Free Republic

Hoping to galvanize their base further, Republicans are casting the midterm elections as a golden opportunity to fire Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who has served as lead blocker for President Obama’s liberal agenda on Capitol Hill and chief opponent of GOP legislation.The attacks are being espoused inside and outside the Capital Beltway and could become staples of the Republican message as the party looks to pick up the six seats needed to take the Senate gavel out of Mr. Reid’s hands.

APRIL 23, 2014 Jenny Beth Martin on IRS Revelations WOODSTOCK, Ga. – Tea Party Patriots Co-Founder Jenny Beth Martin issued the following statement in response to the recent revelations on the extent of the targeting of tea party groups by the IRS. "On Wednesday, we saw another example of how the Obama administration has turned government ‘Of the People’ upside-down.   "Instead of the Department of Justice investigating the IRS targeting of innocent Americans, we learned they were preparing to investigate groups like ours with absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing.  And where there is evidence of a crime at the...

The Windy City is supposed to be the model of gun control the rest of the nation should follow to keep our streets safe. They have guns laws that make California look like Texas. The only problem is, those pesky criminals don’t follow the laws and Chicago is a bloody war zone. Over the Easter weekend, 9 people were shot to death with another 36 wounded by gunfire. Enter Paul Konrad. He’s the morning news meteorologist for WGN. Now you wouldn’t expect that a local weatherman would have much to say about gun control or the violence that is tearing...

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not content to infringe on property rights; recent actions taken against the country's last lead smelting facility will affect the right to keep and bear arms, as well, by substantially impacting the production of ammunition. As of December 31, 2013, the lead refining plant will close for good.The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports:About 145 employees of the Doe Run lead smelter [in Herculaneum, Missouri] learned they will lose their jobs at the end of December because of the plant’s closure, the Doe Run Co. said Wednesday. An additional 73 contractor jobs also will be eliminated....

A week after General Electric blamed Obamacare for hurting its medical business, the company's chairman on Wednesday warned that uncertainty in the health care field will persist for much longer. “I think that there's still a lot of uncertainty in health care and we'll just have to see that over time,” warned Jeff Immelt during a shareholders' meeting in Chicago. Last week, the firm released financial figures which showed a rise in profits, but a cut in its medical business. That was blamed on companies and hospitals holding back on purchases of GE equipment out of concern over how bad...

Arizona’s Senate president is under fire from an unlikely source within his own political party: Sarah Palin. The former vice presidential candidate took to Facebook on Tuesday to chastise Senate President Andy Biggs as the “only man standing in the way” of a vote on a measure to call an Article V Convention to propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Palin notes that similar measures have already been approved in several states. But she said thanks to Biggs, a Gilbert Republican and leader of the GOP in the Senate, Arizona’s opportunities to approve SCR 1016 are rapidly dwindling. Legislatures in...

April 23, 2014, 06:22 pm McCain says illegal immigrants are 'not going home' By Rebecca Shabad Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Wednesday that immigrants living in the United States illegally are not going home, and that the U.S. has no practical way of forcing them to leave. "They're not going home. And so why don't we give them a path to citizenship," McCain asked at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy Jr. forum. "There are not enough buses to deport them," he added. "It's de facto amnesty." The senator, who has pushed for immigration reform, said once Congress passes legislation he...

Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion provider, is being paid (by your tax dollars) to enroll people in ObamaCare.California’s ObamaCare exchange is paying Certified Enrolment Counselors, including 38 Planned Parenthood affiliates, $58 per person for enrolling people on the state exchange. A “successful application” brings $58 per individual enrolled with a bonus of another $58 for enrolling a dependant. A “successful annual renewal” for these individuals will bring in another $25 per person.That’s no small sum. The abortion industry has a knack for finding ways to squeeze taxpayer dollars out of the American public. Planned Parenthood receives nearly half of its...

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has endorsed Pete Ricketts in Nebraska's Republican gubernatorial primary race.Cruz, the hard-right Texan who has been embraced by the tea party movement and the Republican Liberty Caucus, said Ricketts is "a businessman and a constitutional conservative who will help Nebraska thrive."Pete's priorities for tax reform, job growth and education reform will expand opportunity for Nebraskans," Cruz said in a statement issued by the Ricketts campaign early Tuesday morning."I especially admire Pete's strong, principled leadership in support of school choice," Cruz said, which will "empower parents and expand the educational options for every child in Nebraska."Cruz...

