Free Republic

“Clinton Cash” author Peter Schweizer said that he is ” finding some interesting, compelling things” in his investigation of Jeb Bush on Tuesday’s “Hugh Hewitt Show.” Schweizer reported, “We’re about four months into the research project, obviously not as global in scope as the Clintons, but you know, as governor of the state of Florida, you have a lot of things that you can do. So we’re following the money. We’re looking at land deals. We’re looking at an airport deal. We are looking at some of the educational reforms that were instituted, and some of the big corporate winners...

Latin Post presents "Turnout," a series featuring leading Latino politicians, government leaders and advocacy groups discussing and debating the most important issues facing the Latino voting bloc. Listen to the Unedited "Turnout" Interview with People for the American Way's Coordinator for Political Campaigns Carlos Sanchez:(AUDIO-AND-VIDEO-AT-LINK)More than two-thirds of the U.S. Latino electorate live in six states -- Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas -- but one progressive advocacy organization has been working on having anti-Latino and anti-immigrant representatives accountable and heard for Latinos across the country, especially for the presidential election season. With people entering their names for...

Let’s assume, as I do, that the Supreme Court finds a constitutional right to same-sex marriage when it decides Obergefell v. Hodges sometime next month. What happens next? It may be a morning-after landscape of more confusion than clarity, with some rain falling on the victory parades. Conservative Christians, claiming victimization by the onrushing tide of marriage equality, aren’t like to be deterred in their quest for the right to withhold goods and services from same-sex couples. Indiana’s retreat last month, under pressure from some leading corporations, from a law that would have given businesses a religious excuse for discriminating...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)The road to the White House goes through downtown Oklahoma City this week as hopefuls in the crowded Republican field audition on a stage ideally suited for their messages about military power, religious liberty and energy independence. Eleven Republicans with presidential aspirations — including some who have not officially declared their candidacy — will speak at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, which begins at the Cox Convention Center on Thursday and ends Saturday with the release of a straw poll. “This is a huge event for Oklahoma City,” said Gov. Mary Fallin, who will address the conference and introduce some...

The field for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination is as flat as any in modern memory—pretty remarkable for a party that usually has a fight but almost invariably ends up nominating whoever's turn it is. While nomination trial-heat polling tells us very little this early, there are some poll questions that are better measurements of at least where these candidates are starting out, before the campaigning, debates, and advertising begin in earnest.An April 26 to April 30 NBC News / Wall Street Journal poll asked Republican primary voters whether they could or could not see themselves voting for each of 10 different...

The 2016 presidential election is attracting an unusually large number of hopefuls. The Republicans will probably field more than a dozen candidates and the Democrats, as many as five. Presently, very few of these supposed contenders have a real chance of becoming president. Republicans Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz are long shots. On the Democratic side, that term applies to everyone but Hillary Rodham Clinton.. ~snip~ If you tell them in private, "You do not have a chance to be president," they will point to underdogs who won, such as Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan, or front-runners who...

A number of Republican candidates for the 2016 presidential nomination have now formally declared or are poised to announce very soon. Here’s my assessment where each stands right now and how I see their strengths, weaknesses and prospects – at least at this moment. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush – his family has a record of winning elections and he has won perhaps the most important swing state twice. He has name recognition, money, clear leadership capacity, and the demeanor to be President. He also will raise a staggering amount of money. Given the GOP tradition of ultimately nominating the...

How quickly can Dr. Ben Carson get up to speed on the details of the complex policy issues that command a president’s attention? That’s the make-or-break question surrounding Carson, a brilliant neurosurgeon who had never run for office before announcing a presidential bid last week, and who remains a rookie in most policy realms other than health care. For those who wonder whether Carson has done his policy homework, the bad news is that Carson’s campaign team has few staffers specifically focused on hammering out a detailed policy agenda for the campaign. Carson hasn’t yet assembled a “kitchen cabinet” of...

CNBC Chief Washington Correspondent and New York Times Political Writer John Harwood argued that GOP presidential candidates Dr. Ben Carson and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) are too sensitive to tough questions, while Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is better at handling tough questions in an interview set to broadcast on Tuesday’s “Hugh Hewitt Show.”Harwood discussed an interview he did with Carson during which Carson argued that Hewitt “was so gleeful about thinking that he had caught me on something,” during a questioning on the Baltic states and NATO on Hewitt’s show back in March. After hearing the exchange between Hewitt and...

When Dr. Ben Carson took the stage at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast, few would have guessed the prominent pediatric neurosurgeon from Johns Hopkins would be running for president just a few years later. His now famous—or infamous, depending on which side of the aisle you sit—bludgeoning of the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration’s signature law, almost instantly went viral and put Carson on U.S. conservatives’ radar.The newly anointed Tea Party hero presents a rare and exceptional mix of character, poise, and dazzling intelligence, all alongside a passionate Christian faith and love for the Constitution. It’s not surprising then...

