Free Republic

Orwellian fun via RCP. You trust a guy who openly admits his only loyalty is to the immigrant community to do what’s best for the country at large, don’t you? The fireworks come in the last minute although I’ll be candid and confess I don’t really understand what the point of disagreement is. Hannity says we should secure the border; Gutierrez replies that securing the border won’t stop ISIS operatives, who are more likely to enter the U.S. through airports than by sneaking across from Mexico. (Jihadis with British or, of course, American passports wouldn’t even need visas.) Could be,...

Everybody knows there is no real leader in the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. But ask voters an open-ended question — Whom do you want to be the nominee? — and the range of answers can be breathtaking. That's what I did in an unplanned and totally unscientific way on my Twitter feed Tuesday afternoon. On Monday evening I posted a piece about Mike Huckabee's preparations for another run for the nomination in 2016. Twitter reaction to Huckabee was almost entirely negative: Nobody, or at least nobody reading my tweets on a Tuesday afternoon, seemed to like the...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had a pretty simple response to to Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) claim that a proposed constitutional amendment intended to reverse the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision could put "Saturday Night Live" creator Lorne Michaels in jail. Here's Pelosi on NBC's "Late Night with Seth Meyers" reacting to a clip of Cruz making the claim on the Senate floor: Cruz said the amendment applies to SNL because NBC is a corporation, and the late-night show has had influence over elections. He called the proposal -- which would give Congress and states more power to...

Suddenly NBC's "Meet The Press" matters again, and when new host Chuck Todd joined me on Friday's radio show (see transcript) two of many reasons why became obvious. First, Todd had booked James Baker (former secretary of state and treasury, White House chief-of-staff, and W's Florida strategist during 2000's epic recount) to talk about whether or not an international coalition could be assembled by President Obama to battle the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The Baker booking was shrewd, and more will be forthcoming. Also shrewd was Todd's analysis of the Romney 3.0 boomlet which had been the subject...

After coming in third in the Iowa caucuses in 2008, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton does not have much love for Hawkeye State Democrats. The feeling, it seems, is mutual. Over the weekend, Clinton traveled to Iowa to attend retiring Sen. Tom Harkin’s (D-IA) “steak fry,” an event which has become an institution in the pivotal Midwestern electoral battleground. NBC News sent Andrea Mitchell along with her where the reporter spent some time speaking to prospective Democratic caucus-goers. Mitchell found what so many know in their hearts to be true: Clinton’s support among Democrats is a mile wide and...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)During a Q&A with CSPAN, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) discussed comments he has made many time in in the past claiming the Tea Party is motivated by racism because they are the old Dixiecrats from mainly Southern states Rangel said he was told not to talk about race anymore saying, "So people said please don't bring up that race thing anymore."(continued)

After winning the presidency, Andrew Jackson sent a message to Congress suggesting that the office be extended to six years but limited to one term. His message caused wild speculation that the first “people's president” would not seek a second term. That led to a dramatic Jackson proclamation, in a letter to Pennsylvania Democrats, that the “call of the people” trumped his “personal inclination” and he could “not refuse to serve them.” The truth is, he was never not going to run. Jackson may have been the first Democrat to be elected as president. But his secretary of State and...

After being stiff-armed by Democrats on a liquor-tax dispute, Costco execs have shifted their loyalties to Republicans in this year’s state Senate races.When it comes to politics, Costco Wholesale has a well-deserved reputation as a Democratic-leaning corporation. Company co-founders Jim Sinegal and Jeffrey Brotman have hosted President Obama at fundraisers in their lakefront mansions. Costco executives have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates and causes over the past decade. But in the key battle for control of the state Senate this year, top Costco brass — miffed at Democrats over a liquor-fee dispute — have essentially switched...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — In front of a boisterous pub crowd of young voters here, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) ripped into President Obama over executive overreach and even vowed to repeal “all previous executive orders” in one of his first acts as president, should he run. Paul’s comments came to the New Hampshire chapter of Generation Opportunity, a national grassroots conservative group with a libertarian appeal with thousands of young liberty-minded activists nationwide engaged through it. Paul focused much of his remarks on executive overreach by President Barack Obama, saving some of his most interesting points for a question-and-answer...

Hillary Clinton is heading to Iowa as the politician that most Democrats would choose as their 2016 presidential nominee. According to a new CNN/ORC poll, 53% of all registered Democrats contacted in Iowa said they would support Hillary Clinton if the 2016 caucuses were held today. That number far outpaces the 15% that would opt for Vice President Joe Biden, 7% who would choose Sen. Elizabeth Warren and 5% who would pick Sen. Bernie Sanders. Clinton will be visiting Iowa for the first time in six years on Sunday when she headlines the last Harkin Steak Fry. Biden, likewise, will...

