Free Republic

[great 4:00 Fox News VIDEO] MARK THIESSEN: I went into that book an admirer and came out a true believer... He is a truly impressive individual. First of all, he is super smart. He came into office, he took a $3.6 billion deficit and turned it into a $1 billion dollar surplus without raising taxes, cutting services to the poor, and decimating educations... He won three elections in Wisconsin in four years, in a state which hasn't voted for a Republican for president since 1984, not by tacking to the center, but by governing as an unapologetic, full-spectrum conservative... The...

RUSH: One of the most qualified Republicans made it official, Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin -- who, as you know, if you listen regularly to this program -- we have touted Walker's qualifications time and time and time again. Here is a man who is conservative. You know what he said, by the way, in his speech? Name for me any other candidate -- and there may be some -- I just can't recall top of my head. Name for me any other candidate who's made this point. Scott Walker For AmericaScott Walker said one of the first things...

Wisconsin governor should instantly catapult to top tier of GOP presidential contenders. On the one hand, I’m pumped about Scott Walker “finally” joining the presidential race - as absurd as that sounds 16 months before the election. On the other hand, I’m already rolling my eyes at what he will now have to go through. Walker will want to talk about his track record of taking on entrenched liberals in crucial battles in Madison - and beating them. Consistently. And he’ll want to talk about how he would apply those same approaches to governing the nation - which issues he...

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin has a realistic shot at becoming the most conservative Republican nominee for president in a generation. Walker, who used a campaign video and a tweet to announce Monday morning that he is an official candidate, has been leading in Iowa polls since late January and has been consistently in the top tier in national and New Hampshire surveys. At FiveThirtyEight, we’ve had him in the top tier, with about a 25 percent chance to win the nomination, since February.

While delivering her first major economic policy speech of her campaign, Clinton today called out Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Scott Walker by name to contrast her policies -- focused on strengthening the middle class and increasing wages -- against those of her front-running Republican rivals. In her remarks, delivered at the New School in downtown Manhattan, Clinton first took aim at former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for his recent comment that “people need to work longer hours.” (A remark Bush’s campaign said was about unemployment.) “You may have heard Governor Bush say last week that Americans just need to...

The president of the largest alliance of unions in the United States offered just six words in response to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker formally jumping into the 2016 presidential race. “Scott Walker is a national disgrace,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement released ahead of Walker’s formal announcement on Monday. There isn’t much love to lose between Walker and unions.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s trailblazing effort to weaken tenure protections at public colleges and universities is now a reality with his signing of a $73 billion budget on Sunday. The effort has outraged unions and higher education groups, leaving them fearful that other lawmakers will follow suit to unravel labor protections in higher education that have long been considered sacred ground. Walker downplayed the changes at Sunday’s signing at a valve manufacturing facility in Waukesha, Wisconsin, emphasizing instead that tuition was being frozen in the University of Wisconsin system for two more years at the rate it was two years...

The latest Monmouth University Poll of Republican voters nationwide found significant bumps, both in the vote choice question and candidate favorability, for Jeb Bush and Donald Trump since they threw their hats into the rings. Bobby Jindal has made no headway since he entered the race, and Chris Christie may actually be losing ground since his announcement. Despite Trump’s surge, the poll also found that many GOP voters are not taking his candidacy seriously. When Republicans are asked who they would support for the GOP nomination for president, Jeb Bush nominally leads the pack with 15%, followed by Donald Trump...

The latest Monmouth University Poll of Republican voters nationwide found significant bumps, both in the vote choice question and candidate favorability, for Jeb Bush and Donald Trump since they threw their hats into the rings. Bobby Jindal has made no headway since he entered the race, and Chris Christie may actually be losing ground since his announcement. Despite Trump’s surge, the poll also found that many GOP voters are not taking his candidacy seriously. When Republicans are asked who they would support for the GOP nomination for president, Jeb Bush nominally leads the pack with 15%, followed by Donald Trump...

Scott Walker made it official today, breaking the news that he is a Republican candidate in the 2016 presidential race first in a Facebook post this morning before a formal announcement event in Wisconsin later today. “I'm in. I'm running for President of the United States because Americans deserve a leader who will fight and win for them," the two-term Wisconsin governor says in the Facebook post, which includes a video in which he argues that his track record as governor sets him apart from the rest of the Republican field as a proven leader who has succeeded in winning...

