Free Republic

Republican National Committee officials announced recently that the party's nominating convention for the next presidential election will be held in Cleveland or Dallas. “These world-class cities have the ability to provide our next presidential nominee a launching pad that will put a Republican in the White House in 2016,” said site-selection chairman Enid Mickelsen. Given the ultimate goal, the GOP's big bash should be in Ohio. A lot more than one election is riding on the next campaign for the Oval Office. After losing the popular vote in five of the last six presidential contests, many of the Republican faithful...

Bill and Hillary Clinton raised from $2-3 billion in the two decades they’ve been prominent on the national stage, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Journal tallied the Clintons’ speaking fees, fundraising for their foundation and the sums raised for Bill Clinton’s two presidential campaigns, for the Democratic National Committee while he was in office and for Hillary Clinton’s Senate and presidential campaigns. Between $1.3-2 billion came from U.S. companies and industry sources, making up at least 75 percent of the sum — more than the 60 percent industry sources contributed to the two Bushes’ political operations. The Journal...

Two Texans may be vying for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016: Sen. Ted Cruz and Governor Rick Perry. Cruz overwhelmingly won the Texas GOP 2016 convention straw poll, confirming his position as the conservative grassroots candidate. He fires up crowds unlike any other politician today, and the power of motivating voters and volunteers should not be underestimated. But will he run in 2016? The signs point to yes. One of his staffers left his office to start a committee to draft him into running. He has visited the early states and spent many weekends during his first 18 months...

Amy Poehler stands on some kind of political platform aside her opponent in a red dress. Amy says, “Every member of my staff should have their own jet ski, but why would you vote for my opponent, in her fancy and obviously expensive clothes?” Her opponent’s rebuttal is “actually this dress was only eight dollars.”

TRENTON — Democratic state Senate President Stephen Sweeney has been traveling all over the state, pitching his "Sandy Bill of Rights" bill — a tour many see as laying the groundwork for a run for governor. Republican lawmakers who never dared challenge Gov. Chris Christie this month openly opposed a series of tax and fee hikes in his budget, including a tax on e-cigarettes first proposed by the governor. Nobody knows if the Republican governor will prepare a White House run in the next year. But already, lawmakers from both parties have been staking claims and thinking of a post-Christie...

Paging Elizabeth Warren: This is your moment. In 2007, Democrats were delirious with rage about the Iraq war. Hillary Clinton, the “inevitable” presidential front-runner, had voted for the war and refused to apologize for it. Other leading candidates, including Joe Biden, John Edwards, and Chris Dodd, voted for it too. This left a huge opening for a credible antiwar candidate. Barack Obama, inexperienced and underqualified, nonetheless jumped into the vacuum. The rest, as they say, is history. Today, the issue that obsesses the base of the Democratic party is income inequality. I think that’s foolish. The underlying causes of inequality...

It’s not exactly the Ali-Frazier “Thrilla in Manilla,” but the ongoing Rand Paul-Dick Cheney pugilism certainly packs a punch. The libertarian ophthalmologist and the warlord emeritus have been pounding each other for months, and while it’s tempting to just kick back with popcorn and behold the entertainment, we do need to acknowledge the bout’s deeper meaning. Because this is really about something quite serious. Republicans are profoundly split these days over foreign policy: between the non-interventionists who are increasingly wary of American military involvement abroad; and the neoconservative hawks who blundered us into Iraq and want us to keep flexing...

Tea Partyers keep blowing elections, but they're still remaking the GOP in their own extremist image. Last night was rough for the Tea Party. Sen. Thad Cochran beat the odds and the expectations and defeated Chris McDaniel in the runoff for Mississippi’s GOP Senate nomination. In Oklahoma, endorsements by Sarah Palin and Sen. Ted Cruz did little to help T.W. Shannon, who was easily defeated by Rep. James Lankford in the race for the Republican nomination to replace retiring Sen. Tom Coburn. Both seats were all but certain to stay in Republican hands no matter who won, but the tea...

DENVER — Team Clinton is doing damage control on a series of comments by Hillary Clinton about the former first couple’s wealth. Former President Bill Clinton on Tuesday defended his wife as “not out of touch,” and lashed out at the criticism during an appearance at the Clinton Global Initiative America conference. With Hillary and Chelsea Clinton looking on from the audience of a hotel ballroom, he explained that Hillary Clinton’s comment two weeks ago that the couple was “dead broke” when they left the White House was “factually true.” He also criticized reporters for not including context in stories...

