Free Republic

Ramesh and Reason’s Nick Gillespie have been going back and forth over Rand Paul’s claim (from a number of years ago) that Jimmy Carter was a more fiscally conservative president than Ronald Reagan. Mother Jones collected a series of appearances over the years in which the Kentuckian argues that Reagan’s budget performance, compared with Carter’s, is evidence Republicans don’t really mean it when they claim the mantle of fiscal conservatism. Gillespie argues that Reagan’s deficits means he wasn’t a fiscal conservative, while Ramesh argues (and Nick seems to agree to some extent) that probably a better measure is rate of increases in spending...

Sen. John McCain Monday became the highest-ranking U.S. official to enter Syria since the bloody civil war there began over two years ago, The Daily Beast has learned. McCain, one of the fiercest critics of the Obama administration’s Syria policy, made the unannounced visit across the Turkey-Syria border with Gen. Salem Idris, the leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army. He stayed in the country for several hours before returning to Turkey. Both in Syria and Turkey, McCain and Idris met with assembled leaders of Free Syrian Army units that traveled from around the country to...

According to a survey posted on Thursday from Public Policy Polling, Paul (R-Ky.) is the favorite for the Republican 2016 nod, with 28 percent of those polled picking him. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) earned 25 percent of the vote; New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was favored by 14 percent; 11 percent were unsure or wanted another option, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) each got 7 percent. On the Democratic side, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leads the way with 68 percent support. Vice President Joe Biden, in second place, is favored by 12...

CBC out of Canada reports unnamed Syrian officials speaking to the Associated Press denying the use of chemical weapons against foreign jihadist 'rebels' within the country that seemed to surface yesterday and that were repeated by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.The report also quotes a Syrian lawmaker Sharif Shehadeh:Shehadeh called the U.S. claims "lies" and likened them to false accusations that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction — a claim U.S. policymakers had used to justify the invasion of that country in 2003."What is being designed for Syria now is similar to what happened in Iraq when Colin Powell lied in...