Free Republic

Now that Republicans will control both houses of Congress, they will have an opportunity to deal with Obamacare. What should be done? They can begin by repealing the worst features of Obamacare. They can do that by keeping three promises many of them made to voters during the last election: Keep your job; keep your health insurance; and keep your doctor. The most direct way to get rid of all the anti-job provisions of ObamaCare is to repeal the employer mandate. The most direct way to insure that people can keep insurance they like is to repeal the individual mandate....

Officials and various candidates for office joined in the flood of outrage tonight following the not guilty verdict in the racially-charged trial of George Zimmerman for the killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. Former Comptroller Bill Thompson, the mayoral race’s only black candidate, released and tweeted a terse, one-line statement slamming the decision, which was read tonight just before 10 p.m. “Trayvon Martin was killed because he was black,” declared Mr. Thompson. “There was no justice done today in Florida.” City Council Speaker Christine Quinn further slammed the acquittal as “a shocking insult to his family and everyone seeking justice...

Via Mediaite, an easy lay-up here for a guy who (a) warned the world about Saddam’s WMD threat more than once as president, (b) cautiously declined to take a firm position against the war at the time, and (c) is of course married to someone who cast a vote in the Senate to invade.But never mind that. This is an interesting counterfactual: What would have happened to Iraq during the Arab Spring and Syrian uprising if Saddam had endured? Clinton implicitly assumes that ISIS advancing on Baghdad is the worst possible outcome of the past 10 years, which is...

Ready for Warren? Run Liz Run? Run Warren Run? Draft Warren? Progressive activists haven’t agreed on what to call the movement urging Elizabeth Warren to run for president, but they largely concur on this: with every recent anti-establishment move the Massachusetts senator grows more attractive as a 2016 candidate, both in her own right and as a progressive foil for Hillary Clinton. Such sentiments were on vivid display this week at RootsCamp, a gathering of some 2,000 progressive activists held in Washington, D.C. The event was held as Warren and others on the left have been denouncing the “cromnibus” spending...

On Republicans working with Obama to pass a $1.1 trillion Omnibus spending bill written by and for the Chamber of Amnesty… I don’t know how you go into 2016…and you say: ‘Okay, I want you to support the GOP because…we didn’t stop immigration-amnesty, we’re gonna bring in a lot more guest workers, and we think it’s good to do these big omnibus bills…oh, and by the way, we’re probably gonna fight a couple more wars. Vote for us.’ … What position would you rather be in? Warren’s position or, like, Paul Ryan– Mister Budget Hawk? Oh boy, that Paul Ryan...

Mayor Bill de Blasio says he won't reimburse the taxpayers for personal trips when his security detail is at the wheel, even though New York City's other top elected officials have said they would. For the first time Monday afternoon, Mr. de Blasio addressed criticism from government watchdogs and former elected officials who have questioned his ethics for allowing the public to fund out-of-town private travel, an issue raised in report published last week in The Wall Street Journal. Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, said he would abide by a March 2009 advisory opinion from the city's Conflicts of Interest...

Bill de Blasio, the New York mayor, says he knows why Democrats lost the 2014 election. Income inequality defines our times, he said during a visit to Washington this week, and his party did not talk about the issue enough. De Blasio needs a hearing aid. Democrats speak of little else. Dodging questions about Hillary Clinton, de Blasio praised Elizabeth Warren. He called the liberal heroine “one of the indispensable voices” among Democrats, and appeared with her at a Center for American Progress event later that day. The policy conference featured other darlings of the left: Julian Castro, Tammy Baldwin,...

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is maneuvering to run for president in 2016 and will use his progressive credentials to derail former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s expected bid for the White House, according to a prediction from the chairman of the Republican Party in New York. Ed Cox, the New York state GOP chairman, also said de Blasio’s plan will be successful, according to the New York Post. “It’s like Barack Obama; he was a brand-new freshman senator, and he ran for president and won. I think de Blasio is going to do it,” Cox said at a...

Defying his party's leadership, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz upended plans for smooth passage of a $1.1-trillion spending bill, forcing a rare Saturday session as Congress braces to prevent a new threatened government shutdown.. Cruz launched the Senate into turmoil as he tried to use the government shutdown as leverage to stop President Obama's immigration plans. Now, Congress faces a midnight Saturday deadline to keep federal operations running. Senators were streaming into the Capitol on a sunny winter Saturday for a series of procedural votes, with many not happy about the situation. "I remind everyone, 12 o'clock midnight, 12 a.m., the...

