Free Republic

I say this because just minutes after some 750 mostly young CPAC straw voters had given Paul his numerical win and outsized vocal salute, a pair of very significant speeches -- talks that will live on virally for much longer and to far more voters -- changed the entire atmosphere of the weekend. In started in the very hall where Paul’s win was announced, as Sarah Palin electrified the room and conservatives everywhere with a presentation that heaped praise on Cruz and “Cruz control� tactics – while virtually ignoring the junior senator from Kentucky. This not so subtle pro-Cruz flavoring...

Democratic strategist James Carville predicted the next GOP presidential nominee will come from Texas. "It's either going to be Ted Cruz or Rick Perry," Carville said Monday on Fox News Channel's "Hannity." Cruz is a freshman senator from Texas and a tea party favorite, and Perry is serving out his last term as Texas governor. Perry ran for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012 but came up short after a few fumbles on the campaign trail. But Perry has advantages, Carville said. "He's been around the track once, and he can raise a bucketload of money," Carville said of Perry....

Lots of people in the Republican party are fed up with Sen. Ted Cruz, but Sen. Rand Paul is the guy who is doing something about it. On Monday, the conservative news website, Breitbart News, published an op-ed by Paul, where the senator from Kentucky took Cruz to task -- without ever actually naming the guy who may be beloved by the Tea Party conservatives, but has earned some pretty impressive dislike from the elected members of his own party -- for his hijinks that Paul said have encouraged divisions within the party: "I don't claim to be the next...

There’s no such thing as a Maryland liberal. Terms like “California liberal” or “Massachusetts liberal” are well known (and, depending on whom you ask, pejorative) terms in the American political lexicon. But “Maryland liberal”? Not so much. It sounds clunky and sort of hilarious. This could all change if Maryland decides to veer left and elect Heather Mizeur, a wonky, pro-pot married lesbian, as governor.

Voting records are raising questions amid an investigation into the discovery of a woman’s mummified body in the garage of a foreclosed metro Detroit home. The body found last Wednesday in Pontiac is that of Pia Farrenkopf — according to her sister, Paula Logan. Authorities investigating the case haven’t released her name, but they have said that the woman apparently died in 2008 at the age of 49. According to a report in the Detroit Free Press, records show Farrenkopf as voting in the November 2010 gubernatorial election. Officials say, however, that it may represent an administrative error. Oakland County...

Obama took on Zach Galifianakis in an awkward-off on the comedian's "Between Two Ferns" talk show, posted to Funny or Die on Tuesday. Galifianakis uses his satirical forum to interview and skewer celebrities - and presidents - in cringe-worthy ways. Obama, his job is marked as "community organizer," was treated no differently, taking a series of jabs over the Obamacare rollout and other similar topics in deadpan.

Marco Rubio came to Google’s D.C. headquarters to talk about the economy — not immigration. But when asked, he was certainly prepared to address the subject. During a question and answer session, Rubio was pointedly asked by CNSNews whether “putting illegal aliens on a path to citizenship” would help economic growth. “That’s just a fundamental decision the country will have to make. If the country decides they are prepared to incorporate 8 or 9 million people that violated our laws, the next question will be: ‘Are you prepared to have 8 or 9 million people living among you that can...

As of Sunday, more than 122,000 votes had been cast in the special election for Congressional District 13 in Pinellas County. The Republican advantage in votes cast to date has grown to more 4,623 votes. Presumably, a lot of ballots come in today and tomorrow. We had been arguing that the Republican lead in mail-in votes cast was below where Republican nominee David Jolly needed it to be, but there's no question after the past five days he heads into election day with the momentum and with some wind at his back (Just as Obama had in 2012 when early...

A powerful labor union backed a Democratic candidate in a special election last year but never disclosed the amount of money it spent on the effort. The AFL-CIO backed Elizabeth Coppola, a Democrat, in the Assembly District 21 special election last November. Running phone banks out of their office and offering the services of a political coordinator, the union campaigned for Coppola’s election. But not once did the AFL-CIO disclose its political spending backing Coppola. Nor did the Coppola campaign report any AFL-CIO spending as an in-kind campaign contribution. State campaign finance regulations require labor unions and other groups to...

Mitch McConnell is doing his best to walk back his comments about conservatives. He told the New York Times he intended to “crush them everywhere.” Now he says he was only talking about the Jim DeMint founded Senate Conservatives Fund and its candidates — candidates like Ben Sasse supported by Paul Ryan, Mike Lee, Club for Growth, RedState, National Review, and others. Actually, Mitch McConnell has been pretty open in the past about his contempt for conservatives. He has referred to conservatives and the outside groups they fund, as traitors, bullies, drunks, and fringe. He claims conservatives “tear up every...

