Free Republic

Includes Former NHGOP Secretary Diane Bitter, 2010 Gubernatorial Candidate and Former NHGOP Chairman Jack Kimball, and 2014 Gubernatorial Candidate Andrew HemingwayMANCHESTER, N.H. - Presidential candidate Ted Cruz today at a press conference in Manchester named 70 more people to his New Hampshire leadership team, which now totals 177 New Hampshirites located all across the state actively working to elect Ted Cruz for President. Among the new members are former NHGOP Secretary Diane Bitter, 2010 Gubernatorial Candidate and former NHGOP Chairman Jack Kimball, and 2014 Gubernatorial Candidate Andrew Hemingway.Previously announced leadership team members are listed here and here. Newly announced leadership...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Donald Trump are neck-and-neck among likely Republican presidential primary voters in Texas, according to a new poll.Cruz and Trump each receive 27 percent support in the University of Texas/Texas Tribune survey released Thursday, followed by Ben Carson at 13 percent.Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) follows at 9 percent, while Jeb Bush, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Carly Fiorina each take 4 percent.Cruz also leads as the second-choice candidate for voters there with 19 percent, while Trump is the second choice for 15 percent. Carson is also the runner-up pick for 19 percent.Bush tops the list of...

Sanders wins backing of American Postal Workers Union, his largest labor endorsement. WASHINGTON (AP) — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders secured the endorsement of the 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union on Thursday, marking the largest labor union to back his Democratic presidential campaign. The union's decision gives Sanders a boost heading into the second Democratic debate in Iowa on Saturday and comes as the Vermont senator has sought to halt a string of labor endorsements to Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton...

That the freshman senator from Texas had a good night onstage at the latest Republican debate surprises nobody anymore — Ted Cruz is poised, articulate and smart. He's gaining ground in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, and he's positioning himself to capture supporters from Donald Trump or Ben Carson, should either falter. There's still a long way to go in this contest, but Cruz and his campaign are well-funded, well-organized and confident in his ability to outlast and overtake his rivals. Cruz's success is rooted in the idea that there's no such thing as too conservative, both inside...

He said it last night during the debate, then he said it again this morning on MSNBC — both times in the context of a question about the minimum wage, it should be noted, although I think he’s talking about all wages here. His point is about global competition: If you want to sell goods more cheaply than China, you’re going to have to cut labor costs as part of that. Cutting the wages of the least-skilled workers while letting everyone else’s rise won’t solve that problem by itself. Watching him give this answer reminded me of Dave Weigel’s interview...

America is exceptional, as Tocqueville observed. There are many reasons for this, but among them is the fact that we are a nation of immigrants...

Two weeks ago, after the CNBC GOP presidential debate, I predicted that the GOP presidential race would become a contest between Ted Cruz, the owner of the movement conservative lane and Marco Rubio, the winner of the center-right lane post (http://politickernj.com/2015/10/abreakthrough-night-for-ted-cruz/). Today, one day after the Fox Business Network Milwaukee GOP debate, it appears that there are many pundits who now have my same outlook on this contest. The Cruz-Rubio race will be distinguished by a sharp foreign policy distinction: Ted Cruz is a Reaganite, and Marco Rubio is a Neocon. Neither Cruz nor Rubio is an isolationist like Rand...

Republican presidential candidate Lindsey Graham told Newsmax TV Tuesday that rival Ted Cruz was "well positioned" to eventually win the nomination if Ben Carson dropped out of the race. "If something happened to Carson, some of the voters would go to Cruz," the South Carolina senator told "The Steve Malzberg Show" in an interview. "At the end of the day, you've got four or five people who would be really good candidates. "I include myself in that list, but how do you beat Hillary Clinton? You have to get more votes than she does."(continued)

At the Florida Democratic Party Convention, held October 30-November 1, Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz claimed, “The Florida Democratic Party is back and better than ever.” Also back, it would seem, is the national party’s misguided emphasis on gun control. Speaking at a convention event held at the Walt Disney World Yacht and Beach Club Resort, Wasserman Schultz launched into an anti-gun screed aimed at getting members of her party to more fervently pursue gun control. According to the Orlando Sentinel, Wasserman Schultz demanded, “Democrats! We must close the gun show loophole! Democrats! We must require background checks...

Back in the early days of the 2014 football season, the Green Bay Packers were 1-2. Fans were upset. Head management started updating their resumes. Things were not looking good. After receiving a loss at the hands of the Detroit Lions — yes, you can understand the Pack’s frustration — quarterback Aaron Rodgers told the cheesehead faithful to "R-E-L-A-X." Rodgers calmly told the media and Green Bay nation everything will be all right. And he was right. The team finished 12-4, captured first place in the NFC North and went to the NFC Championship. Now, segueing back into an arena...

