Free Republic

In a wide-ranging interview with The Huffington Post's Howard Fineman, Glenn Beck took the opportunity to again blast conservatives critical of his decision to greet the recent wave of underage illegal immigrants with toys and hot meals. "I don't understand those who cannot see the plight of children," Beck told HuffPo. The border issue is one example. Beck took heat from fellow conservatives for his decision to distribute large amounts of relief supplies through churches and other organizations in McAllen, Texas, to undocumented children caught at the southern border. Sen. Cruz was at his side. Beck's view is that the...

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Nearly a week since Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), igniting a nationwide debate about whether the controversial law invites discrimination based on sexual orientation, most potential Republican presidential candidates have taken the opportunity to bolster their conservative credentials. "Governor Pence has done the right thing," said former Florida Governor Jeb Bush on Monday. “I want to commend Governor Mike Pence for his support of religious freedom, especially in the face of fierce opposition,” Texas Senator Ted Cruz said in a written statement. “Governor Pence is holding the line to protect religious liberty in the...

U.S. Senator Rand Paul is running for president … in fact, he announces his candidacy next week in Louisville, Kentucky. From there he travels to early voting Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina – including a big fundraiser in the Palmetto State the day after he announces. As we write this, money is being collected. Speeches are being vetted. He’s 100 percent in … and not only that, Paul is one of the few candidates in the race with (we believe) a path to victory. And one of the few candidates (we believe) to be worthy of real consideration. Is...

1. Rand Paul is strong among libertarian Republicans and anti-war isolationists on foreign policy. 2. Ted Cruz is strong among pro-life evangelicals and those in favor of a hawkish interventionist foreign policy. He is also favored by those who see the elimination of Obama Care as a priority. 3. Scott Walker, as a governor, is favored by those who want someone with executive experience. He stood up against public sector unions, just like Reagan stood up against the air traffic controllers. The unions forced a recall election against Governor Walker but lost. Scott Walker is also favored among supporters of...

The sweeping re-election of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie proves moderates are an integral part of the Republican Party, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky says. “There’s room in the Republican Party for moderates, like Chris Christie. They seem to be the only ones that are winning in the Northeast,” Paul told “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV. “The other thing that might happen in the Northeast if we had a little more libertarian-leaning Republicans, they would have a chance in the Northeast. But there’s room for moderates, like Chris Christie, and he’s got a place in the party.” …

Former Rep. Ron Paul said he believes the U.S. government had prior knowledge of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and has kept this information hidden in a classified section of the 9/11 Commission report. Paul, who made the comments during a radio interview last Friday, also argued that the crimes of Osama bin Laden were “minor” compared to the harm the U.S. government has caused since the 2001 attacks. “I believe that if we ever get the full truth [about 9/11], we’ll find out that our government had it in the records exactly what the plans were, or at least...

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has a Ron Paul problem. Or maybe it's a Ron Paul opportunity. Both sides of that particular coin were on display Friday, when Ron - Rand's father - spoke to the International Students for Liberty Conference in Washington, DC. It was the elder Paul's kind of audience - young and enthusiastic about the libertarian emphasis on robust individual freedoms and miniscule government. Crowds like this had fervently supported the former congressman's quixotic bids for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and 2012, where he proved to be a pesky participant in the debates and a headache...

Senator Rand Paul is calling for a declaration of war against the Islamic State, a move that promises to shake up the debate over the military campaign in Iraq and Syria as President Obama prepares to ask Congress to grant him formal authority to use force. Mr. Paul, a likely presidential candidate who has emerged as one of the Republican Party’s most cautious voices on military intervention, offered a very circumscribed definition of war in his proposal, which he outlined in an interview on Saturday. He would, for instance, limit the duration of military action to one year and significantly...

In last June’s Mississippi GOP runoff, liberal Republican Thad Cochran engaged in mass election fraud to defeat conservative primary challenger Chris McDaniel. Team Cochran paid thousands of African-Americans $15 per vote, and planted stories in liberal media outlets alleging McDaniel of having ties to the KKK. Cochran narrowly defeated McDaniel in the primary, and went on to win the general election. On Monday, Rand Paul urged conservatives to “get over” any hard feelings… “There are still some hard feelings…have to get over it. It’s hard when you run a race and you don’t win. Ahead of Paul’s visit, Mississippi Tea...

