Free Republic

With the walloping Republicans gave Democrats in the midterm elections, the GOP stands one Louisiana Senate runoff away from completely controlling Southern politics from the Carolinas to Texas. Only a handful of Democrats hold statewide office in the rest of the Old Confederacy. The results put Southern Republicans at the forefront in Washington—from Senate Majority Leader-in-waiting Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to a host of new committee chairmen. Those leaders and the rank-and-file behind them will set the Capitol Hill agenda and continue molding the GOP’s identity heading into 2016. In statehouses, consolidated Republican power affords the opportunity to advance conservative...

In one of the most bizzare explanations for losing a campaign ever, a spokesman for pro-abortion Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis blamed the massive loss to pro-life Governor-elect Greg Abbott on ebola. From Breitbart: wendydavis11Texas State Senator Wendy Davis was steamrolled in her bid to become the state’s next governor, and it appears that her staff believes Ebola has something to do with the failure of her campaign. Speaking on behalf of Davis’ campaign, Communications Director Zac Petkanas told the Wall Street Journal, “The losses that you are seeing in very blue states are simply amplified in states like Texas...

The “most expensive election in history.” Our democracy is being “bought and sold.” This election, “debased by money, shames us all.” These are some of the recent expressions of outrage about what the Center for Responsive Politicsestimates to have been $3.67 billion spent for federal offices during the 2014 midterms. Two days before the election on “Face the Nation,” CBS’s Bob Schieffer asked viewers to name one item whose costs have gone up as much over time as campaigns. That’s easy. While campaign spending soared to $3.67 billion this year from $1.6 billion in 1998, federal government spending rose 5%...

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Friday challenging Iowa’s tough policies that bar felons from voting, seeking to restore the right to thousands of former offenders before the 2016 presidential election. The case aims to end confusion over rules that followed a 2011 policy change by Gov. Terry Branstad and a criminal investigation into people who improperly voted. Iowa is among three states where felons cannot vote after completing their sentences unless their rights are restored by the governor. “The widespread denial of voting rights on the basis of a felony conviction is the single biggest denial of...

California Democratic Rep. Scott Peters has defeated (homosexual)Republican challenger Carl DeMaio in one of the most competitive House races in the country. The Associated Press called the race Friday night, nearly 72 hours after polls closed in the San Diego-area district. Peters, who trailed DeMaio in early returns, currently leads the Republican by 4,491 votes, 51.2 percent to 48.8 percent.

The Republicans did not have a national campaign except to send back Obama's words to haunt him. It was a nationally silent campaign and whoever came up with it was a genius. As long as the Republican spoke out about any national issue, the Lamestream Media would speak out against it. Whether it was abortion, healthcare, racial bating; it did not matter, the media would take the side of the Democratic party. By avoiding speaking on these issues and focusing like a laser on Obama's misstatements and obvious mistakes (Ebola and ISIL), they avoided the Democrats and the Lamestream Media's...

Yesterday, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals struck a reverberating blow on behalf of natural marriage and the Constitution by upholding bans on sodomy-based marriages in its jurisdiction.It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this ruling.It means, for one thing, that the issue is now on the fast track to the Supreme Court. If the Court accepts a marriage case by January, a decision will almost certainly be issued by next June.From a constitutional standpoint, the 6th Circuit’s ruling is a model of sound jurisprudence. The ruling observes that the Supreme Court has already settled the question of the...

Obama took to the podium on Wednesday after the midterm elections and made it clearer than ever that he lives in his own universe. Americans sent the message loud and clear that they reject his policies and the Democrat platform as it currently stands, yet Obama drove the message home that even with a Republican Congress in control, he would continue to push his extremely unpopular liberal agenda. The wellbeing of Americans has never been the top priority in Obama-land, and his arrogant-selfishness was the resounding sentiment throughout his misguided press conference. In Obama’s mind there may as well not...

Some observations on the election: 1) This was a wave, folks. It will be a benchmark for judging waves, for either party, for years. 2) In seriously contested races, GOP candidates were generally younger, more vigorous, more sunny and optimistic than Democrats. 3) The combination of Obama’s low job approval and Harry Reid’s virtual shutdown of the Senate insured a Republican Senate majority. 4) Democratic territory has been reduced to the bastions of two core groups — black voters and gentry liberals. 5) In many states — including many carried twice by Obama — Republicans have been governing successfully, at...

On the heels to two so-so jobs reports—one from the government, one from ADP-- the spotlight remains firmly on the non-jobs recovery that Obama and the Democrats were successfully able to cover up for six years. The government reported jobs growth of 214,000 jobs for the month of October this week. While the number is okay, it is nowhere near what is needed to heal the wounds to the labor market.As our own Peter Morici observed:The official jobless rate is 5.8 percent, down from its recession peak of 10 percent, but that has been mostly accomplished by encouraging prime working-aged...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)On his Wednesday radio show, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh emphatically stated that it was not the job of newly elected Republican majority in both chambers of Congress to govern, work together, find common ground or compromise. Instead, Limbaugh told his audience the message was clear, which was the American people wanted Congress to stop President Barack Obama. On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday, host Joe Scarborough and Bloomberg Politics John Heilemann dismissed that suggestion from Limbaugh and warned Republicans not to follow that advice. “If you listen to talk radio and some of the right-wing, the far right...

