Free Republic

Paul is the first potential 2016 contender to visit the city.Sen. Rand Paul met with civil rights leaders Friday in Ferguson, Missouri, the city torn apart by racial unrest following the August shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer. During his visit, the Republican Senator, who is seen as a likely presidential candidate, stated his concerns about long prison sentences for nonviolent crimes, the loss of voting rights for felons and military programs to give unused equipment to local police departments. “I wanted to find out what we could do to make the situation better,” Paul...

There may be disagreements on foreign policy among conservatives, but one thing that there's near universal agreement on is that President Obama's foreign policy has been an abysmal failure. That's why it was especially noteworthy that Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., already facing an uphill battle in winning over conservative primary voters on foreign policy, has embraced the disastrous, John Kerry-led negotiations with the radical Islamic Iranian regime. Speaking at a meeting sponsored by the Wall Street Journal, "Mr. Paul said he doesn’t favor increasing sanctions on Iran as the U.S. continues diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the Iranian nuclear weapons...

That didn't take long The 2016 Republican primary battle is up and running—at least on Google. Hours after former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush announced he would “actively explore” a run for the White House, the political action committee for Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who appears certain to announce a bid for the Oval Office in the coming months, took out a Google search ad on his name, with a not-so-subtle dig at the more moderate Republican. “Join a movement working to shrink government. Not grow it,” the ad states, with a link to RandPAC, Paul’s longstanding federal leadership committee, and...

The symmetry was irresistible. Last weekend, as Ted Cruz almost blew up the budget deal over immigration and Elizabeth Warren almost blew it up over banking regulations, pundits seized upon an analogy. Both senators are articulate, ideological, media-savvy, beloved by party activists, and problematic for party leaders. Thus, Warren is the Cruz of the left. Bad analogy, argues Vox’s Matthew Yglesias, noting that it’s Cruz and the GOP that want “to use government funding as leverage to undo policy measures Democrats enacted in the 111th Congress.” Warren just doesn’t “want to pay the ransom.” The Washington Post’s Sean Sullivan is...

* Trump has kept his spotlight hot and raised smirks by speculating about a White House run, but now he's scheduling speeches in early primary states * 'A lot of people believe I'm having fun with it, and I enjoy the process,' he said during an Economic Club of Washington event, but 'the country's in serious trouble' * He lashed out at potential opponents including Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz * Couldn't come up with a 'single nice thing' to say about Hillary Clinton and insists Sen. Elizabeth Warren will give her serious competition * Trump has flirted with running...

If the Senate were high school and there was a superlative for "least popular member," Ted Cruz would win in a walk. The Texas Republican reaffirmed his status as the Senate's most reviled member -- among his peers -- over the weekend when he refused to allow the chamber to go out of session on Friday and return Monday to vote on the $1.1 trillion omnibus spending package. Instead, Cruz used procedural moves to force 10 straight hours of votes on Saturday as a way to protest President Obama's executive action on immigration. Cruz ultimately forced a "point of order"...

The Post reports: The Senate on Saturday night approved a sweeping $1.1 trillion spending bill to fund most of the federal government through the next fiscal year, turning back a conservative rebellion against President Obama’s immigration policy. On a vote of 56 to 40, senators passed the spending bill and sent it to Obama, who plans to sign it. The bill’s passage eliminates the threat of a government shutdown and capped days of acrimonious debate on Capitol Hill over the omnibus agreement. A small group of conservatives, led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), had sought to slow debate on the...

Jeb Bush does. The Democrats’ Castro brothers do not. Ted Cruz knows ‘Spanglish.’ But fluency and being able to talk to Hispanics are two entirely different matters.The ability to speak Spanish is a prized commodity on the campaign trail, a way to prove your bona fides with Hispanics—the fastest-growing bloc of voters—and to show your inclusiveness in a rapidly changing country. Lots of Anglos are proficient in Spanish. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a potential presidential candidate, speaks nothing but Spanish at home, and has for years. His wife, Columba, is from Mexico. A more recent phenomenon in the political...

Sen. Kelly Ayotte returned home to New Hampshire Friday, planning to see “The Nutcracker” with her daughter this weekend. But there was an unexpected conflict: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Cruz, along with Utah Sen. Mike Lee, took to the floor Friday night to demand Republicans stop President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration and scuttled a bipartisan agreement to push back votes until Monday, effectively forcing the Senate to return for a rare weekend session and cast a marathon series of procedural votes. Senior Republicans say there’s a problem with Cruz’s strategy: The GOP lacks the votes to stop Obama...

Other members of the Senate fumed Saturday over objections by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) that held up a $1.1 trillion omnibus bill meant to keep the government open. The objection was fueled by the two conservatives' desire to fight President Barack Obama's executive action on immigration. The objections by Cruz and Lee mean that the Senate must slog through procedural votes Saturday on nominees and also vote to end a filibuster on the omnibus bill at 1 a.m. on Sunday. It was too much for Democrats and even Republicans to bite their tongues over....