The president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, met Sunday with U.S. actor Sean Penn, and after taking the almost traditional selfie , asked him to be their spokesman to the U.S. authorities for dialogue and peace . "We spoke of the great interest that we have, I have asked Sean Penn to forward to where it can transmit more interest we have, that I have as president of the new ambassador Maximilien Arvelaiz in Washington move toward relationships first dialogue "Maduro said, quoted by the Spanish news agency EFE.

Freddi Newman, 16, of Plantation, was in the crowd Friday when President Barack Obama visited Coral Reef High School in southwest Miami-Dade County. The mostly student audience of 1,650 at the "mega magnet" school in the Richmond Heights community roared with excitement for the president.

Over the weekend, the Obama administration began walking back its support for Israel’s demand that the PLO recognize Israel as the Jewish state. At a State Department media briefing on Friday, State Department Spokesperson Jennifer Psaki said, “If you look at the issue of a Jewish state and whether Israel will be called a Jewish state, that’s been our position, as you know, for a long time, but that doesn’t reflect what the parties will agree to, which I know you know.” In other words, the US is neutral. It’s fine with Washington if the PLO accepts Israel’s right to...

It’s easy, not to mention great fun, to ridicule liberals. But so long as you’re not totally devoid of the compassion gene, it’s hard not to feel sorry for them. For instance, imagine you voted for Barack Obama in 2008 because you believed all the high-sounding hooey he spewed, ignoring his background and his associates. Because you gave him the key to your heart, you found yourself unable to complain about an additional five or six years of mounting casualties in Afghanistan, drone strikes, Guantanamo or even the Patriot Act. You also felt you couldn’t complain about Operation Fast and...

It was a lot of hot air about a lot of hot air. Democrats took to the Senate floor Monday night to talk about global warming and did not let up until morning.

A missing half-million dollars is being called an “accounting error”, a “mistake”. The $500,000 mystery was associated with the re-election campaign of Gov. Rick Scott. That’s how much money Florida Crystals, a leading sugar producer founded by one of the state’s politically prominent families, was reported to have given a political organization set up to help the campaign of the Republican incumbent.

Vladimir Putin running rampant in Ukraine showcases how the Obama administration's abdication of global leadership is making the world a more dangerous place. Instead of providing clarity to our nation and our allies, the Obama administration offers tortured semantics. "Kinetic action" glamorizes the failed policy of leading from behind in Libya. A "spontaneous protest" explains the coordinated al Qaeda attack on American officials in Benghazi. The interim agreement over Iran's nuclear program -- described by one of our closest allies as a "historic mistake" -- is in this universe referred to as a display of "international unity." And on Friday,...

Democrats took to the Senate floor Monday night to talk about global warming and planned not to let up until morning. At least 28 senators were expected to participate in the dusk-to-dawn event, which was led off by the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada. Several Democrats who face tough reelection fights in the fall planned to skip it. Democratic leaders have no plans to bring a climate bill to the Senate floor this year, so the speeches were about little more than theatrics.

The Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office has dismissed a trespassing charge against a cross-dressing sex offender who witnesses said walked onto a Jewish school campus, but was turned away by the headmaster. "After significant followup investigation, everyone determined we could not make an ID," Deputy District Attorney Rebekah Wise told NBC Bay Area on Monday. "We did not have the right person." The charge against Theodore Lorigo, 42, who is a registered sex offender, was dismissed on Feb. 24, after he was arrested Jan. 23 by the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety. But Lorigo did plead guilty to forging...

Rand Paul has a piece at Breitbart which Drew at Ace views as a slam against Ted Cruz. The dispute is once again over what Reagan would have done. Reagan clearly believed in a strong national defense and in “Peace through Strength.” He stood up to the Soviet Union, and he led a world that pushed back against Communism. But Reagan also believed in diplomacy and demonstrated a reasoned approach to our nuclear negotiations with the Soviets. Reagan’s shrewd diplomacy would eventually lessen the nuclear arsenals of both countries. Perhaps Rand Paul can explain what the point of lessening the...

The partial government shutdown in October was largely to blame for a 3% drop in visitors to America's national parks in 2013, according to a report released Monday by the National Park Service. The country's 401 parks, historic sites and recreation areas drew 273.6 million visitors in 2013, about 9 million fewer than the previous year, according to the report. The 16-day government shutdown, sparked by a budget dispute in Washington, was responsible for reducing the visitation numbers by about 7.9 million, the report said. The communities near the parks lost about $414 million in spending by visitors because of...

