Free Republic

Liberals don't want to jinx it. It terrifies the right. And the press would prefer a nail-biter. But the fact is that finding Romney's path to victory is getting harder every day. There's a secret lurking behind everything you're reading about the upcoming election, a secret that all political insiders know—or should—but few are talking about, most likely because it takes the drama out of the whole business. The secret is the electoral college, and the fact is that the more you look at it, the more you come to conclude that Mitt Romney has to draw an inside straight...

With the possible exception of Adam Smith, no person in history is more widely recognized as ably championing free markets than Milton Friedman. Justly so: For more than 60 years until his death in 2006, he pressed the case for capitalism and freedom with impeccable scholarship, good cheer, impressive vigor and unmatched clarity. Despite his clarity, there are a handful of people whose inability or unwillingness to grasp Friedman's arguments leads them to misrepresent his writings and policy recommendations. "I conclude that Keynes's political bequest has done far more harm than his economic bequest and this for two reasons. First,...

The latest jobs report should persuade all those who worry about the president’s economic policies but find him likable that enough is enough, and that policy trumps personality when it comes to deciding who should occupy the White House. Job creation remains anemic, the unemployment rate has ticked up to 8.3 percent, and the labor force participation rate continues to fall as more and more Americans choose the couch over tramping the streets looking for work. The Labor Department sums it up: Both the number of unemployed and the unemployment rate "have shown little movement thus far in 2012." It...

Gallup has just released Barack Obama's job approval rating for the first half of 2012, broken down by state, and the news is not encouraging for the president. Obam's approval rating is below 50 percent in 37 states, ranging from a 26 percent rating in Utah to a 49 percent rating in Michigan. Obama is at 50 percent or higher in just 13 states, from a 50 percent rating in Minnesota to a 63 percent rating in Hawaii. The president is most popular in Washington DC, where his job approval rating is an astonishing 83 percent.

Indian-American Akshay Desai has been roped in by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for his outreach to Asian American community ahead of the crucial November 6 US presidential elections. Florida-based Desai, CEO of Universal Healthcare, has been made one of the seven national co-chairs of the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders for Romney community. "I am pleased and honoured to serve as a national co-chair for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders for Romney," Desai said. "As a businessman, I know all too well what it takes to make it in the private sector. When I hear President Obama tell small...

Is Kesler Dufrene Barack Obama’s Willie Horton? He should be. Remember Horton? Furloughed for the weekend from a Massachusetts prison Horton, a convicted killer, brutalized a couple, stabbed the man and raped his fiancé twice. Presidential candidate Al Gore exposed the furlough fiasco in a Presidential Candidate Debate with Michael Dukakis, .... Kesler Dufrene, on the other hand, is the direct responsibility of President Obama... According to North Miami detectives, a twice-convicted felon and Haitian illegal alien whose deportation was stayed by the Obama administration murdered three people, including a 15-year-old girl last year. Though an immigration judge ordered that...

Mr. Cleanface’s Dirty Laundry: Harry Reid’s Mob MoneyBy Fedora “I’ve gotta Cleanface in my pocket,” boasted Kansas City Mafia representative Joe Agosto, unaware the FBI was monitoring his conversation (reproduced loosely in the movie Casino). FBI surveillance of Mafia gambling operations in Las Vegas in the late 1970s picked up Agosto making references to an individual he codenamed “Mr. Cleanface” and “Mr. Gillette”. Agosto’s conversations mentioned Mr. Cleanface was close to Nevada Governor-Elect Robert List. After turning state’s evidence, Agosto claimed that Mr. Cleanface was Harry Reid, then chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission and sporting a cleanshaven, boyish look....

Among the many poorly researched articles that have written about voter-ID laws, one piece that appeared recently in Politico holds a special place. Reporter Emily Schultheis opens with the claim that “at least 5 million voters, predominantly young and from minority groups sympathetic to President Barack Obama, could be affected by an unprecedented flurry of new legislation by Republican governors and GOP-led legislatures to change or restrict voting rights by Election Day 2012.” Schultheis doesn’t say where she got the estimate of 5 million until well into the article — it’s from a Brennan Center report. And she fails to...

Today is Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, and who better to make the case for traditional values at the Republican National Convention than Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy, a man who lives them in his business and personal life and who has paid a heavy price for publicly saying so? Mr. Cathy learned the hard way what President Obama meant when he said that this election is a choice between two different visions for the country -- and by saying publicly he supports the biblical definition of the family, Cathy put himself at odds with President Obama and his Democratic Party allies on...

