Free Republic

Is Nikki Haley a true conservative, an establishment politician or something else entirely? That’s the question many conservatives have been asking since Haley officially announced she is running for president in February. Haley served as governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017 and as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President Trump. We can’t recall another Republican politician who has garnered such a mixed response from conservatives. Almost everyone in the conservative media and public policy world seems to have an opinion about Haley. But once pressed to explain the reasons behind those opinions, very few seem prepared...

While running for president, Joe Biden campaigned as a lunch-pail-carrying, blue-collar moderate from Scranton, Pa. But during his short tenure in the White House, Biden has proven himself to be a far-left champion of bureaucracy, reckless government spending and the centralization of economic and political power. The most recent example is Biden’s nomination of Cornell law professor Saule Omarova to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a branch of the Treasury Department. Omarova is a controversial choice. Born in the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan, Omarova was educated in the Soviet Union, graduating from Moscow State University...

Thanks to President Donald Trump’s slashes to the federal government’s Obamacare advertising budget and his administration’s “sabotage” of Obamacare, hundreds of thousands of clueless people have been left in the dark and aren’t enrolling in Obamacare—at least, that’s what countless reporters and pundits would have you believe. However, the truth is this issue is far more complex that what many on the Left suggest.There’s no doubt that 2019 Obamacare enrollment has dropped compared to enrollment figures from one year ago. The Associated Press reports enrollment in the federal Obamacare exchange—the health insurance exchange used by 39 states—has fallen by nearly 20...

At the start of his presidential campaign in April, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was raking in millions of dollars in campaign contributions and appeared to be the favorite candidate of choice for many conservatives. Long before Donald Trump stole the spotlight, Cruz was drawing more praise and contempt (depending on who you spoke to at the time) from Republicans and the media for his unwavering commitment to traditional conservative values and the Constitution.It was an exciting time for many of his supporters, but in my mind, I thought the huge wave of support for Cruz was a death sentence for...

Politics today seems to be dominated by an “either you’re in or you’re out mentality.” If you’re a good Republican, a good Christian, and a good conservative, then you really can’t support gay marriage—at least, that’s what I’m constantly being told. “We can’t redefine an institution that’s been around for thousands of years,” opponents of marriage equality say. “To do so would be to radically transform the way society has always understood marriage. That’s just not what conservatism is all about.” But is that really true? It seems to me the heroes of the modern conservative movement— individuals such as...