Free Republic

Thanks to Professor Jacobsen of Legal Insurrection and Dan Riehl of Riehl World View for their timely and informative posts. First of all, I'll share a conversation I had with a Democrat in Michigan yesterday. She asked me why she had only heard of Rick Santorum within the past week. I answered that because of party politics and money-on-hand of the candidates other than Romney, the rest of the candidates are having a difficult time getting their name across. "Well, I don't like that Romney, he's buying the election," she said, "and I'd vote for Santorum but everything about him...

Pope John Paul II, surveying from his seat in the eternal hereafter the battle between the American Catholic Church and the Obama administration over mandated contraception services, must be permitting himself a sad smile. The pope knew more than most about the innate tensions between the state and its citizens. The Obamaites will object that it is unfair to liken their government to the Communist Party of Poland. That is not the point. What the former Karol Wojtyla knew is that any state will claim benevolence on behalf of doing whatever it thinks it needs to do in pursuit of...

Conservatives are incessantly browbeaten into "softening their message", "moderating their stances", or "moving to the middle" (i.e., to the left) in order to win over the so-called moderates and independents of the electorate. President Ronald Reagan, the greatest conservative of our generation, didn't believe in soft-pedaling conservative principles and values.

Tuesday is the Colorado Republican Caucus. Please quit calling my phone. Stop it! Now! It's out of hand with all the calls. I'll go the the caucus all right, to make sure I give the local party members an ear full....

The British and their colonial quislings once mocked American patriots with their song, “The world turned upside down.” In the First American Revolutionary War we stuffed their smug arrogance down their throats and turned THEIR world upside down by defeating them at Yorktown. Now as the patriots of today we have to fight a Second American Revolution and turn Barack Obama and his quisling Republicans’ world “upside down” by electing Newt Gingrich. In the first Revolution only a third of us were willing to fight for our freedoms. Our enemies were the British and about a third of our fellow...

Has anyone in the conservative spectrum thought about the best campaign slogan for Republicans? And one that will backfire on the protestors and their Democratic allies. How about this: OCCUPY THE WHITE HOUSE Vote Republican

Three weeks ago, E.J. Dionne (or "Baghdad Bob," as James Taranto has called him) saw nothing but doom in the GOP's future, as "the Republican establishment ... is essentially powerless," having surrendered its soul to the evil Tea Party, which has driven the country to hell. Events since have proved this judgment mistaken: The establishment lives, and is doing its duty; part of the Tea Party has been merging with it; and the "system" is working as planned. What are the signs that the system is working? When the prospect of former House speaker Newt Gingrich as the presidential nominee...

Northeastern, milquetoast Republican “moderates” who toil long and hard to avoid the social embarrassment of association with uncivilized, conservative inhabitants of flyover country must understand that we in the Party base are NOT willing to graciously lose the 2012 election. If Karl Rove, George Will and Peggy Noonan wish to escape the disapproving gaze of haughty Hamptons friends by mocking every Republican candidate who vaguely appeals to conservatives, let them. This time around, we who actually appreciate living and working in a free, prosperous United States are not going to surrender our ideals to the “wise counsel” of RINO elites...

As for Thursday night’s debate: I think Newt Gingrich made a fatal error by appearing to patronize Michele Bachmann. This clearly angered Michele and, come show time, she exacted revenge. Let’s go, as they used to say, to the videotape (or at least the transcript). The issue was abortion. Bachmann was railing against Newt for supposedly refusing to defund Planned Parenthood when he was Speaker of the House of Representatives back in the 1990s. Worse yet, she charged, Newt had pledged to “campaign for Republicans who are in support of the barbaric procedure known as partial-birth abortion. I could never...

by James Lewis, staff writer George W used to call Karl Rove a nickname that always puzzled me. Let’s say — it’s a fresh flower growing in a Texas cowpat. It seemed a little bit rough even by Texas standards. Now I think I get it. Karl Rove is a smart policy guy, and unlike the Obama Democrats who never met an anti-American Marxist or a radical Muslim they didn’t like, he is not an ideological throwback to 1848. Unlike Obama, Rove would not agitate to overthrow every Arab regime in the Middle East — along with the Israelis, who...

