Free Republic

I Guarantee to Keep This Pledge to You… I will not vote for a budget that increases America’s debt nor will I vote to increase the debt ceiling. I will help lead the fight to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as ‘Obamacare’. I will vote against any increase in taxes and lead the fight for a more simplified and fair tax system. I will only support nominees to the Supreme Court and other federal courts who are strict constitutionalists. I will vote against legislation which allocates power to the federal government that is not given to...

A LIST OF FIRSTS FOR PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA President Barack Hussein Obama is certainly a President of firsts. Here's a fairly comprehensive list: (Read them and weep for our nation) 1st half African-American President in history. 1st President to claim that under his presidentcy the, "rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." 1st President to rack up over 5 trillion dollars in debt in less than four years. 1st President to have the national debt exceed 10, 11 , 12 , 13 ,14 and 15 trillion dollars. 1st President to spend a...

Flushed with victory from my latest convert to conservatism (another citizen saved from the perdition of liberalism), my thoughts turn to the task at hand. That task is the complete and utter destruction of the Marxist/Leninist plague that is the regime of Barack Hussein Obama. We as patriots know well, maybe better than anyone else, how fragile our freedoms are. We also know that this country cannot survive another four years of the filth and corruption that is the Obama government. Every day brings new revelations of gross irresponsibility, malfeasance in office, outrage after outrage against the institutions and the...

Freedom of speech is not a slogan. It is not a bumper sticker. Free speech is more than mere empty words. Just as I believe in free speech, and free markets, I also believe that more freedom, not less freedom, is the solution for what is wrong with our country. I believe that freedom is The Best Antidote for What Ails Us. It is the strongest antiseptic for what evils have infected our body politick, and our ‘public square’, right down to our local city or county government. I believe that to allow a small group of self-serving individuals to...

How does one go about deciding whom to support as the Republican Party nominee for president? Should the decision be based on looks, charm, likeability, electability, soaring rhetoric or grand promises? Absolutely not! Unfortunately, these are the very criterion that Americans usually rely upon when casting their ballots.  If those are the criterion to be used to judge whom to support, even Republicans should simply vote for the current occupant of the White House. Most Americans find Obama neatly fits nicely with most, if not all, of the above criterion and yet he is, unquestionably, the biggest disaster of a...

Remember way back when Romney led Santorum by 16 points in Gallup’s national tracking poll? That was … four days ago. Today: Romney 32, Santorum 30, Gingrich 16. Mitt’s lucky that there’s a nice long break between Santorum’s three wins in the midwest last week and the next key primaries in Arizona and Michigan. If there wasn’t, I don’t know if even a flurry of negative ads from the Romney Super PAC death star would be enough to snuff Santorum’s momentum in time. Santorum had been planning a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race plod through the primaries, but according to Politico, he’s now thinking...

What was once looked at as a charming Hispanic heritage has became a battle ground between some Mexican-Americans and political groups in a Sun Belt city in Arizona. As that ethnic population has increased, the undercurrent divisions in Tucson have surfaced and grown.

Earlier today, I said that only Mitt Romney could derail Mitt Romney this month. Did my prediction come true already? The media and Romney detractors have jumped all over this statement to CNN in which Romney says that he is “not concerned about the very poor,” but that slice of Romney’s statement is entirely misleading — although it’s certainly not adept for a front-runner:

"Can/Will Newt close the gap and squeak out Florida?"... Comments(prayers)...

Allen West, in discussing what the Republican Party needs to do to get black voters into the Republican party, was asked which presidential candidate has the conservative principles to help turn the tide of high unemployment in the black community, and he was quick to point out that despite those on the left accusing Newt of race-baiting, he believes that Newt is the one who is diagnosing the problem well and is trying to open a dialogue with the black community by offering to speak before the NAACP.

...is that he had BETTER be on his "A" Game every minute of EVERY Day from now until AFTER Election Day!

Because he is the ONLY one who has EVER successfully NATIONALIZED an Election(1994). Even Reagan didn't/couldn't do it. In 2010 the Tea Party Nationalized THAT election.

Ok Here's the list: 1. "Kinder-Gentler" 2. "Read My Lips/No New Taxes" 3. The 1990 Budget "Deal" 4. The PATHETIC 1992 GOP Election "Campaign" 5. SQUANDERING the 1980s and Reagan's Gains 6. The EVEN MORE PATHETIC 1996 GOP Election "Campaign" 7. "Compassionate Conservatism" 8. "Patriot Act" 9. The ULTIMATE IN PATHETIC 2008 GOP Election "Campaign"

I noticed that the Phrase "Audit the Fed" was in a commercial this morning.

...who will be/should be PANICED and why. Be verbose if need be.

