Free Republic

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) blasted members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday, which voted overwhelmingly to arm elements of the Syrian opposition in a bill co-sponsored by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN). "This is an important moment," Paul said, addressing his Senate colleagues. "You will be funding, today, the allies of al Qaeda. It's an irony you cannot overcome." The legislation, which would authorize the shipment of arms and military training to rebels "that have gone through a thorough vetting process," passed in a bipartisan 15-3 vote. Paul offered an amendment that would strike the...

A hot microphone caught Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) coordinating which way members of the “Gang of Eight” who serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee would vote on immigration bill amendments, Breitbart News has learned. “Do our Republicans have a pass on this one if they want?” the microphone caught Schumer saying.

For those of us who have long wondered why the Justice Department never investigated Wall Street, the Associated Press subpoena scandal illustrates a key point: The Justice Department sets priorities based on what it hears from the White House. ---snip--- With President Obama's gratitude, Justice Department leaders will likely one day rejoin the prestigious white collar bar and make millions of dollars a year to defend the very bankers they were supposed to hold accountable

Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Scott Brown joined John McCain in denouncing the congresswoman's Muslim witch hunt Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, a rising star in the party and a potential vice-presidential pick for Mitt Romney, said this morning that he disagreed with Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann’s baseless call to investigate Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in the U.S. government. Appearing on NPR’s Diane Rehm show, Rubio was asked by a caller if he would join Republican Sen. John McCain’s strong condemnation of the anti-Muslim witch hunt on the Senate floor yesterday. While Rubio said he doesn’t personally know Huma Abedin, a...

United States plans to link the countries of Central Asia by new rail lines with Afghanistan. At the same time, Washington opposes neither the construction of a railway corridor from Central Asia through Iran, nor Chinese extensions of its national rail system into the area. Nevertheless, according to analysts at the Moscow Strategic Culture Foundation, these overlapping transportation development projects threaten to spark a new “railroad war” in the Central Asian region—one that in the absence of counter-efforts by the Russian Federation is likely to result in a sharp reduction of Moscow’s influence over the countries there.

When Sean Hannity suddenly “evolved” his position on amnesty to accommodate his idol Marco Rubio, I can't say I was surprised. All of Fox News has been in the tank for so long that it was inevitable. I don't see how someone, at his age and given the enormous amount of evidence against illegal immigration, could morph all of that into a 180 degree position. He didn't even pretend to put up a fight for Americans. He folded like a deck of cards. It was painful to watch someone so wimpified by someone he admires. But when Glenn Beck this...

Sen. Rand Paul formally rolled out his 2014 budget blueprint on Friday, offering a combination of tax and spending proposals that he said would balance the federal budget in five years without raising taxes. The freshman Kentucky Republican’s plan reshapes entitlement programs, abolishes four federal agencies and overhauls the federal tax code by establishing a 17-percent flat tax and eliminating taxes on capital gains, dividends and savings.

National Review's Robert Costa reports from Washington DC that the GOPe are 'wary' of Sen. Rand Paul but are 'surprisingly open' to him

<p>WASHINGTON – Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the winner of the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll for 2016 only days ago, has told the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce that there should be a path to citizenship for illegal aliens in the United States.</p>

Erica Werner of the Associated Press gives us a textbook example of why talking about immigration in the United States is so hard. She reads into statements things that are not there.The headline of her article is “Rand Paul endorses immigrant path to citizenship.” Giving her the benefit of the doubt that someone else wrote the headline, her first paragraph reads thusly: Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is telling a Hispanic business group that illegal immigrants should be allowed to become U.S. taxpayers and ultimately get a shot at citizenship. I have read the entirety of Rand Paul’s speech....

I have read the entirety of Rand Paul’s speech. I have spoken directly to the Senator. No where in his speech does he use the word “citizenship.” In fact, the word citizen is only used once, in reference to Rand Paul himself saying, “As a teenager, I was not always the model citizen that I am today.”

The Associated Press is standing by its report that Sen. Rand Paul intended to back a path to citizenship in his speech Tuesday to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, despite the fact that he did not do so, and despite claims from advisers that the AP's story is wrong. ... The AP obtained an advance copy of Sen. Paul’s remarks on Monday and reported that he would be "endorsing a pathway to citizenship for the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants." That report led to headlines across news outlets ranging from Fox News to The Washington Post to the Huffington Post...

