Free Republic

The problem with labels is they shut down thought. According to Webster’s, a conservative is someone who embraces “the value of established or traditional practices”. It is hard to find a worse description...

The approximately 40-member House Freedom Caucus is at the center of turmoil within the Republican Party over who will be the party's effective leader in the House ahead of the 2016 presidential election. A group of hard-line conservative Republicans would "look favorably" on Paul Ryan if he ran to be speaker of the House of Representatives, the group's leader said on Sunday.

Los Angeles (AFP) - President Barack Obama said the Republican Party has "gone off the deep end" with its messy failure to elect a new speaker of the House of Representatives. The Republican-controlled House was left in shock and disarray this week when Kevin McCarthy, the frontrunner to replace John Boehner, who has announced his resignation, suddenly withdrew from the race because of a revolt by conservatives. The challenge now is to find a consensus candidate who can soothe wounds and unite a fractious caucus. Obama addressed the drama at an expensive fundraiser at a private home in Los Angeles....

If House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) wasn’t convinced before, he now knows to a 100 percent degree of certainty that the extreme right wing of the Republican caucus would burn down the U.S. Capitol before they would let him keep the gavel in his hands. They are joined by a nationwide crowd of prominent conservatives, including GOP presidential candidates Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, who cheered Boehner’s announcement of his resignation from Congress. All conclusive proof that there’s nothing that Boehner can do, even if he was inclined to try, to get back in the far right’s good...

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh said Friday the reason why the mainstream media is not visibly celebrating Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)’s decision to drop his bid for House Speaker and the ensuing Republican Party implosion is because the perception is that conservatives have won a victory over Washington insider establishment individuals like McCarthy. Limbaugh told listeners: What it should tell you is that McCarthy obviously is a Washington insider, and his fall from grace as future Speaker obviously is bad news to the insiders or the establishment in Washington, both parties. And the reason for that is it is perceived...

Over at the GOP establishment's press release reprint service known as The Wall Street Journal, the panic over Kevin McCarthy's sudden withdrawal from the race for the Speaker's gavel is palpable. Decrying a "toxic crack-up inside the Republican conference", the Journal says the real issues in Washington are the fault of the "Refuseniks" (the party's conservative base and its representatives, albeit a better epithet than "hobbits"). According to the WSJ rocket scientists, conservatives blame the GOPe "for all the country’s problems, not President Obama." That kind of sheer unvarnished idiocy is not unexpected from the GOP, which now seeks to...

Assemblyman Pete Lopez, R-Schoharie, told The Daily Star on Thursday that he will be entering the race for New York's 19th Congressional District seat held by retiring Rep. Chris Gibson, R-Kinderhook. A formal kick-off for the campaign will be scheduled soon, Lopez said. Lopez, 54, expressed optimism about his potential to win the Republican and Conservative party primaries in June as well as the general election in November 2016, saying he will run on his record as a balanced problem solver who worked vigorously to address the region's relief needs following the floods of 2011 and has forged close bonds...

"Why not resign like Bob Livingston?”In the hours before House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) abruptly withdrew his candidacy to be the next speaker of the House, he was sent an email from a conservative activist threatening to expose an alleged affair with a colleague. The subject line: “Kevin, why not resign like Bob Livingston?” The email, sent just after 8 a.m. on Thursday, came from Steve Baer, a Chicago-based GOP donor known for mass-emailing conservative figures and Republican lawmakers. It was addressed to McCarthy and numerous others, including the personal account of Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), who conservative media...

This makes three top House Republicans who’ve endorsed Ryan in the last two days as a potential uniting force. Yesterday it was Trey Gowdy: “To me, just speaking as one member, the smartest kid in the class is Paul Ryan,” Gowdy said. “If I had one draft choice and I was starting a new country, I would draft Paul to run it. Not because I agree with him on everything, but because he’s super, super smart. And when someone is super, super smart and is not interested, that tells you something. It tells me a lot.” This morning, after he’d...

With the news that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California, has dropped his bid for House speaker, the Republican conference is scrambling to find a new leader. Although speakers have always been members of the House of Representatives, it is in fact not a requirement written in the Constitution. Article I, Section 2 Clause 5 reads: "The House of Representatives shall chuse [sic] their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment." On a few occasions, lawmakers have voted for someone who isn't a member. Last January, when John Boehner was elected to serve as speaker...