Capitalism made America great -- free markets, innovation, hard work -- the building blocks of the American Dream. But in the wrong hands some of those dreams can turn into nightmares. This film is about one raider and his firm and how they destroyed that dream for thousands of Americans and their families - Mitt Romney and Bain Capital.

Gingrich-Santorum OR Santorum-Gingrich

I'm not sure if this has been posted on Free Republic. I am posting in case it hasn't been. Here are the top 20 contributors to Mitt Romney's campaign: Goldman Sachs $367,200 Credit Suisse Group $203,750 Morgan Stanley $199,800 HIG Capital $186,500 Barclays $157,750 Kirkland & Ellis $132,100 Bank of America $126,500 PriceWaterhouseCoopers $118,250 EMC Corp $117,300 JPMorgan Chase & Co $112,250 The Villages $97,500 Vivint Inc $80,750 Marriott International $79,837 Sullivan & Cromwell $79,250 Bain Capital $74,500 UBS AG $73,750 Wells Fargo $61,500 Blackstone Group $59,800 Citigroup Inc $57,050 Bain & Co $52,500 What does this tell you? Well,...

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - The 2012 GOP primary between Sen. Richard Lugar and challenger Richard Mourdock is still more than six months away, but you can get a sense of what kind of battle it will be in this week's WISH-TV/Franklin College Poll. Lugar has a big advantage in some areas. When it comes to name identification, more than nine out of 10 voters recognize him, while Richard Mourdock's name registers with only two-thirds of the voters. Lugar also has a high favorability rating at 59 percent. Mourdock gets a positive response from just 17 percent. Yet if you place Mourdock's...

When someone complained about a student’s Ron Paul poster in his dorm room window this fall, Auburn University in Alabama had the opportunity to take a principled stand for free speech. Of course, since we’re dealing with a university, you can probably guess that it instead chose to double down on an unwise, needlessly restrictive, and unfairly enforced policy at odds with the spirit of the First Amendment. Auburn undergrad Eric Philips probably thought he wasn’t doing anything particularly noteworthy when he hung a banner supporting Representative Ron Paul’s presidential candidacy in his residence hall window. ’Tis the eve of...

Here’s the national poll from Gallup confirming everything you thought you knew about the race. Most of Cain’s support did indeed go to Newt, and Newt continues to crush Romney among tea partiers and seniors. Intriguing data, but not nearly as important as state polls in Iowa and New Hampshire for the simple reason that national polls will move dramatically after those states vote.

We’ve developed a bit of a reputation, so a big thank you to everyone who’s participated in these over the past year or so. On to the next survey: Hot Air Presidential Survey: December http://hotair.com/archives/2011/12/01/hot-air-presidential-survey-december/

WASHINGTON, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Republicans in the U.S. Congress on Tuesday threw their support behind a payroll tax cut extension, trying to blunt charges ahead of 2012 elections of favoring wealthy Americans over middle-class workers. Until Tuesday, Republicans had been lukewarm on extending President Barack Obama's payroll tax cut for workers, indicating they were open to negotiating it but never explicitly backing a measure, which the White House says will boost the country's sputtering economic recovery. (snip) "In all likelihood we will agree to continue the current payroll tax relief for another year," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said...

“You can fool all of the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time!” –Abraham Lincoln No Republican candidate running in the 2012 Presidential Primary is a bigger member of the Republican political establishment than Newt Gingrich. He represents everything that the elite Republican establishment has stood for, for the past 32 years. He epitomizes the ‘Rockefeller wing’ of the Republican Party. He is a typical ‘checked pants’ Republican. And just because he has not held an elected office...

Palin: We will not solve our economic problems in this country until we confront the crony capitalism of our permanent political class. This is socialism for the very rich and the very poor but it is a brutal form of capitalism for the rest of us. It’s the collusion of big government, big business. It’s at the heart of President Obama’s economic vision. We need sudden and relentless reform. That will return power to we the people. We need people with a proven record of reform. I served in public office in a state that had a corruption problem. I...

Of all the Republican presidential hopefuls, none has been a quintessential Washington figure longer than Newt Gingrich. After serving 20 years as a member of Congress, including two terms as House speaker, he did not go back home to Georgia, where he had been a history professor. Instead, he kept his hand in the political game, making lots of money in the process – much of it consulting for (or, as others suggest, lobbying on behalf of) major corporations. In recent days, the list of Mr. Gingrich's big-name clients has continued to grow: mortgage giant Freddie Mac, Microsoft, General Electric,...

Conservative Candidates Weak Against Obama A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet A friend, whose opinion I value in the extreme, continues to assure me that Obama will lose in November of 2012. I, on the other hand, continue to be dubious… also in the extreme. Recently, I received an email from a conservative democrat friend who told me, flat out, that the republican field does not look well, at all, and he is beginning to believe that Obama will be returned to the Oval Office for four more years as a result. He wants Obama gone, too. In our electronic...