WASHINGTON – Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the winner of the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll for 2016 only days ago, is denying an Associated Press report that he supports a path to citizenship for illegal aliens. The AP’s Erica Werner reported Paul told a Hispanic business group that illegal aliens should be allowed to become U.S. taxpayers and ultimately get a shot at citizenship. However, Paul told the Washington Post, which carried the original story, the reporting was inaccurate. “I didn’t use the word citizenship at all this morning,” he said. “Basically what I want to do is to...

Rand Paul, the junior senator from Kentucky, filibustered the Senate vote on confirming John Brennan to be CIA director, because he was against the drone war in general and the targeted assassination of American citizens in the US in particular. He failed. Brennan became CIA director. But his filibuster was called "historic" by Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo, who quotes a talk show host at length: "There is a fear among (John) McCain, Lindsey Graham, and others who favor an interventionist foreign policy. Think of the neocons. Think of going into Iraq and not just securing Iraq, but building a democracy. Nation...

The dramatic shift in the Republican Party on immigration continued Tuesday, as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a conservative tea party icon and possible 2016 presidential contender, endorsed an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws that would allow the nation’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants to obtain legalized status. “Immigration will not occur until conservative Republicans, like myself, become part of the solution. That’s why I’m here today: to begin that conversation and become part of the solution,” he said in a breakfast speech Tuesday morning before the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington.

The AP claimed this morning that Paul was set to endorse a path to citizenship in his speech today. Not so, countered conservatives on Twitter: Read his prepared remarks and you’ll see that citizenship is never mentioned. Which is true, and also irrelevant. The whole point of Paul’s speech is GOP rapprochement with Latino voters; he spends nearly two-thirds of it extolling Latinos’ work ethic, reminiscing about his friendships with Latinos growing up in Texas, name-checking Jaime Escalante and Pablo Neruda, and of course citing the ancient canard that Latinos are really just Republicans who don’t know it yet. (He...

For more than two years the Syrian civil war has raged with no impact at all on the United States and its domestic or international interests. Notwithstanding the crocodile tears that have flowed from Mrs. Clinton, President Obama, the European Union, and the usual gang of senatorial war lovers — McCain, Graham, Lieberman, etc. — the Syrian civil war has not troubled genuine U.S. security interests a lick. But that reality is, of course, irrelevant to our bipartisan governing elite, and we now seem headed for yet another mindless foreign intervention. As he stepped into the Secretary of State’s role,...

Inside the cozy enclaves of GOP bonhomie—hunkered at the tables of see-and-be-seen Washington restaurants—Republican leaders are sourly predicting a party-busting independent presidential bid by a tea-party challenger, like Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in 2016. To them, the GOP apocalypse looms larger than most realize. Dueling State of the Union rebuttals and Karl Rove’s assault on right-wing candidates are mere symptoms of an existential crisis that is giving the sturdiest Republicans heartburn. And yet, the heart of the matter extends beyond the GOP. My conversations this week with two Republican officials, along with a Democratic strategist's timely memo, reflect a growing...

Last week President Obama bluntly warned Congress that he will not negotiate when it comes to raising the statutory debt limit. If Republicans attempt to use a debt ceiling vote to win concessions on spending from the White House, Mr. Obama threatens simply to raise the limit by executive order or other unilateral action. This is business as usual in Washington. Democrats literally do not believe we have a deficit and debt problem, and reliably propose greater borrowing and spending. Republicans talk a good game when it comes to government debt, but have no credibility to argue against deficits or...

Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Bob Morrison. President Obama’s choice of former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel for Sec. of Defense is a dangerous choice that telegraphs weakness toward Iran. In the Senate, Mr. Hagel compiled a worrisome record toward the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism. It is Iran that backs Hezbollah in Lebanon. We haven’t heard much about the Cedar Revolution in that war-torn country. That’s because Hezbollah murdered the democratic leaders for reform. Iran is behind Hamas in Gaza. Hamas defeated the corrupt regime of Mahmoud Abbas in elections in Gaza that soon degenerated into civil war....

