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McCain: GOP Senate Will ‘Absolutely’ Look into Bergdahl Swap

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) says a Senate Armed Services Committee under his leadership would try to uncover more details about President Obama’s decision to exchange Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s for five Taliban prisoners.

“Oh yeah, we’re going to find out about that,” McCain told reporters on Thursday.

“Absolutely. Absolutely. You can count on that one,” he added.

Bergdahl’s release became a flash point earlier this year, after the White House went around Congress to secure his release by swapping five Taliban detainees from Guantánamo Bay.

The trade for Bergdahl angered Capitol Hill Democrats and Republicans, as the administration kept the prisoner exchange secret until after it was completed, ignoring a law requiring 30 days advance notice to members of Congress before any detainee release from Guantánamo.

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100% of Newly Elected GOP Senators Campaigned on Repealing Obamacare, but GOP Leadership says "NO"

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Photo Credit: AP / Chris Schneider

Photo Credit: AP / Chris Schneider

By Ali Meyer.

Every new GOP senator who won in last night’s election campaigned on repealing Obamacare.

Senators Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), David Perdue (R-Ga.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) all ran on a platform of repealing Obamacare.

Gardner touted patient-centered care and a full repeal and replacement of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as Obamacare.

“Small businesses and the American people cannot afford President Obama’s countless new regulations and tax increases. There is a right way and a wrong to improve our country’s healthcare system, and the President’s healthcare law just isn’t working. We need patient-centered care and lower costs. It is not too late to start over with a full repeal and replacement of the President’s healthcare law,” Gardner said in a statement.

Daines echoed those statements, also calling to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

House GOP Leader on Repealing Obamacare: Not Now

By Craig Millward.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said he planned to focus first on getting the economy moving and would not press for a congressional vote on repealing Obamacare until “we have the ability to replace it” with some other health care policy “at the same time.”

On Fox News on Wednesday, when electoral returns seemed to show Republicans winning the Senate, in addition to the House, host Megyn Kelly repeatedly asked McCarthy, the second most powerful member of the House, whether he would press for a vote to repeal the unpopular Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.

“Congressman, we have seen repeated votes, over 40 votes in the House of Representatives to repeal Obamacare, never to be seen in the U.S. Senate, will you pursue that?” said Kelly.

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Obama 'AWOL'?: GOP Questions President's Role in Freeing Marine

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Photo Credit: Fox News Republicans on Saturday welcomed the news of Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi being released from a Mexico prison and the efforts by GOP congressmen to help broker a deal but questioned whether the Obama administration did enough.

“President Obama still isn’t using all of the tools and levers that we have as the world’s lone super power, whether it is as simple as getting Sgt. Tahmooressi released from custody to defending our interests or protecting our allies in the Middle East,” Arkansas GOP Rep. Tom Cotton told Fox News.

Cotton, who is now running for Senate, wrote Obama asking him to intervene.

A Mexican judge on Friday ordered Tahmooressi’s immediate release, after he spent seven months behind bars for crossing the border with loaded guns.

The judge said Tahmooressi should be freed because of his mental state. But he did not make a determination on the illegal-arms charges against the Afghanistan veteran diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a Mexican official who had knowledge of the ruling but was not authorized to give his name.

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Mark Steyn: A GOP Win in November Doesn't Change Anything (+video)

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Photo Credit: nmhschoolCould Republican’s win big on Election Day and still be behind the ball in the grand scheme of things? Mark Steyn seems to think so.

According to the conservative columnist, even though conservatives and Republicans may do well on Nov. 4, liberals are winning the other 364 days throughout the year, or the “culture stakes,” with tremendous effect on our society.

“Election Day is one day a year, and the culture is the other 364 days a year,” said Steyn. “So if you’re not in there competing in the schools, competing in the pop culture, competing in the media, competing in the main-line churches, then the air we breathe becomes liberal.”

“That’s the default setting in society. Whoever gets elected on a Tuesday morning in November doesn’t actually make much difference. . .The reason candidates don’t get traction is when they’re trying to move toward the center. . . Effective conservative leaders, [Ronald] Reagan and [Margaret] Thatcher, take the two most obvious examples, move the center towards them,” he said. “Mrs. Thatcher had a great line. Before you can win the election, you have to win the argument.”

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AP-GfK Poll: Most Expect GOP Victory in November

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Photo Credit: AP / Matt RourkeTwo weeks before Election Day, most of the nation’s likely voters now expect the Republican Party to take control of the U.S. Senate, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll. And by a growing margin, they say that’s the outcome they’d like to see.

But the survey suggests many will cringe when they cast those ballots. Most likely voters have a negative impression of the Republican Party, and 7 in 10 are dissatisfied by its leaders in Congress.

The Democrats win few accolades themselves. Impressions of the party among likely voters have grown more negative in the past month. In fact, Democrats are more trusted than the GOP on just two of nine top issues, the poll showed.

The economy remains the top issue for likely voters — 91 percent call it “extremely” or “very” important. And the GOP has increased its advantage as the party more trusted to handle the issue to a margin of 39 percent to 31 percent.

With control of the Senate at stake, both parties say they are relying on robust voter-turnout operations — and monster campaign spending — to lift their candidates in the final days. But the poll suggests any appeals they’ve made so far haven’t done much to boost turnout among those already registered. The share who report that they are certain to vote in this year’s contests has risen just slightly since September, and interest in news about the campaign has held steady.