NEW YORK (AP) - Joe McGinniss, the adventurous and news-making author and reporter who skewered the marketing of Richard Nixon in “The Selling of the President 1968” and tracked his personal journey from sympathizer to scourge of convicted killer Jeffrey MacDonald in the blockbuster “Fatal Vision,” died Monday at age 71.

SEAN HANNITY: You're really taking on a lot of issues. One of them is outreach, the second one is the NSA, the third going after the president. Do you agree with Ted Cruz when he said Rand and I are good friends. Do you agree with that statement? SEN. RAND PAUL: We always have been good friends. I'm not real excited about him mischaracterizing my views and, you know, I won't let that pass. I think that, you know, sometimes people want to stand up and say, 'Hey, look at me, I'm the next Ronald Reagan.' Well, almost all of...

More than a thousand people marched on the state Capitol today demanding a repeal of Stand Your Ground legislation. When they left, they left with a threat. Led by the Reverend Al Sharpton, police estimate 1200 people came from as far as Miami with a common goal. “We’re trying to amend the Stand Your Ground law,” said Virginia Lawrence of College Park, GA. “Can you imagine all the injustice?” On stage, Congresswoman Corrine Brown (D-Jacksonville) called the state and Stand Your Ground “stuck on stupid.” Trayvon Martin’s mother said she would not let her son die in vain. “Right is...

Sarah Palin fired up thousands of conservative activists who came to hear her give the closing speech of the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, D.C. this weekend. Palin hasn’t held elected office since she resigned as Alaska governor in 2009. But at this gathering of 11,000, she was an A-list star. The wind-up included a video montage of her greatest hits and tributes, and an introduction by NRA Executive Director Chris Cox. “Does anybody here love Sarah Palin?” Cox asked, getting a loud cheer. “Now, if I walked out there and asked 100 of you why you love Sarah...

The big headline from the report: 15.9 percent of adults are now uninsured, down from 17.1 percent at the end of 2013. It's news that the Obama administration and the law's supporters are going to cheer as proof that the Affordable Care Act is working, and you'll likely hear a lot about it this week. The uninsured rate for the highly scrutinized 18-34 year-old demographic is dropping, but not yet to the levels the administration hopes for. The uninsured rate among 18-25 year-olds is now 23 percent, down from 23.5 percent, and the rate for 26 to 34 year-olds dropped...

The Department of the Interior knew beforehand that two groups of aging veterans would be visiting the World War II Memorial as the partial government shutdown began on Oct. 1 but decided to barricade the site anyway, according to e-mails obtained by National Review Online. The newly released public records also show National Park Service employees busily monitoring the news for any bad publicity and making shutdown exceptions for their co-workers. On Sept. 30, staff from the offices of Senator Tom Harkin (D., Iowa) and Representative Steven Palazzo (R., Miss.) contacted the Department of the Interior’s Office of Congressional Affairs,...

There have been so many infamous characters it's hard to limit a list to 10 -- so here are 15 of arguably the biggest names, in a list that still doesn't cover even half of those who have been convicted or pleaded guilty in just the last decade.

‘Let’s be honest, 70% of teams in NBA could fold tomorrow + nobody would notice a difference w/ possible exception of increase in streetcrime,’ tweeted state Rep. Pat Garofalo Sunday.A Minnesota state lawmaker is under fire after making comments about the NBA that many feel were out of bounds. Gopher State Republican Rep. Pat Garofalo tweeted Sunday that “70% of teams in NBA could fold tomorrow + nobody would notice a difference w/ possible exception of increase in streetcrime.” The offensive tweet was met widely with criticism: more than 1,200 people retweeted it and hundreds of others replied to the...

Buried deep in a section of President Obama's budget, released this week, is an eye-opening fact: This year, 70% of all the money the federal government spends will be in the form of direct payments to individuals, an all-time high. In effect, the government has become primarily a massive money-transfer machine, taking $2.6 trillion from some and handing it back out to others. These government transfers now account for 15% of GDP, another all-time high. In 1991, direct payments accounted for less than half the budget and 10% of GDP. What's more, the cost of these direct payments is...

Branding is even more important in politics than the business world. My message to the GOP: Brand Hillary Clinton right now. Before she brands herself. Before she becomes too big to fail. Before she becomes “inevitable.” Before it’s a foregone conclusion that the first female president will follow the first black president. It’s all or nothing for the Democratic Party in 2016. It’s Hillary or bust. She has a 61-point lead…the biggest lead in Democratic presidential poll history. There are no other contenders. Destroy Hillary now and it’s over. What are they left with? Joe “Crazy Uncle” Biden? Elizabeth “I’m...