The last time Hillary declared that she was running for President was on January 20, 2007. Will she toss her broom into the ring as early as she did last time if she decides to run?

Former Senator and Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum announced that he was taking “a more serious look” at running for president in 2016 on Wednesday’s “Hugh Hewitt Show.”

"Smart people" in America will never back conservative Republicans, or so says Rick Santorum – a conservative Republican whose verbal missteps are becoming as well-known as his hardline posturing on social issues. Santorum, who ended up being Mitt Romney's closest rival for the 2012 Republican nomination, made the comment at the conservative Value Voters Summit in Washington. "We will never have the media on our side, ever, in this country. We will never have the elite, smart people on our side," Santorum said in a speech to the gathering of conservative activists at a Washington hotel. Santorum, a former Pennsylvania...

Rick Santorum dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday. Almost to a column, editorial and news account, the analysis centered on Santorum’s somewhat successful capture of conservative voters. And there lies the mystery. How could a man seemingly so opposite of conservative have entranced so many voters who label themselves just that? The easy answer is that as someone who made his religion such a prominent part of his campaign strategy... religious types who tend toward conservatism perhaps felt they’d found their man. [...] Indeed, if we ignore for a moment how very anti-conservative it...

I’ve known Rick Santorum for 22 years, having first met him in 1990 before he’d won his first campaign for Congress. I interviewed him on WORD-FM, an evangelical Christian radio station where I was a frequent guest host (and eventually a full-time host) early in his campaign. If I was not the first media personality to interview Rick, I was one of the first. I had Rick as a guest at the request of my friend, Mark Rogers, who was running Rick’s campaign. Over the years I interviewed Rick at least a dozen times and debated him several times as...

In remarks after President Obama made his first public comment on the matter, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum said Friday that the handling by Florida law enforcement of the Trayvon Martin case has been “horrible” and that the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law should not apply to the shooter, George Zimmerman. “Well, ‘Stand Your Ground’ is not doing what this man did,” Santorum said Friday morning at a campaign event in Monroe, La. “There’s a difference between ‘Stand Your Ground’ and doing what he did. And it’s a horrible case. It’s chilling to hear what happened, and of course the...

Just moments ago on the Sean Hannity radio show, GOP candidate and RINO Rick Santorum took it upon himself to convict George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin case. He said, and I’m paraphrasing slightly: It was a heinous crime and he did a despicable, unjustifiable thing and the Sanford police should have reacted to that immediately. Again, I am paraphrasing a little as I did not have a recorder running to get his exact words, but that was essentially his statement.

Just moments ago on the Sean Hannity radio show, GOP candidate and RINO Rick Santorum took it upon himself to convict George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin case. He said, and I’m paraphrasing slightly: *It was a heinous crime and he did a despicable, unjustifiable thing and the Sanford police should have reacted to that immediately.* Again, I am paraphrasing a little as I did not have a recorder running to get his exact words, but that was essentially his statement. To further paraphrase, in this case Anti-President Obama, Rick Santorum acted stupidly. He doesn’t know all the facts. He...

On Sunday’s “Face the Nation” on CBS, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum explained that his view of the Trayvon Martin shooting differed significantly from the one held by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Gingrich was critical of President Barack Obama’s reaction, but Santorum placed the blame on accused shooter George Zimmerman’s mental state. “Well, you know, obviously, I’m not privy to what’s going on in someone’s mind,” Santorum said. “Obviously, in my opinion, someone … has a very sick mind who would pursue someone like this. This is clearly a heinous act. You know, there are a lot of people...

Republican presidential contender Sen. Rick Santorum appeared on CBS' Face the Nation this morning and pronounced George Zimmerman guilty of murder in the first degree. Admitting that he was "not privy to what’s going on in someone’s mind," Santorum nevertheless said that Zimmerman, who shot and killed teenager Trayvon Martin while participating in a neighborhood watch last month, "has a very sick mind who would pursue someone like this." He added that Zimmerman's motive had been "malicious." The mental state of the alleged perpetrator, the motive, and the question of whether he pursued the alleged victim, are both critical in...

On “Face the Nation” Sunday on CBS, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum explained that his view of the Trayvon Martin shooting differed significantly from the one held by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.