Free Republic

President Barack Obama met Friday with a handful of newly elected governors from across the country, including the Texas Republican who has led efforts to sue the president over his immigration executive orders. Texas Gov.-elect Greg Abbott said the lawsuit did not come up in his conversations with the president. […] Obama said much of the agenda for Friday’s meeting focused on the economy and ways states and the federal government can work together to promote growth. “The good news about governors is they usually don’t have time to be ideological because people expect them to deliver,” Obama said. …

The Democrats are divided. The Republicans need to resist Obama’s provocations. Take no bait. Act independently and in accord with national priorities. Cause no pointless trouble. If there’s trouble, it should have a clear, understandable, defendable purpose. That is general advice for the new Republican congressional majority. They will be proving every day they’re a serious governing alternative to the Democratic-dominated establishment that has run Washington for six years. The Republicans are being told they are a deeply divided party. True enough. But another way to look at it may prove more pertinent: “My father’s house has many mansions.” The...

In a defiant challenge to GOP leaders, immigration hardliners in Congress announced Wednesday they will oppose upcoming legislation to keep the government open. They demanded specific provisions to stop President Barack Obama's executive actions that granted a reprieve from deportation for millions. "We aren't with our vote going to give him one dime to execute his illegal action, and we believe the American people are going to stand with us," said Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., at a press conference outside the Capitol where she was joined by other House conservatives and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Cruz warned against "having a...

Progressive New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall wrote on Tuesday that Democrats' embrace of Obamacare's redistribution scheme has angered and alienated working-class and middle-class Americans. "Even though midterm elections favor Republicans, the 2014 results show middle and working-class dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party rising to dangerous levels, which threatens the party's growing demographic advantages," wrote Edsall. As Breitbart News reported last Wednesday, the latest Gallup poll finds that President Barack Obama's approval rating with working-class white voters has hit an all-time low 27%. Moreover, the Gallup poll's findings were taken from opinion data collected prior to racially-charged riots in...

U.S. President Barack Obama voiced optimism on Wednesday that a government shutdown can be avoided in coming weeks, pointing to comments from Republican leaders of Congress who oppose a budget showdown. Obama said there are enormous potential areas for compromise with the Republican Congress, mentioning tax reform, trade and paying for infrastructure projects that would create jobs.

The top brass of the Republican Party spent the last 48 hours plotting ways to twist President Obama’s arm while outlining the new majority agenda they intend to concentrate on come January, when the 114th Congress takes its place. A two-day, invitation-only conference hosted by the Wall Street Journal featured a pairing of top executives and political leaders. Here are three ways Republicans plan to use their new majority in Congress: 1) Get President Obama to Listen. 2) Show the country that the GOP can govern. 3) Think broad and specific when proposing an agenda.

WASHINGTON — As Republicans took control of an unprecedented 69 of 99 statehouse chambers in the midterm elections, they did not rely solely on a bench of older white men. Key races hinged on the strategic recruitment of women and minorities, many of them first-time candidates who are now learning the ropes and joining the pool of prospects for higher office.

It wasn’t all that long ago that the Democrats were predicting the end of the Republican Party. With the rise of Obama, James Carville began peddling a new book “40 More Years” promising that the Dems would rule for generations. Just this year Carville predicted that the Republican Party would become extinct if it lost to Hillary Clinton. But it was the Democratic Party that was going extinct in Carville’s own backyard. Republicans began winning Senate seats in Louisiana for the first time in a century in just the last ten years. If Landrieu loses, then both of the Louisiana’s...

Mary Landrieu is dedicated to the well being of Louisiana residents. Even her vote for the Affordable Care Act, which is being used to attack her, reflects concern for the hundreds of thousands of her constituents who lack health insurance. Seniority matters in the Senate. Although Democrats lost control of the chamber in the midterm elections, Sen. Landrieu would be one of the highest-ranking members of the minority party in the next Congress. Her track record demonstrates her ability to work successfully with Republicans on a variety of matters. Louisiana needs Sen. Landrieu's knowledge, energy and influence in Washington as...

WASHINGTON - President Obama and the Democrats have been peddling some whoppers lately about women in the workforce and Obamacare that are patently untrue, or based on questionable, exaggerated data. Obama and his party are betting they can get away with such falsehoods because the news media swallows them whole, regurgitating their charges as facts. Washington's ultra-liberal press corps rarely digs into the veracity of his claims. The first is the White House's election year claims that average working women are paid a great deal less than men, often for the same amount of work. Here's what Obama said...