Was this sober political analysis, or merely an MSMer pining for the good old days of Speaker Pelosi? On Morning Joe today, touting a Politico Pelosi puff piece about her "golden touch," Mike Allen claimed it was "very possible" that Democrats would retake the House majority in 2012. View the video here.

ATLANTA (AP) — Republican Herman Cain criticized President Barack Obama for canceling the space shuttle program — a decision actually made by President George W. Bush — as NASA shifts its focus on travel farther from Earth's orbit.

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Sarah Palin told Republican donors Thursday that Occupy Wall Street protesters want the same thing as the “fat cats” they’re upset with — a government bailout. Palin criticized the protesters as believing they’re entitled to other people’s productivity and money and said they’ve drawn the wrong conclusions. Instead, the former Alaska governor said people should look to the tea party....

It’s wafer thin but lots of fun to game out, and I figure our resident Palinistas would appreciate having a new reason to believe after last month’s great disappointment. Here you go. The ballot deadlines have passed in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida, which means there are three possibilities. One: It’s not true. Two: It is true but she’s going to run third party, which means she doesn’t have to worry about primary deadlines. Three: It’s true and she’s going to run as a Republican, having been lured back into the race by the vacuum on the right after...

LAS VEGAS — For most Republican politicians, there is no smear more loathed, more insulting or more politically perilous than to be called a RINO — a Republican in Name Only. Not for Linda Lingle. “I’ve been called a RINO before, which I don’t mind,” the former Hawaii governor told a crowd of diehard Republican activists huddled in a Las Vegas ballroom. “There are a lot of people who support these RINOs, whether it’s me or [former New York Mayor] Rudy Giuliani or [former New Jersey Gov.] Christine Todd Whitman.”(snip) And from Lingle’s point of view, moderate Republican candidates such...

(h/t Conservatives4Palin.com) C4Palin: Ed Morrissey has written a great piece today at Hot Air which should give major pause to any conservative who’s entertaining the thought of holding his or her nose and voting for Mitt Romney in 2012. It seems Romney’s record in Massachusetts in the area of energy is as suspect as his record in the health care arena. As Governor, Romney did his best to drive up the costs of energy production for those producers unfortunate enough to have the audacity to rely on economic, proven methods of production: Read more at http://bit.ly/p05jmr

Three of Mitt Romney’s advisers went to the White House at least a dozen times in 2009 to consult on the former Massachusetts governor’s health care plan that President Obama used as a model for his initiative -- now a federal law that all the Republican presidential candidates want to repeal. White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Tuesday he was "not in a position to comment on specific meetings." But in a remark that won't help Romney in his pursuit for the 2012 Republican nomination, Earnest repeated that Obama took cues from the Massachusetts legislation. "You've certainly heard the...

The Obama administration may have relied much more heavily on Romney’s Massachusetts healthcare legislation as a blueprint for Obamacare than was previously believed. White House visitor logs obtained by NBC News revealed that three of Romney’s healthcare advisers had up to a dozen meetings with senior administration officials, including one in the Oval Office presided over by President Barack Obama. “They really wanted to know how we can take that same approach we used in Massachusetts and turn that into a national model,” MIT economist and Romney healthcare adviser Jon Gruber told NBC. What’s more, the records show Gruber was...

The desperate search for an acceptable Republican Party presidential candidate continues. Republican leaders apparently are pushing New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who previously said no, to jump into the race. The GOP's frustration is palpable. Mitt Romney has been running for four years but generates little enthusiasm. Rick Perry was an instant front-runner before losing much of his support after unimpressive debate performances. Michelle Bachmann briefly streaked across the political firmament but now barely registers in the polls. Newt Gingrich committed political seppuku shortly after announcing his candidacy. Ron Paul's support is fervent but limited. However, the real Republican problem...

Chris Christie say he has finally made a definitive decision, once and for all, not to run for president in 2012, sources close to the New Jersey governor told Fox News on Tuesday. Despite the intensity that has heightened in recent days as the New Jersey governor prepares to deliver a speech Tuesday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, several people close to the governor insist he has not changed his mind to forego a presidential bid. Christie is on tour, attending seven fundraisers in three states, which has fueled speculation that he could be preparing for a 2012 bid....

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A former Democratic state lawmaker is switching to the Republican Party and will launch a campaign Wednesday for U.S. Rep. Dale Kildee's seat, The Associated Press has learned. Ex-Rep. Jim Slezak of Genesee County's Davison Township says in a release that he's making the switch to the GOP and kicking off his campaign Wednesday for the 5th District seat that Kildee, a Democrat, has held for more than three decades. The AP was given an advance copy of the release and an early look at Slezak's announcement video.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A tea party candidate who plans to run against Sen. Olympia Snowe in next year's Senate Republican primary is inviting Snowe to debate him.

