Free Republic

I was introduced to this woman recently and I'm convinced we all could use her input

At [the Jan 14, 2016] GOP debate, Senator Marco Rubio accused Ted Cruz of sneaking a value-added tax (VAT) into his tax reform plan. RUBIO: Here is the one thing I’m not going to do. I’m not going to have something that Ted described in his tax plan. It’s called the value-added tax. And it’s a tax you find in many [countries] in Europe. … CRUZ: Well, Marco has been floating this attack for a few weeks now, but the problem is, the business flat tax in my proposal is not a VAT. A VAT is imposed as a sales...

On Thursday night, Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin took on the rising tide of "populist nationalism" with a history lesson. Populism, Levin explained, is really just progressivism. The populist movement in America was the forerunner of the progressive movement, and both populism and progressivism share the same disdain for constitutionalism that conservatives reject.

In an exclusive interview with TIME, Cook discusses your privacy, America’s security, and what’s at stake in the battle over encryption The day after the massacre in San Bernardino, Calif., where Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik shot to death 14 people and wounded 22 others at a holiday luncheon for the county department of public health, an FBI Evidence Response Team descended on the couple’s townhouse in nearby Redlands. They recovered, among other things, 12 pipe bombs, thousands of rounds of ammunition of several different calibers, and three cell phones: two from a dumpster behind the townhouse and one...

Please plan on joining us on Friday, March 18 at 7:00PM for "An American Rally with Special Guest Ted Cruz," with: Senator Ted Cruz Former 2016 Presidential Candidate and Conservative Business Leader Carly Fiorina Former Texas Governor Rick Perry American television personality and radio host and conservative political commentator Glenn Beck Doors open at 6:00pm and the event starts at 7:00 pm.Must have a ticket to enter. Tickets are very limited.  Please RSVP today!PAID FOR BY KEEP THE PROMISE PAC. NOT AUTHORIZED BY ANY CANDIDATE OR CANDIDATE'S COMMITTEE. WWW.KEEPTHEPROMISE.COM When Friday, March 18, 2016 from 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM (MST) -...

President Obama tried to tap a moderate to fill the seat of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, but he ended up picking a fight with powerful Second Amendment groups that say Judge Merrick Garland has shown antipathy toward gun rights. In one 2000 case, Judge Garland, who sits on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, upheld a Clinton administration effort to store gun-buyers’ records. Later in the decade, he joined other judges in a failed bid to reconsider the landmark case that would eventually establish the Second Amendment’s protection of a personal right...

Obama on Wednesday nominated Merrick Garland to serve on the Supreme Court, setting up a protracted political fight with Republicans who have vowed to block any candidate picked by Obama in his final year in office. Garland, 63, is a longtime Washington lawyer and jurist who is chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Considered a moderate, Garland is widely respected in the D.C. legal community and was also a finalist for the first two Supreme Court vacancies Obama filled.

Governor Rick Scott signed HB 43, known as the “Pastor Protection Act,” into law on Thursday, March 10. This law protects clergy, churches, and religious organizations and their employees from civil action for refusing to perform same-sex marriages. Rep. Scott Plakon sponsored HB 43 and began drafting the bill before the bizarre U.S. Supreme Court 5-4 opinion regarding marriage. Rep. Plakon said that a majority of the bill came from a similar Texas law. The law provides that churches or religious organizations, related organizations, or certain individuals may not be required to solemnize any marriage or provide services, accommodations, facilities,...

Donald Trump keeps his lead in winner-take-all Florida, at 44 percent over Ted Cruz's 24 percent and Marco Rubio's 21 percent. In Ohio, Governor John Kasich is tied with Trump 33 percent to 33 percent, in two of the big winner-take-all delegate prizes up on Tuesday.

