Free Republic

The hard-line conservative arm of the Heritage Foundation has tough criticism for much of the 2016 field, but high praise for the Texas senator. Many of the lines in the scorecard appear destined for future attack ads.Jeb Bush, for instance, is accused of having "kowtowed to the state's environmental lobby" in Florida. Chris Christie "has shown favoritism toward well-connected real estate developers." Rand Paul's "views at times veer outside the conservative mainstream." And Donald Trump backs "massive tariffs that would damage the American economy."Cruz, by contrast, manages to emerge with barely a blemish, only softly worded critiques of his adopting...

We have exhaustively outlined the GOPe road map to insure the nomination of Jeb Bush for the Republican Presidential Candidate in 2016. While the road map is rather complex, it essentially boils down to a strategy of small accumulated delegate pickups using 15-20% electoral support. GOP candidates 3 ADVERTISEMENT Candidates George Pataki and Jim Gilmore have already been disqualified from the Alabama Primary, yet they remain in the race. Only a handful of candidates (Bush, Trump, Cruz and to a lesser extent Rubio & Fiorina) have efforts underway to qualify for ballot placement in all of the states with primary...

Fox Business Network on Thursday announced the candidate line-up for the Nov. 10 Republican presidential debates. The candidates qualifying for the prime-time, 9 p.m. ET debate are: Billionaire businessman Donald Trump; retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson; Florida Sen. Marco Rubio; Texas Sen. Ted Cruz; former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; former HP CEO Carly Fiorina; Ohio Gov. John Kasich; and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. The candidates qualifying for the earlier, 7 p.m. ET debate are: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal; and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. The criteria were different than for past...

<p>Two debates tonight on CNBC live from the Coors Event Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder.</p>

NEW YORK (AP) — Divers searching the Harlem River recovered a gun "consistent" with the weapon used to kill a police officer during a foot chase in Manhattan, the New York Police Department said Sunday. Chief of Manhattan detectives William Aubry said the weapon was found around 3 a.m. Sunday. The gun will be tested for fingerprints and DNA, as well as test fired, to determine whether it is the same gun that was used to shoot Officer Rudolph Holder in the head. "That firearm is consistent with the firearm that we were looking for," Aubry said. The police also...

Protesters flip off NYPD days after cop slay By Amanda Lozada Just four days after the on-duty murder of a hero NYPD street cop, a rally in Washington Square Park against “police terror” devolved Saturday into a raucous, law-enforcement gripe-fest. Protesters held signs reading “Rise Up! Stop Police Terror!” and “Murder with a badge is still murder.”

HOPKINTON – A casual observer could have been forgiven for mistaking the Hopkinton Fairgrounds for Iowa on Saturday. Inside an unheated, cavernous barn, more than 700 grassroots activists conducted their own presidential caucus — rounds of voting and redistributing to select a candidate who would stand up for strict conservative values. In this first-ever New Hampshire caucus, organizers hoped the new style of competition would help unify the right against establishment candidates. In the end (and in the beginning), it wasn't really close: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz cruised to the win after just three rounds of voting. Though all...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was the decisive winner in a New Hampshire caucus held by a conservative group on Saturday.The conservative firebrand took 72.3 percent of the final vote in the several-round election that eliminated the bottom two vote-getters until one candidate was left standing.The caucus was put on by the 603 Alliance, a group of about 700 conservative activists in the Granite State who met at the Hopkinton Fair Grounds to endorse one Republican candidate for president.“I am inspired by the number of New Hampshire conservatives who believe that our campaign can win,” Cruz said in a statement shortly...

Presidential candidate Donald Trump set off another political firestorm Friday after implying that President George W. Bush was to blame for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, drawing the ire of his Republican rivals.

The latest New Hampshire poll shows a far more engaged electorate continuing to be a thorn in the side of the 2015/16 GOPe scheme to anoint Jeb Bush. In addition, the ruse candidates, Fiorina and Rubio have exhausted their media-fueled surge and remain static alongside Jeb Bush at 8%.John Kasich’s ground game and almost exclusive attention to New Hampshire has garnered him a position just above Jeb, Carly and Marco. However, the vulgarians are determined to Make America Great Again!Gravis Marketing, a nonpartisan research firm, conducted a random survey of 1,035 registered voters in New Hampshire regarding the presidential election...

Of nearly 460 people who voted, about 38 percent cast a peanut for Trump. Ben Carson, a pediatric neurosurgeon, came in second with about 24 percent of the peanuts. Nearly all candidates - even Joe Biden, who has not announced whether he’ll run - found fans at the fair. Lincoln Chafee, the former U.S. senator and governor of Rhode Island, was “still looking for his first vote,” noted guest announcer Gary Black, the state’s agriculture commissioner. For that matter, so were Republicans Georgia Pataki and Jim Gilmore. For Democrats, Hillary Clinton ended the day with 64 legumes stacked up in...