National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden said today that rather than helping combat terrorism, the U.S. government’s massive surveillance programs have led to “tremendous intelligence failures” and may have contributed to allowing the deadly Boston Marathon bombing to have taken place. “We’re monitoring everybody’s communications, instead of suspects’ communications,” Snowden said during a live video conference at Austin’s popular South by Southwest festival. “That lack of focus has caused us to miss leads that we should’ve had. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the Boston bombers, the Russians had warned us about him… And if we hadn’t spent so much on mass...

<p>Russian President Vladimir Putin has apparently rejected a U.S. proposal to resolve the dispute over Ukraine that had been put forward by Secretary of State John Kerry over the past week, according to senior Russian and U.S. officials.</p> <p>Mr. Putin's decision led Mr. Kerry to put off a Russian invitation to meet Mr. Putin in Russia, as early as the beginning of this week in Sochi, to discuss the Ukraine crisis, according to these officials.</p>

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell walked onto the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week holding a flintlock musket over his head has seemed to give ammunition to Democrats and McConnell’s Republican primary foe. Both U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, Kentucky’s lone Democratic Congressman, and GOP U.S. Senate challenger Matt Bevin have sought to declare the moment a gaffe. Calling McConnell’s entrance “pathetic,” Yarmuth tried to add a political and historical interpretation of the moment. “If you had a caption that you would run under that picture it would just say desperation,” Yarmuth said of McConnell. “He understandably feels like...

March 10, 2014 Lerner contempt charges on hold Bernie Becker The House Oversight Committee is unlikely to consider potential contempt charges against former IRS official Lois Lerner this week, a GOP aide said Monday. Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) had said that he could move on holding Lerner in contempt this week, after the former head of an IRS tax-exempt division invoked her Fifth Amendment rights for a second time on Wednesday. But Issa likely won’t meet that timeline, after a dust-up between the California Republican and the top Democrat on the Oversight panel, Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), dominated headlines...

CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson has reached an agreement to resign from CBS News ahead of contract, bringing an end to months of hard-fought negotiations, sources familiar with her departure told POLITICO on Monday. Attkisson, who has been with CBS News for two decades, had grown frustrated with what she saw as the network's liberal bias, an outsized influence by the network's corporate partners and a lack of dedication to investigative reporting, several sources said. She increasingly felt like her work was no longer supported and that it was a struggle to get her packages on television. At the...

Sen. Rand Paul blasted fellow GOP Sen. Ted Cruz’s frequent references to Ronald Reagan on Monday, deepening the rift between the two potential 2016 presidential candidates. In an op-ed for Breitbart News, Paul (R-Ky.) took several shots at Cruz for espousing a foreign policy framework in the mold of Reagan. He also criticized Cruz’s frequent bashing of the GOP for nominating insufficiently conservative presidential candidates like Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney. “I don’t claim to be the next Ronald Reagan nor do I attempt to disparage fellow Republicans as not being sufficiently Reaganesque,” Paul wrote. “I will remind...

Their frustration had been mounting for weeks. But by late January national Republicans had had it with David Jolly, their candidate in Tuesday’s nationally watched Florida congressional special election. The candidate had just told the state’s top political reporter that he disagreed with an ad the party was airing against his Democratic opponent — a spot paid for with the nearly $500,000 the GOP had already spent on Jolly’s behalf. “Are you f—-ing kidding me?” a senior National Republican Congressional Committee official told a Jolly staffer over the phone, according to two sources familiar with the conversation. Would the Jolly...

Defenders of Obamacare will point to a new Gallup poll showing that the percentage of Americans without health insurance continues to fall -- to 15.9 percent so far in 2014, down from 17.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013. But compare the most recent percentages with those posted by Gallup in 2008, when 14.8 percent of Americans lacked health insurance coverage. In fact, as Gallup has previously reported, "The number of uninsured was generally below 15% in 2008 until it began to increase in November of that year, coincident with the worst of the economic crisis."

Obama should ignore the green lobby and expedite exports to Europe.Post-Crimea, everyone suddenly recognizes that Russia is a potential geopolitical menace to the West. But for years the Obama administration has completely failed to use the U.S.’s boom in energy production to increase its security and that of its European allies. Frustrated members of Congress from both parties now want to force the White House to stop delaying a full two dozen permits for the export of America’s abundant natural gas. Ukraine depends on Russia for more than two-thirds of its natural gas, and Russia is already raising prices steeply....

The Iron Lady had more cajones than Mitch McConnell and John Boehner combined.

