Republicans

Via press release: Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced the appointment of Dr. Julia Nesheiwat as Florida’s first Chief Resilience Officer (CRO). The CRO is tasked with preparing Florida for the environmental, physical and economic impacts of sea level rise. The CRO reports to the Executive Office of the Governor and will work in partnership with the Florida Department of Environmental …

The Louisville Courier-Journal reports: Gov. Matt Bevin says suicides are part of the societal costs related to casino gambling, as he lashed out at his opponent’s support for expanded gambling as a way to help fund pensions. In a radio interview Wednesday, Bevin said: “Every night somewhere in America, somebody takes their life in a casino because they’ve wasted the …

The Washington Post reports: Rep. Will Hurd, the lone black Republican in the House and the rare GOP lawmaker to criticize President Trump at times, will not seek reelection, he told The Washington Post. Hurd’s retirement is the third by a Texas Republican in the past week and the ninth by a party incumbent, dealing a blow to GOP efforts …

The left is getting better at quickly weaponizing hashtags. The hashtag #LeningradLindsey trended on Twitter Thursday after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) forced a controversial asylum bill through committee. The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday advanced a bill to overhaul U.S. asylum laws, waiving committee rules to force the bill through to the full Senate, where it likely won’t get the …

Politico reports: President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, is mulling a run against Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.). “I’m seriously considering it,” Lewandowski wrote in a text message to POLITICO today. A New Hampshire TV station, WMUR, reported earlier today that Lewandowski had been discussed as a potential candidate at a Republican National Committee meeting in Charlotte, N.C. Shaheen, …

Mediaite reports: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said he believes Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Republicans “want the Russians to interfere” in the next presidential election. “They want the Russians to interfere because they think it’ll help them. It’s clear. Mueller made this clear that the Russians wanted Trump to win,” Schumer said. The Senate minority leader spoke on SiriusXM’s “The …

Splinter reports: Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Lindsey Graham was a dickhead for no reason today. Graham has successfully evolved from a Bush-era relic who desperately wants war with Iran to a Trump-loving Kavanaugh defender who desperately wants war with Iran. On Thursday, in one of his final acts before the Senate officially closes for the August …

Politico reports: Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel grew visibly emotional during a meeting with senior GOP officials on Wednesday, as she insisted that she isn’t personally profiting off a new, President Donald Trump-endorsed small-donor platform. The party chairwoman choked up as she kicked off a closed-door panel discussion on WinRed by addressing ongoing rumors that she and other …

The Associated Press reports: All eyes will be watching both the Ohio crowd’s behavior — and how Trump reacts. Even his closest advisers seem uncertain as to what may transpire. “If it happened again, he might make an effort to speak out about it,” Vice President Mike Pence said recently. Republican Rep. Steve Chabot, who represents a Cincinnati-area district, said …

The Huffington Post reports: Republican Party leaders scoping out locations to renominate Donald Trump for president next year have arrived in a city that has labeled his statements “racist” and that wishes it had never invited them in the first place. Last week, the council went so far as to discuss the possibility of backing out of the agreement, but …

The Hill reports: Kansas GOP Senate candidate Kris Kobach blamed his gubernatorial loss last year on “propaganda” and is vowing to take a new approach to his Senate bid. “I’d failed to anticipate just how powerful the propaganda would be,” the former Kansas secretary of State said in a five-minute video released by his campaign. “When someone is called a …

Politico reports: Rep. Mike Conaway of Texas will not seek reelection in 2020, according to multiple GOP sources, becoming the fifth Republican to announce their retirement over the past two weeks. Conaway, a veteran lawmaker who represents a ruby red district, has a news conference scheduled for Wednesday in Midland, but did not specify a topic. Republican sources, however, are …

The Atlantic reports: The day after the United Nations voted to recognize the People’s Republic of China, then–California Governor Ronald Reagan phoned President Richard Nixon at the White House and vented his frustration at the delegates who had sided against the United States. “Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television as I did,” Reagan said. “Yeah,” …

The Charlotte Observer reports: A Republican political operative who worked for one-time congressional candidate Mark Harris in Bladen County faces felony charges in connection with the 2018 general election, an indictment revealed Tuesday by the Wake County district attorney shows. Leslie McCrae Dowless was charged with two counts of felony obstruction of justice, perjury, solicitation to commit perjury, conspiracy to …

The Hill reports: House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) blasted a U.S. District Court ruling that restored Endangered Species Act protections for grizzly bears, arguing the decision was based on “excessive litigation by radical environmentalists” instead of data. The Wyoming Republican said she’ll work to remove the protections for the species, adding the bears’ population numbers have made a …

Politico reports: The hashtag #MoscowMitchMcTreason began trending on Twitter Tuesday morning after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) fired back against the nickname “Moscow Mitch” in a fiery speech from the Senate floor. MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, a former GOP lawmaker, dubbed McConnell “Moscow Mitch” after McConnell on Friday after blocked two election security measures. The hashtag #MoscowMitch quickly began …

The Hill reports: Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a freshman who has emerged as a top Republican critic of major technology companies in Congress, on Tuesday will introduce a bill banning social media companies from building “addictive” features into their products. Hawley’s Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology (SMART) Act would make it illegal for social media platforms to hook users by …

“Last week I stopped Democrats from passing an election law bill through the Senate by unanimous consent, a bill that was so partisan that it only received one Republican vote over in the House. My Democratic friends asked for unanimous consent to pass a bill that everyone knows isn’t unanimous and never will be unanimous. So I objected. “Over the …

The Roanoke Times reports: A small number of Republicans on a congressional district committee tried to censure Rep. Denver Riggleman because he officiated a same-sex marriage earlier this month. The 5th Congressional District Republican Committee went into a closed session for more than two hours to discuss the matter at a meeting on Saturday at Healing Strides horse riding center …

The Louisville Courier-Journal reports: Republican Sen. Rand Paul is offering to buy Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar a plane ticket to visit her home country of Somalia to learn to be more grateful for living in the United States. Omar is one of four congresswomen — known as “The Squad” — who President Donald Trump told to “go back” to their …