Free Republic

Sen. Ted Cruz spoke at the 2014 Red State Gathering in Ft. Worth on Friday, telling the hundreds of gathered conservative activists not to believe the media's rhetoric on the lagging conservative movement - that, in his time in Washington, there are distinct and powerful victories that conservatives can be proud of. He named five victories, and two that, in his words, "are fixin' to be completed." 1. The defeat of President Obama and congressional Democrats' proposed gun control measures Conventional wisdom last year was that the President's gun control proposals were unstoppable... I was proud to stand with my...

Has the time finally come that practical rather than political experience, a larger than life persona and sanguinary vision of both sworn enemies and fair weather friends should define the suitability for office of the next American president? Our elected representatives are charged with defense of the Constitution of the United States and the faithful execution of their office. But for decades the republic has suffered through an epidemic of irreconcilable political, economic, social, and media agendas which have transformed the US from a nation of prosperity into one of decay. We are becoming what our Founders feared most as...

In an echo of 2008 — when Ted and Caroline Kennedy backed upstart Barack Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton — members of the Kennedy clan have been quietly wooing Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and encouraging her to throw her hat in the ring, sources tell me. The question of whom to back in the 2016 presidential race has split the Kennedys down the middle. Robert Kennedy’s widow, Ethel, and their eldest son, former US Rep. Joe Kennedy II, favor Warren — the darling of the party’s left-wing base who now sits in Ted Kennedy’s old seat — while Bobby Jr....

Twelve states filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration on Friday seeking to block an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to regulate coal-fired power plants in an effort to stem climate change. The plaintiffs are led by West Virginia and include states that are home to some of the largest producers of coal and consumers of coal-fired electricity. The suit was filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The other plaintiffs are Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming. The E.P.A. rule, announced by President Obama on June...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Fusion TV's Jorge Ramos that part of the reason Hamas hides rockets in schools and civilian areas is "Gaza is small." "I'm not a military planner but Hamas puts it's missiles, it's rockets in civilian areas, part of it is Gaza is pretty small and its densely populated," she said as neglecting the question of whether or not Hamas should have rockets in area to begin with.

Mideast: Secretary of State Kerry practically acts as proxy for the Hamas terrorist group, and his predecessor, Hillary Clinton, excuses Hamas' use of human shields. As President Obama likes to say, "That's not who we are." 'Our starting point must always be a clear and strong commitment to the security of Israel," Obama wrote in a much-celebrated 2007 Foreign Affairs magazine article. "That commitment is all the more important as we contend with growing threats in the region — a strengthened Iran, a chaotic Iraq, the resurgence of al-Qaida, the reinvigoration of Hamas and Hezbollah." Seven years later, Iran is...

The Tea Party favorite loves to needle Team Obama. But in an interview, Cruz also reveals a new kind of conservative foreign policy: American exceptionalism without the nation building.One way to understand Ted Cruz’s foreign policy, particularly if you are a Democrat, is through the prism of the social media phenomenon known as trolling. The best trolls are provocateurs. Their language is meant to expose a fallacy or weakness in the opponent’s position as opposed to offering a constructive alternative. In a wide-ranging interview with the junior senator from Texas, there was a lot of trolling. Of Obama’s recent attempt...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she wanted more Central American citizens to apply for asylum to live in the United States from their home countries. The Obama administration is reportedly considering setting up a satellite facility in Honduras to allow people to apply for asylum without coming to the United States, but Clinton said Guatemalans and El Salvadorans should have asylum facilities in their nations as well. In an interview with Jorge Ramos on Fusion, Clinton said that she wanted facilities "over there" to "screen kids... before they get in the hands of coyotes, or they get on...

There is no debate we’re a country in transition. The only debate is what we’re actually transitioning to, and whether we’ll be better or worse as a people for it. Such transitions challenge trusted traditions to prove they’re still relevant. Old alliances are tested. And folks tend to gravitate to new ideas quickly before they’re fully vetted, mainly because they’ve lost faith in the old ideas. In the political arena, nowhere will this attempted paradigm shift be more apparent than the foreign policy debate that could very well define the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Recently, Kentucky Senator...

A holiday weekend video treat: How cable music channel VH1 turned booing of Senator Hillary Clinton into cheering. Senator Clinton was booed when she walked on stage last October at a rock concert in Madison Square Garden to benefit 9/11 victims. It was shown live by VH1 but, as ABC's John Stossel illustrated in a July 20/20 special on media distortions, when the Viacom-owned cable channel replayed it sound technicians replaced the booing with cheering and applause. And that version is the permanent record VH1 put onto its DVD of the event. During his July 12 20/20 look at media...