Wednesday marked Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day. Across the United States, conservatives gathered in chicken restaurants to show support for the company after its president, Dan Cathy, came out against gay marriage. Democratic mayors in Chicago and Boston at first threatened to halt expansion of the Chick-fil-A chain to their cities, which turned a question of sexual morality into a debate about freedom of speech. The motto of conservative Christians seems to be, "They'll take my chicken from my cold dead hand..." Writing as a European, this story combines two of the things we most readily associate with America: Jesus Christ and...

The Obama administration is widely regarded as the most lawless in U.S. history. This much you already know. Not enough votes to pass Obamacare? Bribe senators. Don’t like the Defense of Marriage law? Refuse to defend it in court. Congress won’t pass the “Dream Act” granting amnesty to a million illegals? Do it yourself by executive fiat. Don’t want to defend America’s borders? Sue states that do. Don’t like congressional inquiries? Ignore their subpoenas. Obama’s violations are so blatant and manifold that nine states have joined together to sue the federal government for its rampant lawlessness. So, now comes election...

It appears Blaze readers weren’t the only ones disgusted by the actions of Adam M. Smith, the grown man who recorded a video of himself berating a female employee at a Chick-fil-A drive-thru in Tucson, Ariz. It looks like his former employers at Vante were just as displeased: Vante regrets the unfortunate events that transpired yesterday in Tucson between our former CFO/Treasurer Adam Smith and an employee at Chick-fil-A. Effective immediately, Mr. Smith is no longer an employee of our company. The actions of Mr. Smith do not reflect our corporate values in any manner. Vante is an equal opportunity...

The Ohio Democrat Party joined the 'party' and along with the Obama for America Campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) - the 3 filed suit to reduce the three extra days the members of our military have to vote...because, you know they might be busy and might need those extra days. According to the sue-happy administration and Democrats, the Military has "no discernible rational basis" for needing extra time. That's a good argument considering Military absentee votes are seldom counted - but you have to think if you show up to vote in your own district, three days, or two...

(snip) The math is simple. In 2008, black turnout was way up. Hispanic turnout was up. Young voters flooded the polls. Barack Obama won a substantial majority (53.4%) of the vote, the largest majority for a Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson’s landslide in 1964. The white vote, as a percentage of the total vote, was down. Obama captured 43% of the white vote, the highest percentage of white votes garnered by a Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson (President Clinton also received 43% of the white vote in his 1996 re-election campaign). Fast forward to 2012. Black turnout indicators...

The Twitter Political Index BARACK OBAMA 44 (+10 since yesterday) MITT ROMNEY 26 (+1 since yesterday)

President Obama leads Mitt Romney nationally by 10 points, according to a new poll released Thursday. Obama took 51 percent compared to Romney’s 41 percent of the vote when the Pew Research Center asked which candidate people would vote for if the election were held today. That’s a much wider gap between the two candidates than most recent polls show; the RealClearPolitics national average puts Obama in the lead with an average of 3 points.

Obama, in particular, likes to be seen visiting troops and photos taken with members of our military. So, why is his campaign and the Democrat party suing to restrict their ability to vote in the upcoming election?

Eric Fehrnstrom, a senior adviser to the Romney campaign, told reporters on a conference call this morning that Obama campaign manager Jim Messina "appears" to have broken the law, based off a series of emails Messina sent from his personal account as White House deputy chief of staff Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/eric-fehrnstrom-jim-messina-obama-romney-emails-obamacare-2012-8#ixzz22PKKy5zs

Business General Motors GM profits slip 41% as European struggles take their toll America's largest car firm made $1.5bn in the second quarter of 2012, with European division reporting operating loss of $361m Share 531 Email Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk, Thursday 2 August 2012 09.25 EDT General Motors GM's CEO Dan Akerson said: 'We have more work to do to offset the headwinds we face.' Photograph: Jeff Kowalsky/EPA General Motors' profits fell 41% in the second quarter as troubles in Europe undercut strong sales in North America. America's largest automaker made $1.5bn in the second quarter of 2012, compared with $2.5bn...

