Free Republic

These are tough times for the Republican maverick.Where once this was a celebrated archetype among the conservative tribe (as long as it included a devotion to low taxes and global military dominance) today there is just no room for deviation from the party line in even the smallest of ways. Take, for example, the plight of Sen. Lindsey Graham — who just suffered an epic humiliation at the hands of his own party in Charleston County, South Carolina, for being a RINO turncoat: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was censured Monday night by Republicans in Charleston County who don’t believe he’s...

Meg Whitman, the Republican candidate for governor of California, is softening her stance on immigration. A month after she cut an ad during her primary promising “no drivers’ licenses, no sanctuary cities, and absolutely no amnesty, period,” she’s launched new ads to air during Mexico’s World Cup match calling herself a “different kind of candidate” who “understands our community” and “the Republican who opposes the Arizona law and was against Proposition 187.” Latinos who are interested in Whitman’s positions on immigration can learn more about them at the new section of her website not-at-all-subtly targeted at them

Democrat Illinois Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias's polling numbers have taken a hard hit since he won his party's Senate nomination two months ago. Giannoulias now trails GOP Rep. Mark Kirk by 4 points, lagging 33% to 37% according to a survey released Tuesday by Public Policy Polling. That's a 16-point reversal of fortune since the days before his state's February primary, when PPP showed Giannoulias leading Kirk, 42% to 34%. Excerpt.....more at site.

On November 5 on CNN, Florida Governor Charlie Crist told Wolf Blitzer that he didn't back the $787 billion Obama stimulus bill. Crist has since said that it isn't a flip flop when he says he supported the stimulus "in concept" but didn't support the specific bill. In essence he's trying to have it both ways. Claiming he wasn't a supporter of the actual bill, but hedging by saying he felt something was necessary. It seems to be Crist's way of straddling the line. Unfortunately, the facts seem to belie Crist's delicately balanced tightrope act because in February of 2009...

Vanity (?) This evening my wife answered the phone and told me it was the Republican Committee - for me. When i picked up I stated that I was not given any money because I thougth McCain was a travesty and that the way the Committee has been treating [Governor] Palin was an abomination. The nice, polite fellow who called was obviously taken aback and responded with words to the effect of "OK, well thank you for your time". I was a bit surprised that he did not have a response to my disgust with the party. I only wish...

He’s the guy who was running for president before all the national attention shifted to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Now, Senator John McCain seems to be only an afterthought, at best, or an anachronism, at worst. He has got to get back into the game, otherwise he will never be in contention. Forget that he leads in the polls. That means nothing. His lead is only the consequence of the division among Democrats. Supporters of Hillary are quite incapable of uttering the “O” word to a pollster and Obama backers won’t admit that they’d ever back Hillary. But once...

Updated on August 31, 2007 thanks to retirement of Sen. John Warner of VA who was one of our 'GOP 13', now 12.Sen. Larry Craig’s indiscretion is just the latest in a series of poor judgments – both of a political and/or personal nature that has inflicted the Republican Party in recent years, thereby hurting the Republican ‘brand’. Now, thanks to actions such as these, we find the GOP in the minority in both houses in Congress, with a Democratic White House coming in 2009 looking increasingly likely. Unless the Republican Party – and its leaders – realize that the...

The Republicans, and even some socially conservative and evangelical leaders, are beginning to adjust to the possibility of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani as the GOP nominee for president. But not all. The Southern Baptist’s Richard Land, for instance, predicts massive defections from Rudy in the event of a Rudy Giuliani vs. Hillary Clinton race. Hugh Hewitt, evangelical talk-meister in the syndicated stream of radio shows doubts this ; "... If Rudy is persuasive on the judges he will nominate, he wouldn’t have a problem with the social conservatives in the general election." So tell us you’ll nominate...

From a reader: Jonah, Over on Freerepublic, I've been one of the people who consistently has been chanting for abandoning the Republicans. The fact of the matter is a republican in congress has a lot more in common with a democrat in congress than either of them has with me and the other folks who only get to spend their own money. The contempt they hold for your average American slips out from time to time and it's always disheartening. So come election time, it seems the only tool I have to get them to listen to me is to...

The self-righteous ignorance that drives so much gun control advocacy never ceases to amuse. Josh Feit's latest column for the Seattle alternative weekly the Stranger is a classic of the genre. It seems that as he stumps for fellow Republicans and paves the way for a potential presidential run, Rudy Giuliani is prudently backing off from his history of anti-gun demagoguery. Feit is hopping mad:

Agents raid homes of Rep. Curt Weldon’s daughter, close friend By John Shiffman, Mitch Lipka and Patrick Kerkstra INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS Federal agents raided the home of the daughter of U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon (R., Pa.) and his longtime friend Charlie Sexton this morning. The agents departed Karen Weldon's three-story brick home on Queen Street in Philadelphia with arms loaded with boxes. A government car pulled into the alley to the back door of the house and loaded boxes into it. Three agents standing in an alley declined to identify themselves. "I can confirm that we conducted a number of...

