Free Republic

We say happy birthday to the Grand Old Party, the GOP, or, the Republican Party. The birth of the party happened in Ripon, Wisconsin, on this day in 1854. The new party was formed by former members of the Whig Party to oppose the spread of slavery into the western territories. In my case, I became a de facto Republican after the Kennedy administration fumbled The Bay of Pigs invasion.

Senate Republicans voted Thursday to adopt a permanent ban on earmarks, in a move that signals as long as the GOP controls the chamber the practice of pork-barrel spending won’t return. A ban had been adopted every Congress since House Republicans imposed it after taking the majority in that chamber in 2011, but it needed to be renewed every two years. Sen. Ben Sasse said it was time for the GOP to make the ban permanent. “The last thing taxpayers need is for the same politicians who racked up a $22 trillion national debt to go on an earmark binge,”...

Sebastian Gorka, former strategist to President Trump, takes aim at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and discusses how the Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenaed Donald Trump Jr.

A day after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took to the Senate floor to declare “ case closed” about the Russia investigation, reports surfaced that the Senate Intelligence Committee has issued a subpoena for Donald Trump Jr. The committee, which is Republican-led, issued the subpoena in order to get answers about Trump’s prior testimony before Senate investigators during the Russia investigation, according to Axios.

Have the Democrats turned working class middle America against them just like the Whig Party? I know many Trump supporters who are quietly going about their day-to-day business, working 40 - 50 hours a week, paying bills and trying to keep afloat and move their lives forward. However, they are keenly aware of what is happening on the left. The violent (paid) protest, the stupid pussy hats, the suppression of free speech, and the all around anarchy that has happened in places like Berkeley, CA has not gone unnoticed. These Trump voters would like nothing better than to send the...

WASHINGTON — Donald J. Trump and his allies are engaged in an aggressive effort to undermine the Republican nominating process by framing it as rigged and corrupt, hoping to compensate for organizational deficiencies that have left Mr. Trump with an increasingly precarious path to the nomination. Their message: The election is being stolen from him. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump berated the politicians he said were trying to stop his nomination and denounced the Republican Party, which he cast as complicit in the theft. “Our Republican system is absolutely rigged. It’s a phony deal,” he said, accusing party leaders of maneuvering...

Texans cherish the memory of Davy Crockett's heroic death at the Alamo in 1836 but few know what led him there or why he fought so valiantly. Throughout his life, Davy Crockett was renowned for his love of liberty and fierce loyalty to the Constitution. Originally a Democrat, Crockett found he could no longer identify with the party's positions which he believed were straying from our country's founding principles. As a man who believed in individual liberty and the principle of congressional restraint this shift was unacceptable to him. He left the party in 1833 and joined the Whig party...

Every once in a while a scholar will write an absolutely pathbreaking article . . . then disappear. No books. No other articles. Sometimes they fail to get tenure, sometimes it's a health problem, sometimes they change research direction. One of the most fascinating people I have come across is a historian named Lynn Marshall, who in 1967 wrote what I thought was one of the most profound articles ever---in the prestigious American Historical Review. He briefly taught at my school, the U. of California, Santa Barbara and word was (unverified) that he failed to get tenure. Marshall produced no...

Senate GOP leadership is staying away from a proposal to ensure illegal immigrants don’t get tax break payouts from the government, with the party still smarting from a battle over Department of Homeland Security funding. Senior Republicans generally say they support the goals of the bill from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that seeks to keep immigrants protected from deportation by President Obama’s executive actions from claiming several years’ worth of earned income tax credits. But with the most recent immigration fight having just finished, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has said he’s still examining the...

In 1856, the Whig Party ran former president Millard Fillmore for president of the United States. Fillmore had last run in 1852; he'd been denied the nomination as the party fell apart over the issue of slavery. In an attempt to bring the party back together that year, the party nominated General Winfield Scott, who promptly imploded in the general election against Democrat Franklin Pierce. "We are slain!" shouted Representative Lewis D. Campbell of Ohio. "The party is dead, dead, dead!" Free Soiler Charles Sumner wrote, "Now is the time for a new organization. Out of this chaos the party...