John Kasich Touts Voting for Assault Weapons Ban on The View Video at link

The FBI wants Apple to do something no private company has ever been forced to do: break its own technology. Specifically, the FBI wants Apple to build a new version of its mobile operating system (iOS, or GovOS) so that the contents of an iPhone can be removed from an iPhone used by Syed Farook, one of the gunmen in the San Bernardino shooting.A magistrate judge recently ordered Apple to comply with this request; Apple in turn filed a Motion to Vacate (MTV) the magistrate’s order. The key point made in the MTV — and the key issue on which...

Freepers, would like your opinion. Should selection of a state's candidate by caucus be a thing of the past? Does it truly reflect how the majority of people in the state would vote?

How many times have you heard of Senators and Representatives adding riders or amendments to bills to help fund their pet projects back in their states or for a friend? I’ve written about a number of these in the past including: $384,949 for the study of duck penises$876,752 to study snail sex$15.3 million for the infamous Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska$113,227 for a video game preservation center in New York$550,000 for a documentary on how rock music contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union$48,700 for 2nd annual Hawaii Chocolate Festival, to promote Hawaii’s chocolate industry.$350,000 to support an International...

Senator Bernie Sanders, presidential candidate and America’s leading socialist, announced today that he would be introducing a bill to make college “free” for students seeking bachelor degrees. Had Milton Friedman been alive today, he would have no doubt thrown cold water on Sanders’ proposal. First, he would have likely addressed the fallacy known as the free lunch myth. You can watch him do so below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZMxvlKxyk0 Secondly, and more specifically, he would have discussed the economics of higher education. You can watch him do so below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3-_r_t7AZU It’s unfortunate that there isn’t a conservative/libertarian intellectual with the communication skills of...

Ted Cruz spent the CNN debate Thursday drawing policy contrasts between himself and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. On ISIS, trade, and immigration, Cruz said Trump speaks to voters' concerns but doesn't have solutions that address the problems America confronts. The personal attacks and shouting that have characterized the previous Republican debates were gone, replaced with somber candidates trying to hit target audiences with messages that have worked in the past. Trump was the politically incorrect straight-talker who wants America to win again. Cruz was the conservative ideologue ready to take on the bipartisan Washington cartel. Marco Rubio was once again...

Even the Founders, a grouping singular in the history of men concerning the brilliance of their intellects and the purity of their motives knew they couldn't trust themselves to form or maintain a government of fallible men to rule over fallible men In America today a debate rages concerning the legitimate role of government. Currently the Federal Government is controlled by a group of politicians who consider themselves the ideological descendants of the Progressive Movement. Beginning in the 1890s, the Progressives led by Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson championed the idea that it was time to progress past America’s old...

..youngest Solicitor General in the entire country and the longest tenure in Texas history(snip) Authored over 80 SCOTUS briefs and presented over 40 oral arguments before The Court * In the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, Cruz assembled a coalition of 31 states in defense of the principle that the 2nd Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms * Presented oral arguments before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit * Defended the Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds, * Defended the recitation of the Pledge...

Republican pledged delegates Trump 462 37.3% of the way to the nomination Cruz 358 28.9% Rubio 154 12.4% Kasich 54 4.4%

You can tell it's an election year, because the Republicans are all of a sudden talking about the Constitution again. Not that I mind, of course, but it seems that they only start paying attention to it when the generally more conservative and constitutionalist Republican primary voters start paying attention to them. So suddenly, the political realm is filled with talk about what the Constitution says about every issue, from abortion to xylophone maintenance. The problem that I see with this, however, is that at the same time as they are declaiming their love and devotion to our founding document,...

Mainstream Republican pursuit of amnesty, open borders, and massive immigration (both legal and illegal) works to destroy the very Constitution they profess to be so concerned about You can tell it’s an election year, because the Republicans are all of a sudden talking about the Constitution again. Not that I mind, of course, but it seems that they only start paying attention to it when the generally more conservative and constitutionalist Republican primary voters start paying attention to them. So suddenly, the political realm is filled with talk about what the Constitution says about every issue, from abortion to xylophone...