Free Republic

Sold out Tea Party events in South Carolina this weekend and Iowa next weekend demonstrate that the conservative grassroots are prepared to put in the time and money needed to back a limited government candidate who can win the Republican Presidential nomination in 2016. More than 1,200 grassroots activists attended this weekend’s three day South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Convention in Myrtle Beach, where they heard from four potential Presidential candidates: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Dr. Ben Carson, former Senator Rick Santorum, and Donald Trump. Remarks by Cruz and Dr. Carson, in particular, caught the attention of the mainstream media....

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) warns that the American dream is slipping away. “The central challenge facing this country right now is that for millions of Americans, the American dream seems to be slipping away,” he told the crowd during a speech at the South Carolina Tea Party Convention on Sunday. “You know, today for the first time in our country’s history, a majority of Americans believe our kids will have a worse life than we did. That has never been true in over 200 hundred years of our nation’s history until right now.” In August 2014,...

Ted Cruz delivered on Sunday what looked like a dry run of his 2016 presidential stump speech to the South Carolina activists who will help decide that election. In his first visit to the state, which will host the third presidential primary in February 2016, since October, Cruz told the state’s Tea Party activists that nominating a moderate in 2016 would lead Republicans to lose just like they have when those moderates led the ticket in the past. “If we nominate another candidate in the mold of a Bob Dole or a John McCain or a Mitt Romney, all of...

A tea party leader from Iowa, a key state in the presidential elections, is joining conservative neurosurgeon Ben Carson's prospective 2016 campaign. Carson will launch an exploratory committee in the next few weeks and has hired political operative Ryan Rhodes to oversee campaign operations in Iowa, The Iowa Republican reports. According to The Hill, Rhodes joined Carson's efforts after talking to other potential Republican presidential candidates, including Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. "I'm joining team Carson," Rhodes told The Hill. "I'm going to be working with his American Legacy [PAC] stuff. If he decides to move...

How would the election of such as Sen. Ted Cruz, Dr. Ben Carson, or Gov. Mike Pence in 2016 affect U.S. foreign policy? In previous columns, I have outlined what might be the foreign policy proclivities of candidates who represent the Republican Party establishment (e.g., Jeb Bush), the Democratic establishment (Hillary Clinton), of libertarians (Sen. Rand Paul), and of progressives (Sen. Elizabeth Warren) without speculating on the chances any might have of being elected. Were anyone to argue that the foreign policy consequences of a Tea Party president are irrelevant because none is likely to be elected, I would suggest...

Americans for Prosperity, the most prominent arm of the Koch brothers' organization, put Republican lawmakers on notice Thursday, setting out a conservative agenda for Congress. AFP leaders say it will be pushed by the group's grassroots supporters in 34 states. Tim Phillips, president of AFP, said at a Washington press conference that congressional Republicans "failed miserably" a decade ago, especially on cutting the federal budget. "They've been given a second chance by the American people," he said, "and we're going to hold them accountable. We're determined about that." The agenda covers three areas: taxes, including repeal of the estate or...

Last week both the Republican and Democrat wings of the Uniparty celebrated another “defeat” of the TEA party movement with the re-election of John Boehner as the Speaker of House. After all, try as it might the TEA party movement was not able to muster the necessary votes to at least push the contest into an embarrassing second round. Closer examination suggests a very different reality. The rules of the House say that in an election for Speaker the person who gets the most votes of those actually present when the roll is called wins. Clearly this gives an advantage...

Republicans “will get walloped” in 2016 if they do not deliver on campaign promises, such as working to scrap the controversial national health care law and blocking President Barack Obama’s immigration proposals, Sen. Ted Cruz said Monday. The freshman Texas lawmaker said fellow Republican candidates promised during last year’s elections to scrap the health care law, which they call Obamacare, and to deny Obama’s executive actions, which they call “amnesty.” Cruz, a tea party favorite considering a White House campaign in 2016, said voters will punish Republicans in two years unless lawmakers have something to show for their new majority...

“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.” - Aldous Huxley I like quotes. Quotes are wisdom for those with short attention spans. They are disregarded by many as irrelevant platitudes or obsolete; however, they are knowledge, often hard-earned and considered by their authors to be important enough to be passed on. I’ve chosen the above quote for today, not only because it is always relevant, but because we bear witness to a time where the political left of this country is trying...

One of the biggest fallacies in politics today is the claim that we, as conservatives and libertarians, can only be effective if we stay loyal to the Republican Party and work to gain control of it by electing more free-market conservatives every election year. We at AFR believe such thinking to be tragically misguided. To expect the Republican Party to challenge the modern day juggernaut of statism is as foolish as expecting socialist professors to instill Americanism into our youth. It won’t happen anymore than the planets will one day reverse their orbits. This is because the members of the...

