Republicans

The Daily Beast reports: During a Monday night appearance on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle, Republican Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick used a well-known if antiquated gay euphemism while describing Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, prompting host Laura Ingraham to give him an opportunity to clean up his comments at the end of the interview. “He is so light in …

The Daily Beast reports: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gleefully signed a T-shirt joking about the death of former Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, according to photos tweeted Monday. The T-shirt features Garland’s face surrounded by clouds and the dates 3/16/16 and 1/3/17, with the cursive phrase “gone but not forgotten.” McConnell played an instrumental role in keeping Garland, who …

USA Today reports: Former Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, a foreign policy leader in the Senate who received the nation’s highest civilian awards for his efforts to secure and destroy weapons of mass destruction after the collapse of the Soviet Union, died Sunday, according to his family. The cause of death was complications from chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy. Vice President Mike …

The Louisville Courier reports: Republican Gov. Matt Bevin reopened political wounds with Kentucky teachers on Thursday when he blamed their sickouts for the shooting of a 7-year-old. “One thing you almost didn’t hear anything about while we had people pretending to be sick when they weren’t sick and leaving kids unattended to or in situations that they should not have …

New York’s WINS radio reports: Bridget Anne Kelly, former Gov. Chris Christie’s deputy chief of staff who became a central figure in the infamous “Bridgegate” scandal, was sentenced on Wednesday by a federal judge to 13 months in prison for her role in shutting down lanes to the George Washington Bridge. And she had harsh words for the former governor, …

The Hill reports: Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) on Tuesday said that the censure he faced earlier this year for controversial statements regarding white nationalism gave him a better understanding to the suffering of Jesus Christ. During a town hall in Cherokee, Iowa, King appeared to compare his experience of being formally rebuked in the House to the trial and persecution …

Newsweek reports: President Donald Trump’s hotels and properties have taken in nearly $5 million from Republicans, GOP groups and the president’s own campaign since he took office in 2017. According to public disclosures highlighted by the Center for Responsive Politics, pro-Trump super PACs, the Republican National Committee and the president’s own reelection committee have spent at least $4.7 million on …

Business Insider reports: Sen. Mitt Romney, the former GOP presidential nominee, condemned President Donald Trump after reading special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation report on Friday. Romney said that while it’s “good news” that Mueller found insufficient evidence to charge Trump and his aides with conspiracy to collude with Russia, he added that the report lays out a disturbing portrait …

The Times Of San Diego reports: Rep. Duncan Hunter posted a video Thursday showing himself at the “grand border wall in Yuma, Arizona.” He says: “It looks pretty tough to cross. Let me see if I can do it.” He swings his legs over a horizontal rail less than waist high and declares: “There you go. That’s how easy it …

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 …