Grammy award-winning musician Barry Manilow told The Daily Caller that he agrees with “just about everything” 2012 Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul says, calling him a “solid” contender for the highest office in the land. “I like him. I like what he says, I do. I like what he says. I think he’s solid,” said Manilow, who confirmed to TheDC in an interview at the Capitol on Thursday that he contributed to Paul’s last campaign for president. “I agree with just about everything he says. What can I tell you?” Manilow added.

Romney is Obama-Lite. Take the simple pledge: I will not vote for Romney for any reason.

40-49 Results - Women 21100 Half Marathon 1 Marks, Julie W46 Des Moines, IA 12 Heath, Sarah W47 Des Moines, IA 2 3 Beermann, Sheila W49 Elk Point, SD 4 Lasota, Jennifer W43 Minnetokna,MN 5 Strawser, Michelle W42 Unattached 6 Amundson, Roxanne W47 Fremont, NE 7 White, Julia W43 Storm Lake, IA 3 8 Sweet, Misty W45 Spencer, IA 9 Lai, Cal W46 Storm Lake, IA 4 Ground Report from Iowa4Palin blog: Governor Sarah Palin is running! ~ In a half marathion in Storm Lake Iowa Sunday morning. ~ My wife is a big time walker. She was registered to...

As faithful readers of this blog know, I was reporting on the Tea Party movement long before it was even called the Tea Party movement — and long before a legion of Johnny-come-latelys in Washington had grabbed their fiscal conservative costumes and joined the parade. I can remember not being able to get mainstream media coverage on the day of one of the first taxpayer protests in Denver in February 2009. We’ve come a long way, baby. From day one, I emphasized that the grass-roots activists leading the Tea Party charge have been as opposed to Big Government Republicans as...

(Reuters) - A spree of bad news -- market gyrations, fears of a double-dip recession, stubborn unemployment and fallout from a debt deal -- has shaken confidence in President Barack Obama's leadership and could cloud his chances for winning re-election. Obama is seeking a second term in office in an election that is still far off -- November 2012. But a persistently weak economy coupled with rising perception of political dysfunction in Washington could complicate his political fortunes.

Calling himself a tea party true believer, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) on Tuesday in the same interview both praised the debt ceiling deal and said he plans to vote against it. Hatch, who faces a looming primary challenge from the right from Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), took to Fox News’s “Fox and Friends” to tout his own tea party credentials. “Look, I think the tea party people deserve a lot of credit,” he said in response to a question about Democrats and Vice President Joe Biden reportedly calling freshman GOP members of Congress terrorists. “We wouldn’t be where we are...

Today, President Barack Hussein Obama, a few days the United States credit rating went from being a “AAA” to a “AA+” downgrade in a decision by Standard and Poor or S & P decides to give a press conference, and what surprises me to NO END when President Obama still calls the USA a “AAA” nation DESPITE this downgrade. Well I have a set of “new words” in regards to what remains of the era of President Barack Hussein Obama and it came from the Drudge Report website: “Barackalypse Now” IMHO, President Obama, because of the over-spending and over-taxing that...

SPENCER, IA -- Republican presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann said she puts "principles over party" and is prepared, if elected, to be a one-term president. "So be it," she said today.

Ideology: At the ballpark of the president's favorite baseball team, assorted Marxists and workers of the world, or at least of the Windy City, were set to gather Monday night to raise money to support the great redistributionist. President Obama hasn't alienated quite all of his base with his failure to deliver on his list of promised progressive goodies. Back home in what is only half-jokingly referred to by some as the People's Republic of Chicago those who firmly believe in his dream of spreading the wealth rather than creating more of it have rallied around his falling flag. On...

The National Republican Senatorial Committee gave $43,100 to Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch’s campaign, despite recent pleas from Tea Party activists that the organization wait until a Republican nominee is selected before supporting a candidate. New filings show that the NRSC also contributed the same amount to Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar, who is also facing a GOP primary challenge. That candidate, Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, also enjoys the support of Tea Party activists. A spokesman for the NRSC said its standard practice for the organization to give money to incumbent senators. “The NRSC would not exist were it not...

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) doesn’t yet have an official primary opponent, but he might as well be running against the Club for Growth. A nasty war of words has erupted between the two sides, setting the stage for what appears to be a likely effort by the Club to unseat Hatch next year. (snip) The Club earlier this week released ads in Utah and Indiana (where it is also considering targeting GOP Sen. Richard Lugar), urging the two men to resist raising the debt limit, while also taking some shots are their records on government spending. But as we’ve written...