Being in the Texas Legislature is not intended to be a lucrative career. Legislators receive part-time pay. They are only in session six months every two years. It is, for all intents and purposes, a volunteer position for those wishing to serve the public. Last week, we released an exhaustive report covering the loans relating to the campaigns and PACs of every Texas Legislator. Despite a tepid and defensive response from the Texas Ethics Commission (TEC) regarding our figures and call for an audit, we delved further into the campaign finances of the Legislature. This time we took a closer...

It wasn’t the Republican votes against House Speaker John Boehner that truly rattled the GOP leadership, it was the phone calls. There were hundreds of them, jamming the phone lines of the district and Capitol offices of dozens of House GOP lawmakers. The callers were not angry about legislation. Nor were they asking for help with a local matter. They were demanding their representative vote against Boehner Tuesday in his bid to win election to a third term as speaker. For the GOP leadership, the flood of calls was a game changer. It thrusted the leadership into triage mode as...

You will recall that President Obama once told the UN that the future does not belong to people who insult the prophet Mohammed. Yesterday in Paris Muslim terrorists backed up that statement by killing 12 at the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. This is the same newspaper that the White House recently said was “deeply offensive.” Why exactly the White House is commenting on foreign newspapers isn’t clear. Unfortunately the French government also agrees with Obama’s UN statement. They’ve spent the last several years ceding control of neighborhoods to Muslim terrorists block by block. Weak or no police presence...

A day after winning his third term as Speaker, John Boehner (R-Ohio) said his conference had begun a "family conversation" about how to respond to the 25 conservatives who revolted and voted against him on the floor. Boehner confirmed that the Rules Committee agreed hours after the Tuesday vote to boot two of the defectors off the committee: Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), who challenged Boehner for Speaker, and Rep. Richard Nugent (R-Fla.), who voted for his fellow Florida Republican. But the Speaker said no final decisions had been made, suggesting Webster and Nugent could rejoin the committee, even as some...

Muslim terrorists have murdered 12 people at satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris. The newspaper recently ran cartoons mocking Mohammed and ISIS. This newspaper was firebombed by Muslims in 2011, so apparently there’s a history of Muslims attacking these people. Parisians are understandably shocked over this barbarous act of terrorism. As well they should be, God help western civilization when it gets to the point that acts of terrorism don’t shock us anymore. Especially so when we’re talking about the acts of barbarian Muslim terrorists. Since the 9-11 attacks on New York and Washington, Muslim terrorists have attacked London, Boston,...

Iron-fisted U.S. House Speaker John Boehner is moving quickly to punish conservative Republicans who tried to oust him Tuesday during the biennial leadership election. Hours after the contentious vote, Florida Rep. Daniel Webster – who actively campaigned against Boehner and persuaded 12 GOP members to support him – found himself left off the membership list of the powerful House Rules Committee, where he served for the last two years. Rep. Rich Nugent, a fellow Floridian who voted for him, suffered the same fate. 'My philosophy,' Webster told reporters after he heard the news that he had been bumped from the...

House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) was reelected to his post as leader of the Republican conference, but the rebellion was stronger than expected. Boehner received 215 votes, of 408 votes cast. He needed 205 to win the speakership. Twenty-four Republicans voted for alternatives, with a 25th lawmaker voting present. Half of those ‘no’ votes went to Representative Daniel Webster (R., Fla.), who was backed by Representative Steve King (R., Iowa.) King was one of the ringleaders of the rebellion. The race was closer than the 215-24 result suggests. If 35 Republicans had voted against Boehner, he would not have...

A small but growing number of Republicans say they will vote Tuesday to deny John Boehner a third term as Speaker of the House. But ousting a sitting Speaker is a difficult feat, and a group of a dozen defectors failed two years ago to depose Boehner, the powerful Ohio Republican. Because the House GOP expanded its majority in the midterm elections, 29 Republicans would need to vote against Boehner to force a second ballot. Even then, it’s improbable that Boehner would relinquish the gavel and step aside without a drawn-out fight. The Hill is keeping a running list on...

From 1910 to 1943, it was fairly common for some members of the Republican Party to vote for somebody for Speaker of the House other than the choice of the conference. Progressive Republicans initially joined with Democrats in rebellion against the autocratic Joe Cannon, and the habit stuck. And in every Speaker’s election during that time, up to 11 members would cast their votes for a person other than the two candidates put forward by the two major parties. ADVERTISEMENT That habit died in 1945, and from the close of World War II to the close of the Cold War,...

"....................All this tells a considerable amount about what passes for the unremarkable inside the Washington establishment. For Feehery spends his time continually attacking conservatives. There was this open letter attack on Rush Limbaugh in Politico in which he snarked:Congratulations! You have been selected by the Obama administration, the mainstream media and 20 million of your most passionate followers to be the new head of the Republican Party.As such, you are given all the rights and responsibilities that come with being a true political leader.Your mission is simple: Restore the Republican Party to its former greatness by single-handedly helping Republicans to...