Free Republic

Young America’s Foundation (YAF) will welcome Senator Ted Cruz, Breitbart’s Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow, John Stossel, Katie Pavlich, and hundreds of students to New Hampshire for the first Freedom Conference of 2015. High school and college students will travel to Nashua, New Hampshire, on March 27 and 28 for inspiration, camaraderie, and training on how to take the ideas of individual freedom, free markets, and strong national defense to schools across the country. Students from as far away as California, North Carolina, Florida, and Texas will be attending this event. Many in the Conservative Movement suggest that we need to chase...

San Francisco prides itself as a tolerant place, but it is closed off to one thing: Indiana. On Thursday, San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee, a Democrat, directed all City Departments under his authority to bar publicly funded travel to the Hoosier State. The decision followed Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Pence’s decision to sign a “religious freedom” bill that critics say effectively sanctions discrimination of LGBT citizens by private businesses. “We stand united as San Franciscans to condemn Indiana’s new discriminatory law,” Lee said in a statement. “San Francisco taxpayers will not subsidize legally-sanctioned discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender...

Sen. Chuck Schumer says tea party members "hate immigrants," and blames congressional Republicans' fear of their hard-right members for preventing passage of a Senate immigration bill last year. (SNIP) "Why doesn't he? Because the tea party, these 80 to 100 folks from the hard right, none from New York, say they hate immigration, they hate immigrants.

Hillary Clinton did not hand over new documents to the House panel investigating Benghazi and wiped her server clean of past emails, the committee’s chairman said in a statement Friday. Clinton did not provide correspondence or emails to the Select Committee on Benghazi, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), said, even though the former secretary of state was under a subpoena, issued early this month, for all correspondence from Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state that focused on Libya and Benghazi.

In a speech on Senate floor last week, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer said Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King was controlling the party’s position on immigration and derailing immigration reform. (SNIP) Thursday, King responded to Schumer’s comment on the House floor saying it was Schumer not him who represented the fringe. Specifically King said Schumer represented “socialists, marxists, progressives, liberal Democrats.”

From Tea Party agitator to leadership insider, Sen. Mike Lee is now counselor to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The Utah Republican is steering committee chairman, a post that often comes with a seat in leadership. But McConnell wasn’t obligated to bring Lee into the fold last week, when he appointed him as one of four counsellors to the Republican leadership. The Kentuckian never extended a similar offer to Jim DeMint when he led steering. Lee and McConnell hardly have a chummy history, although the majority leader shrewdly keeps potential enemies close. Lee advanced to the Senate in 2010 by...

With a 3D printer and enough thermoplastic, you can mass produce deadly plastic guns from the convenience of your own home without going through a rigorous background check. Advanced 3D-printing technology now allows for people to make durable guns. And as far as current federal laws are concerned, it’s totally legal. Medium writer Keith Mizokami documented his experience building not just any regular firearm, but a full-on assault rifle. All it took was three hours and some light tools. “I was an AR-15 grease monkey,” Mizokami wrote. “During the course of several projects, I’d built an entire rifle from scratch....

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker are running first and second in an early look at the 2016 GOP presidential primary in New Hampshire, according to a Suffolk University poll released Thursday. Mr. Bush is the first choice for about 19 percent of likely GOP primary voters, followed by Mr. Walker at 14 percent and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky at 7 percent. Real estate mogul Donald Trump, who recently announced he was forming an exploratory committee....

President Barack Obama is slated to meet with Pope Francis in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 23, and Obama already has a list of topics he hopes to discuss. In a press release Thursday, the White House laid out some of the president's ideal subjects for the talk, and said that Obama "looks forward to continuing" conversations he and Pope Francis began during their initial meeting at the Vatican in March 2014. The topics on Obama's agenda are ones that both leaders have made top priorities in their careers thus far. Here's what he hopes to chat about with the pope:

Facing a room of Republicans, Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., defended his decision to vote against an amendment put forth by a fellow GOP colleague aimed to reverse President Barack Obama’s deferred deportation plan. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., proposed a funding amendment to block dollars for the president’s 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which was expanded via executive action last year. (SNIP) Amodei was one of 26 Republicans – which included two other Nevada Republicans, Joe Heck and Crescent Hardy – to vote against Blackburn’s measure at the beginning of the year. (SNIP) “I don’t know if we can pass...

