Free Republic

Just heard on Fox News. That is all.

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry believes many of Donald Trump's backers are having "second thoughts" about the businessman possibly becoming the Republican nominee and eventual commander in chief. "He either, he doesn't care about these issues or, I don't think he is lazy," Perry, a former 2016 GOP presidential hopeful himself told host Martha MacCallum on the Fox News' "America's Newsroom" Friday morning.

A new poll by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding shows that 10% of American Muslims think their religion should be the main source of American law. Another 27% of American Muslims believe that their religion should be a source of American law but not the only source. Only 55% of American Muslims said their religion should not be a source of American law. The poll's results show that at least 37% – and possibly as high as 45% – of American Muslims believe that their religion should be either the main source or a contributing source of...

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz will be in Phoenix Friday evening for a rally with conservative talk show host Glenn Beck. The rally will be held Friday at Arizona Christian University in north Phoenix.

Meredith Prohaska was 12 years old. Photo courtesy of WISN. The sudden death of a 12-year-old girl in Waukesha, Wisconsin, just hours after receiving the HPV Gardasil vaccine has shocked the girl's family, and sent local media out asking questions as to how this could happen. Here is a report from WISN 12 News. Dr. Geoffrey Swain of the local health department was interviewed to give the standard CDC reply, which is similar to almost every other vaccine, stating that severe reactions like this resulting in death are "very rare," and about "1 out of a million". Assuming that...

Former two-time Republican presidential candidate and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry came out of his post-candidacy retirement to speak to 2015 Values Voter Summit on Friday. "We don’t elect kings," Perry told the audience of social conservatives in Washington, D.C. "We overthrow them." "We can’t sacrifice our principles for the cult of personality. The message has always been greater than the individual," he said in a veiled reference to current GOP frontrunner Donald Trump. Perry said the country saw "righteous indignation" at Pearl Harbor and the Lincoln Memorial, but, "There is a difference between right indignation and unconstrained anger."

Jack Riley, the No. 2 at the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), signaled support for Donald Trump’s proposal to build a wall along the Southern border in a recent interview centered on hunting down Mexican drug cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. In an exclusive interview with Yahoo News, the acting deputy administrator at the Obama administration’s DEA agency, discussed why the U.S. government is invested in hunting escaped convict El Chapo, the leader of Mexico’s brutal Sinaloa cartel. Riley explained why El Chapo and his murderous criminal empire are a threat to the United States. The Sinaloa cartel has been...

Former Texas governor Rick Perry exited the presidential race on Friday in the same manner in which he conducted his second presidential race, with maturity, largeness of spirit and devotion to conservative policies that improve the lives of all Americans.

Rick Perry needed a second chance. “America is a great place for second chances,” he hinted to late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel in March, before Perry had officially launched his second bid for president. After his spectacular implosion as a candidate in 2012, Perry needed to run a disciplined presidential campaign free from gaffes, less frenzied and slapdash than his last. He needed to show Republicans, to persuade them, that this time could be different. Perry did all that. But he never got that second chance, because no one was watching.

BREAKING: AP sources: Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to drop out of 2016 Republican presidential race.

Tuesday, Rick Perry's campaign announced it could no longer pay his staffers around the country and released them to find other work. His fundraising had dried up. It's potentially an ignominious end to a noteworthy political career that spanned more than 30 years. Fundraising acumen was considered one of Perry's strong points four years ago when he belatedly announced his run for the White House and raised $17 million in the first seven weeks of his campaign. In 2015, it's a different story. His campaign is on the ropes and out of money. Not even Texas is solidly behind the...

The Rick Perry campaign took another blow it absolutely did not need. Late Monday, National Journal reported that the former Texas governor's campaign has stopped paying its South Carolina staff. By Monday night, there were reports that all paid Perry staff had been taken off the payroll, and that the campaign's top brass gave staff the green light to apply for other jobs. "Pay is only one reason people do this," Katon Dawson, the governor's South Carolina state director, told the National Journal. He told The Washington Post that "money is extremely tight" and that everyone "moved to volunteer status,"...

The news that Rick Perry has stopped paying all of his campaign staff following Thursday's debate is a sure sign of major troubles -- and could be the leading edge of the collapse of his campaign. If this is the end -- and Perry's super PAC support could well keep him on life support for a bit longer -- it would be a remarkable bit of timing: Perry entered the 2012 presidential race as its frontrunner on August 13, 2011 -- almost four years to the day when it's become clear that his second bid for the presidency has faltered...

Apparently Rick Perry's performance at the first GOP debate last week wasn't enough to keep donors writing checks. Perry, who debated in the 5 p.m. Fox News debate after missing the primetime cutoff, has apparently stopped paying campaign staffers in key early states and at campaign headquarters. From the Washington Post:Former Texas governor Rick Perry's presidential campaign is no longer paying its staff because fundraising has dried up, while his cash-flush allied super PAC is preparing to expand its political operation to compensate for the campaign's shortcomings, campaign and super PAC officials and other Republicans familiar with the operation...

I’ll quote a little but you’re better off reading the whole thing. There’ll be lots of media noise around it for the next few days, especially after Trump responds. And it’s a fine indictment of Hopenchange even apart from the Trump stuff. He’s trying to do two things here, picking a fight with the media’s favorite candidate to gain some reflected exposure and re-introducing himself to righties who disdain Trump but aren’t sure which way to go yet as an alternative. This is Perry telling Trump-haters, of which there are many, that their choices aren’t between Jeb Bush and Ted...

Former governor and repeat presidential hopeful Rick Perry could have taken one of two paths when Donald Trump called Mexican immigrants in the U.S. "killers" and "rapists." Either debunk his kookery, or pander to the same racist base. Miraculously, he did both. Erstwhile celebrity "reality" TV comedian and Trump had actually taken direct shots at Perry's record on border security. After all, in the Trump-o-verse, if there are ravening hordes coming across the border, someone has to be blamed for it. This being primary season, it's not the federal government (which has actual jurisdiction in these matters), but his primary...

In April 2011 a 16-year-old girl came to Dr Deirdre Little's surgery in rural New South Wales asking why her periods had stopped. When Dr Little investigated she found that the girl was in menopause. No cause for this could be found, and usually isn’t in 90 percent of cases of ovarian failure. But this was not just another case; the incidence of menopause developing without cause in a young teenage girl is so rare that there are no figures for it."Susan" asked if her condition could be due to the human papillomavirus vaccine (HPV) Gardasil, because it was after...

... almost apologetic for failing to recognize the warning signs that her husband was not prepared for a White House bid.

Where do we stand on this so far among the GOP field? Rubio’s a yes, Santorum’s a no, Cruz is noncommittal, Walker said he’s already attended a gay-wedding reception but not an actual ceremony. Anyone I’m leaving out? People are dismissing it as a gotcha but I think it’s interesting as a gauge of whom each candidate’s trying to appeal to. The only real surprise among the five who have already answered is Cruz, whom I would have guessed would be a “no” to please social conservatives.Free advice from Ben Domenech to the 300 Republican candidates who haven’t yet gotten...

I’m sure we’re all relieved to know that after the many media debacles in the last few election cycles, the cable news denizens have learned their lesson. This time around things are going to be different. Candidates will be treated fairly, with an opportunity to make their case before the American people while being subjected to rigorous examination of their actual record and their stated positions on the issues.Naw, I’m just kidding. Nothing has actually changed at all. And to lead off the two year parade of embarrassing media moments, MSNBC featured an interview with Texas Governor Rick Perry...