The Covanta Marion waste-to-energy facility in Oregon that incinerates British Columbia "medical waste," including aborted babies. VICTORIA, British Columbia, April 23, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The British Columbia Health Ministry has admitted that the remains of babies destroyed by abortion in B.C. facilities are ending up in a waste-to-power facility in the United States, providing electricity for residents of Oregon. The province’s Health Ministry said in an email to the B.C. Catholic that “biomedical waste” shipped to the U.S. to be incinerated includes “human tissue, such as surgically removed cancerous tissue, amputated limbs, and fetal tissue.” “The ministry understands that some...

The Legacy Lives On! Mark’s Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation “Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.” --Mark Levin in Liberty and TyrannyWelcome to “The Levin Lounge”… Step in and have a virtual FRink.Taking the country by storm, one radio station at a time – and kicking the BUTTS of the competition! Welcome all, to the most FUN LIVE THREAD on FreeRepublic.com! You can call Mark’s show: 1-877-381-3811

Last August, as conservatives barnstormed the country seeking to build support for a cockamamie plan to shut down the U.S. federal government unless Congress voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican senator, said something surprisingly prescient about the president’s signature health-care law. “President Obama wants to get as many Americans addicted to the subsidies because he knows that in modern times, no major entitlement has ever been implemented and then unwound,” he said. The worry, according to Cruz, was that once the ACA went into effect, we’d all be “addicted to the sugar.” Then, it...

Via WaPo and RCP, another nugget mined from yesterday’s chat with Axelrod in Chicago. As with abortion, Paul’s “different kind of Republican” brand requires a compromise here. He knows that most voters, including those in his own party, support voter-ID laws; he also knows that those laws are easily demagogued as racist by lefties, which means that toeing the GOP line too closely could jeopardize Paul’s effort to connect with black voters. What’s a different kind of Republican to do? He insists that ID is a good idea — “I don’t think dead people should vote” — but concedes to...

...The National Education Association (NEA), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), and National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), among other organizations were instrumental in bringing together teachers to provide specific, constructive feedback on the standards.

David Corn of Mother Jones has assembled a number of clips from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) over the years criticizing former President Ronald Reagan for the budgets he signed into law. In some cases, Paul declared Reagan worse on budgetary issue than his predecessor, former President Jimmy Carter.

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 23, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- One of the nation's largest pro-life groups has defended free speech before America's highest court, arguing that their liberty was inhibited in the 2010 race by an Ohio law restricting speech in election ads. In 2010, the Susan B. Anthony (SBA) List put together an ad it intended to run against then-Rep. Steve Driehaus, D-OH. The ad said Driehaus, who ran as a pro-life Democrat, had voted to fund abortions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by supporting the law. Driehaus defended his vote, saying that President Obama's Executive Order limiting federal funding...

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Back in 1995, the Tennessee Law Review published a symposium issue on the Second Amendment and firearms policy. That symposium was probably the most influential law review symposium ever published on the topic. (More on that issue, below.) This year, the Tennessee Law Review is doing another Second Amendment symposium. My contribution to the forthcoming issue is The First Amendment Guide to the Second Amendment. As the article explains, post-Heller courts have frequently looked to the First Amendment for guidance on Second Amendment questions. This is sensible, because since the Supreme Court began taking the First Amendment seriously about 75...

A poll conducted for a group supporting former Oklahoma House speaker T.W. Shannon's bid for U.S. Senate shows him surging ahead of Rep. James Lankford (Okla.) in the Republican primary, whom he once trailed by a wide margin.Shannon leads Lankford 42 percent to 32 percent among Republicans likeliest to vote, according to the Public Opinion Strategies survey. A third candidate, Randy Brogdon, lags behind. Pollster Glen Bolger notes in a memo that Shannon was down nine in March and 35 in February. The poll was conducted Monday and Tuesday for Oklahomans for a Conservative Future, a nonprofit supporting Shannon.Shannon has received a...

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who filibustered the U.S. Senate over Obamacare, has endorsed Ben Sasse for the Senate and will join Sarah Palin and others Friday in North Platte for a Sasse rally.“I have gotten to know Ben Sasse, and while Nebraskans have good choices, Ben is the strongest conservative voice running for United States Senate,” Cruz said . “Ben will not be just another vote in the Senate – he will be a leader in the fight to stop the Obama agenda and repeal ObamaCare from day one.  We need strong reinforcements like him in the United States Senate.”Cruz was elected in 2012,...