Free Republic

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas affiliate of the National Education Association and other advocacy groups are staging a rally and march to issue failing grades to U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz on key social and educational issues.Also receiving 'Fs' are fellow Republicans and U.S. Reps. John Carter and Roger Williams.They are being chided for failing to do more on issues "critical to Texas families, including labor, public education, health care, immigration reform and voting rights."Friday's rally at the state Capitol and subsequent march through nearby streets features the Texas State Teachers Association and the state chapter of...

Fellow Conservatives: We wanted to share the results of our recent membership survey regarding the National Republican Senatorial Committee's policy of opposing all conservative challengers to Republican incumbents. An overwhelming 96% of Senate Conservatives Fund members disagreed with the NRSC's blind support for all incumbents and said that some Republicans should be replaced by conservatives in their primary elections. As for which incumbents need to be replaced, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) received the most votes. No Republican got more than 10% support for their re-election. It's clear that conservatives across the country are ready...

There’s been a smattering of talk the past couple of weeks among political pundits about how the problems with the rollout of the Affordable Care Act could help the GOP in next year’s congressional and state elections. Even Ken Cuccinelli, who lost last month’s Virginia gubernatorial election against Democrat Terry McAuliffe, has broached the possibility of mounting a campaign to take the U.S. Senate seat held by popular former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner.People who make a living following politics in the Commonwealth, such as George Mason University’s Mark Rozell and the University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato, see such a scenario...

Democrat political consultant and former Carter adviser Pat Caddell appeared on Your World with Neil Cavuto on FOX News. Caddell explained Obama’s lofty view of himself, saying that he believes he has the right to lie Americans because he and other progressives “know what’s best.” Doesn’t that make you feel better? Caddell was on to discuss the new analysis from the Government Accountability Institute, which pointed out, according the amazed Caddell, that since the disastrous October 1st launch of Obamacare, Obama hasn’t met with his HHS Secretary, Kathleen Sebeliu,s even one time: Since October 1st, as far as they can...

December 6, 2013 9:52 AM Obama: I'm Not Incompetent, Government Is By Charles C. W. Cooke If those in charge of its implementation are not careful, the principal achievement of our long Obamacare saga will be to be to have reinforced conservative claims about government. As the law has gone from one disaster to another, Obama has flailed a little. He’s said “sorry” — sort of — and he’s allowed that things aren’t optimal, but he hasn’t been prepared to concede that there might be anything wrong with his management style or that this mess is ultimately owned by him....

The final numbers are in for the 2013 ballot initiatives and, surprise!, the pro-Amendment 66 campaign spent a ridiculous amount of money. But, they raised less than what they hoped as some cited $12 million as a target. They raised (and presumably spent nearly all) $11,079,408 to garner only 496,151 votes or 35% of the votes. That’s $22.33 per vote, which is more than either of the presidential candidates in the 2012 election. Not shocking, but the largest contributors to the effort were the Colorado Education Association and the National Education Association (aka the teachers unions). Each contributed two million...

With his trademark grin and natural charm, President Obama knows how to connect with an audience. So it was when he gave the commencement address to Arizona State University’s class of 2009, thrilling a crowd of 60,000 assembled in Sun Devil Stadium. Looking back on his remarks today, his words are much less amusing. “Now, before I begin,” said Mr. Obama, “I’d just like to clear the air about that little controversy everybody was talking about a few weeks back.” The president was referring to the school basketball team, which had been knocked out in the second round of the...

Listen To Glenn Beck Now, on The Blaze Radio Network on www.iheart.com . Truth Lives Here Known for his quick wit, candid opinions and engaging personality, Glenn Beck has attracted millions of viewers and listeners throughout the United States with The Glenn Beck Program. His radio show, The Glenn Beck Program, is heard on over 400 stations and is syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks. It is the third highest-rated national radio talk show among adults ages 25 to 54. Looking for audio and video from the radio program? If you’re a TheBlaze TV Subscriber you can access all your...

ObamaCare was sold to the nation as a compassionate response to the approximately 47 million uninsured Americans. Yet, 30 million Americans will still not be insured even after the frenetic misrepresentation and bribery required to pass the bill and the botched rollout. Plus, the policies of millions of insured Americans are being cancelled and replaced with HHS "approved" policies that have higher premiums. Then, following the wipeout in the individual market, millions of Americans currently covered by employer-provided plans will have their policies cancelled because they are deemed inadequate and unacceptable under the ObamaCare regulations issued by HHS.

- FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com - Kerry in Israel: Give Up Jordan Valley — Count on UsPosted By P. David Hornik On December 6, 2013 @ 12:40 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments Secretary of State John Kerry paid yet another visit to Israel on Thursday. Reports described him as hoping to “salvage” the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Many people, particularly in Israel, had already predicted that, with the Palestinians—just as in 1937, 1948, 2000-01, and 2008—incapable of coming to terms with the Jewish state’s existence, there would be nothing to salvage in the first place.Kerry’s timing was flawed in...

President Obama rejected the notion that the IRS’ targeting of Tea Party groups was illegal — or even improper — during his interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Thursday. Obama was at American University to sell his flailing healthcare law to the young people upon which the insurance exchanges heavily rely. As promised, Matthews allowed him to make his pitch with no tough questions or pushback. But the interview became interesting when the Hardball host asked why Americans were growing increasingly skeptical of government. Obama noted that the media never seems interested in government success stories. “When we do things...

Seduced and then disappointed by a hipster who turned out just to be another solipsistic boomer, now chastened yet still hopeful for change (if no longer swept away by the promise of Hope and Change), young Americans are ready to ditch Barack Obama. Things had been getting rocky for a while, but seeing the dawning of the Age of Obamacare in its full glory seems to have been the final indignity. The young will of course never acknowledge that maybe their old-fogey parents were right all along, but they do understand that what they thought was going to be a...

President Barack Obama says both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden would make outstanding presidents. And beyond that, he's staying out of the debate about who should succeed him in 2016. That was the message Obama laid down in an interview on Thursday with MSNBC's "Hardball" program when host Chris Matthews asked him to compare and contrast the two. "Not I chance am I doing that," he said.

Nelson Mandela stood head and shoulders above every leader of his generation, and practically every leader there has ever been, writes his biographer, John CarlinEver since Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa after winning his country's first democratic elections in April 1994, the national anthem has consisted of two songs spliced - not particularly mellifluously - together. One is Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, or God Bless Africa, sung at black protest rallies during the 46 years between the rise and fall of apartheid. The other is the old white anthem Die Stem (The Call), a celebration of the European settlers'...

Quinn and Rose are off the air, (temporarily, I hope!) Gone, but DEFINITELY not forgotten! Meanwhile, our friendly group of dedicated FReeper Q&R fans will meet in our usual spot - same time, same station - as we always have! So grab your coffee - or whatever you choose to start your day - and drop in for some political chit-chat, or just to shoot the breeze! We are all coming from - or going to - work, but stop in to say ‘hi!’

Temporary blip mirroring the nationwide souring on O and his big “achievement” or a more durable shift that threatens Democrats in 2016? I had it in my head for some reason that ObamaCare has always been relatively popular with women, but check Kaiser’s polling over time and you’ll see that’s not really true. Among women generally (not just white women), support for the law has cracked 50 percent exactly once over the past 44 months. This year alone, support scraped 40 percent only in October, when it got a small bounce after the website launched, but otherwise it’s been below...

"Facing Our Truth: 10-Minute Plays on Trayvon, Race and Privilege," a free showcase of plays and a folk opera addressing the subject of race in the United States, will be featured at the City University of New York Graduate Center Dec. 6, according to the New York Times. The showcase comes from the New Black Fest and will be presented at 6:30 PM in the Graduate Center's Martin E. Segal Theater. A post-show discussion will follow the performance. The evening will feature Some Other Kid by A. Rey Pamatmat, Night Vision by Dominique Morisseau, Colored by Winter Miller, The Ballad...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House said Thursday that President Barack Obama briefly lived with an uncle who faced deportation from the United States, correcting its previous statements that the president had never met Onyango Obama. The 69-year-old, Kenyan-born half-brother of Obama's estranged father was granted permission this week to stay in the U.S. after ignoring a deportation order two decades ago. The uncle is also known as Omar Obama. White House spokesman Jay Carney said that when the case first arose, officials looked for records of a meeting but never directly asked the president.

Carney said the two men have no relationship now. The shifting account comes at a bad time for the administration, which is dealing with an embattled health-care law, Obama’s declining popularity and media complaints about access to presidential events.

Speaker John Boehner said his party should support gay Republican congressional candidates and urged his colleagues to “be a little more sensitive” when running against women. “Some of our members just aren’t as sensitive as they ought to be,” Boehner said.