Carsons chief competitor for the Republican presidential nomination at the moment is billionaire former reality television star Donald Trump, who has not been shy about attacking and ridiculing his opponents throughout the campaign. On Sunday, however, across multiple telephone interviews with talk shows, Trump adopted the tone of a concerned colleague, suggesting that he is genuinely worried about Carson, whom, he said, he has come to consider a friend.

Ben Carson is a brilliant surgeon, a man highly motivated by his faith and conviction, and on the literal opposite end of the spectrum as Trump when it comes to being loud and obnoxious. But he’s still not going to win us the presidency. He suffers from the same problem all political outsiders do; he has no experience on presentation and confrontation. For example, he’s lost his latest round with the liberal media badly. Yes, the MSM has engaged in a terrible campaign to broadside him and his campaign, and yes, I find their double standards concerning our candidates and...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is the latest GOP presidential candidate to jump on 2016 frontrunner Ben Carson's theory that the pyramids were created by the biblical figure Joseph to store grain. "I'm really big into conspiracy theories, so I think they were probably built by the aliens as grain silos, don’t you think," Paul joked, when asked about Carson's idea on 1110AM WBT, as reported by Buzzfeed. Carson has defended the idea that the pyramids were built for grain storage -- not as pharaohs' tombs, as modern archaeology holds -- since Buzzfeed recently unearthed a video of the neurosurgeon making...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-11-04/democrats-lost-the-war-for-staying-power

A Democratic-proposed gun ban would prohibit some of the most highly-rated hunting rifles and shotguns, ban most pistols, and require Wisconsin residents who owned so-called “semiautomatic assault weapons” to turn their guns in to the government. State Rep. Lisa Subeck and three other Democratic state lawmakers are proposing a sweeping ban on rifles, shotguns and pistols they deem dangerous because they are “designed to kill large numbers of people quickly.” Legislative attorneys – known as Legislative Counsel – confirmed to state Rep. Dave Craig (R) that the loosely written ban does not contain a grandfather clause, meaning owners of prohibited...

And to think that over the last eight or so years, the basis of Chris Matthews show was to make whites look like racists. And plenty of footage to prove it. But now, how will Chris Matthews explain the immense popularity of Ben Carson with millions and millions "Average White Americans". If there is a cable news host who would be at the top of the "Most Embarrassed List", it would be Chrissy for 7/8 years of trying to convince his audience of 42,000 viewers that all conservatives are racists and hate black people, right?

There’s a reason Bush, Kasich and other establishment Republicans aren’t gaining traction. Their conservatism no longer makes sense. There is an air of desperation out there on the GOP campaign trail. It’s impossible not to sense it in the kinds of things being said by teetering establishment Republican candidates like Jeb Bush and John Kasich, both of whom started off the last debate virtually pleading with base voters to come to their senses about Donald Trump, who is barely identifiable as a conservative by any standard measure of ideology. Not to mention Ben Carson, whose views sound like a grab...

Hillary Clinton visited Chicago on Monday, where she met with the family members of victims of gun violence. Among the group were the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Michael Brown and Tamir Rice, young African Americans whose high-profile shooting deaths have sparked national outrage, widespread protests, and heated conversations about race relations and police brutality. Lesley McSpadden, the mother of slain Ferguson, Missouri, teenager Michael Brown, called the private meeting with the Democratic presidential hopeful "intimate and powerful."(continued)

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Thursday he is on board with participating in a hypothetical Black Lives Matter presidential forum, saying it would be a good idea for the Republican Party to take issues of criminal justice reform seriously. "If we were smart, we would do it," the GOP presidential candidate said during an interview on NewsOne Now. "They are drawing attention to issues that need to be drawn to." Both the Democratic and Republican National Committees have agreed to promote presidential town halls set up by Black Lives Matter activists. But the movement's organizers have pushed back against the...

MADISON –Today, Representative Subeck (D-Madison), along with Representatives Terese Berceau, Melissa Sargent and Chris Taylor, circulated an Assembly bill that would ban the transportation, purchase, possession, or transfer of semiautomatic assault weapons in Wisconsin. “Our nation has watched as community after community has had to confront the tragedies that occur when weapons designed to kill large numbers of people quickly get into the hands of a dangerous person,” said Representative Lisa Subeck. “No Wisconsin community should ever have to face such a tragedy at the hands of someone armed with a semiautomatic assault weapon.” Semiautomatic assault weapons are a class...