Conservative activist and best-selling author David Horowitz tells Newsmax that the Democratic Party has been “seized by a religious cult” of leftists and will go the way of the 19th-century Whig Party — disappearing from the political scene. He also declares that giving terrorist suspects the rights of American citizens and trying them in civilian courts is “a form of national suicide” and says the tea party movement is a “huge development” that will keep Republicans true to conservative principles. [Snip] Asked about the political problems the Democrats face in the wake of their poor showing in the midterm elections,...

There are two extinction level events for the Republican party coming up in the next few months: Amnesty and the Defunding of Obamacare. We need to get together and put a stop to the GOP’s drive towards suicide with an event that they and the Media cannot ignore. But, we need to establish some basic rules for these gatherings – mainly that these events need to be on weekends and publicized enough to maximize attendance. There is nothing more frustrating to behold than an event lightly attended simply because it was on too short a notice and on a weekday……….....

Members of Congress have been on recess for only a few days, but it already seems the time away from Washington means more support for a pathway to citizenship among some Republicans. In the past few days, two Republican members of the House of Representatives - Daniel Webster in Florida, Aaron Schock in Illinois - have expressed preliminary support for a way to legalize undocumented immigrants and allow them to eventually earn full citizenship. Even the House GOP whip, Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), announced support for legal status, although he stopped just short of supporting full citizenship. McCarthy, a big target...

Former vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan says he supports "the principles" of an immigration reform proposal from Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a sign that the party may be coalescing around its own plan to overhaul the nation's laws."Senator Rubio is exactly right on the need to fix our broken immigration system," the congressman wrote on his Facebook page on Monday, with a link to a Wall Street Journal article that includes Rubio's key immigration goals. "I support the principles he’s outlined: modernization of our immigration laws; stronger security to curb illegal immigration; and respect for the rule of law...

The Time Abraham Lincoln and a Political Rival Almost Dueled on an Island Exactly 170 years ago today, the Mississippi River levee in Alton, Illinois, was crammed full of spectators awaiting the results of a highly anticipated duel — a smackdown between Abraham Lincoln and political rival James Shields. Only one man could emerge victorious. Onlookers held their breath in suspense as they spotted a boat approaching with a blood-soaked body draped over the bow. It had all started where so many skirmishes do: the Illinois state legislature. Though at the time Lincoln was a Whig and Shields was a...

NEW ORLEANS -- Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told a crowd of conservative activists at the Republican Leadership Conference Friday that they should not "get hung up on purity" when it comes to the Republican nominee for president. "In politics, purity is a loser," said Barbour, a well-connected GOP insider who earlier this year decided to forgo a presidential run in 2012. (snip) Barbour said that this was the first time in his decades in politics that people are regularly telling him that "I'm afraid my children and grandchildren are not going to inherent the same country I inherited." "Those are...

Third Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Jonesboro, Illinois September 15, 1858 MR. DOUGLAS' SPEECH. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I appear before you today in pursuance of a previous notice, and have made arrangements with Mr. Lincoln to divide time, and discuss with him the leading political topics that now agitate the country. Prior to 1854 this country was divided into two great political parties known as Whig and Democratic. These parties differed from each other on certain questions which were then deemed to be important to the best interests of the Republic. Whig and Democrats differed about a bank, the...

On this day in 1846, Abraham Lincoln defeated his Democrat opponent to win a term in the U.S. House of Representatives. He had agreed with his Whig Party supporters that he would not run for re-election. Not until 1864 did congressional elections take place all on the same day, "the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November." The presidential election of 1848 was the first in which people from each state voted for President simultaneously, on that same day. Nowadays, socialists have tainted the word "progressive," but it is a fair assessment that in its day the Whig Party...

   Dear Fellow Republican, When running to become your new Republican National Committee Chairman, I campaigned on a need for responsible change for our Party.Not a change of our core values, but real change of how we go about listening to our supporters, how we communicate our message to all Americans and how we organize and win elections.While I'm excited about the challenges and opportunities we face, I have no illusions. I am fully aware of the hard work ahead and obstacles we must overcome to start winning elections again.But this isn't about me -- I can't do this...

The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com Reid calls president latter-day FillmoreBy Stephen DinanTHE WASHINGTON TIMESPublished November 1, 2005 Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday that President Bush will go down as the Millard Fillmore of our time, and said the Republican president is the best thing Democrats have going for them for the 2006 elections.     "I think our biggest cheerleader for getting back some of the votes we've lost in the last couple presidential elections and some congressional elections is George W. Bush," the Nevada Democrat said in predicting a big election year for his party.     He said Republicans will be...