Free Republic

Speaker John Boehner is tightening his grip on the House Republican Conference weeks before an anticipated vote on a deficit deal. The Ohio Republican has smoothed over differences with Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), expanded his powers on the panel that doles out plum committee assignments, shot down a challenge to his earmark moratorium and worked behind the scenes to ensure that Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) would win her leadership contest.  All of Boehner’s moves are aimed at shoring up his influence over the GOP conference, which in turn maximizes the Speaker’s leverage with President Obama and the Democratic-controlled...

With conservatives across the country concerned about a rumored Republican cave-in in Washington, D.C. over tax policy, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is speaking out. Read his lips: no tax hikes. McConnell said in an exclusive statement to Breitbart News: One issue I’ve never been conflicted about is taxes. I wasn’t sent to Washington to raise anybody’s taxes to pay for more wasteful spending and this election doesn’t change my principles. This election was a disappointment, without doubt, but let’s be clear about something: the House is still run by Republicans, and Republicans still maintain a robust minority in...

Another potential government shutdown could loom if Congress isn’t able to scramble soon and cobble together a big omnibus spending bill to keep the government open past Dec. 16. The current stopgap measure expires then. And only three of the 12 annual spending bills which run the federal government have been approved and signed into law. That means House and Senate appropriators are putting together a massive, omnibus spending bill which they hope to have prepared by Dec. 15. This would not be an interim bill, better known in Capitol Hill-ese as a Continuing Resolution, or CR, which funds government...

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...

As the season of presidential politics 2012 unfolds, I’m struck by similarities between today and the tumultuous period in our history that led up to the election of Abraham Lincoln and then on to the Civil War. So much so that I’m finding it a little eerie that this year we are observing the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. No, I am certainly not predicting, God forbid, that today’s divisions and tensions will lead to brother taking up arms against brother. But profound differences divide us today, as was the case in the 1850′s. The difference...

At a time of skyrocketing gas prices and near-record profits for oil companies, House Speaker John Boehner made a major concession today: Congress should consider cutting multi-billion dollar subsidies to oil companies. "Everybody wants to go after the oil companies and, frankly, they've got some part of this to blame," the Ohio Republican told ABC News today. Blame aside, what about the cold, hard cash -- the billions of dollars in tax breaks and other subsidies big oil receives every year? President Obama has proposed doing away with many of them, which he says would save $45 billion over the...

Lincoln’s first political party dissolved, and so could today’s RepublicansScott Brown’s improbable win in the Massachusetts Senate election is the latest and most dramatic evidence of the Republicans’ greatly improved electoral outlook. As polls have shown dissatisfaction with President Obama rising and Democratic leads in congressional generic-ballot polls shrinking or gone, GOP operatives have started 2010 with visions of 1994 dancing in their heads. But a closer look at the data rings alarm bells. Recent polls also show that voters’ ratings of the Republican party and Republican members of Congress have barely budged and remain sharply negative: Greater support for...

   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...

Nationalisation, long regarded in Washington as a folly of Europeans, is gaining rapid ground among US opinion-formers. Stranger still, many of those talking about federal ownership of banks are Republicans. Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator for North Carolina, said that many of his colleagues, including John McCain, the defeated presidential candidate, agreed with his view that nationalisation of some banks should be “on the table”.

Agency vs. Coercive Altruism By Jared Eastley It is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little power, as they suppose, to apply and practice coercive altruism. Coercive Altruism—the act of forcing others to do what one person or group thinks they should do, supposedly for their best good, but without their approval and/or consent. Accordingly, it is evident that more evil and harm has been inflicted throughout the history of this world in a spirit of Coercive Altruism, than by almost any other means. Fundamental to the entire mechanism and soul of...

Predicting what will happen if the Democrats win control in one or both houses of Congress next month is a burgeoning cottage industry. It is, however, both more interesting and probably more useful to consider what will happen if they don’t. If Democrats win they will crow and bray and make nuisances of themselves with frivolous, ankle-biting investigations. They may even connive with the White House and some foolish Republican legislators to enact “comprehensive immigration reform.” If they do, the principal effect will be to turn our illegal immigration problem into a crisis, creating a major political opportunity for the...

