Republicans

The Washington Post reports: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday kicked off his 2020 reelection bid with a video highlighting his successful effort to block President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland — a move that helped reshape the court and over which Democrats are still fuming. The video also includes footage of President Trump hailing McConnell as …

Wehoville reports: What happens at Coachella doesn’t stay at Coachella, to the likely disappointment of Keith Anthony, a gay West Hollywood fitness trainer and member of the city’s Business License Commission. Anthony and his boyfriend, Tyler Tixier, were photographed hanging out at the desert music festival this past weekend with Aaron Schock, the former GOP congressman from Illinois who is …

Roll Call reports: Most Republicans are rejecting Democrat-led state bills to tighten childhood immunization laws in the midst of the worst measles outbreak in two decades, alarming public health experts who fear the nation could become as divided over vaccines as it is over global warming. Democrats in six states — Colorado, Arizona, New Jersey, Washington, New York and Maine …

The Daily Beast reports: Not a single human being donated to Rep. Chris Collins’ (R-N.Y.) reelection campaign in the first three months of 2019. Collins, who is facing federal securities fraud charges, brought in just $5,000 in the first quarter of the year, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission this week. That’s compared to the roughly $280,000 …

ABC News reports: Two months after former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld launched an exploratory committee to pursue the possibility of challenging President Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, he is now an officially declared candidate. Weld made the announcement Monday evening in a more than three-minute video, which can be viewed below. In the video, a narrator recounts Weld’s …

Axios reports: The Ohio College Republican Federation apologized Wednesday evening for a fundraising email calling Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D- N.Y.) a “domestic terrorist.” Cortez said earlier she received a “spike in death threats” almost every time Conservative groups made such “uncalled for rhetoric.” In a statement, the college Republicans called the language used in its email “unacceptable.” “The OCRF does …

The Hill reports: Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) is applauding the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange by British police acting on a U.S. extradition warrant. Assange, who published hacked emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee in 2016, had been living in the Embassy of Ecuador in London under asylum protection since 2012. Assange fled to the …

New York Magazine reports: A total abortion ban criminalizing the procedure and classifying it as a homicide cleared a committee Tuesday and will now be debated at the Texas House of Representatives. If House Bill 896 becomes law, abortion could carry penalties ranging from a state jail felony to a capital felony, and patients who seek the procedure could in …

Florida Politics reports: If U.S. Rep. Al Lawson hopes to represent Florida’s 5th Congressional District again, the second-term Democrat will now have to dispatch a Republican. But not just any Republican; Lawson’s new GOP opponent is sympathetic to QAnon populist far-right conspiracies. Matthew Lusk, a bookseller from Macclenny, will be the latest competitor for Lawson, who has yet to encounter …

Hemant Mehta reports at The Friendly Atheist: A bill that will paint a giant target on atheists’ backs for any Christian vigilante who wants to attack them has just passed the Missouri State House. Missouri State Rep. Hardy Billington, a Republican Baptist who recently said his goal in office was to “stand up for Christian values,” wants those atheists to …

The Kansas City Star reports: One of the GOP senators from Kris Kobach’s home state said Tuesday that the Senate would not be able to confirm the Kansas Republican if President Donald Trump tapped him for a cabinet post. Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state, has been mentioned as a potential candidate for an array of immigration-related positions after …

Politico reports: Republicans are planning a multimillion-dollar offensive aimed at fracturing the Democratic Party’s decades-long stranglehold on the Jewish vote. Spearheading the push is the Republican Jewish Coalition, which receives substantial funding from casino mogul and GOP mega-donor Sheldon Adelson. On Friday morning, the group’s board members — many of them prominent Republican Party donors — gathered in a conference …

“Chairman Neal, powerful man, head of Ways and Means. I know he’s an adult, but I don’t think he’s like a real adult. He says that he needs Trump’s tax returns, he says it’s policy not politics. He has said that the reason he needs them is that he needs to determine how well the IRS is auditing taxpayers. I …

The New York Times reports: The United States has revoked the visa of the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor because of her attempts to investigate allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan, including any that may have been committed by American forces. The visa revocation — confirmed on Friday by the office of the chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and the State …

Mediaite reports: Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) referred to a Democratic critic on Twitter as a “porn loving whiny bitch” but eventually deleted the insult. “Steve is ignorant of history and a liar,” Gosar tweeted last night in response to Steve Weichert, a former candidate for an Arizona state senate seat, calling the lawmaker a “pig.” In a subsequent tweet fired …

The Charlotte Observer reports: A Russian bank owned by former North Carolina Congressman Charles Taylor has been accused of money laundering and lost its license. The Commercial Bank of Ivanovo “failed on multiple occasions to comply with Bank of Russia regulations” on money laundering “of criminally obtained incomes and the financing of terrorism,” the Bank of Russia said in a …

Talking Points Memo reports: Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a Fox News favorite and a bulldog for President Trump on the Hill, is reportedly mulling a move across the border to Alabama to run for Sen. Doug Jones’ (D-AL) seat when he’s up for reelection in 2020. According to a Republican lawmaker who is close to Gaetz who spoke to The …

Axios reports: Sen. Rand Paul on Thursday blocked a resolution calling for special counsel Robert Mueller’s report to be released to Congress and the public. This is the 5th time that Republicans — led by Paul and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — have blocked the resolution, which passed unanimously in the House last month. Paul has argued in favor …

CNN reports: Robin Hayes, the embattled chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, announced Wednesday that he will stay on as the leader of the party despite being indicted on federal bribery charges. Hayes will, however, hand over the day-to-day responsibilities of the unpaid position to Aubrey Woodard, the 11th District Chair, while he deals with his legal issues. “In …

The Washington Examiner reports: Complaints from House Oversight ranking member Jim Jordan regarding the politicization of the committee were met on Tuesday with derision from Democrats on the panel. Jordan, an Ohio Republican, ripped his Democratic colleagues during a meeting to discuss subpoenaing a former White House aide over the Trump administration’s security clearance policies. “I’ve been on this committee …