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Hours after political unknown Vance McAllister pulled off a startling upset Saturday night in the special election for Congress in Louisiana's 5th District, pundits and pols were scrambling to figure out how he did it — and whether a trend of "Mr. Outside" and "Miss Outside" defeating established politicians in Republican primaries has begun for 2014. "The election of Vance McAllister to Congress in Louisiana's 5th District reflects the appeal of being an outsider in today's poisonous political environment," Mark Kennedy, former Republican congressman from Minnesota and director of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University, told...

Businessman Vance McAllister has won the special runoff election for a vacant northeast Louisiana congressional seat, notching an upset win over fellow Republican Neil Riser, according to the Associated Press. With 99 percent of precincts reporting, McAllister, a political newcomer, led Riser, a state senator who had won the support of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and much of the state’s GOP congressional delegation, 59.7 percent to 40.3 percent. McAllister will succeed former GOP Rep. Rodney Alexander, who resigned in August to take a job in Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration after spending more than a decade in the House. Riser...

An unknown political novice who has never visited Washington, D.C., won a special election for Louisiana's 5th District seat Saturday on the endorsement of the “Duck Dynasty” family and a promise to fix Obamacare. Vance McAllister beat establishment candidate Neil Riser, a state senator, in Saturday's runoff election created when former Rep. Rodney Alexander resigned on Sept. 26 to become secretary of the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs under Republican Governor Bobby Jindal.

Hours after political unknown Vance McAllister pulled off a startling upset Saturday night in the special election for Congress in Louisiana's 5th District, pundits and pols were scrambling to figure out how he did it — and whether a trend of "Mr. Outside" and "Miss Outside" defeating established politicians in Republican primaries has begun for 2014.

Vance McAllister, a political newcomer with the backing of the popular "Duck Dynasty" TV family, was elected as Louisiana's newest member of Congress Saturday night. According to the Louisiana Secretary of State's website, McAllister led establishment candidate Neil Riser 59.7 percent to 40.3 percent -- a difference of over 17,500 votes -- with 976 of a possible 981 precincts reporting. McAllister advanced to this weekend’s election to face off against Riser after an October contest with more than a dozen other candidates from both political parties -- in what is known as a “jungle primary.” The seat in Louisiana's 5th...

A political candidate endorsed by a member of the "Duck Dynasty" family has upset his establishment opponent in a special election held in Louisiana. Vance McAllister, a businessman who received an endorsement from Willie Robertson not long before the vote, was victorious against La. State Senator Neil Riser this past weekend. In the special runoff election held for the vacated Fifth Congressional District seat of Louisiana, McAllister defeated Riser with 59.7 percent of the vote versus Riser's 40.3 percent, reported Politico. Riser had strong support from Republican establishment figures at the state and federal level and was expected to win...

Vance McAllister, a political newcomer with the backing of the popular "Duck Dynasty" TV family, is Louisiana's newest member of Congress. McAllister, who largely self-funded his campaign, beat establishment candidate Neil Riser, a state senator, in Saturday's runoff election for the vacant 5th District seat. Both men are Republicans.

Vance McAllister, the Louisiana Republican who got elected to Congress on Saturday after being endorsed by Duck Dynasty's Willie Robertson, supports amnesty for all of the country's illegal immigrants. “We have to secure the borders, but (citizenship) has to be attainable for those people already here,” he told Thetowntalk.com before the election. “It has to be a tough path, but it has to be attainable.”

Aimed at attracting the world's best and brightest, the US will soon come out with a series of policy initiatives and changes in the existing rules including allowing the spouses of H-1B visas to work in America. In a statement, the White House said that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will soon publish several proposed rules that will make the US more attractive to talented foreign entrepreneurs and other high-skill immigrants who will contribute substantially to the US economy, create jobs, and enhance American innovative competitiveness. "These proposed regulations include rules authorizing employment for spouses of certain high-skill workers...

Rep. Steve King has been known to make, from time to time, some controversial remarks about immigration — and his floor speech on Friday was no exception. Speaking to a nearly empty chamber, the Iowa Republican said the result of an immigration overhaul would be more dead Americans.