The Mark Levin Show, "Ray Charles Fridays", M-F, 6pm-9pm EST, WABC-AM, Friday, March 27th, 2015. The Mark Levin Show is on-the-air: “Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.” -- Mark Levin in "Liberty and Tyranny". Welcome 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.

A new CBS poll on Hillary Clinton this week suggests that the former first lady, New York senator and secretary of state faces a steeper road to the White House than her supporters might think. Only 26 percent in the poll of the adult population had a favorable view of Clinton, while 37 percent had an unfavorable opinion, and an astonishing 36 percent said they hadn't heard enough to form an opinion or were undecided. Because the poll sampled all adults, not just registered voters, the poll's political significance is limited. Much of the general public pays little attention to...

Someone recently asked, “Why is it that the John Birch Society is so opposed to an Article V amendment convention today despite the fact that they have been supporters of amending the Constitution since back in the 70s?” That’s a darned good question. It a matter of history that Robert Welch, the first president of the John Birch Society, welcomed those who would repeal the 16th Amendment (the progressive income tax) into the society and made their cause a part of JBS lore. In 1975, Larry McDonald, then a Democrat U.S. Representative from Georgia, who went on to become the...

In a little-noticed move this week, California State Assembly Minority Leader Kristin Olsen, completed a purge of “conservative” policy staffers.  The dramatic reversal—in both function and ideology of the Assembly Republican Caucus—mirrors the California GOP’s leftward shift, which has eschewed social conservatives as a “fringe” element. By softening the party’s stances on issues like illegal immigration, traditional marriage, Common Core, and ObamaCare, the GOP establishment both nationally and here in California believes the party will attract more voters from the center than the party loses from the right.

Mitch McConnell reacted to Harry Reid's impending retirement. The Senate majority leader had kind words for his Democratic counterpart, who announced Friday he would be retiring in 2016. "Nothing has ever come easily to this son of Searchlight. Underestimated often, his distinctive grit and determined focus nevertheless saw him through many challenges," McConnell said in a statement. "They continue to make him a formidable opponent today."

Scott Walker and Jeb Bush were bound to collide sooner or later. It turned out to be sooner. As the son of a Baptist minister, and the son of the 41st president of the United States, these two were destined to be the odd couple of the 2016 election. Walker is running against the establishment and the Washington elites. Bush embodies both. Walker will need at least $100 million to compete in the GOP primary, and more if he makes it to the general. Most of the Republican donors who write those kinds of checks are on Bush’s speed dial....

Senate Republicans are targeting ObamaCare in the chamber’s marathon session on budget amendments known as a “vote-a-rama” on Thursday. Senators have proposed 85 healthcare-related amendments, including a full repeal of ObamaCare, a ban on any ObamaCare marketing and a shift of Medicaid into states' control. The symbolic proposals are among more than 600 amendments that the Senate will consider during the “vote-a-rama,” which is expected to last through late Thursday. Senate Democrats used their budget amendments to try to ward off attacks against the Affordable Care Act, which just passed its five-year anniversary.

EXCLUSIVE–FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: DOJ SHOULD OPEN A CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION INTO HARRY REID PUSHING EB-5 VISA EXPANSION Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) says he intends to retire at the end of his term in 2017. But he may still face legal pressure before he leaves. Former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova, a leading legal expert on the prosecution and defense of white collar criminals, tells Breitbart News there is enough public evidence to launch a criminal investigation of Reid. “Here’s the issue,” diGenova tells Breitbart News in an exclusive interview. “Because his son was involved representing the SLS Casino and Hotel...

Harry Reid endorsed Chuck Schumer to succeed him as Senate minority leader after he retires in 2016. [Snip] Reid predicted Schumer, the third-ranking Democrat in Senate leadership, would win the post without opposition. He also suggested any competition — specifically Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, with whom he spoke on the phone with Friday morning — should stand down. Reid called Schumer "extremely smart" in the interview, adding that he would bring a "different style" to Senate leadership compared with Reid's soft-spoken nature.

1. Ted Cruz is anti-establishment. .. But Cruz's resume is crammed with establishment credentials. He holds degrees from Princeton and Harvard; clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist; worked as an adviser on the 2000 presidential campaign of George W. Bush, who was the clear establishment candidate in that race; and served as solicitor general for the state of Texas. And if you're part of the U.S. Senate, you're part of the establishment. 2. He's another Obama. ... Cruz has, unsurprisingly, seized every chance to rebut the comparison, calling Obama a "back bencher" in the Senate who "did not...