Free Republic

Republicans, I come in peace.Until very recently, Rand Paul’s project of insinuating himself comfortably within the Republican Party, and positioning himself as a plausible presidential nominee, had gone along with remarkable ease. Yes, the author of his campaign book turned out to be an unreconstructed neo-Confederate. That was a speed bump. (Who among us has not entrusted the explication of his worldview to a man who has cheered on the assassination of President Lincoln?) Paul had staged a masterful piece of political theater with his marathon Senate speech denouncing the Obama administration’s drone policy. He has assembled a top-tier campaign...

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...

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney gave the private keynote address over the weekend at billionaire and attempted kingmaker Sheldon Adelson's Republican Jewish Coalition meeting, hitting all of the notes you'd expect and then some. In a recording obtained by Mother Jones, Cheney can be heard going especially hard on the room's key issue — Israel — explaining, "The bottom line is, the United States' position in [the Middle East] is worse than at any time in my lifetime." A reference to bombing Iran's nuclear program was met with hearty laughs and supportive applause. On Obama The presidential promise to protect the...

No, "I'm not off my rocker," Ed Schultz told his radio listeners after making an off-the-wall prediction. Actually, two predictions -- that Hillary Clinton is a virtual shoo-in who will waltz back into the White House, and that Dick Cheney will cave to pressure from movement conservatives and run for president. As for the first prediction, I vaguely recall many pundits saying much along the same lines ... back in 2007, followed by Clinton's highly-touted inevitability fading by the month after she was blinded-sided by an obscure senator from Illinois who could work a Teleprompter like none before him. But...

A major peculiarity of Obama's recent promises involving his upcoming "Year of Action" is that the chief enemy he's sworn to overcome is none other than... Barack Obama. Consider "income inequality." As far as this can be said to actually exist, it's a function of certain sectors of the financial industry reaping massive windfalls over the past few years while the rest of the country has stagnated under the burden of the recession. So who is responsible for this state of affairs? Consider the trillion and a half dollars handed over to the banks and other financial institutions shortly after...

Five months after shaking Wyoming Republican politics by launching an audacious bid to unseat the state’s senior senator, Liz Cheney on Monday called an abrupt end to her chaotic campaign, citing unspecified “serious health issues” that have arisen in her family. The announcement by the ­eldest daughter of former vice president Richard B. Cheney caught her fellow Republicans by surprise, just as her decision to enter the race had in July.

Liz Cheney, oldest daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, is ending her bid to run for Wyoming's U.S. Senate seat, citing health issues in her family. WASHINGTON — Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, said Monday she is abandoning her effort to unseat Republican incumbent Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming. Cheney cited "serious health issues" that "have recently arisen in our family" as the reason for her decision. But her candidacy had raised hackles in the Republican Party and caused a public rift with her sister, Mary, a lesbian, over Liz Cheney's opposition to gay marriage....

Liz Cheney is ending her campaign to be the next senator from Wyoming, dropping her primary challenge to Republican incumbent Mike Enzi. The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, in a written statement released Monday morning, cited health issues in the family. "Serious health issues have recently arisen in our family, and under the circumstances, I have decided to discontinue my campaign," she said. "My children and their futures were the motivation for our campaign and their health and well-being will always be my overriding priority. ... Though this campaign stops today, my commitment to keep fighting with you...

New York (CNN) -- Liz Cheney, whose upstart bid to unseat Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi sparked a round of warfare in the Republican Party and even within her own family, is dropping out of the Senate primary, sources told CNN late Sunday. Cheney, the eldest daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, began telling associates of her decision over the weekend and could make an official announcement about the race as early as Monday.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said he was “surprised” that his daughter Mary, who is a lesbian, publicly attacked her sister Liz on Facebook over her views on same-sex marriage. “We were surprised that there was an attack launched against Liz on Facebook, and wished it hadn’t happened,” Cheney said Tuesday during an event at the National Press Club to promote his new book. “It’s always been dealt with within the context of the family and frankly that’s our preference.” Cheney declined to address the subject further, telling the moderator, “don’t waste your time.” The Cheney sisters’ very public feud...

There are individual haters on the right and individual haters on the left. But there is no large-scale hatred in the United States of America today that compares with the hatred of the left for the right. Whereas the right regards the left as wrong -- even destructively wrong -- the left regards all those on the right as evil. Sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted -- these are typical descriptions of the right made by the most respected names on the left. This hatred is what enabled MSNBC's Martin Bashir to broadcast -- reading from a teleprompter, meaning...

