Free Republic

---snip--- Sen. Rand Paul is in step with his party on most issues. He’s pro-life, a big backer of gun rights, a small-government conservative and he’s an unabashed critic of President Obama and Hillary Clinton. And yet, Paul is again in the spotlight talking about his disagreements with his own party. For months, Paul has been focused on reducing criminal penalties for drugs. Last week, he blamed GOP hawks for the creation of ISIS. Now, he has succeeded in pulling off a one-man blockade of the Patriot Act. Like his other views, Paul’s stand is no doubt sincere and he...

Rand Paul is in trouble. At least, it looks like Rand Paul is in trouble. When answering questions about fundraising posed by Politico last week, spokesmen from both the official campaign and America’s Liberty PAC couched on their actual numbers. PAC spokesman Jesse Benton may have revealed much more than he intended when he said, “Results to date have been solid and give us lots of room for optimism as we continue. We also know this is a marathon, not a sprint.” Oof. Marathon-not-sprint is never where you want to be when other candidates are charming the multimillionaires who make...

Popular Sen. Elizabeth Warren, still being urged to run for president, is calling Republican White House hopefuls Sen. Ted Cruz and front-runner Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker "scary," two potential presidents that could undo a decade of Democratic policies. "Just the thought of a possible President Ted Cruz or President Scott Walker is scary," she warned in an email to supporters. "But here's something even scarier: A President Ted Cruz or President Scott Walker with a Republican-controlled Senate – confirming extremist judges, repealing health care and financial reform, and rigging the system even further for the rich and the powerful," she...

Senator Ted Cruz represents, in many ways, the extremes of the current field. He was the first candidate to enter the race. According to 538 he is also more conservative than any other major candidate this cycle as well as every post-Eisenhower Republican nominee. He even makes Ronald Reagan look downright moderate when you start comparing stances. Unlike Dr. Ben Carson there isn’t much of interest in Cruz’s early life. He was born to an American mother and Cuban father in Canada, which can be off-putting for Tea Partiers who spent the last decade arguing about President Obama’s citizenship. Cruz...

Former U.S. senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole believes a governor, not a senator, will win the 2016 Republican nomination for president. “I think it’s going to be a governor,” Dole said Thursday after a commemorative event at Forbes Field. “I don’t know which one.” Two former governors have announced they will seek the Republican nomination: Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, and George Pataki, former governor of New York. Several other current and former governors are considering a presidential run, including Jeb Bush, of Florida; Rick Perry, of Texas; Scott Walker, of Wisconsin; Chris Christie, of New Jersey;...

RINDGE - Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas laughed off Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's "capitulating Canadian" tag after a gathering at Franklin Pierce University Friday night.The new ad by the America Liberty PAC spins the U.S. Senate's upcoming session tonight for a vote on the USA Freedom Act as "the biggest brawl for liberty, of the century."The Kentucky senator is plugged as "The Defender of Freedom, Senator Rand Paul." The Texas senator is pegged as one of many "so-called-conservative accomplices" to President Barack Obama's assault on privacy rights as the "capitulating Canadian." "Well, I have say, I chuckled,...

Washington is paralyzed by extreme political rhetoric that creates powerful sound bites but poor policy. The big legislative updates that we need to compete in the 21st century and to raise living standards have been blocked by a reluctance to seek common ground. With Washington already broken, the last thing we need is a left-wing version of the tea party. But I am worried about where some of the loudest voices in the room could take the Democratic Party. Rejecting a trade agreement with Asia, expanding entitlement programs that crowd out other priorities and a desire to relitigate the financial...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)’s America’s Liberty Super PAC is out with a new ad attacking Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as a “Canadian” who supports President Obama on domestic surveillance extensions in the Patriot Act. The extreme-style smackdown ad features Paul as the shirtless hero of a Sunday brawl in the Senate over the NSA and the right to privacy. Featuring a picture of Cruz with Obama and the backdrop of a Canadian flag, the ad calls the Texas Senator a “capitulating Canadian” who is “backing Barack’s bill.” Technically, the ad is not endorsed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)'s campaign, but...

Apparently Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is unfamiliar with the old story about the frog and the scorpion, otherwise the man who fancies himself a sage at legislative maneuvering would have been better prepared for the political manipulations of his Kentucky GOP cohort and alleged good friend, Sen. Rand Paul. In the story, a scorpion asks a frog to ferry him across a river. The frog is understandably reluctant, fearing the arachnid might decide to sting him. The scorpion promises to refrain, noting that the sting would lead to the demise of both of them. So the frog consents. Sure...

When Sen. Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky brought floor action on the Patriot Act to a standstill early last Saturday, he underscored the challenge that Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has with his three ideological freshman senators seeking the presidency. The other two senators are Ted Cruz (R) of Texas and Marco Rubio (R) of Florida. As presidential aspirants, they have broken with GOP tradition and are not patiently “waiting their turn” for a shot at the Oval Office. According to longtime congressional observers, such lawmakers have no Senate tradition or deep love of the institution. Senator Paul’s campaign slogan,...