WASHINGTON - President Obama's bogus promises, predictions and claims are legendary, but perhaps you've forgotten his "sky is falling" forecast about the $85 billion budget sequester. Last February, as Congress's automatic budget cuts began chipping away at the government's out-of-control spending levels, Obama went hyperbolic. The spending cuts would deal a "huge blow... to our economy as a whole" and "all our economic progress could be at risk." In a string of speeches, the president played his fear card again. Air traffic control operations were being put at risk. Cancer research projects would be halted. Your food safety was in...

ERICK ERICKSON FRONT PAGE WRITERS FEATURES E-LETTERS COFFEE & MARKETS GATHERING FRIENDS RedState Gathering Set For Atlanta in 2015! Click here for more information. « BACK | PRINT RS FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR 2014 and Republican Morale By: Dan McLaughlin (Diary) | November 24th, 2014 at 05:00 PM | 15 RESIZE: AAA Share on Facebook 12 57 SHARES Sexy Karl Rove 622 There’s been a lot written about the impact of the 2014 elections, but let’s not overlook one of the really crucial points: its effect on Republican morale. Republicans didn’t just need a win: we needed a win that met...

New England is beyond a doubt the most socialist section of the country. For all their talk about “Boston Strong” and “Hearty New Englanders,” they are the most committed supporters of Democrat liberals. Last Wednesday their loyalty to Barack Obama was rewarded with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) crushing blow to New England’s cod fishing industry. Obama’s henchmen at NOAA placed a, “six-month ban on most cod fishing off New England this week and are threatening to cut next year’s catch by up to 75 percent.” Given the extent of the damage this ban will do, observers have...

Finally. An additional 7,286 votes were added to the Alaska Senate totals today so far. And while Begich received almost 58% of those votes, Sullivan still leads by 6,211 votes. It is believed there will no more than 3,000 additional ballots to count by this Wednesday (Nov 19).

The day after the 2014 election, the president made one of his Olympian pronouncements: "To everyone who voted, I want you to know that I hear you," he declared. But, "to the two-thirds of Americans who chose not to participate in the process yesterday, I hear you too." But what are non-voters saying, that they love the president so much that they couldn't bear to take part in an election where he'd be crushed? It's more likely non-voting is due to laziness, apathy or cynicism about a political process that offers Barack Obama and Mitt Romney as alternatives. In 2014,...

The fate of a little-noticed ballot measure in strongly Democratic Oregon serves as a warning to President Barack Obama and his party about the political perils of immigration policy. Even as Oregon voters were legalizing recreational marijuana and expanding Democratic majorities in state government, they decided by a margin of 66-34 to cancel a new state law that would have provided driver's licenses to people who are in the United States illegally. "The Oregon measure tells you these measures are not easy or simple," said Muzaffar Chishti of the Migration Policy Institute. "The political cost may be significant, even in...

There is an idiom that parents and employers likely put in practice when an important task has to be completed correctly; “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” President Obama certainly understands that sentiment with a slight variation; if the nation wants anything done at all, the President has to do it himself due to Republicans who have done nothing since January 2009. Sometime next week, after waiting patiently for Ted Cruz to order House Republicans to take up, and pass, the Senate’s bipartisan immigration reform, the President will take action on immigration reform. The...

A scientific national poll of those who voted in Tuesday's congressional elections found that only 20% support "President Obama changing immigration policy on his own." THE POLL QUESTION: President Obama recently said that he plans to go around Congress and take executive action on immigration policy. Which do you support more: (ROTATED) President Obama changing immigration policy on his own, or President Obama working with Congress to change immigration policy? 74% PRESIDENT OBAMA WORKING WITH CONGRESS TO CHANGE IMMIGRATION POLICY 20% PRESIDENT OBAMA CHANGING IMMIGRATION POLICY ON HIS OWN 5% DO NOT KNOW/CANNOT JUDGE (VOL.) 1% REFUSED (VOL.) Majorities of...

Senator Mitch McConnell said yesterday that he would not shut down the government, over immigration or anything else, after he takes over as Majority Leader in January. On the same day, Speaker John Boehner refused to rule out a shutdown. Both were being deceptive, but Mr. McConnell, as usual, was a little more clever about it. The House produced last year’s government shutdown when it insisted on attaching the repeal of various parts of the Affordable Care Act to spending bills necessary to keep the government open. That was a huge embarrassment for Mr. Boehner, making his caucus appear feral...

Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.), who shockingly toppled former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) in a primary this summer, says he'll support John Boehner (R-Ohio) for Speaker. Brat told The Hill he plans to vote for Boehner on the floor in January when the Speaker is elected by the full House for the new Congress. "As of right now, yeah," Brat said. "I'm optimistic our leadership's going to move forward on the principles I ran on."