored by five Republican state senators, including Sens. Andrew Mathews (R-Milaca), Mark Koran (R-North Branch), Justin Eichorn (R-Grand Rapids), Mary Kiffmeyer (R-Big Lake), and Michelle Benson (R-Ham Lake). “Except in the case of a medical emergency, a physician must first test a pregnant woman to determine if a fetal heartbeat is detectable in the pregnant woman’s unborn child before performing an abortion,” the bill states. “A physician shall not perform an abortion on a pregnant woman when it has been determined that the unborn child has a detectable fetal heartbeat, except in the case of a medical emergency.” If passed, violation of the bill would result in a gross misdemeanor punishable by “imprisonment for not more than one year or payment of a fine of not more than $3,000 or both.” Such bills are commonly referred to as “heartbeat bills” and have been introduced in several other state legislatures across the country. Ohio legislators, for instance, attempted to pass their own version of a heartbeat…
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by Robert Curry I have a friend who tells me that attempts to understand Donald Trump in the ordinary ways we understand politicians, even truly remarkable politicians, are doomed to failure. My friend is pointing to the astonishing revelations Trump has precipitated. One such effect is that people in public life are ripping off their masks – and what is being revealed is shocking. Bill Kristol has told us he is all for the deep state. George Will came out in support of the co-head of the Clinton crime family. James Comey stood before the whole world to explain why Hillary should be indicted – and then said she would not be indicted. And just look at what the Democrats are doing. They now openly advocate that America open its borders to all comers. They have abandoned “safe, legal, and rare” and are now in a hurry to legalize infanticide. The Democrats are done with hiding their real intentions from voters. That’s amazing, when you think about it. Until now, hiding their real intentions has been the secret of their electoral success. The important point is that we now know who these people have been all along. They are simply making known…
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Minnesota’s Republican legislators called a press conference Thursday in the lobby of the Minnesota Capitol to oppose the radical pro-abortion measures being passed across the country. As was widely reported, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) signed the Reproductive Rights Act into law last week, clearing the way for abortions up to the moment of birth. In Virginia, State Del. Kathy Tran introduced The Repeal Act, a similar bill that would appeal restrictions on third-trimester abortions. Discussing Tran’s legislation on WTOP, Gov. Ralph Northam (D-VA) hinted that the bill could allow for letting newborn infants die. “So in this particular example if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen, the infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother,” Northam said. It’s unclear precisely what Northam was suggesting, but many took it to mean that The Repeal Act would legalize what is essentially infanticide. With a Democratic governor and a new Democratic House majority, Minnesota’s Republicans made it clear Thursday that they would oppose any similar legislation in the…
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In an interview on The Tennessee Star Report with Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast Wednesday on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Steve Gill spoke to good friend Ann Coulter about the issues facing the border wall, and why the Democrats want the illegal immigration. She explained during the interview that this is not just about a chant but a “serious compassionate policy” and that after two years, it’s time to deliver. Gill: As we get ready to further analyze the President’s speech and his upcoming trip to the border. We’re pre-taping this with the woman who’s being blamed by some on the left for causing President Trump to step up, stand up, and shut down the government to fight for the wall. She and Rush Limbaugh getting the blame. I’m sure my friend Ann will take the credit, along with the blame. And Ann first of all, thank you, for nudging the President into doing the right thing. Coulter: Well let’s hope (Laughter) by the time your listener’s hear this he’s still on the track to do the right thing. I won’t believe it until I see it. …
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On Friday’s Tennessee Star Report with Steve Gill and Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Gill and Leahy spoke to Holly McCall, Williamson County’s Democratic Party chair and discussed her thoughts on the Democratic Party’s current national narrative about her grass roots movement to replace current Tennessee Democratic Party State chair Mary Mancini. They continued the discussion about the Democratic image challenges McCall faces and her position on how to turn things around. At the end of the segment, McCall touches upon the difference between Southern Democrats and the rest of the country and how the message needs to be talked about sanely and found it unfortunate that some Democrats were unwilling to speak to The Tennessee Star. Gill: We talked yesterday with incoming house speaker Republican Glen Casada and today we thought we’d give you the flip side with Holly McCall who actually ran against Glen Casada for that state house seat in Williamson County a couple years ago. She is the chairman of the Williamson County Democratic Party and wants to be chairman of the Democratic Party for the state of Tennessee. Mary…