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Huckabee Threatens To Leave GOP Over Gay Marriage, Abortion

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerFormer Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says he will leave the GOP if Republicans abandon their ardent opposition to gay marriage and abortion.

Appearing on the American Family Association’s radio show this week, Huckabee was discussing gay marriage and said: “If the Republicans want to lose guys like me — and a whole bunch of still God-fearing Bible-believing people — go ahead and just abdicate on this issue, and why you’re at it, go ahead and say abortion doesn’t matter, either.”

“Because at that point, you lose me,” Huckabee said. “I’m gone. I’ll become an independent. I’ll start finding people that have guts to stand. I’m tired of this.”

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Report: GOP Leadership Considering Rules To Punish Party Disloyalty

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Photo Credit: TownHallA new congressional delegation will bring a new vote for leadership. With Democrats needing a miracle to gain a few seats, much less actually take the House, Republicans are close to a sure bet to be in control come November. That’ll mean elections, and elections means a John Boehner who needs to have the support of his caucus.

There are a lot of members of the GOP caucus who don’t very much like John Boehner. He’s taken a lot of heat for being insufficiently conservative. To avoid an embarrassing vote, leadership might have some “rules tweaks” in the pipeline, as National Journal reports:

House Republicans are quietly discussing a proposal that could fundamentally alter the way future speakers of the House are chosen, according to multiple GOP sources, with the objective of avoiding a repeat of John Boehner’s embarrassing reelection vote in 2013.

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Nancy Pelosi: Civilization ‘In Jeopardy’ If GOP Takes Senate (+video)

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On the one hand, California U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi claims that Democrats are not “fear-mongers;” on the other hand, she believes civilization is doomed if Republicans take control of the Senate from Democrats in November.

The former speaker of the House made those dramatic, incongruous statements on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” which aired live from Washington, D.C. Friday.

Maher asked Pelosi about recent polling which shows that the GOP is likely to take over the upper chamber and asked, given gridlock in Washingon, why it matters that Democrats keep control.

“It would be very important for the Democrats to retain control of the Senate,” Pelosi told Maher. “Civilization as we know it today would be in jeopardy if the Republicans win the Senate.”

Democrats currently hold 53 seats in the Senate. Republicans have 45. Two independents caucus with Democrats.

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Surf's Up: Will There be a GOP Wave in the Senate—Or a Wipeout?

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Photo Credit: Politico

Photo Credit: Politico

So where’s the wave? This is President Obama’s sixth-year-itch election. The map of states with contested Senate seats could hardly be better from the Republicans’ vantage point. And the breaks this year—strong candidates, avoidance of damaging gaffes, issues such as Obamacare and immigration that stir the party base—have mainly gone the GOP’s way, very unlike 2012.

Nonetheless, the midterms are far from over. In every single one of the Crystal Ball’s toss-up states, (Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana and North Carolina), the Republican Senate candidate has not yet opened up a real polling lead in any of them. Democratic nominees have been running hard and staying slightly ahead, or close to, their Republican foes.

Earlier this year, we published a “wave chart” giving the range of Senate election outcomes, from ripple to tsunami. Sometimes tidal waves, such as the 2006 Democratic swell that gave the party control of both houses of Congress, develop in late September or October. That’s certainly still a possibility for the GOP in 2014. However, the summer is waning, and as Labor Day approaches our estimate remains a Republican gain of four to eight seats, with the probability greatest for six or seven seats—just enough to put Republicans in charge of Congress’ upper chamber. The lowest GOP advance would fall two seats short of outright control; the largest would produce a 53-47 Republican Senate.

A year ago, it was not hard to find Republican leaders who privately believed the party could score a dramatic breakthrough in the Senate, with the GOP emerging with perhaps 55 or 56 seats. This objective was vital not just for the jousting during President Obama’s final two years in the White House. At least as important is the fact that the GOP sees a much less friendly Senate map in 2016, when it will have to defend 24 of 34 seats, including incumbents elected in 2010 in Democratic states such as Illinois, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In addition, presidential year turnouts usually draw far more minority and young voters to the polls, most of whom reliably vote Democratic from top to bottom of the ballot. A thin GOP Senate majority created this November could turn out to be very short-lived.

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Voters See A More Divided Nation; GOPers More Enthusiastic to Vote

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Voters strongly believe the United States is a more divided nation these days, and they think both sides are to blame. Most are also ready to do something about it at the ballot box in November.

Sixty-seven percent (67%) of Likely U.S. Voters say America is a more divided nation than it was four years ago. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just seven percent (7%) think the country is less divided now, while 21% rate the level of division as about the same.(To see survey question wording, click here.)

Among voters who see more division or about the same level of it, 35% believe President Obama is to blame. But 34% point the finger at Republicans in Congress instead. Twenty-three percent (23%) say they’re both to blame. Just five percent (5%) attribute the division to something else.

Fifty-seven percent (57%) of all voters say they are more likely to vote this year than they have been in past elections. Only four percent (4%) say they are less likely to do so, while 38% rate their intention to vote as about the same as in past years.

Perhaps problematic for Democrats is that 65% of GOP voters and 55% of voters not affiliated with either major party are more likely to vote this year, compared to 53% of those in the president’s party. But that could change as the election gets nearer.

Read more from this story HERE.