In 2012, teachers in the Roscommon area school district became the first in decades to "decertify" the Michigan Education Association — fire it — and start their own independent union. Now, three years later, the president of the startup local, called the Roscommon Teachers Association, said 64 of 65 eligible teachers have voluntarily paid dues as of the recently completed school year. It probably didn't hurt that the union's $500 dues are about half the amount charged by the MEA, the state's largest teachers union. “Roscommon teachers show that voluntary unionism can thrive if the union is proving its worth...

The chilling redefinition of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty by Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin and the Senate’s only lesbian, is a looming threat to religious liberty. With the possible loss of tax exemptions for churches and institutions that don’t comply with the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage decision, an era of religious persecution may be upon us. Baldwin made her remarks on the June 27 broadcast of Up With Steve Kornacki on MSNBC. In a transcript of her remarks posted on Newsbusters, Baldwin ignored the fact that it was religious persecution in Europe that led to people...

Right to work. The elimination of wage control laws. Voter ID laws. Defunding Planned Parenthood. Expanding school choice. These are some of the No. 1 priorities for Republican legislators around the country. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has hit every item on this list, and he did so in a deep blue state; Wisconsin hasn’t gone red in a presidential election in more than 30 years, and its labor union culture may be second only to that of the automotive capital in neighboring Michigan. Walker’s uncompromising conservative governance made him Democrats' No. 1 target at both the state and national level,...

isconsin Gov. Scott Walker announced Monday morning on Twitter that he is running for the Republican nomination for president, saying, “I’m in. I’m running for president because Americans deserve a leader who will fight and win for them.” Walker will give a speech kicking off his campaign Monday evening in Waukesha, Wis., becoming one of seven current or former Republican governors to enter the 2016 race — and the only one to survive a recall election in his own state.

He drives a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. He brags about wearing a sweater he bought for $1 at Kohl’s department store. He touts his humble upbringing as a small-town minister’s son, and how he proposed to his wife over ribs at a local barbecue joint. Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, has criss-crossed the country for months regaling crowds with his everyman, “regular Joe” shtick. On Monday, as he becomes the 15th Republican to enter the race for the party’s 2016 presidential nomination, his backers are hoping he can convince voters not only that he is the most authentic candidate, but one...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is set to officially declare his candidacy for president next Monday and Wisconsinites are ready with a warning to the rest of the nation about the Republican's "dangerous agenda." The rally against Walker will be held at 4 p.m. on July 13 at the Waukesha County Expo Center, 1000 Northwest Road, Waukesha. People For the American Way, Voces de la Frontera, Americans United for Change, We Are Wisconsin, League of Conservation Voters and a coalition of more than 20 local and national grassroots activist groups are involved in planning the event. Their goal is sharing personal...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is poised to win a huge victory on education as the state legislature passed a budget that repeals state tenure guarantees while also slashing the budget of the University of Wisconsin. The victory was enunciated by the acquiescence of the university, which recognized its defeat by passing a spending plan that implements Walker’s cuts. All that remains is for Walker to consummate his victory by affixing his signature to the budget. The two-year, $73 billion budget approved Thursday makes a host of changes Walker has sought in the realm of education. Wisconsin’s school voucher program is...

Lois Lerner, the former IRS official accused of targeting conservative non-profit groups, is longtime friends with a Wisconsin state regulator who helped local prosecutors investigate aides and conservative allies of Gov. Scott Walker. The Wall Street Journal reports in an editorial ["Wisconsin's Friends at the IRS"] that Lerner and Kevin Kennedy, the director of the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB), were in routine contact via email between 2011 and 2013. Emails viewed by The Journal show that the two regulators discussed issues ranging from the personal to political. They shared news articles about campaign finance and also discussed dinner plans....

It turns out that the vast left-wing conspiracy isn’t all that vast. From the Wall Street Journal: Wisconsin’s campaign to investigate conservative tax-exempt groups has always seemed like an echo of the IRS’s scrutiny of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. It turns out that may be more than a coincidence. Former IRS tax-exempt director Lois Lerner ran the agency’s policy on conservative groups. Kevin Kennedy runs the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) that helped prosecutors with their secret John Doe investigation of conservative groups after the 2011 and 2012 recall elections of Governor Scott Walker and state senators. Emails...

As Twitchy reported, a woman protesting a 20-week abortion ban in Wisconsin chained herself to a railing in the state’s Capitol, demanding that Republican men in the Assembly hear her out. The photos of protester Wendi Kent chained to the bannister were sad in so very many ways, but they beg the question: where is everybody?