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Welcome back. Great to have you. Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network. Grab audio sound bite number one. The Drive-By Media is comparing Elizabeth Warren and Ted Cruz, but they're doing it the following way. Elizabeth Warren is wonderful. Ted Cruz is mean and nasty and a threat to the republic. It's about 25 seconds, and again, just a media montage to give you a flavor here. ED HENERY: Elizabeth Warren saying she may hold all of this up and do a reverse of what Ted Cruz did. TAMARA KEITH: She's sort of pulling a Ted Cruz. JOE...

When Thursday dawned, the conventional wisdom was that House Speaker John Boehner did not have the votes to pass the $1.1 trillion spending bill that would fund the rest of the government for FY2015. But, thanks to lobbying by the White House, the House scrapped up enough votes to pass the measure 219 to 206, according to a Thursday Washington Examiner story. The passage of the bill was a triumph of the establishment wings of both parties. However, Senate passage is by no means certain. Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Elizabeth Warren could still scupper the bill between them. The...

Have you heard the story of the first-term senator who is a hero to the party base and the subject of intense 2016 speculation -- the one who's willing to buck leaders on big bills, and has even lobbied House members to stand against a funding measure to keep the government running? It's the story of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). This week, it's also the story of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Warren has emerged as the torchbearer of the liberal resistance on Capitol Hill to a $1.01 trillion bill to fund the government, which is facing the threat of a...

One of the Senate’s leading liberals is borrowing a page from the playbook of Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is pushing to strike out language from the “cromnibus” spending bill unveiled Tuesday that would roll back restrictions on “swaps” transactions included in the 2010 financial regulatory overhaul known as Dodd-Frank. Repealing the “push-out” provision would mean that certain derivatives could again be held in bank units with federal deposit insurance. Using a strategy sometimes employed by Cruz for entirely different policy reasons, Warren said that with the $1.013 trillion spending package first being considered by the...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said that Jesse Benton, the former campaign manager for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), will be part of Paul's campaign team in 2016. Benton, served as McConnell's campaign manager for much of the 2014 cycle until he resigned amid questions about the role he allegedly played in a 2012 Iowa pay-for-votes bribery scandal. Paul, in an interview with WHAS11, said that he thinks "Jesse is honest, he's good at politics and I don't think he's done anything wrong." It wasn't clear from Paul's comments if he was referring to his Senate re-election campaign or the...

Trent Lott wasn’t always this way. He was once a conservative champion, who came to Washington to change the ruling-class narrative. But now he’s a profile in what Washington does to you if you stay too long — unless you have Winston Churchill-like courage of conviction, and few mere mortals do. Mr. Lott was originally part of a group that included former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Vin Webber, who were dubbed the “Young Turks.” They were among the chief lieutenants of the Reagan Revolution back in the day. Best known for fighting the Fraternal Order of Establishment Republicans....

For Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the issue of sexual assault on college campuses is personal. During his years at Princeton University, Cruz spearheaded efforts to fight date rape at the school. In an exclusive interview with Business Insider, he said his focus on the issue was in part inspired by a dark chapter in his family history. "When I was in student government in college, protecting student safety was a real priority, and no student should ever have to face the threat of sexual assault," Cruz said in an email to Business Insider. "In my own family, my aunt experienced...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called school choice the greatest civil rights issue of the 21st century.Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called school choice "the most compelling civil rights issue of the 21st century" and suggested it will be a significant focus of the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and human rights when he becomes chairman in the new Congress. The potential GOP presidential contender made the remarks during a Senate hearing on community policing, scheduled in the wake of racial protests sparked by the deaths of two unarmed African-American men at the hands of white police officers....

Sen. Ted Cruz is winning on social media. Between Sept. 1 to Dec. 1, the Texas Republican garnered the most mentions on Twitter out of 10 potential 2016 candidates, with 4.55 million mentions to his two handles, @SenTedCruz and @TedCruz, according to data provided to Politico. Cruz also had similar success on Facebook, with 1.8 million people talking about him, adding up to a whopping 5.6 million interactions (posts, comments and likes) between Aug. 22 and Nov. 22. The only other candidate with as much clout as Cruz on social media was former Secretary of State and likely 2016 Democratic...

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark., -- In an exclusive interview with FTMDaily's (http://ftmdaily.com/) Jerry Robinson, former Congressman Ron Paul discusses some of his core values as an American and as a human being. "On Faith and Family: A Conversation With Dr. Ron Paul" provides compelling insight on the problems facing the nation today, as well as reflections on Paul's three presidential campaigns. Paul explained that war and strong-arm diplomacy, both part of America's compulsion to police the world, are fundamentally unsound policies. Most disturbingly, he said, is that a vocal minority of the Christian Evangelical community is strongly in favor of such foreign...