Mitt Romney presents one enormous problem for Barack Obama’s campaign: No divorce records. That’s why the media are so hot to get their hands on Romney’s tax records for the past 25 years. They need something to “pick through, distort and lie about” — as the Republican candidate says. Obama’s usual campaign method, used in 100 percent of his races, has been to pry into the private records of his opponents. Democrats aren’t going to find any personal dirt on the clean-cut Mormon, so they need complicated tax filings going back decades in order to create the illusion of scandal...

America is all about private enterprise, and without leadership that believes in the primacy of the private sector, it can’t succeed. The U.S. Commerce Department reported Friday the U.S. economy grew only 1.5 percent in the second quarter, down from 2.0 percent the previous period. Consumer spending slowed under the weight of growing pessimism about the effectiveness of U.S. President Barack Obama's economic program and a growing sense that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won't unseat him. The president leads in polls in most swing states and the president has made clear his intention to double down on interventionist economic...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said that the burden of proof is on Mitt Romney to prove that he hasn’t evaded paying his taxes, despite the legal principle that a person accused of a crime is “innocent until proven guilty.” Reid accused Romney of what amounts to tax fraud, but he doesn’t think he to provide evidence for the charge. “I don’t think the burden should be on me,” Reid told reporters on a conference call, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal. “The burden should be on him. He’s the one I’ve alleged has not paid any taxes....

The Romney campaign announced Tuesday that it will alert Mitt Romney's supporters of his pick for vice president via smartphone app, renewing speculation about a potential VP and Mr. Romney's timeline for announcing the decision. The great mentioning game for the Republican vice presidential slot has featured the same few names over and over: Tim Pawlenty, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, Mitch Daniels, Rob Portman, even Condoleezza Rice. But there's a candidate that Romney should be considering, someone who could help him with the Jewish vote, gain him support in a crucial swing state, and give him an exciting...

In what could be a portent of things to come, the media is already playing games with numbers in Florida. As has been widely reported, a new New York Times/CBS News/Democratic National Committee poll has Barack Obama pulling away from Mitt Romney in three battleground states. (Well, okay, there's no proof that the DNC actually paid for the poll, but, given the rather questionable results, it might as well have. Although it's kind of redundant to list the DNC anyway, given the two sponsoring media organizations.) The survey purports to show that Obama has reached the suddenly magical number of...

“It’s been like this since 6:00 AM.” It was 8:15 PM. The employee had a tired but sincere smile on his face as he went from car to car, already a block from his restaurant, thanking customers for both their patience and their support. Chick Fil-A Appreciation Day has apparently taken on a life far greater than anyone could have envisioned, and according to reports pouring in from around the country, the Bible-respecting chicken franchise has had to call in off-duty staff in an attempt to keep up with the hordes of people flocking to the store. Out of...

Barack Obama has not proven that he is a natural born citizen, but admits that he was born with dual citizenship because his father was a Kenyan native. A dual citizen cannot be a natural born citizen. After a 10-month investigation, Sheriff Joe Arpaio has concluded that, not only is the Obama birth certificate image a forgery, but so is his selective service registration. The penalty for not registering disqualifies an individual from employment in the Executive Branch of the federal government. . . . You can help. We The People are the remedy of last resort. We cannot wait...

With just three months to go in the election, President Obama’s campaign manager faced a fusillade of questions Wednesday about whether he deliberately skirted disclosure rules during his time as deputy White House chief of staff, undermining the administration’s claim to be “the most transparent administration in history.” A House Energy and Commerce Committee report released Tuesday revealed several emails from senior White House aides sent from private addresses, as well as email correspondence about meetings with lobbyists purposely scheduled off campus to avoid official records. Jim Messina, then Mr. Obama’s deputy chief of staff, sent one particularly embarrassing email...

[snip see website] Obama for America’s website advertises Alderman Moreno’s [Government] office as a place to volunteer and make phone calls for the president.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: There's a new poll out. CBS/New York Times. Quinnipiac University. CBS and the New York Times are using a new pollster. And, folks, they are having an orgasm over this poll out there today. It's a poll of battleground states, and of course the end result shows Obama way up in all these battleground states. It's exciting. They can't wait to tell everybody about it. Except there's a problem. They do not break down the sample in the story. Neither the New York Times nor CBS let the reader know the partisan identification of the participants in...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Barack Obama donating to himself, ladies and gentlemen. From The Politico: "In an e-mail to supporters --" You know what a lot of people are noticing? There are constant e-mail appeals from Obama to his supporters for money. And these e-mails are getting more desperate. They are. They are occurring much more frequently and even Obama supporters are getting nervous. Every day there's a new appeal, and some of them are really weird, like forgo your wedding gifts and ask your guests to instead send the equivalent money to Obama. That was real. It didn't work. "In...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: James Carville. You remember Brian Ross and George Stephanopoulos tried to tie the Tea Party to the mass murderer in Aurora, Colorado. Brian Ross, first thing out of his mouth, (doing impression) "George, we got big news here. There's a Tea Party member with the same name." "Really? That could be big, Brian." "Yeah, George, it could be really big. We're not sure, we don't know for sure, but it could be, George, that the mass murderer at The Dark Knight Rises is a member of the Tea Party." The Daily Beast had a headline back in...