Sharon Day rose through the ranks of GOP politics, starting as a precinct captain in her native Florida and eventually co-chairing the Republican National Committee. But Day said she’d never be in the position she’s in today if people hadn’t empowered her to run for those roles. And she’s made it her mission to pay it forward to encourage more Republican women to become activists in the party and to run for office — all in the hopes of making women a more integral part of the GOP. “I think for women, we’re built different than men in that we...

In 1952, the combatants were Dwight Eisenhower and Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio. In 1964, it was Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller. Today, they are outgoing House Speaker John Boehner and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. All have been at the center of an endless struggle that has roiled Republicans for decades as conservatives attempt to yank the party to the political right while more moderate or establishment Republicans try their best to nudge their way toward the center. In the vivid glare of an intense presidential race, party conservatives such as Cruz and Rep. Jim Jordan of Urbana are...

State Sen. Kyle McCarter is poised to launch a primary challenge to GOP Sen. John Shimkus in Illinois’ 15th District later this week, according to GOP sources. The news shouldn’t come as a complete surprise. McCarter has been openly discussing the possibility with fellow Illinois Republicans since at least August, when I wrote about him in The Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report. In the last few days, McCarter has been calling various Republicans across the state and has unveiled a new campaign logo (noticeably void of the office he intends to seek) at the Little Egypt parade in Salem on...

Tea Party supporters would have us think they are a model group with only what is best for the U.S. as their goal. The fact that the Tea Party supports the likes of U.S. Rep. Ted Yoho and Sen. Ted Cruz to mention two is a clear indicator the Tea Party does not act or support what is in the best interest of our country. Any representative who advocates shutting down the government as a means to an end endangers the stability of the country and its people. Our government is not a business and was never intended to be...

Current House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Republican congressman for California's 23rd Congressional District, announced his bid to succeed Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, as Speaker of the House of Representatives. With Boehner resigning, calls have reemerged to vote on comprehensive immigration reform, but what has been McCarthy’s immigration record? First, in an email to colleagues, McCarthy, representing a congressional district where 35 percent of the population is Latino, announced his bid for the speakership. "We have made real progress towards shrinking an overgrown federal government and reforming our broken entitlement system," McCarthy wrote. "But our work is far from done. We...

The CW this week is that McCarthy’s Benghazi gaffe was a gift to Hillary Clinton but it’s also a gift to House conservatives who are looking for a foothold in electing Boehner’s successor. You won’t convince the centrists in the caucus that McCarthy’s too squishy to rule but you might convince them that he’s a political liability whom the GOP can’t risk having as a major spokesman during next year’s death match with the Clintons. All tea partiers need to mount a challenge is a candidate. Hensarling won’t do it, Jordan won’t do it, Ryan won’t do it. Jason Chaffetz?...

Rep. Randy Weber, R-Friendswood, is backing Sen. Ted Cruz for president, Cruz’s campaign announced Monday. “We need a President who will march into the White House on day one with their conservative values in one hand and the Constitution in the other,” said Weber. “I believe Ted Cruz is the candidate who will do just that.”(continued)

I've learned from my time in politics that things are rarely as bad as they seem. The converse is also true – they're rarely as good either. I'm reminded of this statement as we hash out the meaning of Speaker John Boehner's abrupt decision to depart Congress and resign his speakership at the end of October. Many leading conservatives, none more than Senator Ted Cruz, have cheered Boehner's demise, claiming a scalp and taking a victory lap. They see the speaker's departure as the obvious outcome of a grassroots uprising that demanded change. They look at Boehner's political troubles and...

John Boehner is leaving as speaker because he can't control the tea party. Should the whole GOP give in? It has happened before. The Republican Party is barreling head-first toward a worst-case scenario – or is that a best-case scenario? The tea party wing of the party has essentially toppled House Speaker John Boehner. His replacement will almost certainly need the tea party's stamp of approval. Meanwhile, the Republican presidential campaign continues to confound the establishment. Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Ted Cruz together have more support than all other Republican candidates combined, according to polls....

Outgoing Speaker of the House John Boehner lashed out at the House’s “most conservative members” during a Sunday interview on ABC’s “Face the Nation.”CBS host John Dickerson began the interview by asking Boehner about the threatened government shutdown: “Four days, the government runs out of money. Is there going to be a shutdown?” Boehner responded, “no,” that he expected the Senate to pass a continuing resolution and that with the help of Democrats in the House, he expected the House to vote to keep the government open. Moving to the issue of Boehner’s upcoming retirement, Dickerson asked Boehner about conversations...