The GOP establishment is piling on in its support of Thom Tillis. Two sources confirm to the National Journal that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will endorse the North Carolina House speaker, the Republican front-runner for his party's Senate nomination who is fighting off an array of opponents in a primary. The endorsement is expected before the state's May 6 primary. One source with knowledge of the situation said the chamber also plans to air TV ads on his behalf, a big boost for a candidate who already holds a sizable fundraising advantage over his intra-party foes. The business group's...

Sen. Rand Paul claimed in 2009 that former Vice President Dick Cheney exploited the 9/11 attacks in order to lead the United States into war in Iraq to benefit military contractor Halliburton, where Cheney had been CEO before heading to Washington, a video unveiled by blog Mother Jones' writer David Corn shows. In the video unearthed of a speech given at Western Kentucky University, Paul argues that Cheney opposed the first Bush administration's plans but changed his mind over Halliburton, Corn reports. "He's being interviewed (in 1995), I think, by the American Enterprise Institute, and he says it would be...

Jeb Bush's "act of love" comments about immigration over the weekend drew massive headlines with some conservatives criticizing him for his latest apostasy on the issue. But, it's the lead-up to Bush using the phrase "act of love" that's actually the really important part of what he said. Here it is with our bolding added: "There are means by which we can control our border better than we have. And there should be penalties for breaking the law. But the way I look at this -- and I'm going to say this, and it'll be on tape and so be...

House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy has pulled his column from Breitbart News after the site launched a California version with a lewd photoshop image of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. A McCarthy spokesperson told ABC News the images were "inappropriate," while another told the Los Angeles Times that the office "didn't condone them." “We thought it was the right thing to do to ask for the column to be removed," said Spokesperson Matt Sparks, according to the Los Angeles Times. The brash right-wing conservative news outlet launched its California coverage Monday with an ad campaign featuring a series of image...

Ever the happy warrior of the left, Sen. Chuck Schumer is not giving up on his pipe dream: amnesty for illegal aliens in 2014. Appearing on MSNBC on Monday, Schumer said he thinks it still can happen this year thanks to a group of liberal Republicans—what he thinks is the majority of Republicans—who will stand by silently, letting amnesty pass while voting against it in the end. He called it the “vote-no, pray-yes caucus,” meaning that certain Republicans would publicly claim they are against amnesty, vote against it in the end, but behind the scenes either fight for its passage...

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is done being patient. There was a time when an Oval Office meeting with President Obama could buy their silence. But no longer. On Friday April 4, the CHC sent a six-page letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson demanding that Obama use "all legal means available" to "suspend, delay, or dispense with the deportations of immigrants who would qualify for legal status and protection under S. 744." At no point does the letter bother to call for new legislation or the passage of S.744. Instead, the CHC just demands that Obama enforce current...

"...Bishops and other church leaders in America have advocated immigration reform for years, but they’ve never been more emphatic or creative about it than on Tuesday, when a delegation of nine American prelates led by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston traveled to Nogales, Ariz., to celebrate a Mass at the United States/Mexican border, to lay a wreath at the border commemorating the estimated 6,000 people who have died trying to make the crossing, and to stage a news conference urging reform of what they called a “broken system.”

The debate over illegal immigration is one of the most frustrating issues for those who approach public policy logically.  Seldom do we have so much history to draw upon when crafting new policies like we do with illegal immigration, yet nobody in Washington is willing to learn the lessons of the past.We have seen time and again how one amnesty begets another because liberalizing our immigration laws without a commensurate plan to prevent future flows of illegal immigration will only encourage more of the same.  The solution is not an enigma.  All we have to do is actually implement the border and...

<p>David Corn over at Mother Jones unearths a 2009 video of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), in which Paul suggests that former vice president Dick Cheney wanted to invade Iraq in order to benefit his former employer, Halliburton.</p> <p>In the video, shot at Western Kentucky University, Paul argues that Cheney thought the invasion was a bad idea in the first Bush administration but changed his tune after working for Halliburton.</p>

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) took a shot at Dick Cheney last night, saying the former Vice President wasn't in any position to be criticizing President Obama. "Well, I think he had his eight years and he's caused a lot of trouble for our country and he perpetuated a war in Iraq that was unnecessary and wrong-headed," Paul said of Cheney on CNN's Larry King Live. "So I would say that it would be best he not be so critical right now."