A new report from the Media Research Center (MRC) focusing on the type of questions the media asks Republicans underscores the deep bias reporters have against religious people. A Republican candidate has been asked by reporters if God told her to run for president. Other reporters have questioned whether another candidate’s having led a prayer rally was constitutional. Still other reporters, feigning genuine curiosity, have asked another Republican candidate about statements against Mormonism made by a pastor whose church he attended. Nevertheless, if you’ve heard of a reporter asking any of the Congressional Black Caucus members who have converted to...

The Republican Party hacks, the old line lost leaders who appear to cooperate with the Democrats to help conservative candidates lose Primaries and General Elections, got exposed for what they really are this week. In some staffer’s mistake (or was it), a Yahoo News Reporter allegedly heard the old has-beens warn against “Making personal attacks against President Barack Obama.” Yahoo’s Rachel Rose Hartman says they warned on their private conference call that to attack Obama personally would be “too hazardous for the GOP.” Read this to say to the Tea Party crowd and other conservatives who ask if Obama is...

I took some grief on the recent NR cruise by telling the group that I thought Mitt Romney would lose to Barack Obama rather handily. That for some mysterious reason Obama continues to have relatively strong personal-approval numbers and a substantial, reliable base, which Romney doesn’t. As a typical standard-issue Republican, Romney wouldn’t have the heart or the courage to take the fight to the president, but instead would debate around the edges, and lose. If this is to be believed, that’s the actual strategy: Republicans on a private Republican National Committee conference call with allies warned Tuesday that party...

Late Sunday night, I received an email indicating Donald Trump just may be getting back in the race to unseat Obama and take back our beloved land! “We firmly believe that Donald Trump is the best choice for President and have been encouraging him to run,” says the action alert from a group of grassroots Patriots out of Costa Mesa, CA. This is one strong businessman that the media won’t destroy like the outsider we saw bite the dust last week! Trump’s theme of TIME TO GET TOUGH, the theme of his blockbuster book, is starting up this second Trump...

Besides his stunning leap in yesterday’s Rasmussen Iowa poll, Newt Gingrich is surging in a few national polls and sagging badly in at least one Iowa poll. What the final numbers will show in Iowa remains to be seen. Nevertheless, aside from his “paper serving” episode with one of his ex wives there are a few additional very important items in Gingrich’s past – some not very far back – that demand a closer look. Gingrich has been tagged by Willard Romney as the inspiration for Romneycare and eventually Obamacare’s requirement for a individual health care mandate which would require...

Former Bush appointee and conservative commentator Tara Wall is set to release a new documentary examining the relationship between black Americans and the Republican Party. The film, “Souled Out: The Documentary,” looks at how the GOP went from being the party of Lincoln to one that a majority of blacks avoid. “This used to be the party for black Americans and it is not anymore, why is that?” Wall wondered aloud in an interview with The Daily Caller. “So we are examining that, first from a historical perspective, and then where it has brought us today.”

No group had less influence on the 2008 nomination of John McCain than the conservative base of the Republican Party. Throughout the second term of the Bush presidency, Democrats and their media flacks attacked and maligned the Administration and by extension the entire Republican Party. And as Karl Rove and George Bush had so completely and irresponsibly bought into the leftist-touted “new tone of D.C. civility,” no response was made to this perpetual and disingenuous assault though it severely damaged GOP chances of retaining the White House. As a result, the only sort of nominee given a chance by Party...

Ok guys … Is this just a minor thing? Or a big deal? I’ll let you speculate on what it means …. Here’s the news reported by the Sarah Palin Blog: I was walking through the grocery store earlier today when I received a text message from a close friend asking me if I had taken note of the change on Sarah Palin’s Facebook page.  I confessed that it had been an exceptionally busy day and that I had not looked at Palin’s page today.  My friend then brought to my attention that under the “Info” link, Palin’s political views...

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” Mark Twain (attributed) Recently, Herman Cain made the comment that, “Many African-Americans have been brainwashed into not being open-minded, not even considering a conservative point of view.” For this statement he was vilified, especially by the black liberal establishment. It may have been imprudent for him to say, especially if he wishes to garner a significant portion of the black vote, but it is the truth. Blacks have been brainwashed by the myth of the Southern Strategy. There was a point in our history...

Over the years I have come to the conclusion that many of our political and social problems here in the U.S. and in Europe stem from the fact that over the last 250 years we have misunderstood, misinterpreted and misapplied the teachings of Adam Smith and Charles Darwin. These failings apply equally over the centuries to those who have purported to be their followers as well as to their critics. Moreover, these failings intertwined to fuel diabolical military, political and social misadventures that cursed the world from the 1930s and through the 1960s. But this is not a post about...