Reigning 2012 Iowa caucus victor and former Sen. Rick Santorum is expected to announce another presidential bid Wednesday, jumping into a 2016 Republican field crowded with candidates just like him — socially conservative current and former U.S. senators. And though Santorum was in many ways the prototype for the wave of tea party lawmakers who went to Washington in 2010 — brash, unapologetically conservative, disliked by his Senate colleagues — he must now distinguish himself from opponents molded in his likeness while simultaneously grappling with issues that defined the Republican establishment a decade ago but look different today, such as...

Ater a lengthy debate, the Senate approved a contentious bill on Friday that would grant President Obama the power to speed up passage of trade deals, but a tougher battle is expected in the House. The 62-37 vote to give the president so-called fast-track authority is a big boost for his top economic priority, bringing him closer to his goal of forging an ambitious Pacific free-trade accord known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. “Today’s bipartisan Senate vote is an important step toward ensuring the United States can negotiate and enforce strong, high-standards trade agreements,” Obama said. “I want to thank senators...

With a call for “open rebellion” against the program, Senator Rand Paul (shown, R-Ky.) held the Senate floor for ten-and-a-half hours Wednesday in opposition to extending provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act that allow the National Security Agency to collect billions of telephone records and and electronic messages every day. "We should be in open rebellion, saying, 'enough is enough, we're not going to take it anymore,'" Paul said of the NSA’s “metadata” program. Calling for “a thorough and complete debate,” the first-term senator asked: "Do we want to live in a world where the government knows everything about us?...

Sen. Lindsey Graham will run for president, he told CBS This Morning Monday. “I’m running because I think the world is falling apart,” the South Carolina Republican said. “I’ve been more right than wrong on foreign policy.” He added that his top priorities will be working with Democrats to “go after [radical Islamists] before they come back here again.” Graham joins an increasingly crowded Republican field, which includes Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, and Rand Paul.

The American Conservative Union released its congressional scorecard for 2014 today, providing instant fodder for Republican primary contests — and some head-scratching for Florida Democrats. Of the three Republican senators running for president, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz retains conservative bragging rights with a 100 percent score for 2014 and 100 percent lifetime score. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul aren’t too far behind however. Both got 96 percent ratings for 2014 and have lifetime conservative scores of 98 percent....

With over a dozen hopefuls for the republican nomination in the 2016 presidential election, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is the least likely to pull support from the GOP because of his overly conservative politics. A telephone poll conducted by ORC International in April that surveyed 435 republicans found only 7 percent of potential voters in favor of Cruz—sixth place on the list of republican hopefuls led by Jeb Bush with 17 percent. Deporting immigrants, denying climate change, fighting gun-control and opposing gay marriage are issues that may all seem consistent with republican agendas, but when they are being pushed by...

Sen. John McCain, the man that gave us President Barack Obama by running the most anemic, ineffective campaign in modern history, has decided to constantly interfere in this election cycle, demeaning any principled conservatives in favor of establishment Republicans that share his failed ideological viewpoint. McCain’s recent comments in regards to Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Rand Paul, both of whom are running for the Republican nomination for president, are clearly indicative of his desire to give his best effort to destroy any and all principled conservatives that dare challenge the establishment wing of the Republican Party. According to an...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is cosponsoring a major new surveillance reform bill, as he seeks to thread the needle in an upcoming debate over the Patriot Act. Cruz, a 2016 Republican presidential candidate, on Tuesday put his support behind the USA Freedom Act, which would rein in the National Security Agency’s (NSA) bulk collection of Americans’ phone records and reauthorize portions of the Patriot Act currently set to expire June 1. Reauthorizing the law without changes “is not acceptable,” Cruz said in a statement. “It is absolutely critical for Congress to balance the privacy interests of law-abiding citizens against the...

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has already filed seven amendments, some with the backing of Republican colleagues. They include a proposal to require certification that Iran has recognized Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and another to require certification that the Iranian government has released all detained Americans. Depending on your perspective, the Senate is looking for pass a “foundationally” solid bipartisan Iran bill, in the words of Sen Lindsey Graham, or a watered down nothing burger that really does nothing but allow the Senate to express their disapproval of Obama’s Iran deal, without the teeth to stop it.

“Marco gives the same speech with donors that he does in public,” one Rubio advisor assured BuzzFeed. I’m sure he’s right. After all, when has Marco Rubio ever said different things to different audiences about his stance on immigration? I do think it’s safe to say that Rubio’s choosing his words carefully on this subject, even among friends in private settings. All it would take to blow him up for good on the right is a hidden smartphone recorder catching him crowing about amnesty, and he knows it. He’s the safest pick in the field precisely because he’s not prone...