Republican Rep. Tom Cotton leads Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor in the race for Arkansas senator, according to a new poll released Monday by Hickman Analytics Inc. U.S. News reports: A poll released Monday by Hickman Analytics Inc. shows Cotton with 51 percent support compared to 42 percent for Pryor among voters most likely to turn out in November. Though Pryor has used the firm for polling in the past, he is not currently a client, according to his campaign. Among a broader swath of voters, including those less likely to turnout, Pryor closes the gap with Cotton, with the candidates...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A leading District of Columbia businessman was charged on Monday in a campaign finance conspiracy that has tarnished the U.S. capital's Democratic mayor and overshadowed his bid for a second term. The charges against Jeffrey Thompson, once a major government contractor, are a much-anticipated development in a federal investigation that began with an examination of Mayor Vincent Gray's 2010 campaign and then expanded. Thompson is accused of conspiring to violate federal and local campaign finance laws and of submitting false reports to the Internal Revenue Service, according to a 10-page charging document. Thompson was scheduled to appear...

Agitated by the “rousing reception” Sarah Palin received at CPAC 2014 over the weekend, MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski called the former governor of Alaska a “multi-million dollar moron.” As keynote speaker, Palin brought down the house Saturday with a speech that featured her very own rendition of Dr. Suess’ “Green Eggs and Ham,” proving that when it comes to firing up the conservative base, she stands alone. Brzezinski’s slur was in response to MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle, who asked: “What does it say about CPAC, where the most popular speaker they had, the one who received the most rousing reception is...

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — Businessman Brian Ellis unleashed his first television advertisement against U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, calling a single 2012 abortion vote "very wrong." The 30-second spot attacks Amash, R-Cascade Township, as being the only Michigan Republican voting against the 2012 Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, which reportedly would have imprisoned doctors for performing abortions based solely on gender. The bill failed in the House with a vote of 246-168 in favor. It needed 276 yeas to pass. "Amash voted to allow gender selection abortions to continue," the ad states. "Right to Life called Amash's vote 'shameful' and 'pro-abortion.' They're right....

WASHINGTON (AP) — Influential District of Columbia businessman Jeffrey Thompson was charged Monday with conspiring to violate federal and local campaign finance laws by funding off-the-books campaign activity for candidates including Hillary Rodham Clinton and district Mayor Vincent Gray. Thompson, the multimillionaire former owner of a well-connected accounting firm, was charged in a criminal information, a charging document that can only be filed with the defendant's consent and typically signals a guilty plea. A court appearance was scheduled for Monday afternoon. According to the document, Thompson funded illicit campaign activity for Clinton, Gray and seven other candidates for local office...

Ames real estate broker A.J. Spiker has informed leaders of the Republican Party of Iowa that he is stepping down as the party’s chairman. Spiker announced that he was stepping down in a letter sent to members of the party's State Central Committee. He said his resignation would be effective upon the election of a new state chairman. In the letter mailed Friday, Spiker announced that the election of a new chairman would take place during the State Central Committee's quarterly business meeting March 29. Spiker served as a member of the GOP State Central Committee from April 2010 until...

On its surface, the presidential election in El Salvador on Sunday shouldn’t matter to the average American. But this is no ordinary election. Experts say an expected win by the current ruling party, the FMLN, will turn El Salvador into a haven for gangs and narco-traffickers with dire consequences for the United States. Stunning recent evidence and leaked government documents suggest the country’s current President and ruling party for years have been secretly backed by the MS-13 gang, which is considered by many as America’s most brutal enterprise because of its reputation for using machetes to hack people to death....

Democratic Senate candidates, facing withering criticism on the national health care law, are gambling they can turn voters against two billionaire brothers funding the attacks—even if few Americans would recognize the pair on the street. In an accelerating counteroffensive stretching from the Senate chamber to Alaska, Democrats are denouncing Charles and David Koch, the key figures behind millions of dollars in conservative TV ads hammering Democratic candidates and their ties to President Barack Obama. Democrats depict the Kansas-based Koch (pronounced “Coke”) brothers as self-serving oil barons who pay huge sums to try to “buy” elections and advance their agenda of...

In 2006, Georgia Republican and Senate hopeful David Perdue said that the way to the large number of unemployed Americans needed to be dealt with at a “federal level” and could not be left to the states. At a meeting of the Retail Industry Leaders Association in 2006, Perdue, then the CEO of Dollar General, lamented the high number of uninsured people, the Dallas Morning News and Retailing Today reported at the time. “It’s a tragedy that so many people are uninsured,” Perdue said of health insurance, according to a Dallas Morning News article from Oct. 17, 2006. Read more:...