They were the towheaded sisters who tagged along on campaigns, polite and smiling, as their father rose through Wyoming and then Washington politics to become one of the most powerful men in the country. “We were as close as sisters can be,” recalled Mary Cheney of her relationship with her older sister, Liz. But now, a feud between the two has spilled into public view, involving social media, an angry same-sex spouse, a high-profile election and a father who feels uncomfortably caught between his two children.

A Bush, a Cheney, and a Carter will be on the ballot next year, but this is no ’80s flashback or stroll down memory lane. In the 2014 midterm races, the children and grandchildren of former presidents and a vice president are all trying to make their own political names. The latest addition to a growing list is Jason Carter, the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter, who announced Thursday he’s running for governor of Georgia. The Democratic state senator will try to unseat incumbent Republican Gov. Nathan Deal. Jason Carter Meanwhile, Liz Cheney – the daughter of former Vice...

Ship christenings at Newport News Shipbuilding are typically a who's who of political figures, and Saturday's event honoring the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford is no exception. Past aircraft carrier christenings have drawn presidents to the shipyard, but not this time. A shipyard spokeswoman said Ford administration figures — Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and chief of staff (and eventual veep) Dick Cheney — will be there. Democratic heavyweight Carl Levin, a senator from Ford's home state of Michigan, will also be on hand. President Barack Obama, who gave a major policy speech on sequestration at the shipyard in February,...

he Wyoming GOP primary campaign is already shaping up to be a scorched-earth affair, demonstrating the kind of senator Liz Cheney would likely be. ..... Other Wyoming politicos who’ve tried to stay above the fray have found themselves drawn into the feud, notably Alan Simpson, the former Republican senator known for his crotchety demeanor. The Cheneys and the Simpsons were at a charity gala in Cody, Wyoming, when Lynne Cheney—Liz’s mother, Dick’s wife, and a writer of racy novels—allegedly approached Simpson and told him to “shut your mouth.” Simpson’s daughter-in-law posted about the incident on her Facebook page, and the...

Like all Wyoming political races before it (probably?), the Wyoming Senate primary race between Republicans Mike Enzi and Liz Cheney is currently embroiled in a fishing-related controversy — specifically, whether Enzi, the three-term incumbent, and Cheney's dad, the appropriately named Dick, were ever "fishing buddies." Enzi, in an effort to portray Cheney the Younger's challenge as a personal back-stabbing of the highest order, claims that they were. On Sunday, Dick begged to differ. "Mike also said he and I are fishing buddies, which is simply not true," Cheney said. "Never happened." But Enzi insisted to Politico that they were too...

In a remarkable interview, Dick Cheney told Charlie Rose in that Barack Obama does not have the U.S. interests at heart. He also had some strong statements about the lack of U.S. response on the night of Benghazi. Cheney began with recent statements by the Saudi leader. Prince Bandar has said in the Wall Street Journal that he no longer trusts Barack Obama based on the withdrawal of military assets in the region and events in Iran. The United States had signaled they are withdrawing from the region and reducing their ability to influence the region. Cheney says the relationship...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dick Cheney said Sunday that Republicans need to look to a new generation of leaders as the party deals with poor approval ratings following the government shutdown. The former vice president said Republicans have faced challenges before and it’s healthy for the party to work to rebuild. The GOP “got whipped” in the 2012 presidential campaign, when President Barack Obama won re-election over Mitt Romney, and the party needs to build its base of supporters and find “first-class” candidates and turn to a new generation of leaders, Cheney told ABC’s “This Week.” “It’s not the first time...

Dick Cheney said Sunday that Republicans need to look to a new generation of leaders as the party deals with poor approval ratings following the government shutdown. The former vice president said Republicans have faced challenges before and it’s healthy for the party to work to rebuild. The GOP “got whipped” in the 2012 presidential campaign, when President Barack Obama won re-election over Mitt Romney, and the party needs to build its base of supporters and find “first-class” candidates and turn to a new generation of leaders, Cheney told ABC’s “This Week.”

Dick Cheney said Sunday that Republicans need to look to a new generation of leaders as the party deals with poor approval ratings following the government shutdown. The former vice president said Republicans have faced challenges before and it's healthy for the party to work to rebuild. The GOP "got whipped" in the 2012 presidential campaign, when President Barack Obama won re-election over Mitt Romney, and the party needs to build its base of supporters and find "first-class" candidates and turn to a new generation of leaders, Cheney told ABC's "This Week."