The following is an excerpt from Ulsterman's most recent interview with The Washington Insider, who boldly states that the Democrats have launched a program to interfere in Republican nominating politics. "The race card, the racial thing – whatever it’s gonna be called, it is the number one asset this administration believes it has to win in 2012. Their own polling data has shown that to be true over and over again. But how far are they willing to push that?...if Barack Obama doesn’t win re-election, watch them stand back while the riots break out, and watch them mouth the words...

Sid Dinerstein was elected Vice Chairman of the Republican Party of Palm Beach County in 2001 and in December, 2002 was elected Chairman, a position he holds to this day. _________________________________________________________ What do drunk drivers, hospitals and hurricanes have in common? They remind us why we buy insurance -- auto, health and homeowners. What’s interesting about insurance is that we buy it hoping to lose the money we paid for it. Imagine hoping for a car accident so that you can get paid back more than you spent. (When my car got hit by lightning, the insurance company paid $18,000...

Overwhelming dissatisfaction with the direction in which our country seems to be heading, and mediocre approval ratings for President Obama, should provide plenty of opportunity for Republican presidential candidates to find traction. But a new CBS News/New York Times poll suggests the current field have a long way to go to impress the nation's conservative-minded voters. While Republicans are more enthusiastic than Democrats about the presidential elections in 2012, Republican voters remain entirely un-enthused by their current options -- they're still waiting for one of the field to step up and shine, or for a new face to spring from...

As the season of presidential politics 2012 unfolds, I’m struck by similarities between today and the tumultuous period in our history that led up to the election of Abraham Lincoln and then on to the Civil War. So much so that I’m finding it a little eerie that this year we are observing the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. No, I am certainly not predicting, God forbid, that today’s divisions and tensions will lead to brother taking up arms against brother. But profound differences divide us today, as was the case in the 1850′s. The difference...

Yesterday we evaluated three arguments proffered for why Obama is supposedly in great shape for his re-election: history, the economy and polling. Today we will look at three additional arguments: turnout, the Republican field and money. Argument 4: Changes in Demographics and Turnout Will Aid the Democratic Cause. There is no doubt that the 2010 election results were driven in part by a drop in Democratic enthusiasm. Thus, the 2012 electorate will doubtless be younger, more Democratic, and less white than the 2010 elections, unless Democratic enthusiasm is hyper-depressed once again. The relevant question, however, is "how much younger, liberal,...

Two sets of official numbers that were released this month should make California's Republican Party leaders – if they exist – very nervous. First were the results of the 2010 census that confirmed anew the state's incredible demographic and cultural change. California's rapidly aging white population, an overwhelming majority a few decades ago, has now dropped to scarcely 40 percent, while the rapidly growing Latino and Asian populations are now more than 50 percent. The second set of numbers was a new voter registration report, showing Republicans dropping to 30.9 percent, their lowest level in recorded history, while rival Democrats...

Now fewer than five members of the Texas State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) were on hand to supervise the election of Galveston County’s interim chairman after John LeCour resigned from the post last week. Tensions were high leading up to the meeting and many people were expecting fireworks which thankfully never came. The meeting was called to order by GOP Secretary Kathy Rogers who appointed Janis Lowe as temporary chairman as per state election guidelines to elect a new chairman. Lowe skillfully led the meeting and did an admirable job placating the standing room only crowd which overflowed into the...

I got a solicitation call from the RNC last week and I think I finally got off of their roles as a "card carrying" member. I had donated small amounts in years past, but have forcefully informed them since 2008 that I don't support their candidates and platforms anymore. Anyway, they asked me during the recent call if I consider myself a Republican or a Democrat. I told them "neither." So they pigeonholed me as an "independent." Does it sound like I'm off the hook?

I remember the celebration among real taxpayers after the November 2010 elections. Happy days are here again and the Republican led House of Representatives will save the country. Really? One of the first consequences was a “deal” with the devil where the Bush tax cuts would be continued in exchange for extending unemployment benefits for 99 weeks through December 2011. The news from March 9th told us that 35% of the total wages and salaries comes from government payouts. From CNBC.com: Government payouts—including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance—make up more than a third of total wages and salaries of...