Yes, FReepU GOPe, but surrender? NUTS! The battle rages on. Landslide in November and again in 2016! Repeal all of Obama's Marxist disasters! Take our country back!! Rebellion is brewing!!

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has had a rough time of it ever since she asserted that both she and her husband were “dead broke” and “struggled” after leaving the White House in 2001. “A few weeks before they left the White House, the Clintons were able to muster a cash down payment of $855,000 and secure a $1.995 million mortgage,” Politifact observed. “This hardly fits the common meaning of ‘dead broke.’” Clinton might have taken the public backlash over this minor gaffe in stride, but she didn’t. Speaking with The Guardian over the weekend, Clinton again reasserted her credentials...

“Sarah said God bless you. She wrote it,” I pointed to the picture, he leaned over, looked straight into my eyes and said: “She is a.m.a.z.i.n.g.” That was the brief exchange not caught on camera. It was the “moment”. His words were deliberate, genuine and unequivocal. He admires Sarah. The noise in the room, the glare of the lights, the chatter and commotion disappeared just for that moment. All of it. Gone. Frozen in time. It was awesome. He carefully chose where to sign his name, too, and did not ruin the little “treasure” which had traveled from Texas to...

Old theory: Hillary’s going to run despite being a terrible, tone-deaf retail politician. New theory: With her family’s help, Hillary’s going to preemptively disqualify herself so that she doesn’t have to run. If photos suddenly surface of Bill at a strip club “making it rain” with thousand-dollar bills, we’ll have our answer. Deliberate sabotage would be the only possible explanation for a photo like that, right? “It is frustrating, because who wants to grow up and follow their parents?” admits Chelsea. “I’ve tried really hard to care about things that were very different from my parents. I was curious if...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Hillary Clinton is, without question, a smart lady. She has been a senator and secretary of state, after all. So no dummy, she. But is she smart enough to not run for president in 2016? She was beaten handily in 2008 by a first-term senator named Barack despite the feared Clinton Rolodex of party high rollers. And while her favorability rating has risen steadily, especially since she left the public eye early this year, millions and millions of Americans who opposed her in 2008 — Republican and Democrat — are still out there. Things are off to a terrible start....

Washington DC: Vice President Joe Biden is chasing a bunch of kids with a water gun, no wait, they have started chasing him and the 71-year-old vice president is still fleet of foot. Now he’s telling the kids to turn the guns on the adults and they oblige and we all get drenched. If you want to know why those around Joe Biden love the VP so much then attend his annual summer barbecue at his residence in the grounds of the Naval Observatory in Washington and you will soon find out. Dozens of kids, staffers and adults were present...

Hillary Clinton is an American Democratic Politician, with a net worth of $21.5 million. Hillary Clinton has earned her net worth...

What? Yes, Hillary really said that. In an interview with The Guardian, Clinton, addressing a question about how the couple’s reported $100 million-plus income since leaving the White House might mix with rhetoric about income inequality, said the following: “But they don’t see me as part of the problem,” she protests, “because we pay ordinary income tax, unlike a lot of people who are truly well off, not to name names; and we’ve done it through dint of hard work,” she says, letting off another burst of laughter. Hillary is still “down with the struggle,” except at a slightly...

In his new book, “Blood Feud,” journalist Edward Klein gets inside the dysfunctional, jealous relationship between Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack and Michelle Obama — and how it could explode in 2016. Outwardly, they put on a show of unity — but privately, the Obamas and Clintons, the two power couples of the Democrat Party, loathe each other. “I hate that man Obama more than any man I’ve ever met, more than any man who ever lived,” Bill Clinton said to friends on one occasion, adding he would never forgive Obama for suggesting he was a racist during the...

AUSTIN - Sounding more presidential aspirant than book-selling author, former secretary of state and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday excoriated the current partisan divide in U.S. politics that she insisted is crippling America's can-do spirit for the future. "Our political system has to be fixed so we start working together again," she said at a packed performance hall speech that was repeatedly interrupted by cheers in Texas' Democrat-friendly capital city. "We have to start acting like Americans. We're all on the same team." During a 45-minute speech, Clinton criticized current politicians who she said underscore the fact they're...

He's said over and over that he won't run for the White House a third time, but a new poll indicates that if Mitt Romney changed his mind and made another bid for president, he'd be the frontrunner among Republicans in the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire. According to the Suffolk University/Boston Herald survey, which was released Thursday, 24% of Granite State Republicans and independents who lean towards the GOP say that Romney would be their first choice for their party's presidential nomination. Among the potential 2016 GOP contenders, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was a distant second, at...