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With no end in sight to the partial-government shutdown, federal workers nationwide are adjusting to the possibility of an extended shutdown. While many areas of the country are heavily impacted, Ohio is poised to weather this storm. In a new report published Thursday, Ohio was revealed to be one of the states least affected by the government shutdown. Of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, The District was the most negatively affected with Minnesota as the least. Ohio came in at 42nd. The report was executed by WalletHub, a financial services company based in Washington DC. The rankings were the result of combining measurements for; Share of Federal Jobs Share of Federal Contract Dollars Per Capita Percentage of Families Recieving SNAP Real Estate as Percentage of Gross State Product Access to National Parks The report also found states which voted Democrat in 2016 were slightly more affected than states that voted Republican. According to the Labor Department numbers, as of June 2017, Ohio has 78,575 federal employees. While many of these Ohio residents have been affected by the government shutdown, almost half of these employees are military personnel, Department of Defense employees, of Veterans Affairs employees. This partial shutdown…
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Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) has made it very clear that the Oval Office is in his sights. Coming off a six-point reelection victory, the only nonjudicial Democrat to win in Ohio in 2018, Brown has been working behind the scenes to build the infrastructure, support, and endorsements necessary to mount a challenge to President Donald Trump in 2020. However, the third-term Democrat’s presidential campaign may already be over before its even been announced. With as many as 30 Democrats reportedly considering 2020 presidential runs, some of the most visible progressive legislators have inadvertently sent stringent political litmus tests that will leave many contenders in a difficult position. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), and other assertively progressive candidates have made public overtures about the evil and corrupting nature of high dollar fundraising, special interest group funds, PAC’s, Super PAC’s, and other forms of corporate backing. Most of these candidates tout their reelection successes through only small individual donations as evidence of how unnecessary these election tools are. These candidates are now condemning any candidate, Democrat or Republican, who accepts funding from these entities. In 2016, a major talking point for Sanders’ presidential campaign was that his average campaign donation was $27,…
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by Rick Manning The battle over securing the southern border is bigger than any wall. It is about whether our nation will actually defend its borders against an unconventional invasion — one designed to play on our heartstrings through the inclusion of women and children — but also fundamentally transform our nation from a constitutional republic to a permanent socialist majority. This isn’t just about a wall or fence line, it is about the basic right of the United States to have borders. It has already been established that those who enter our nation illegally our costing the country approximately $338 billion annually according to a just released study by the Center for Immigration Studies. These costs will only increase as Medicare, Social Security, welfare, health care, housing, food stamp and education budgets get further strained by the thousands who flow across the border illegally each month. That is the backdrop for the current fight in Washington, D.C. over whether funding should be provided to build a wall and provide for other key security measures along the border. And the funding fight is relatively isolated with the Department of Defense already fully funded, along with the Veteran’s Administration, Labor…
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by Jeffrey A. Rendall Predictions. It’s what New Year’s is all about. It goes without saying that 2018 was full of surprises. Heading into this year Republican majorities in both houses of Congress had just passed a massive reorganization of the federal tax code, including a sizeable tax cut for most Americans in the bill language. By January 1, Democrats were already griping about reduced rates for corporations and businesses, claiming, as they always do, that the benefits of the new law would rain down disproportionately on the wealthiest and most powerful taxpayers. Never mind that many, many companies had already announced sizeable end-of-the-year bonuses and raises for employees based on the improved future tax outlook. Nonetheless, Democrats were convinced the popularity of the new law would not improve (especially if they demagogued the matter) over the course of time. Democrats believed they could parlay President Donald Trump’s lukewarm favorability numbers into a “wave” in November. After all, they’d just been eminently successful in stealing a senate seat in deep red Alabama (with a huge assist from the Washington GOP establishment), so the sky was the limit, right? Last month’s election came and went, Democrats gained 40 seats in…
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by Ned Ryun At what point do the American people wake up and realize that many of their elected officials, both Democratic and Republican, aren’t actually serving their interests? It’s staggering to watch the debate over our immigration system and the building of a southern U.S. border wall play out. But it also highlights how deeply immoral many of our leaders are and the alternate reality of Washington, D.C. In the real world of common sense, any sovereign nation would, and should, assert its right to secure its borders. It would assert that it had the right to understand who wants into the country and to ask why those people are coming. It would then make a judgment as to whether it was in the nation’s best interests, economically or otherwise, to accept any of those seeking entrance, or whether it was, in fact, detrimental. Would the new immigrants make the country better? Would they strengthen the social fabric of the country or help to tear it apart? Ultimately, every decision regarding immigration would be made to further the interests of the actual and current citizens of that nation—the ones who fund every last penny of the government and…
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