Biography isn't policy. President Obama's choice for secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel, former Nebraska Republican senator, has a resume most politicians can envy: a clean senatorial record, no ethical lapses and two purple hearts from a war many opposed and many more tried to avoid. Some think Hagel's 2006 comment about "the Jewish lobby" should disqualify him, believing it a code word for anti-Semitic sentiments. There is nothing wrong with criticizing the policies of any Israeli government. Israelis likely do this more than foreigners. It's just that Jews are rightly sensitive to the use of words like these because it...

-excerpt- Hagel did not cosponsor the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007, which urged the president to designate the Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group; 72 senators, including Obama, Biden, and Kerry, cosponsored the bill. In July 2001, the Senate overwhelmingly extended the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, which requires the president to "penalize" foreign companies that invest more than $20 million in Iran's energy sector. The extension passed 96-2. Hagel voted against it along with Republican Sen. Richard Lugar -excerpt- In August 2008, Hagel opposed the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act

Barack Obama, we have been told by his admirers on the left and right, is an instinctive centrist, a moderate always ready to negotiate compromises, a politician deeply interested in the nuances of public policy. His image as a centrist took hold at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, where he gave a speech hailing not the blue states or the red states but the United States of America. But over the course of Obama's first term, this analysis increasingly sounded like wishful thinking. And never more than during the past week, with the nomination of Chuck Hagel to be secretary...

Ron Paul to Obama and Romney: “Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Get over it.” News is now leaking out about a private meeting between evangelical leaders and presidential candidate Ron Paul which took place last Wednesday night. The leaders asked Dr. Paul about an Executive Order moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. “The real issue here is not what America wants but what Israel wants. We have no right to chose their capital,” Dr. Paul said, “If they say it is Jerusalem, then it is Jerusalem.” The Barack Obama administration has consistently rejected this idea and...

Our topic today is how George Bush destroyed America. Or, more precisely, how the Left says he did. Naturally, their solution is for America to join the ranks of European social democracies. It’s the only way to not to repeat “the mistakes that got us here in the first place.” The Left and their Old Media amplifiers tell a simple story: George Bush inherited from Bill Clinton a strong economy and a balanced budget. He proceeded to commit national arson by deregulating Wall Street, cutting taxes for the rich, and fighting two needless wars. The long fuse of Bush’s fiscal...

WHEN IT COMES to foreign policy, John F. Kerry is no John F. Kennedy. In his 1961 inaugural address, the 35th president of the United States declared that Americans would "pay any price, bear any burden" in their ongoing defense of liberty and human rights "at home and around the world." Like other presidents before and since – Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush – JFK believed that it was America's destiny to advance freedom and democratic self-government, and oppose the world's tyrants. This is the "idealist" approach to US foreign policy. Kerry sees America's role differently. For nearly...

Conscience of a Majority - Barry Goldwater, 1971 While liberal columnists and commentators were busily reciting the death rites for the GOP and lamenting the possible end of a two-party system in the United States, interested political investigators began to notice that historic and significant changes had been wrought in the Republican Party as a result of my candidacy. These observers took a hard look at the GOP, past and present. They saw that after decades of winning prior to 1930, and years of losing after 1930, the Republican Party had simply dried up at the roots. They found that...

The Convention is where delegates are meant to cast votes for the nominee, yet the Tampa Bay Times Forum was already plastered with embedded Romney banners, and additional 'Mitt' signs for people to hold were also smuggled in to make it appear that many are behind him. All Ron Paul material was promptly confiscated. Six states filed to put Ron Paul into nomination while the rules still said it only took five states. Realizing this, the RNC met early Tuesday morning to change the rules in order to make the minimum needed as eight states, which Ron also would have...

Michigan congressional candidate Kerry Bentivolio (pictured) will get a leg up in his battle against the GOP establishment in next week's Republican primary election, courtesy of the Ron Paul movement-aligned Liberty For All Super-PAC. The SuperPAC — headed by 21-year-old Texas financial heir John Ramsey — has committed an estimated $300,000 (already spending some $130,000, according to OpenSecrets.org) to support Bentivolio in his primary race over establishment write-in candidate Nancy Cassis. Bentivolio — a teacher and part-time reindeer farmer — committed to the race earlier in the year when victory seemed all but impossible. The Tea Party-aligned Bentivolio faced a...