The stunning Texas victory of Ted Cruz, a young Tea Party-backed Republican over an establishment candidate vying for a Senate seat, has already so emboldened the insurgent conservative movement that activists are warning Mitt Romney he had better get on board. "These guys [newly elected Tea Party candidates]" are going to force Romney to the right," said Andrea Shell, a spokeswoman for Tea Party group Freedom Works. "That is our entire mission." His victory is the latest in a string of Tea Party candidates to tap into anti-establishment frustration within the Republican Party and overcome the steep odds and deep...

Politicians use their e-mail lists to continually hit their base with requests for donations. Everyone who puts their name on a political list expects to see those e-mails on a constant basis, usually tied to the news cycle. Michele Bachmann's campaign is particularly adept at this, with missives that start by saying something like this completely hypothetical opening sentence: "Senate Democrats passed a tax increase on job creators last week, so it's more important than ever to have me in the House fighting for our economic health." That kind of moment-to-moment marketing approach both uses potential flash points to encourage...

I think this is probably my first vanity post here and I've been here for a while. I thought maybe this was worth posting though. There's a popular gun control e-mail letter that shows up every now and then and discusses the relationship between gun control and various (primarily left wing) government genocides. I thought it might be fun to include a greatly expanded version of this letter which includes pictures and links to supporting documentation which helps to, well, support the veracity of the original letter. Here is one version of the original letter:1-----Nazi Germany established gun control in...

President Obama's message to entrepreneurs that "you didn't build that" prompted one Georgia business owner to respond with a not-so-subtle retort. "I built this business without gov't help. Obama can Kiss my ass," reads the sign outside Gaster Lumber & Hardware in Savannah, Ga. Owner Ray Gaster posted that and two similar ones at all three of his company's locations in response to Obama's comments during a speech to supporters in Virignia, which struck a nerve with small business owners around the nation.

Juan Williams: He's (Mitt Romney) had a rough couple days here. John Sununu: Yeah, he had a rough week. Obama gets endorsed by Hugo Chavez and Mitt Romney gets endorsed by Lech Walesa. That's a rough week, isn't it? Let's get right down to it. Let's start up with the little dust up in England. Can you imagine the scandalous exhibitionist newspapers in England criticizing an American presidential candidate for saying exactly the same thing that those same newspapers had in their own headlines the week before? Come on. The American press hand-in-hand with the British press is making something...

In the wake of the tragic ‘Dark Knight’ attack in Aurora Colorado, the media and gun control advocates (but I repeat myself) seem determined to push the Democratic Party into renewing its push for more gun control. And there is no shortage of Democratic candidates willing to oblige regardless of the damage it might do to their party this fall. While President Obama and his advisors see the political dangers of such legislation in a tough election cycle, the Democratic leadership in the Senate seems unable to contain themselves. Following on the heels of an amendment to the Cybersecurity bill...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: So a bunch of reporters start shouting questions at Mitt Romney in Poland. We have the audio this coming up in due course. A bunch of reporters start shouting at Romney. He's very, very close to their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. And one of Romney's press people starts shouting at the reporters. (imitation) "Shut up! This is a holy site for the Polish people. Kiss my butt." He told the reporters to shove it. So now they're all over this guy. He eventually called and apologized. Now, it wasn't long ago that this guy, Neil Munro,...

Republicans on Tuesday accused the White House of trying to “intimidate” defense companies into keeping silent about major job losses if automatic military spending cuts take effect early next year, after the administration said Monday that it would be “inappropriate” for employers to warn workers of layoffs. Defense industry officials were caught in the middle, trying to weigh the requirements of a federal law that says they must give employees 60 days’ notice before major layoffs versus the Labor Department, which said Monday that it doesn’t believe the law applies in this case. “The stakes are very high and there...