Now that two of the last three Democratic presidencies have been emphatically judged to have been failures, the world’s oldest political party — the primary architect of this nation’s administrative state — has some thinking to do. The accumulating evidence that the Democratic Party is an exhausted volcano includes its fixation with stale ideas, such as the supreme importance of a 23rd increase in the minimum wage. Can this party be so blinkered by the modest success of the third recent presidency, Bill Clinton’s, that it will sleepwalk into the next election behind Hillary Clinton? In 2016, she will have...

We all know the Republican midterm landslide was largely a repudiation of President Obama’s policies and his handling of the job of chief executive. And of course, we don’t know who will succeed him in 2016. But buried deep inside Tuesday’s exit polls is a series of numbers on presidential contenders that will blow your mind. It’s completely different from most anything you’ve seen in the newspapers, the Internet or on TV. Get this. Here’s a stunning question and answer from Edison Research, which interviewed 18,000 voters around the country as they left the polls on Nov. 4: Do you...

ST. LOUIS COUNTY • Some Ferguson protest strategists turned on one of their own Thursday night, allegedly beating a man they accused of sending out unauthorized video of a meeting at Greater St. Mark Missionary Church in unincorporated north St. Louis County. County police confirmed that they are investigating. The victim, identified as Chris Schaefer, an University of Missouri-St. Louis student, was chased from the church, at 9950 Glen Owen Drive, and beaten outside. He was treated for his injuries at a hospital. Patricia Bynes, a stalwart of the protest movement who attended the meeting, blamed members of the protest...

From the Washington Examiner President Obama did something extraordinary, perhaps unprecedented, in his post-election news conference Wednesday: He claimed a mandate on behalf of voters who didn't vote. "To everyone who voted, I want you to know that I hear you," the president said. "To the two-thirds of voters who chose not to participate in the process yesterday, I hear you, too."...Obama's message to Republicans was unmistakable: My mandate is bigger than your mandate.... LOL. Liberalism is the ideology of anti-intellectual children, the examples of this are too numerous to count, but Obama has the brightest (or more accurately,...

Barack Obama is a gifted politician. But a president is judged by the gifts he leaves behind. Following his fourth national election as party leader, Democrats are taking stock of what they have received. For Obama, there have been two convincing presidential victories; for the Democratic Party, electoral ruin at every other level. On Tuesday, the largest Democratic Senate losses since 1980. The ranks of moderate Democrats — including Mark Pryor, Mark Begich, Kay Hagan and (probably) Mary Landrieu — decimated. During Obama’s presidency, the loss of nearly 70 House seats, producing the largest Republican majority since 1931. The near-extinction...

Nov. 4 was a national vote of no confidence in Barack Obama. Had a British prime minister received a vote like this, he would have resigned by now. The one issue on which all Republicans agreed, and all ran, was the rejection of Obama. And by fleeing from him, some even refusing to admit they voted for him, Democrats, too, were conceding that this election was about Obama, and that they were not to blame for his failures. Yet, though this was a referendum on Obama and his policies, and though both were repudiated, some pundits are claiming that America...

A prayer has been answered -- not for a massive Republican victory at the polls, though that, too. No, I'm thinking of the perennial prayer of losers: "Oh Lord, let my enemies go too far." The results of the 2014 midterms will be chewed over for weeks and months. One datum that hasn't received much attention so far is the exit poll result showing that 71 percent of voters are somewhat or very worried about another major terrorist attack in the United States. Such is the Republican reputation for hardheadedness on national security that the party benefits from this concern...

"To everyone who voted," President Obama said in his press conference on Wednesday, "I hear you. To the two-thirds of voters who chose not to participate yesterday, I hear you, too." Let me begin with a bit of a rant. In a sense, this is the last piece of the puzzle to click into place for the president's Nixonian transformation. Spy on reporters? Check. Bomb a country (or two) without authorization from Congress? Check. Issue dubious claims of executive privilege to conceal embarrassments or prevent scandals? Check. Withdraw from -- and lose -- an unpopular war he didn't start? Check....

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Thursday blamed frustration with President Obama for the poor performance of Democratic candidates in New York, saying his victory fell short of a landslide because of discontent unrelated to the state. “This was a real Republican wave that went across the country,” Mr. Cuomo said. He added that voters were motivated by “dissatisfaction with a Democratic administration in Washington, premised on economic anxiety.” “And I don’t think anything we were talking about had any relevance, frankly, that would change that one way or the other,” he said on.