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker are tied atop a crowded 2016 GOP primary field in the early state of New Hampshire, with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush slipping into a tie for third with Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who picked up some support since a separate poll was released in February. Mr. Paul and Mr. Walker were the first choice of 12 percent of GOP primary voters, followed by Mr. Bush and Mr. Rubio at 11 percent apiece and businessman Donald Trump at 8 percent, according to the Bloomberg Politics/Saint Anselm poll. Next were...

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson Sunday touted a flat tax plan that he says even the nation’s poor would pay if he’s elected. Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Carson said it’s "very condescending" to think that poor people can’t pay taxes at the same flat rate as wealthier Americans. Carson said he got the idea for his plan – he calls it a proportional tax – from tithing in the Bible. Using a 10 percent rate as an example, Carson said "You make $10 billion a year, you pay $1 billion. You make $10 a year, you pay one dollar."...

Well this is certainly disappointing. With all of the newly emerging candidates running around the early primary and caucus states talking to anyone who will listen it gets difficult to keep track of them all. But there’s one bit of news out of Iowa from earlier this week which is definitely worth a quick rewind and a better look. Newly announced presidential contender Ben Carson was out talking to the Cornhuskers and the inevitable subjects of ethanol, the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and subsidies for King Corn came up. The answer from the esteemed neurosurgeon was dismaying even compared to...

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson says the United States should rethink the notion that a president must enforce laws the Supreme Court declares constitutional. Carson said Sunday “we need to discuss” the court’s long-held power to review laws passed by Congress. That authority was established in the 1803 landmark case Marbury v. Madison. […] Carson has said a president is obliged to carry out laws passed by Congress, but not what he called “judicial laws” that emanate from courts. …

One of the Senate’s leading liberals is borrowing a page from the playbook of Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is pushing to strike out language from the “cromnibus” spending bill unveiled Tuesday that would roll back restrictions on “swaps” transactions included in the 2010 financial regulatory overhaul known as Dodd-Frank. Repealing the “push-out” provision would mean that certain derivatives could again be held in bank units with federal deposit insurance. Using a strategy sometimes employed by Cruz for entirely different policy reasons, Warren said that with the $1.013 trillion spending package first being considered by the...

Conservative presidential candidate Ben Carson says the $7.25 federal minimum wage should be raised.“I think, probably, it should be higher than now,” Carson told CNBC’s John Harwood in an interview Friday.Carson added that government assistance often provides more than the minimum wage in several states, allowing people to ignore the long-term benefits of a job."I don't necessarily blame people for saying, 'Look, I can stay home and make this money, or I can go and work this little chicken job that doesn't have many benefits,’ ” he said."However, recognize that if you go and take that chicken job, you gain...

According to MSNBC pundit Michelle Bernard -- best known at NewsBusters perhaps because of her insistence that there is a "war on black boys" in America -- savaged newly-announced GOP presidential aspirant Dr. Ben Carson tonight by alleging his success is all owed to "affirmative action." She also suggested that he's a disgrace to his enslaved ancestors and to the black community in Baltimore, where he's lived throughout his career as an acclaimed neurosurgeon. Bernard made her remarks in the midst of a segment with Matthews, Huffington Post's Howard Fineman, and National Journal's Ron Fournier devoted to trashing Carson, Carly...

Presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) will keynote the Southern Republican Leadership Conference (SRLC) in May, where he’ll appear alongside a number of his potential opponents."Sen. Cruz's recent announcement for president has created quite a buzz among Republican voters. We're excited he'll be joining us for the SRLC, as I know primary voters will want to hear what he has to say,” SRLC Chairman Dave Weston said in a statement.“With the future of Obamacare increasingly in doubt, many have looked to Cruz as the point of the spear in Republican efforts to defeat the president's signature policy."Cruz kicked off...

Via TPM, I did not foresee “let’s revisit Marbury v. Madison” emerging as a minor theme of the primary. But between Carson and Huckabee it’s already a hot race to see who can pander the hardest to social cons over the upcoming Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage. Huck ante’d up recently with this comment: In Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr. makes the case there comes a time when people of conscience have a moral obligation to practice civil disobedience against “unjust laws.” Do you agree with that? For example, is there anything a court...

Regardless of how Dr. Ben Carson chooses to try to convince Republican voters that he should be their candidate for president, Carson's personal story is particularly worthy of the attention of all Americans during these troubled times. His story defies much of the conventional wisdom we get from both the left and the right to "explain" the grave social problems in our poor minority communities and the seemingly insurmountable obstacles to success facing poor black children. From the left, we hear that black life in America would have no hope but for government programs to ease the burdens of an...