With the seriatim retirement announcements of Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Democratic Senator Kent Conrad, and independent Senator Joe Lieberman (who caucuses with the Democrats), the 2012 campaign for Senate has officially kicked off. While the 2010 races were, until fairly late in the game, only about breaking the Democrats' filibuster-proof majority, 2012 will feature a full-on battle for control of the upper chamber. While it is still too early to make any real predictions, we can break these seats down into categories of competitiveness. Democrats clearly start out with more vulnerabilities than Republicans, largely as because (a) Democrats have...

....Is very simple: Grow a set of Spauldings. I'm not saying this out of spite (yet), I'm giving the new Republicans in the House and Imperial Senate some friendly (for now) advice. Grow a set, you're definitely gonna need 'em. The United States is teetering on a complete and total breakdown, both politically and economically. Our country is at war. Our country has sociopathic, murderous dictators that seek to destroy it. Our economy can no longer produce any useful goods. Our money is becoming as worthless as a Keith Olbermann monologue. Terrorists seek to murder innocent Americans and yet, the...

<p>In the Republican Party, the fracture over issues concerning homosexual individuals revealed itself more clearly in the vote for repeal of the 17-year-old "don't ask, don't tell" policy that prevented gays from serving openly in the military.</p> <p>Of the eight Republican senators who voted for repeal, five are among the youngest in the upper chamber - and they're not all moderates.</p>

Republican Party Chair Candidates to Debate Pro-Life Issues Washington, DC -- The candidates seeking the critical post of chairman of the Republican Party will participate in a debate next month that will partly focus on pro-life issues, including abortion. http://LifeNews.com/nat-6912

Voters in the Nov. 2 election chose the business-friendly Republican Paul LePage for governor and put both the House of Representatives and the Senate under GOP control for the first time since the 1973-74 session. Republicans now control the House 78-72 and the Senate 20-14, with one independent serving in each chamber. “I’m hoping they create more jobs and make it more friendly for small business. Mainers like to work,” said Jason Pratt of Augusta, who works two jobs as a cook. Pratt said he doesn’t care which party gets the credit, “as long as they do the job they...

The State Capitol here will undergo one of the most marked shifts in the nation after this month’s election, from Democratic dominance to Republican control. But another remarkable change is coming: Representative Jeff Fitzgerald was picked to be the next speaker of Wisconsin’s State Assembly, and Senator Scott Fitzgerald was chosen as majority leader of the State Senate, creating a rare fraternal alignment, experts say, for any state in recent memory. While all sorts of relatives have served at various times in state legislatures (including husband-and-wife teams, siblings and, after this election, a mother-and-son duo among New Hampshire’s lawmakers), the...

With the incoming Congress looking for accomplishments, here's one the Republican majority should take up immediately: immigration reform. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Republicans are its natural champions. The GOP led the way in 1986 and 1996, when partial immigration reforms were enacted. And a Republican Senate, with the support of President George W. Bush, passed comprehensive reform in 2006, only to see it die in the House. . . . The best approach is a gradual and targeted legalization program that serves our economic needs. For skilled workers, employers should be in the driver's seat to identify who is most...

As Republicans enjoy a massive victory on Tuesday, party leaders should not misunderstand the message of the public. They should not feel too comfortable about their large margin of victory. Indeed, the GOP will be on a very short leash. If they return to the big government Republican policies of George W. Bush, their reign of power will be incredibly short-lived. During the Bush years, the Republicans in Name Only (RINO’s) were in charge. In that era, a budget surplus turned into $458 billion in deficits, the government added entitlement programs like Medicare prescription drugs and social spending exploded with...

After a big victory in legislative elections, Republicans will likely challenge President Barack Obama on a range of foreign policy issues, questioning his approach to the Middle East, China, Afghanistan and nuclear arms control. With voters focused on the country's troubled economy, international crises and the nine-year-old war in Afghanistan were largely ignored in the election campaign. But armed with a majority in the House of Representatives, Republicans are expected to use their new platform to portray Obama as weak on national security, soft on China and ambivalent about Israel, experts said. "Congress sets the temperature for a lot of...

(English-language translation) New York - Salsa artist Willie Colón's political prediction for tomorrow's congressional elections in the United States is that the Democratic Party will lose most of its seats. He says this will be so as a consequence of the disappointment Americans, and the Hispanic community in particular, feel because Barack Obama's administration has not been capable of delivering what was promised. "The Democrats will suffer many losses. They promised a lot and have done nothing. The economic situation is difficult, and unemployment keeps wreaking havoc," the artist stated during an interview with the Inter News (INS) agency. To...

