Free Republic

Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) is moving to block future State Department funding and nominees unless President Barack Obama guarantees that Congress will have the authority to fully review a recently inked nuclear accord with Iran before the deal is approved by the United Nations, according to a copy of a letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Cruz, a vocal opponent of the administration’s diplomacy with Iran, maintains that the White House is seeking to circumvent congressional review of the deal by going straight to the U.N. Such a move could lift key sanctions on Iran before Congress has...

<p>C-SPAN has plans to host a forum that is open to all of the Republican candidates for president just days before a Fox News debate that will include the top 10 candidates.</p> <p>In protest to Fox's decision to invite only 10 of the GOP candidates for president (there are 15 confirmed), a group of newspaper publishers from the New Hampshire Union Leader, the South Carolina Post and Courier, and the Iowa Gazette will co-host the Voters First Forum in New Hampshire on Aug. 3, reports The Hill.</p>

The day after his national campaign roll-out, wherein he avoided any mention whatsoever of gay rights and was mum on immigration, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) was back pandering to the far right today. In response to the Boy Scouts lifting the ban on gay troop leaders, a move former defense secretary Robert Gates supported, Walker felt compelled to declare: “I have had a lifelong commitment to the Scouts and support the previous membership policy because it protected children and advanced Scout values.” Does he think children need “protection” from gay men? His wife’s cousin and his sons might want...

Sen. Ted Cruz on Wednesday raised the prospect of blocking a must-pass highway bill because the measure could be used to revive the Export-Import Bank, which expired at the end of June. Cruz, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, vigorously opposes the bank, which helps some U.S. exporters sell their goods overseas. At a news conference with other conservative GOP lawmakers and outside groups Wednesday, Cruz vowed to use “any and all procedural tools” to stop an Ex-Im reauthorization, particularly if it were attached to the highway bill later this month. “I am willing to use...

Donald Trump is meeting with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in Manhattan on Wednesday, though he claimed in an interview on MSNBC that he does not know why. “Ted Cruz called me. And I don’t know why I’m meeting him, to be honest, but I do have respect for him,” Trump said on “Morning Joe” in a wide-ranging interview in which the Republican presidential contender commented on issues foreign, domestic and everything in between. “I respect the fact that along with a couple of others, he came out and he came out very strongly and agreed with what I said on...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) slammed the policy of sanctuary cities tonight, stating that "the Democratic Party supports illegal immigration." The 2016 GOP presidential candidate said that sanctuary cities have been a "persistent problem" in Texas. "It varies in terms of how brazen it is, it's not always as brazen as San Francisco is," he explained. "But it's a problem when you have cities that are in the control of the Democrats and don't want to follow the law." Cruz said that some law enforcement officers and city officials won't cooperate with federal immigration laws and have created sanctuary cities. "It's...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) said Tuesday that the Boy Scouts of America should keep its blanket ban on openly gay leaders because the policy "protected children and advanced Scout values.” The Boy Scouts' executive committee voted unanimously on Friday to drop the ban and the issue now moves to a national executive board that will meet later this month. The proposed change stops short of requiring that all Scout groups allow gay leaders. Walker, who launched his presidential campaign on Monday, is an Eagle Scout who has long been active with the organization. His two sons, now in their...

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) warned Monday that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s dissonance with his wife on same-sex marriage could cause him to be less “active” in his opposition. “Spouses matter,” Santorum said in an editorial meeting with The Daily Caller. “When your spouse is not in-sync with you — particularly on cultural issues, moral issues — [you] tend not to be as active on those issues." Walker panned last month’s Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage nationwide as a “grave mistake” where “five unelected judges [took] it upon themselves to redefine the institution of marriage.” But while those views...

The New York Times' refusal to put Ted Cruz's memoir on its bestseller list is once again being called into question — this time by Amazon, the largest Internet retailer in the country. On Sunday, an Amazon spokesperson told the On Media blog that the company's sales data showed no evidence of unusual bulk purchase activity for the Texas senator's memoir, casting further doubt on the Times' claim that the book — "A Time For Truth" — had been omitted from its list because sales had been driven by "strategic bulk purchases." "As of yesterday, 'A Time for Truth' was...

Donald Trump has become the center of a new street art campaign, with work that can be seen all around Los Angeles. Today, Friday July 10, the Republican presidential candidate will be speaking to Hollywood conservatives at an event, and the Coalition for Humane Immigrants Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), has plans to protest. The street art campaign comes courtesy of Sabo, who has become known for the provocative and hard-hitting style with which he tackles political issues. Sabo identifies as conservative on his personal website, and has dedicated himself to producing politically incorrect street art, and his career highlights...