Not the only interesting result here — Gallup’s also picking up the trend of millennials abandoning The One — but after so much post-election heavy breathing about his advantage with Latinos and how the GOP can win them back, it’s obviously the showstopper.Second look at congressional gridlock on immigration reform?The glass-half-full read: This is proof positive that Democrats do not, in fact, own the Latino vote. They can blow it, and to some extent may already have. But then, we already knew that from previous Gallup polls. Back in August, they noted that O’s job approval among Latinos was conspicuously...

The Obamacare website is open for business. But the Charlton Memorial Hospital in Folkston, Georgia, is closed. Because Republicans in half the states have blocked the expansion of Medicaid, funds to public hospitals with large uninsured populations have been slashed. Desperate to try to blame everything and the weather on the Affordable Care Act, Republicans have tried to pin the cuts in subsidies to hospitals on the dynamics of the law alone. Purely for ideological reasons, Republicans are creating a health care crisis — in their own states.

Though it is not yet 2014, the Republican "Establishment" is already attempting to determine the party's candidate for the 2016 presidential election. And their top picks range all the way from former Florida Governor Jeb Bush to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Any true conservatives are immediately pronounced "unelectable" and their candidacies declared dead on arrival. This assessment of the political landscape is profoundly significant, and the determinations of Republican Party insiders critically important, considering they have such a sterling track record of selecting sure winners, such as Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. A vital element of their...

Below is a Senator Ted Cruz press release:Cruz on Iranian Prisoner Abedini: Unconscionable that Top American Diplomats Did Not Mention His Name WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, released the following statement on the latest negative reports concerning Christian Pastor Saeed Abedini, imprisoned in Iran: “The recent press reports of the brutal treatment of Pastor Saeed Abedini in Iran’s Rajai Shahr prison are deeply disturbing. But they are hardly surprising. Such abuse was inevitable after this American citizen, whose only crime is the peaceful practice of his Christian faith, was transferred to Iran’s equivalent of death row—not coincidentally on the...

With President Obama’s approval ratings sinking thanks to the failing Obamacare rollout and the unpopular nuclear deal with Iran, Obama broke the media emergency glass to access the MSNBC host Chris Matthews. Matthews, who has compared Obama to Jesus and Henry V, and said that he was “the perfect American,” tossed Obama softball after softball, to which Obama gave stock answer after stock answer. Matthews began by asking Obama about young people not signing up for health insurance. Obama said they should. Obama then made this stunning statement: “Sometimes on your station, MSNBC, I've been blasted for being too willing...

State Senator Thad Altman, R-Melbourne, has introduced a preemption bill for knives that is very similar to the state's firearms preemption laws. If passed, Altman's bill would safeguard the right to carry a pocket knife across Florida. Sen. Thad Altman Sen. Thad Altman The "Uniform Knife and Weapons Act" would eliminate local knife ordinances, which differ across the state. SB 458 would invest only the state legislature with the power to enact knife laws, and allows for civil penalties against public officials or municipalities that fail to repeal their current knife regulations or seek to pass more

War on Christmas? Not in the House, where members can now include holiday greetings in their constituent communications. This is a reversal of previous policy, in which "any form of a holiday greeting was banned," House Administration Committee Chairman Candice Miller, R-Mich.,

New York City Mayor and gun control advocate Michael Bloomberg sure knows how to get his way. This week the NFL, after featuring anti-gun ads during the last two Super Bowls, it decided that an ad offering the opposite point of view in the upcoming Super Bowl XLVIII on February 2 was just too much. The NFL turned down an ad from a company called "Daniel Defense" which sells guns and outdoor gear that discussed "personal protection and fundamental rights." It featured a former Marine talking his family's safety, noting that he is ultimately responsible for their protection. Unlike Bloomberg’s...

Republican men in Congress “aren’t as sensitive as they ought to be” when it comes to running against female candidates and appealing to female voters, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday. “We’re trying to get them to be a little more sensitive,” Boehner said at his weekly Capitol press conference. “You look around the Congress, there are a lot more females in the Democratic caucus than there are in the Republican caucus. And some of our members just aren’t as sensitive as they ought to be.” The Speaker was responding to a question about an article in Politico reporting that...