DETROIT — On the night before her Friday keynote address to a gathering of progressive activists here, Sen. Elizabeth Warren tried to slip into a hotel restaurant for a quiet dinner. But the former law professor has become a liberal superstar, and when a few admirers spotted her walking to the corner of the dining room, they cheered loudly. A moment later, more joined in the applause. Then one urged her, “Run for president!” The next morning at Netroots Nation, where Warren (D-Mass.) gave a fiery sermon for economic populism — “The game is rigged, and it isn’t right!” —...

Should the Democrats nominate Elizabeth Warren for President in 2016, as a draft-Warren movement, some liberal pundits and enthusiasts at this week’s Netroots Nation convention believe? Should Republicans nominate Ted Cruz, who has kept his options open with frequent trips to Iowa and New Hampshire? In some ways, Cruz and Warren are mirror images, and the cases for and against them are surprisingly similar. But there are also some critical differences.Before 2008, the idea of a presidential contest between two first-term Senators in their (by then) fourth year in Washington would have seemed ridiculous; in 1988, Dan Quayle was roundly...

Not so long ago the federal deficit was projected to destroy the country, our children’s future and just about everything else. Budget battles shut down the entire government for a couple weeks. How times change. A count by our colleague Alice Crites illustrates how the issue gained media traction – - especially after the Bush/Obama stimulus packages to mitigate Bush’s Great Recession – and how much it’s faded from the front pages. So what happened? Simple answer, of course, is that the deficit is way down and, for now, no longer a big problem.

The worst is judging the not-so-good: That’s what Attorney General Eric Holder would have you believe. Yes, the worst attorney general in our history contends that Sarah Palin wasn’t a very good vice presidential nominee. Mark one up again for the liberals war on women. “She wasn't a particularly good vice presidential candidate,” the AG told George Stephanapolous on ABCNews. “She's an even worse judge of who ought to be impeached and why.” We’ve known for a while that Holder knows little about the law, now we know that he knows little about politics too. He’s wrong on the law...

The GOP Presidential rumor mill is ripe with dreams of Mitt Romney running again in 2016. Romney has turned out to be right about a number of issues, particularly on foreign policy. He was also right in predicting Obamacare would be a disaster. In 2014, Romney looks like the wise sage who warned us about what a second Obama term would look like. He even has 45% of the country believing he would have done a better job as President than Obama. Of course, it’s wishful thinking to believe Romney would run in 2016 and win. While 45% think Romney...

Allahpundit touched on this idea briefly this week in an article primarily to do with Mitt Romney in specific and the general question of whether or not there are second acts for losing party nominees in the 21st century. But apparently the idea has taken root in a few places, and as he noted in the article, the Daily Caller (or at least Mark Halperin) talked about it without being entirely tongue in cheek. Mark Halperin, the senior political analyst for “Time” magazine, appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Thursday and boldly reiterated his Wednesday Twitter assertion that Al Gore —...

[...]If Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush were to become president of the United States it would mean the power and influence of the presidency remained in the hands of the Clinton family for possibly sixteen years, and that’s not even counting the princess in waiting, Chelsea; and in the case of the Bush family, possibly twenty years, and that’s not counting the heir apparent, George Prescott Bush. Have we devolved into a nation of bleating sheep, or screaming teenagers at an episode of American Idol? Can it be true that there are no other citizens in this great nation worthy of...

After an absence of several years, the new Pew Research Center political typology poll was just released. It breaks the American political electorate into eight groups. And, it makes clear what the Democratic challenge is in November midterm election. The Pew political typology has two dimensions. One is the likelihood of voting. Pew factors voters into three categories: "General Public," "Registered Voter," and "Politically Engaged." I'll assume the "Politically Engaged" are those likely to vote in the November midterm election and focus on those percentages. The second Pew dimension is the degree of partisanship. Pew sees three clusters. The first...

A new conventional wisdom is forming which says Democrat's gaffes don't matter because they aren't connected to (bad) Republican policies. There's a grain of truth to this argument and yet it misses the big picture. Hillary's policy positions won't be able to save her from her own serious flaws as a candidate. Progressive writer Brian Beutler explained why Romney's gaffe's mattered (and Hillary's didn't) this way: "Romney's weaknesses ran much deeper than tone-deaf asides about close friendships with NASCAR team owners, or a car elevator. His unfamiliarity with material deprivation was badly compounded by his devotion to an agenda (and...

President Obama on Wednesday predicted the Republican Party would have to "move back to the center" if it ever wanted to win another presidential election. During an interview with "Marketplace" radio show, Obama defended his recent effort to sidestep Congress on a number of issues this year in the face of inaction. He said Republicans are unable to carry out "basic functions of government,” pointing to the failure to pass immigration reform and the government shutdown last year. "I don't think this is a permanent state of affairs,” he said. “I think over time the Republican Party will move back...