WASHINGTON - At least one former congressional page is disputing another former page's claims that pages were warned five years ago to beware of U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fort Pierce. Matthew Loraditch, a page in the 2001-2002 class, told ABC News he and other pages were warned about Foley by a supervisor in the House Clerk's office. Loraditch, the president of the Page Alumni Association, said the pages were told "don't get too wrapped up in him being too nice to you and all that kind of stuff." But another page, who asked not to be named told The Palm...

Questions remain about who knew what, when -- and the case turns off the conservative base. Five weeks before a midterm election, when Republicans are already on the ropes, the last thing the GOP needed was a homosexual pedophilia scandal. Former Rep. Mark Foley's salacious correspondence with teenage boys working as congressional pages is the kind of story that not only obliterates interest in whatever bills Congress passed before leaving town but promises to hit a much rawer public nerve than the corruption scandals that have already removed three Republicans from office this year. It strikes especially hard at "values...

Maf54: You in your boxers, too? Teen: Nope, just got home. I had a college interview that went late. Maf54: Well, strip down and get relaxed. Another message: Maf54: What ya wearing? Teen: tshirt and shorts Maf54: Love to slip them off of you. And this one: Maf54: Do I make you a little horny? Teen: A little. Maf54: Cool. The language gets much more graphic, too graphic to be broadcast, and at one point the congressman appears to be describing Internet sex. Federal authorities say such messages could result in Foley's prosecution, under some of the same laws he...

At the close of September, the FCC approved kid video rules for digital TV, created a homeland security bureau, established a task force on childhood obesity, and set forth the ground rules of its first official public hearing on media ownership. The kid vid rules require broadcasters to run three hours of children's programming on all of their multichannels, including 24/7 weather and news feeds. The original rules established by the FCC in November 2004 had the same requirement, eliciting objections from broadcasters, some of whom run weather radar maps on their second or third digital multicast. The 2004 rules...

WASHINGTON - Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., submitted a letter of resignation from Congress on Friday in the wake of questions about e-mails he wrote a former male page, according to a congressional official. Foley, 52, had been considered a shoo-in for re-election until the e-mails surfaced in recent days. Campaign aides had previously acknowledged that the Republican congressman e-mailed the former Capitol page five times, but had said there was nothing inappropriate about the exchange. The page was 16 at the time of the e-mail correspondence. Foley's election opponent, Democrat Tim Mahoney, has called for an investigation.

If a successful steakhouse stopped selling beef and substituted stale vegan sandwiches as part of a strategy to increase its customer base, the restaurant wouldn't remain in business very long. Yet for some reason, the Republican Party has adopted precisely this strategy for governing. Instead of rewarding its loyal voters with the limited government they were promised, the Republican Party has decided to increase its voter base by offering the stale ideas of big government liberalism. This tactic is difficult to understand given that in modern midterm elections, voter turnout has hovered around 40 percent, meaning that winning is about...

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey has launched an attack on Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, saying Dobson and his "band of thugs” are "nasty bullies” and accusing the Republicans of pandering to the Christian right. In an interview with Ryan Sager, author of the book "The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party,” Armey said the GOP was "adrift and rudderless” in its commitment to small government. When pressed by Sager about what he feels is wrong with today’s Republican Congress, Armey – who became majority leader when the GOP...

According to Fox 35, Charlie Crist is the winner of the Republican Primary for Governor. Time for us to get behind him. SM

LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF NEW YORK (516) 767-4688 http://www.ny.lp.org/ Contact: Richard Cooper, State Chair nylibertarian@hotmail.com John Clifton www.electclifton.org; Michael Sylvia mike@mikesylvia.org www.mikesylvia.org; Eric Sundwall info@sundwall4congress.org www. sundwall4congress.org; Steve Finger 917-623-0652 Finger4Congress@aol.com, www.fingerforcongress.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE GOP Tries Blocking Libertarian Candidates Albany, NY 8/31/06 Libertarian Party of New York State Chair Richard Cooper reports that general objections have been filed against both the statewide Libertarian petition and that for Eric Sundwall in the 20th Congressional District. Cooper asks “Are the Republicans and lobbyist John Faso desperate to keep the Libertarians out of the race? They know we won’t hesitate to expose Republicans...