In the wake of ISIS’s beheading of Americans, acts which the White House rightly said it considered terrorist attacks upon the nation, it could be considered crass to discuss the domestic political implications associated with the threat the Islamic State poses and the president’s planned response to that threat. It is, however, an election year, and there are political connotations associated with Barack Obama’s breakfast cereal, let alone an issue nine in 10 Americans are nervous about. It is just remarkable uniformity of opinion which is beginning to fray and will present a challenge to America’s elected leaders. The Islamic...

Ron Paul ✔ @RonPaul VOL Contributor @michaelcmarion shares his thoughts on the anniversary of 9/11 and why it's important to oppose war http://bit.ly/1ty0Hxl 3:00 PM - 10 Sep 2014 27 Retweets 16 favorites Here is an excerpt from the three-paragraph article, published on Ron Paul’s Voices of Liberty website: It will be an immense dishonor to those dead Americans that the U.S. government will continue to commit the moral equivalent of 9/11 against others equally as innocent, equally as precious. It will be a disgusting display as they continue to try to convince us to excuse the deaths of innocents...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney -- a longtime journalist before he joined the Obama administration in its infancy -- is back in the media game as a political analyst for CNN. We caught up with Carney on Wednesday, in the hours before President Obama addresses the nation to outline his plan for dismantling ISIS, the brutal terrorist group that's roiling Iraq and Syria. A former White House insider, Carney had insight into how the President and his team are preparing for such a major address. But he also riffed on the state of the news media, the "not...

Michigan's primary elections were last month and for a young progressive who loves all things political, it was Christmas in August for me. As a member of LaunchProgress PAC's Candidate Advisory Board, I was excited to support our Michigan candidates Jon Hoadley, Stephanie Chang, and Kristy Pagan who won big on August 5, and Rebecca Thompson, a strong LaunchProgress candidate who was just 500 votes shy of winning her election. But still, I'm haunted by the text message I received the afternoon of the primary, "Today are elections? Wasn't Obama just re-elected?" Sadly this is the reality our country lives...

Worth posting not because Cruz actually intends to try to shut down the government before the midterms but because Democratic leaders and lefty media will gorge on the mere possibility. Now that amnesty’s dead until November, they need something to goose their base. Another shutdown scare will do nicely. The tea party hero, who aggressively pushed the anti-Obamacare strategy that spurred last year’s 16-day government shutdown, has seized on immigration executive moves from the Obama administration as the root cause of the border crisis this summer. Although Obama said this weekend that he would delay any executive actions on immigration...

In a closed-door meeting with the House Republicans, former Vice President Dick Cheney placed the blame for ISIS, Hamas, and the multiple Islamist groups proliferating in the Middle East, on the shoulders of Barack Obama. During the meeting, which was confirmed to the Daily Beast‘s Ben Jacobs by multiple congressmen, Cheney accused Obama of “facilitating the Muslim Brotherhood” with his policies. According to Rep. John Fleming (R-LA), Cheney said Obama “has actually done things that have supported the Muslim Brotherhood,” which spurred “the beginning of all the Islamist groups that we’re dealing with now like Hamas and ISIS.” Anticipating Obama’s...

The Congressional Black Caucus took to the House floor Monday night to condemn the shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo. last month. Monday was the first legislative sessions since Brown, an African American teenager, was shot and killed by a white police officer on August 9. Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), who represents Ferguson, said that deaths like Brown’s had become too common. "This much cannot be disputed: Across America today, we have too many Michael Browns. We have too many unarmed black men who interact with police and wind up dead," Clay said. "The resolution...

For several years Rand Paul, the junior senator from Kentucky and the son of presidential candidate Ron Paul, has been one of the most interesting politicians in his party and in congress as a whole. At a time when new ideas have become increasingly scarce, and the policy bandwidth increasingly narrow in Washington, Mr. Paul, whether speaking about US intervention and foreign policy or more recently about militarization and the police, has been one of the few politicians with views outside of his party’s mainstream. With the 2016 presidential election approaching, this has made Mr. Paul one of the most...

A fresh round of clues arrived this week from two Republican lawmakers who are regularly asked about their desire to pursue their party's nomination in 2016. While each cited different reasons, both Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas say they're now more interested in running. Rubio says the current Senate gridlock is limiting his ability to advocate for the kind of policies he sees as critical for moving America forward and that the White House might be a better place for that. "I'll have to make a decision in 2016 either way, because I'm up...

America’s two great political parties are constantly transforming themselves, sometimes in small increments, sometimes in sudden lurches. They respond to cues sent to them by voters — which can range from attaboy! to fuhggedaboutit — and to the initiatives of party leaders, especially presidents. But when the other party has held the White House for an extended period, the transformation process can be stormy and chaotic. Which is a pretty apt description of the Republican Party over the past few years. Its two living ex-presidents, the George Bushes, withdrew from active politics immediately after leaving the White House, and its...