The Democrat Party died yesterday in Hartford, Connecticut. Present when this venerable institution breathed its last were a minority of the Democrats in the Nutmeg State. The Party was the child of the Republican-Democrat Party, and the Anti-Federalist Party. It leaves no known descendants. However, political parties sometimes spawn children many years after their deaths. Is that verdict too harsh? The leaders of the Democrat Party in Washington, New York, and elsewhere, are not admitting even to a serious illness. It’s difficult to conduct a proper Irish wake when on-lookers insist on prodding the deceased to sing and dance. These...

Ever since Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, the strength of American conservatism has largely confounded historians and intellectuals. Before then, a generation of influential scholars claimed that liberalism was the core of all American political thinking and suggested that it always would be. Well into the 1970's, many observers wondered whether a Republican Party that allied itself with the conservative movement could long survive. History has, to say the least, disproved these judgments. Yet many prominent liberals continue to see contemporary conservatism as a rhetorical smoke screen intended to deceive the masses - even as conservatives often trace their movement...

MIDI - YELLOW SUBMARINE In the town of New Orleans Was a mayor who possessed the means He said to evacuate It's too bad it was very late Then he got on the TV He looked like a clown to you and me He had buses that were parked Still today he is in the dark Now the mayor has yellow submarines, yellow submarines, yellow submarines Now the mayor has yellow submarines, yellow submarines, yellow submarines He knew he must dodge the blame Buses now are out of the game They had floated like Ted's car Now the mayor...

The other day an official with a British teachers' union proposed that the concept of "failing" exams should be abolished. Instead of being given a "failing" grade, she said, the pupil would instead be given a "deferred success." Oh, sure, you can scoff. But evidently the system's already being test-piloted in Howard Dean's Democratic Party. That's why the Dems' Congressional Campaign Committee hailed their electoral failure in last week's Ohio special election as a triumphant "deferred success." As their press release put it: "In nearly the biggest political upset in recent history, Democrat Paul Hackett came within just a few...

As usual, the Republican Party surrendered the moral and political high ground to the losers when Sen. Bill Frist cravenly accepted Mr. Durbin's phony apology. Republicans talk tough about the war, radical judges, illegal aliens, affirmative action and term limits. Once elected, though, they thumb their noses at the voters and hide behind liberal power grabs. The American people have completely lost control of their government.It is time for a counterliberal revolution, but this latest Republican capitulation shows that the feckless Republican Party is incompetent to lead it. Timid and submissive, the Republican Party remains viable only as the nominal...

Those who are long of tooth recall Chevy Chase’s news routine on Saturday Night Live, especially his weekly riff, “Generalissimo Franco is still dead.” That was based on true stories of the removal of assorted organs from the dying General, with doctors’ assurances he was still alive. That also led to Don Henley’s classic, “Dirty Laundry,” with the lines, “Is the head dead yet? Get the widow on the set....” This is ancient news, but it’s relevant to the Democrats. Like the Generalissimo, that Party has had major organs removed, but is allegedly still alive. As a student of US...

MIDI - HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN It seems their party's gone insane...just look what they've become Just like the Whigs they're going away...Dems watch they're own setting sun They're putting down our soldiers...they help the enemy Their treason won't get power back...the blind can even see So, mothers, tell your children...that party's filled with rats And when they're old enough to vote...there'll be no DemocRATS (musical break) So, mothers, tell your children...that this party's filled with rats When it's time for choosing how to vote...there will be no more DemocRATS With race and class and gender...that's how they...

If you want an image that captures what American politics will be like over the next few decades, imagine two waves crashing down upon us simultaneously, each magnifying the damage caused by the other. The first wave is the exploding cost of the entitlement programs. The second wave is the ever-increasing polarization of the political class. The polarization will make it impossible to reach an agreement on how to fix the entitlements problem. Meanwhile the vicious choices forced on us by entitlement costs will make the polarization even worse.

The Way of the Whigs Geoff Metcalf There may be a place for partisanship … but NOT in the middle of a war; NOT in the wake of historic elections of representative government in: - Afghanistan - Ukraine - Iraq - and even municipal elections in Saudi Arabia Now is NOT the time to focus on the ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ acrimonious petty whizzing match. Sycophant democrats are still so wrapped around partisanship, they are incapable of recognizing the self-destruction they are fueling. The river ‘Denial’ runs wide and deep. The ‘leaders’ of the party (Kennedy, Reid, Pelosi, Biden, Kerry et...