A firestorm has been started on Esquire’s The Politics Blog with a Tuesday opinion piece by Lt. Col. Robert Bateman titled “It’s time to talk about guns and the Supreme Court.” He not only takes SCOTUS and Justice Antonin Scalia to task for their Heller decision interpretation of the Second Amendment, but goes on to propose citizen disarmament edicts that dispense with false assurances given by some in the gun ban camp that nobody wants to take our guns away. Bateman does, big time, and makes no bones about it. In a way, he’s done us a service by giving...

<p>DAVID CORN: I saw a president who remains frustrated with the political-media culture that he has to work within, and that he's looking to rally people, students here, and supporters, and people within the media.</p> <p>CHRIS MATTHEWS: But David Corn, you skeptic. He came to us today. He came amongst us.</p>

An academic was the first to cross the invisible line. “The ultimate check on presidential lawlessness is elections and, in extreme cases, impeachment,” Georgetown law professor Nicholas Rosenkranz told Representative Darrell Issa at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday on the president’s duty to uphold the law.

Addressing who can own guns, where they can carry them, and whether guns can be transported to a second home.Since the 2010 Supreme Court case McDonald v. Chicago, which applied the ruling in the 2008 Heller case (which said the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms) to states and localities, the Court has so far evaded any new case about the limits and meaning of the Second Amendment.Those two cases, though, did not resolve all the important questions about how and when and why the government can restrict Second Amendment rights. Heller and McDonald said that the right...

Different media outlets have pegged the cost to build the cost to build ill-fated Obamacare exchange website at anywhere from $350 to $618 million. According to two tech experts who appeared on Sean Hannity ‘s Fox News program on Wednesday the price should have been more like $5-10 million. Most of the discussion centered on the lack of security on Healthcare.gov, but as Hannity was ending the segment he asked the two experts, David Kennedy, president of database security firm TrustedSec and Luke Chung, president and founder of the software firm FMS “If you would have been hired to build...

And indeed, fifty thousand people signed up online for New Jersey’s gambling sites in the first week. That compares with 741 who signed up for Obamacare during all of October. Yes, the Obamacare website has been plagued with problems, but the disparity between the two programs is still eye-popping.

President Barack Obama's job approval rating averaged 41% in November, down 12 percentage points from 53% last December, his high-water mark since his first year in office. Hispanics' approval has dropped 23 points over the last 12 months, the most among major subgroups, and nearly twice the national average. His approval rating also showed above-average declines among low-income Americans, nonwhites, moderates, and moderates who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party. [Snip] All major subgroups showed at least some decline over the past year in their views of the way Obama is handling his job as president. The subgroups...

We hear a lot about inclusiveness, but the topic is never discussed analytically. The idea seems to be that it’s warm and fuzzy and what Jesus would do, so it’s obviously a good thing. The result is that our world is being remade for the sake of a goal that hasn’t been thought through. With that in mind, it seems sensible to ask what it is, what it does, and where it comes from.The nature of inclusiveness is fairly simple: it’s the egalitarian welfare state applied to the social environment. It tells us that every one of us has...

For almost a decade now, Chris Matthews has served as a barometer for baby-boom progressives' attitude toward Barack Obama -- from the "thrill" that went up his leg when he heard the presidential candidate speak in 2008 to the utter disappointment following last October's debate in Denver. That's why Matthews' interview with Obama, which takes place at 2 p.m. today and airs at 7 p.m. on MSNBC, is a crucial one for the president, and for MSNBC. For Obama: The last time the MSNBC vet interviewed Obama, at West Chester University in 2008, it was a love-in, the "thrill" having...

Tom Pauken, former chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission and former head of the state Republican Party, withdrew from the Texas gubernatorial race. Pauken had struggled to raise money against a well-financed Greg Abbott. The following statement is excerpted from a letter the Pauken campaign sent today to donors and supporters: Thanksgiving is a time to count our blessings, and I have much to be thankful for with such a great family and so many wonderful friends. The past month has made that even clearer and more dear to me. I want to thank you personally for your gracious and...

Young people reject Obama’s gamble with their future; they prefer online casinos. President Obama is back selling his health-care law with the manic intensity of a late-night-infomercial pitchman who knows that if he doesn’t move the product, it could be discontinued. Here’s Obama aiming his comments at young people this Wednesday: “The product is good. It’s affordable. This is a big deal, to quote Joe Biden. And if you’re a student-body president, set up a conference on campus. If you’re a bartender, have a happy hour.” But it’s the president who may need a drink after viewing the latest poll...

Today a mass email was sent to Senate staff informing them the Washington DC Health Link website has crashed. Congressional staffers must sign up for Obamacare through the Washington D.C. exchange.