<p>Triumphant in the first Gulf war, George H.W. Bush, in October 1991, went before the UN to declare that the US’s goal was now to build a “New World Order”.</p>

<p>In a move that serves as a capstone to Rep. Ron Paul’s colorful career, the House on Wednesday approved a bill that would let Congress’s chief investigators conduct a full audit of the Federal Reserve’s shrouded decision-making process.</p> <p>The overwhelming 327-98 vote sends the bill to the Senate where Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, has previously expressed support for an audit — though it’s unclear he’ll carve out time for the legislation this year.</p>

Ron Paul cooperates with no one, checks his voice for no one and doesn't much like the GOP establishment types. This would include the GOP's likely nominee, Mitt Romney, template maker in Massachusetts for all things nefarious accomplished by Barack Hussein Obama but brought to a national audience. Paul has declined to endorse Romney, but given the army of organized pitchforks he has attracted over the course of a run or two at the party nomination, the man has won a seat at the convention table. USATODAY.com reports that room will be made for Ron Paul in the convention, and...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran has stored up imports and hard currency for a "battle" against "dastardly" EU sanctions, officials said Sunday, the day that the measures aimed at pressuring the Islamic Republic over its controversial nuclear program take effect. Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said the country has stockpiled the population's daily needs to reduce the impact of the embargo hitting the oil and banking sectors. "Today, we are facing the heaviest of sanctions and we ask people to help officials in this battle," Rahimi was quoted by state television's website as saying at a religious conference. He said...

An announcement from Rep. Ron Paul indicates that the Republican presidential candidate will no longer actively campaign for the GOP nomination, but will continue to work to secure delegates at upcoming Republican state conventions. "Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted," said Paul, in a statement released Monday afternoon. "Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have."

Sarah Palin admonished Republicans not to ridicule Congressman Ron Paul. Sarah Palin is wrong. Ron Paul is a disloyal phony who has earned whatever contempt real Republicans have for him and his dangerously naive ideas about foreign policy. Ron Paul has shunned the party in the past, as he was the Libertarian Party candidate in 1988 and in 2008 he rejected the McCain/Palin ticket, instead embracing Cynthia McKinney and other third-party candidates for president 2008. Like a kid who is losing a game, Ron Paul took his ball and went home in 2008. But Missus Palin, sadly, seemed to be...

Ron Paul's greatest liability is Ron Paul, but his second greatest liability are his hippie-Nazi cultists. Not all of his supporters are hippie Nazis, but the aggressive ones are. Since "Audit the Fed" wants to boost Ron Paul, I'm promoting his comments to the front page. Quick, everyone! Get on this train before it fills up. I call this prose poem "Jewess." It's about Elena Kagan. Oh for Christ's sake. She's a jewess. AND a bulldyke. She has no integrity whatsoever. Chief Justice John Roberts: Epic. Fail. I call this sonnet "Hebe Community." I am merely observing the untidy little...

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul picked up an endorsement from popular South Carolina State Senator Tom Davis (R-Beaufort) Sunday. Mr. Davis is a popular Tea Party Republican in South Carolina, and he has been critical of front running Republican candidate Mitt Romney also, so his vote could sway some last minute undecided voters towards Mr. Paul in the upcoming South Carolina Republican primary election. According to the Public Polling Policy poll of South Carolina voters released Friday shows 30 percent of the voters identify themselves as members of the Tea Party. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich did the best among...

Ron Paul picked up a major endorsement from an evangelical leader when Dr. James Linzey, president and founder of the Military Bible Association, endorsed the candidate. Lizney, who served as a military chaplain for over 24 years and retired with an honorable discharge, has hosted Operation Freedom, a television program in Europe. Before founding the Military bible Association, he travelled the world as an evangelist. In a statement to Congressman Paul declaring his endorsement, Lizney said, “Having thoroughly examined your political philosophy and finding that your platform is 100% in line with the Constitution of the United States of America,...

Oath Keepers is anti-American.

Comrades, another election is upon us in this cesspit of bourgeois excess known as these United States... although nothing 'unites' our class so much as our continual and universal exploitation at the hands of the ruling class. The recent spate of GOP debates, as well as tonight's Iowa caucus, shows us that we cannot remain neutral in this encounter. On the one hand, we have Barack Obama, the neo-liberal candidate whose alleged 'socialism' is merely an epithet employed by the enemies of economic freedom on the Right. Would that this were true! But no, Obama has proved himself time and...