PPP's newest North Carolina poll finds that Donald Trump is holding his ground- at least compared to where he was in the state six weeks ago. Trump leads with 26% to 21% for Ben Carson, 12% for Carly Fiorina, 10% for Marco Rubio, 9% for Ted Cruz, 6% for Mike Huckabee, 5% for Jeb Bush, 4% for John Kasich, and 2% for Chris Christie. Rounding out the field are Rick Santorum and Bobby Jindal at 1%, and Jim Gilmore, Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, and Rand Paul all at less than 1%. Trump's 26% is almost identical to his 24% standing...

He cited an online post he had seen from a 17-year-old gay Catholic. "The church has a lot to say about what I'm not supposed to do," the youth wrote. "But ... I couldn't find any church document (about) what a gay person is supposed to do with his life. I feel abandoned by the church." He said the church teaches much about the beauty of marriage, but then tells its gay members they "can't have this wonderful thing."

Rand Paul’s on the departure list too, insiders predict. Bobby Jindal and George Pataki are the next two quitters in the Republican field. That’s the assessment of Republicans in the POLITICO Caucus, our weekly bipartisan survey of the top activists, operatives and strategists in Iowa and New Hampshire. . A quarter of Iowa Republicans say it’s Jindal, a frequent visitor to their state, who is on his way out. "He's become desperate," an Iowa Republican said. "He's taken to attacking Trump (we know how that worked out for Perry and Walker) and has nothing going on here in Iowa." Added...

Madison (WKOW) -- A new national poll shows Governor Scott Walker polling at 0 percent in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. The CNN/ORC poll released Sunday shows there were five candidates who received less than one percent of support from likely Republican voters. Walker was among them, joined by former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, and former New York Governor George Pataki. Less than one percent equates to zero percent, statistically. The results show Donald Trump is still the front-runner with 24 percent, but has lost ground from earlier in...

On September 17, Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) told an audience at a Harlem breakfast that New York’s surging gun violence was not his fault or proof of the failure of gun control, but was thefault of states “down south.” Cuomo’s words came the day after his ex-aide Carey Gabay died from a gunshot wound he received when caught in the crossfire of gun violence. Breitbart News previously reported there were at least four shootings and one stabbing during Brooklyn’s September 7 J’Ouvert festival. Gabay was shot in the head at that festival. According to the New York Daily News, Cuomo...

With Rick Perry Out, the Culling of the GOP Herd Begins—Here’s Who’s Next By Liz Peek September 13, 2015 5:15 AM /snip Those two are easy to dismiss. Others who should withdraw will likely take more convincing. On the basis of today’s polling, Lindsay Graham is facing ultra-long odds. (A prominent London bookmaker places his chance of winning the nomination at 66 to 1, only slightly worse than John McCain, who isn’t running). A recent survey of GOP primary voters in his home state of South Carolina showed that 78 percent think Graham should drop out of the race –...

Two Labor Day Polls Portend ‘Splodey Heads For The Anti-Trump Advocates…. Earlier today Gallup released a poll showing that Trump is the most heavily favored candidate (63% Approval Rating) amid Republicans. A devastating defeat for the establishment GOP (GOPe) who are seeking to push their preferred candidate Jeb Bush. Such substantive favorable opinion of candidate Trump puts the RNC/GOPe in a difficult position as they plot to begin their collective assault against the unpalatable frontrunner. But tonight the news for the Vichy Republican crowd is infinite degrees worse. As they plot the best course of Trump’s annihilation – national polls...

In a challenging field of competitors, Fox News Channel’s Andrew Napolitano has a strong entry for the most laughable legal analysis of the Indiana religious-freedom law. In an April Fool’s Day op-ed that he evidently means to be taken seriously, Napolitano argues that state Religious Freedom Restoration Act laws are unconstitutional. Napolitano’s core claim is that the Supreme Court, in its 1997 ruling in Boerne v. Flores, ruled that the 1993 federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act is unconstitutional. In Boerne the Court ruled that Congress lacked the constitutional power to apply the federal RFRA against the states. Napolitano accurately summarizes...

GOP presidential candidate Gov. Mike Huckabee is doing quite well according to two national polls conducted after the first GOP presidential primary debate. One poll has Huckabee in second place behind GOP frontrunner Donald Trump and another poll has Huckabee listed with the highest favorability rating among 15 GOP presidential candidates; however, former neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson takes the highest net favorability rating when comparing the results in totality. A Reuters-Ipsos poll conducted August 21-25 has Huckabee in second behind Trump – the only two candidates with double digits in that poll: Donald Trump – 30.1 percent Mike Huckabee –...