Guy Benson from the US: Handful of Senate Republicans Join Democrats to Kill 'Skinny Repeal'

In a stunning turn of events early Friday morning, Senate Republicans failed to garner a simple majority for a so-called 'skinny repeal' bill, widely viewed as their last chance to continue the process of repealing and replacing at least some significant elements of Obamacare.  

The final vote was 49-51, with John McCain, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins helping Democrats kill the bill -- which leadership insisted was merely a vehicle to get to a conference committee with members of the House of Representatives. 

Guy Benson: Analysis - Congress Should Subpoena Comey, Alleged Memo About Trump Pressuring Flynn Probe

Another evening, another potential bombshell. Just as Washington starting to wrap its arms around the possible fallout from the president's alleged disclosure of highly classified intelligence from a foreign partner (reportedly Israel), the New York Times drops this story:

"President Trump asked the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting. 'I hope you can let this go,' the president told Mr. Comey, according to the memo. 

Guy Benson: We Must Punish 'Problematic' Thought Crimes With 'Hostility'

Behold, the perfectly creepy and Orwellian capstone to a week of campus insanity and inanity, courtesy of the dim bulbs who populate the editorial board of Wellesley College's student newspaper.

I've employed that ad hominem descriptor for two reasons: First, their argument is a logical train wreck, but that's par for the course with anti-speech tyrants. Second, a compounding sin: It's horribly written. Their prose is truly and embarrassingly atrocious. It's as if a group of mostly-literate sixth-graders joined forces to whip up a self-important harangue, straining and failing to evince erudition.

Guy Benson: Network News Has Covered Trump Positively...Three Percent of the Time

Three percent? That's somehow even lower than the number of Americans who think Obamacare is working well, which is quite a feat. Granted, this is just one study based on a single metric, but its findings should sound about right to anyone who's watched (or read, for that matter) coverage of the Trump administration thus far.  

The president too often oversteps in his bashing of the press, particularly when he over-applies the term "fake news," but he's not wrong to regard much of the media as an active arm of his political opposition.  Via the Washington Post:

Guy Benson: Poll of US High Schoolers on free speech, 'offensive' or 'bullying' comments

One of the reasons that Mary Katharine Ham and I wrote End of Discussion in 2015 was our rising concern that Americans -- younger ones in particular -- are gradually adopting an increasingly hostile posture toward free speech and the open debate. 

One of the Left's most cynical ploys in stifling political discussions is to brand ideas they oppose as hateful and offensive, and therefore morally unworthy of further consideration. They seek to "win" debates, we wrote, by short-circuiting the process and preventing those debates from happening in the first place. 

Guy Benson from the US: DeVos Confirmation Blow to Teachers Unions

Despite furious lockstep opposition from Senate Democrats and two Republicans who are among the few in their party who receive campaign contributions from teachers' unions, Betsy DeVos was confirmed to be the next Secretary of Education. Critics' objections to her nomination questioned her qualifications and suggested that she was hostile to public education, while others cited her family's wealth, and sought to assassinate her character.  

Instances of hypocrisy and eye-widening double standards were commonplace.  In spite of this pitched partisan battle - which required Vice President Pence to break a 50-50 Senate deadlock; the first time in our nation's history this step was needed to conclude a cabinet confirmation fight - DeVos was gracious in (narrow) victory.

Guy Benson from the US: Trump White House Demonstrates How Not to Roll Out a New Policy

The White House has significantly altered President Trump's executive order to temporarily pause the influx of non-citizen entrants from seven majority-Muslim countries into the United States. 

It was revealed over the weekend that Team Trump failed to adequately consult with relevant lawyers and agencies prior to implementing the new policy, and that a small handful of political aides overrode the Department of Homeland Security's initial legal judgement that green card holders (legal permanent residents) should be exempt from the moratorium. The ensuing firestorm forced the new DHS Secretary -- who reportedly first reviewed the order's finalized content as Trump signed it into effect on television -- to retract the LPR overreach.

Guy Benson from the US: GOP Confidence Rises on Holding House, Tight Battle for Senate

Let's begin on the southern end of Capitol Hill, where Republicans say they're increasingly upbeat about their prospects for retaining a majority in the House of Representatives this fall. Retaking the House was always going to be a heavy lift for Nancy Pelosi's crew, as consecutive midterm election waves swept the GOP to its largest majority in decades. 

Democrats would need to net 30 seats in November to wrest the gavel away from Paul Ryan, an outcome some speculated might be attainable if Donald Trump suffers a blowout loss at the top of the ticket.