A profanity-laden, anti-Semitic voice message is helping the Houston Holocaust Museum raise money to save an important World War II artifact. That message on Braeden Howard's voice mail was left after his consulting company publicized the work they are doing with the museum. To restore a 37-foot fishing vessel, similar to those used to smuggle Jews out of Denmark during World War II.

Police and organizers shut down proceedings at one of Missouri's largest caucuses today, as Ron Paul supporters feuded with local GOP leaders. "It's like the Hatfields and the McCoys around here," St. Charles County's former GOP chairman told ABC News, after police arrived on-scene with a helicopter and removed Paul backers. In St. Charles, an exurb of St. Louis and one of the state's largest GOP counties, Paul supporters sought to elect their own chairman and adopt their own rules when proceedings opened - both of which are part of standard caucus rules and procedure. But as they argued with...

Supposedly Team Paul is engaged in "initial discussions" with Santorum and Gingrich too, but c'mon. Newt's chances at the nomination are only slightly higher than Paul's are and Santorum's hawkish social conservatism makes him a total nonstarter for libertarians. Just today, Reason editor Matt Welch published a column shivering at the thought that Team Sweater Vest might be back for another try in 2016. Romney’s the only game in town for the rEVOLution, just as he’s been since the debates started. (According to Time, one of Romney’s allies joked that Paul is their “deputy campaign manager.�)This is the right time...

Washington (CNN) -- Briefly back in Congress doing his day job, Ron Paul met with high school students outside his office. True to form, he signed copies of the Constitution and wryly told them with a chuckle, "No one around here reads it very much. I'd like to get everybody to read it." [...] What Paul did not do was attend a closed-door gathering of House Republicans. In fact, the GOP presidential contender is known to never attend these meetings. But Paul's Republican colleagues who did go had no shortage of opinions about his strong showing in the presidential race...

The RevPac event I attended on Monday night was an quite an experience. First of all, the choice of setting seemed designed to highlight some of the recurring themes in Ron Paul’s presidential campaign. While most of his primary opponents have held Manhattan fundraisers targeting donors in this city’s ever-dwindling, yet still potent, financial services sector, the rigidly anti-corporatist, free market dogma of the Paul campaign-highlighted by the appearance of bearish Euro Pacific CEO Peter Schiff-lent a new dimension to what would otherwise have been a routine campaign fundraiser. The optics of the event were pleasing, which I suppose was...

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 8, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The right to life was the foundation of American liberty, but a widespread moral change must occur before abortion is made illegal again, Republican lawmaker and presidential candidate Ron Paul told religious conservative activists on Friday. “If we do not have high respect for life, how can we be dealing with our personal freedom, personal privacy, our rights to homeschool our kids, the right to pick our religion and make personal choices on what we do?” Paul asked the audience at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in downtown Washington, D.C.“Life is precious,...

At the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference, presidential candidate Ron Paul used the Bible to show evangelicals why big government is bad and how their fight to protect faith and family are all rooted in liberty. Paul roused the conservative Christian crowd on Friday as he recounted the story of the Israelites and their pleas for an earthly king. He used that story, found in 1 Samuel chapter eight, to explain to the faith conference why big government is morally wrong for America. He told the crowd that the Israelites had a perfectly good family system prior to their first...

The Texas congressman announced on "Good Morning America" that he is launching an official campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. As the founding father of a libertarian movement that paved the way for the tea party, Mr. Paul thinks his odds have improved since his last campaign in 2008. He said people are finally “agreeing with much of what I’ve been saying for 30 years. The time is right.” What do you think? Could Ron Paul be the nominee?

Rand Paul scored big with his two-day online fundraising event this week. Paul’s “money bomb” has raised over $250,000 for his U.S. Senate campaign in just two days. Dr. Paul has made a great success of tapping into a large base of donors over the past year, and this is just another example of the campaign’s fund raising proficiency and wide base of support.

The terrible violence in Arizona last weekend prompted much national discussion on many issues. All Americans are united in their sympathies for the victims and their families. All wonder what could motivate such a horrible act. However, some have attempted to use this tragedy to discredit philosophical adversaries or score political points. This sort of opportunism is simply despicable. We are fortunate to live in a society where violence is universally denounced. Not one public official or commentator has attempted to justify this reprehensible act, yet the newspapers, internet, and airwaves are full of people trying to claim it was...