BATON ROUGE -- Lt. Gov. Scott Angelle said Tuesday that he has changed his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican because of his dissatisfaction with President Barack Obama and the administration's recent actions on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Angelle, who has served as Gov. Bobby Jindal's Department of Natural Resources secretary and chief liaison to the Legislature, said he grew disenchanted with the Democratic Party's philosophy of dealing with energy matters, especially the moratorium on drilling that followed the Deepwater Horizon explosion that claimed 11 lives and spilled millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf and...

"I don't want to be in Washington another six years and watch the Republican party betray the trust of the American people again. I mean, we had the White House. We had a majority in the House and the Senate. We voted for more spending and more earmarks. Most of our senior members seem to be focused on taking home the bacon. I'm going to be in a Republican party like that and that's not what the Republican Party is across America," Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) told FOX News.

Yesterday, I visited DC's memorial to the 8th Republican president. In contrast to Barack Obama, Theodore Roosevelt did not consider himself above, or better than, the American people. Roosevelt would have agreed with Tea Party activists who refuse to be silenced by the Democrat media: "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." Theodore Roosevelt still speaks to Republicans today: "Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural...

Tom Tancredo has moved within 4 percentage points of John Hickenlooper in the governor’s race, moving the race to “toss up,” according to the latest poll from Rasmussen Reports. Tancredo, who left the Republican Party to run on the American Constitution Party ticket, has 38 percent of the vote to Hickenlooper’s 42 percent. Support for Republican Dan Maes slipped again, and he now stands at 12 percent, Rasmussen reported. Ever since former GOP Congressman Scott McInnis’ candidacy imploded, Hickenlooper, the Democratic nominee and Denver mayor, has been in the lead in the governor’s race. However, he has generally remained in...

Grand Old Partisan salutes Dwight Eisenhower, born this day in 1890. Though the Democrat leadership offered him their party's presidential nomination in 1952, General Dwight Eisenhower declared himself a Republican and contested for the GOP nomination. His administration opposed the Democrats’ segregationist policies...

The Great Recession has done wonders for the Republican Party. Two years after being tossed out of power at every level, it's about to waltz right back in, kicking aside the corpses of Democrats foolish enough to go along with the designs of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. This is good news for most conservatives. It's slightly worse news for a smaller group of conservatives—namely, the ones who spent the end of the '00s explaining why a Republican comeback like this was not really possible. Take, for example, Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, whose 2005 Weekly Standard cover story, "The...

Republican Party senate and gubernatorial candidates in California and Delaware are too conservative to win and, therefore, must rethink their electoral strategy. No, I donÂ’t mean theyÂ’re politically or philosophically too conservative; thatÂ’s not the problem. Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman in California, and Christine OÂ’Donnell in Delaware, are all perfectly fine, mainstream conservative candidates with broad electoral appeal. But theyÂ’re running stale, boring and conventional political campaigns in heavily Democratic states. And theyÂ’re expecting to be carried into office come November on the strength of the impending GOP wave. That wave is shaping up to be mighty strong. However,...

On this day in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln (R-IL) issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Effective at yearend, all slaves in Confederate-controlled territory would be "forever free."

On this day in 1876, Robert Ingersoll (R-IL), a former state attorney general, told a veterans organization: "Every man that loved slavery more than liberty was a Democrat... I am a Republican because it is the only free party that ever existed."

Grand Old Partisan salutes Carl Schurz (R-MO), who arrived in the United States on this day in 1852. The Prussian-born Schurz became a leader of the German-American community in Missouri and entered politics as a Republican. He was a delegate to the 1860 Republican National Convention, where he supported Abraham Lincoln for the nomination. President Lincoln appointed him ambassador to Spain. A year later, Schurz became a general in the U.S. Army during the Civil War. In the summer of 1865, Schurz traveled throughout the post-war South. His report on conditions during the administration of Democrat President Andrew Johnson outraged...

It is vital for the future of our nation that the Republican establishment reconcile with the Tea Party movement. The way for the GOP leadership to do that is to recognize that the Republican Party began as a Tea Party movement... Submission to the grand leader and astroturfing – that is, fake grassroots activity – for the Democrats it’s the same old same old. In contrast, the Republican Party began as a truly grassroots movement...