Hardly a week goes by without Hillary Clinton receiving another award. Last month she was named a “Global Champion� by the International Medical Corps, received the American Patriot Award at the National Defense University Foundation and the Hermandad Award from the Mexican American Leadership Initiative.Considering that Hillary Clinton is as much of an American patriot as is she is a Mexican-American leader… both awards seem equally deserved.Hillary was honored by Malaria No More for being against malaria and by the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice for supporting internet freedom. Because nothing says internet freedom like sending a man...

FBI officials executed a search warrant at former state Sen. Kent Sorenson’s home two weeks ago and confiscated computers and other materials connected to presidential campaign politics, his lawyer said Wednesday. “We were not notified that he was the target of any investigation,” attorney Theodore Sporer said. “They took computers and things that would be used to verify or validate communications with presidential entities.” Earlier this year, a report from a state special investigator suggested that two presidential campaigns — those of Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul — may have violated federal election laws by skirting rules to funnel money...

Despite the sequester, the Department of Homeland Security has just completed a hiring blitz of attorneys to oversee and manage immigration litigation. Almost all of these new civil service attorney hires hail from an activist pro-amnesty and pro-asylum background. Sources within the Department of Homeland Security report that the process for hiring these new career civil service lawyers was unconventional and was conducted by an Obama political appointee within DHS. The new attorneys have activist backgrounds with a variety of pro-amnesty groups such as the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the Advancement Project, and open borders groups...

President Obama acknowledged on Thursday that he lived with his Kenyan uncle for a brief period in the 1980s while preparing to attend Harvard Law School, contradicting a statement more than a year ago that the White House had no record of the two ever meeting. Their relationship came into question on Tuesday at the deportation hearing of his uncle, Onyango Obama, in Boston immigration court. His uncle had lived in the United States illegally since the 1970s and revealed in testimony for the first time that his famous nephew had stayed at his Cambridge apartment for about three weeks....

The 2013 hurricane season just ended as one of the five quietest years since 1960. But don’t expect anyone who pointed to last year’s hurricanes as “proof” of the need to act against global warming to apologize; the warmists don’t work that way. Warmist claims of a severe increase in hurricane activity go back to 2005 and Hurricane Katrina. The cover of Al Gore’s 2009 book, “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis,” even features a satellite image of the globe with four major hurricanes superimposed. Yet the evidence to the contrary was there all along. Back in...

The original bill sought to charge U.S. agents with misdemeanors if they enforced certain federal gun laws that were deemed unconstitutional. The new bill may remove that language and replace it with something more general. Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed the original bill, citing doubts over its constitutionality. The Legislature fell just short of the votes needed to override that veto in September. The next legislative session starts Jan. 8. “It’s back to the drawing board,” Curtman said. The new draft bill would also allow school districts to appoint teachers or administrators as school protection officers who could carry concealed guns...

Councilwoman Laurie CumboBrooklyn Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo blamed the recent ‘knockout game’ attacks in her district on the growth and succsess of the Jewish Community. In a Facebook post she says, “Many of her black constituents told her they feel threatened by the growth of the neighborhood’s Jewish community.” DNA Info reported: The alleged “knockout” attacks on Jewish residents of Crown Heights may stem from ongoing racial tension between the neighborhood’s black and Jewish communities, a newly-elected Brooklyn politician said. Councilwoman-elect Laurie Cumbo, who was elected to represent Crown Heights starting in January, released an open letter Tuesday saying that many...

Chris Matthews joined MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts Thursday to discuss his upcoming interview with President Obama, saying he would ask the President some “easier questions” before getting into “fun stuff”. MATTHEWS: [I’ll] get into questions that I want to get into, with executive management and political dysfunction in this country that we talk about all of the time on the program and get into some easier questions, for example, voter suppression efforts by the Republicans so he can bite into that. Obama’s appearance on the Hardball College Tour comes at a time when the President faces his lowest approval ratings among...

Sitting out the upcoming Republican primaries is not an option for conservatives. It’s time we begin monitoring the races closely while we still have a few months to affect the outcome. Earlier today, Madison Project (my employer), issued a new endorsement – Barry Loudermilk for Congress in Georgia’s 11th district. I have personally spent many hours with him, and can promise you that he is one of the stars of the 2014 cycle. He will be fighting at the front lines in the war to take back out party from the Chamber of Commerce types. You can read more about...