And now for a lighter moment from last night’s debate, or at least the weirdest moment. Jim Hoft calls this Ron Paul’s Checkpoint Charlie moment, but it’s really more like an apex of Paul’s paranoid band of libertarianism. In this exchange, Paul opposes building a border fence because he doesn’t believe it represents American values, which is a fair enough argument that one usually hears from Democrats. He then tips over into hilarity when he suggests that the US government might use it to stop Americans from fleeing to, er, Mexico:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO I immediately noted on...

Rep. Ron Paul has a problem with the idea of a U.S. border fence.“The people that want big fences and guns, sure, we could secure the border,” the congressman noted. “A barbed wire fence with machine guns, that would do the trick. I don’t believe that is what America is all about.” “Every time you think about this toughness on the border and ID cards and REAL IDs, think it’s a penalty against the American people too. I think this fence business is designed and may well be used against us and keep us in. In economic turmoil, the people...

The Daily Caller has learned that Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul is endorsing Sen. Mitch McConnell for re-election in 2014, ending speculation that Paul would back a tea party challenge to the Senate minority leader. “Rand Paul has endorsed McConnell,” Jesse Benton, McConnell’s 2014 campaign manager, told The Daily Caller. Benton, who has worked for both Rand Paul and his father, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, is credited by insiders with brokering Paul’s support for McConnell. The move quashes a determined effort by Kentucky Republican Liberty Caucus chairman David Adams, who launched Paul’s Senate bid and served as Paul’s campaign...

Many people expected to see a Tea Party challenge to Mitch McConnell in next year’s Kentucky primary, and it could still happen. However, that challenge will not include any support from the Tea Party’s 2010 candidate for US Senate, Rand Paul. Late yesterday, Paul threw his support behind the highest-ranking member of the GOP establishment in the upper chamber: The Daily Caller has learned that Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul is endorsing Sen. Mitch McConnell for re-election in 2014, ending speculation that Paul would back a tea party challenge to the Senate minority leader. “Rand Paul has endorsed McConnell,” Jesse...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) hates Sen. Mitch McConnnell so much that when a constituent asked him why he supports McConnell’s reelection campaign, Paul refused to answer and told the questioner to talk to him privately. According to the Glasgow Daily Times: After addressing about 30 people who turned out to hear him, the senator opened the floor for questions. One constituent asked him why he came out in support of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Louisville. Paul declined to answer the question publicly, saying he would speak with her in private and explain his reason for supporting the senior senator. The answer...

With Republicans in Congress split over the best approach to Obama's executive amnesty - and with many establishment Republicans splitting form grassroots Republicans on the issue of illegal immigration more generally - it's clear that immigration will be a hot-button primary issue in 2016. ... So where do the potential candidates stand? Here's a rundown: ...

In a recent speech, Senator Rand Paul urged an audience of conservatives to embrace judicial activism. According to Paul, judicial activism is a good thing because it advances liberty and furthers conservative goals. Legislatures do “bad things,” Paul argues, and judicial activism is helpful to stop that: Judicial activism can overturn liberal laws such as Obamacare and the employment laws at issue in Lochner v. New York. According to Senator Paul, there is “a role for the Supreme Court to mete out justice.” As a result, he considers himself a judicial activist in debates over Locher, the New Deal in...

If Rand Paul wants to have any chance of running for the Republican nomination for president in 2016, not to mention the presidency itself, there is one thing he needs to do immediately. Tell Dad to shut up. In response to the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, Ron Paul took a break from his usual blame-America-first rhetoric to blame France first. On an internet television show, Paul the Elder declared, “France has been a target for many, many years, because they’ve been involved in foreign affairs in Libya, and they really prodded us along in—recently in Libya, but they’ve been...

I try to ignore Ron Paul and his spawn as much as humanly possible but sometimes the doddering old fraud just goes too far. As a recap, Muslim terrorists, or at least everyone in the world thinks they are Muslim terrorists except the Obama administration, stormed the offices of a Parisian magazine that happens to poke fun at Islam and its Mohammed. People were killed. What lesson does Ron Paul draw from this? The French had it coming:(VIDEO-AT-LINK) “But in the context of things, France has been a target for many, many years, because they’ve been involved in foreign affairs...

Occupy may be gone, but it is clearly not forgotten. The people protesting Eric Garner’s death in New York City were marching to a slightly different drum beat in 2011, but they seem to have returned, having learned something from their previous mistakes.