...Funeral services were held this evening for 32-year-old Kathryn "Katie" Steinle. Her loved ones remembering her as an avid traveller who loved connecting with people until her life was cut short a week ago. That's when Kate was shot and killed while in her father's arms. Police say by this man, Francisco Sanchez, an illegal immigrant who had been deported five times from this country and had rapped up a string of felonies while in the U.S. The San Francisco sheriff had Sanchez in custody as recently as April but released him pursuant to San Francisco's "sanctuary city" policy where...

Federal Judge Apologizes for Calling Ted Cruz ‘Not Fit to be President’ by Alex Griswold | 6:45 pm, July 9th, 2015 Richard_G._Kopf_District_JudgeA federal judge apologized Wednesday for calling Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz “not fit to be president.” Judge for the District of Nebraska, Richard G. Kopf operates a blog entitled Hercules and the Umpire. One post was bluntly titled “Senator Ted Cruz is not fit to be President,” and attacked the candidate for his proposal to introduce term limits for Supreme Court justices. The problem, as The Volokh Conspiracy‘s Orin Kerr pointed out, is that Kopf’s comments likely violated...

Fulfilling ambitions to raise a historic amount of money in pursuit of the White House, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush and his allies took full advantage of the nation's evolving campaign finance laws to collect more than $114 million in the first six months of the year. No candidate for president has benefited from so much money so early in a campaign. While the total is sure to widely eclipse the fundraising hauls of Bush's 16 major competitors for the GOP nomination, the ambitious $100 million goal — and Bush's success at reaching it on schedule — has yet to...

The New York Times informed Harper Collins this week that it will not include Ted Cruz’s new biography on its forthcoming bestsellers list, despite the fact that the book has sold more copies in its first week than all but two of the Times’ bestselling titles, the On Media blog has learned. Cruz’s “A Time For Truth,” published on June 30, sold 11,854 copies in its first week, according to Nielsen Bookscan’s hardcover sale numbers. That’s more than 18 of the 20 titles that will appear on the bestseller list for the week ending July 4. Aziz Ansari’s “Modern Romance,”...

If Google search results are any indicator, Americans want to know how the presidential candidates measure up – literally. Among the most popular candidate-related queries plugged into the Internet search engine are ones about the heights of the White House hopefuls. There's a bigger history to this curiosity, and it's been deemed the "Presidential Height Index" by political scientists, campaign reporters and the like. You see, since 1900, the taller guy has won the presidential election 19 times, while the shorter candidate has won just eight times – and that includes the year 2000 in which George W. Bush, the...

<p>Republican presidential contender Donald Trump's inflammatory comments about Mexican immigrants have stoked the ire of Democrats in the state Senate, who have introduced a measure denouncing Trump and fellow GOP candidate Sen. Ted Cruz.</p> <p>Sen. Isadore Hall III (D-Compton) has offered a resolution blasting Trump for calling Mexican immigrants "rapists" and drug-runners during his campaign kickoff last month.</p>

Chris Matthews faced off with Senator Ted Cruz tonight and confronted him about his complaint about the Supreme Court becoming too politicized. Cruz was so outraged about the Supreme Court’s recent pro-gay marriage ruling that he proposed judicial retention elections every eight years to counter “judicial tyranny.” As they talked about Supreme Court issues, Matthews asked Cruz why he would want to “put judges out there and make them politicians,” constantly trying to raise money. Cruz said he’s “reluctant” to do this, but is tired of “unelected judges” seizing major policy issues. Matthews shot back, “They seized the presidency in...

Republican Chris Christie has just announced he doesn’t want to be elected prom king of America. Whew! That’s a relief. The nation was terrified he’d put on a white dinner jacket, red cummerbund and fox trot across Iowa in patent leather pumps. Meanwhile, Democrat Hillary Clinton has got to be studying that recent CNN poll on her untrustworthiness and saying to herself: “Well, the good news is that four out of 10 Americans don’t think I’m a liar.” Jeb Bush? He doesn’t like that Confederate flag, but then, who does? And Donald Trump – the GOP’s circus geek who dukes...

Ted Cruz has methodically built a roster of state leaders to help him fire up social conservatives in the South. He may have gotten more than he bargained for. In the last month alone, three of his state co-chairs have drawn fire over comments related to everything from Sharia law to the victims of the African-American church shooting in Charleston, S.C. That dynamic was thrown into sharp relief in recent weeks, as the debate in South Carolina unfolded over whether to take down the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds. One state co-chair said the victims of the Charleston shooting...

Look closer at Donald Trump’s recent surge in the polls, and you’ll see the Manhattan mogul’s base of support is suddenly growing, but he’s taking up oxygen from the sorts of conservative candidates who have in previous years drawn the excitement and attention of conservatives. A testament to that fact: Texas senator Ted Cruz has gone out of his way to defend Trump in the wake of the firestorm surrounding the celebrity mogul’s recent comments on illegal immigrants, evidence that he is trying to elbow his way into the limelight and win the favor of the sizeable number of voters...