"...for the President to bow to the money, as Judas did with Jesus Christ, is a disgrace and we are ashamed. We will not take it back. We will not back down. We are going to take action across this country to change the course that this President has us in.”

Contemplating a Post-Pelosi HouseWho Would Take Up Leadership Mantle in Her Wake? By Jonathan Strong Roll Call Staff July 31, 2012, Midnight Facing an uphill battle to reclaim the House in November, many Democrats are speculating whether Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi might leave Congress after the elections and are wondering what sort of fallout the leadership structure would face if she did. While the California lawmaker’s intentions are essentially unknowable — her top aides had no idea she would stay on in the wake of Republicans winning the House in 2010, when it was widely expected she would step down...

Tea party-backed Ted Cruz has defeated Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.

Lech Walesa told Mitt Romney he must be successful in November. U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney (R) and his wife Ann (L) meet with former Polish President Lech Walesa in Gdansk, Poland, July 30, 2012. (REUTERS/Kacper Pempel) Anti-communist leader Lech Walesa told Mitt Romney today that he must be successful in the November elections not just for America but for the rest of the world too. The former Solidarity leader understands how the economic decisions by US leaders influence global markets.The Washington Post reported: “I wish you to be successful because this success is needed to the United...

I got into writing and thinking about politics because I was told there would be no math. Boy, was I misled. It’s not just the torrent of polls that we have to deal with, but the numbers that supposedly forecast Presidential elections with uncanny accuracy. Depending on whom you turn to, the key lies in second quarter real GDP growth, the optimism or pessimism of the electorate, individual or family real income growth or a dizzying mix of these and other measurements. They’re usually economic, although one prognosticator—Allan Lichtman, history professor at American University—uses broader measurements, asking whether the incumbent...

This week, the U.S. House will vote to prevent the most damaging aspects of Taxmageddon from taking effect on January 1, 2013. Below is a comprehensive resource list of all the economic studies showing how many jobs Taxmageddon will kill, and what Taxmageddon will do to damage economic growth: According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, President Obama’s income tax proposal would force 940,000 taxpayers with business income (that is, owners of small- and medium-sized businesses) to pay higher taxes at top marginal rates of 36% or 39.6%. CBO CBO Analysis: “Under those fiscal conditions, which will occur under current...

Presidents running for reelection are hard to beat. Since World War II, a period over which Democrats and Republicans have each occupied the White House about half the time, incumbents have won reelection 70 percent of the time. Other things equal, a clear advantage for Obama this year. On the other hand, it is accepted political wisdom that the state of the economy is what matters most for voters. Fairly or unfairly, the president gets the credit for good times and the blame for bad. Obama initially got high marks for moving aggressively to stop the economic freefall he inherited....

This listing has all the Republican races today http://enr.sos.state.tx.us/enr/results/july31_162_state.htm

With just 100 days left until the U.S. presidential election, investors are beginning to make bigger bets on which candidate will carry the day. One analysis concludes that last week's sharp three-day market surge can only mean that Wall Street is banking on a victory from Republican Mitt Romney. That's the logical interpretation one can draw from a rally amid conditions that otherwise would demand a selloff, Morgan Stanley chief U.S. equity strategist Adam S. Parker said in an analysis that asserts there is no other reason now to like stocks than a Romney win.

July 30, 2012 EXCLUSIVE: PALIN STARS IN TV AD FOR MISSOURI SENATE CANDIDATE SARAH STEELMAN Tony Lee Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will star in a new television ad for Missouri Senate candidate Sarah Steelman, Breitbart News has learned. The ad will begin to run statewide on Monday and can be seen below. (go to link) In the ad, which is titled “Momma Grizzly," Palin, who recently endorsed Steelman, says “we can get American back on track by sending true conservatives” like Steelman to Washington. “Sarah is an economist who defends our tax dollars like a mama grizzly defends her...

Congress must admit their culpability in this. They faced a Presidential candidate with credentials based almost entirely on two autobiographies full of composite characters, errors, and outright fiction. Rather than step up and do their job, the Democrat-controlled Congress failed to properly vet their candidate’s fairytale narrative. Now the chickens have come home to roost and Congress is desperately evading the issue while trying to sustain the illusion of themselves as defenders of the Constitution.