Free Republic

Dozens of members of the House GOP's most conservative faction plan to meet Tuesday to discuss ways to counteract the decision of House Speaker John Boehner and other leaders to seek retribution against members who vote against must-pass measures. The House Freedom Caucus, a GOP group made up of about 40 of the most conservative members, plans to hold the discussion some time after Tuesday's evening votes, according to lawmakers familiar with the initiative. Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Monday in a radio interview that many conservatives were "fed up" with the string of punishment meted out to...

A civil war is raging within the Republican Party, pitting House leaders against conservatives. And “fed up” conservatives have now decided to fight back in public. A congressional aide tells WND a group of House conservatives will discuss this week how to proceed, but a few of them have already decided to speak up publicly. One tactic conservatives might employ would be voting with Democrats on procedural motions to derail legislation favored by leadership. Like the reporting you see here? Sign up for free news alerts from WND.com, America’s independent news network. The behind-the-scenes battle broke into open view on...

Speaking to Breitbart News Sunday, Big Government founding editor Mike Flynn, a conservative activist running for the seat vacated by Aaron Shock, recounted the ways the central Illinois GOP is trying to quash his candidacy. Flynn says that, instead of making robocalls which can be recorded, supporters of his primary opponent Darin LaHood are conducting live calls and telling voters in the deeply conservative district that Flynn is a liberal Republican. “They’re saying I support amnesty, that I support banning hand guns,” said Flynn. “They’re not even testing the truth — they’re just outright lying, wholesale.” The amnesty charge is...

Who is the next Ralph Hall? That's the question many Texas Republicans ask when they look at the state’s congressional map. Hall's loss in May 2014 after 17 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives was an emotional blow to the close-knit federal delegation, but a point of victory for Tea Party groups that endorsed now-U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Heath. And so, six months out from the filing deadline, Texas political operatives on the right and the even farther right are analyzing the map in an attempt to identify vulnerable members of the delegation — either to bolster longtime political...

Of course, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 93% is a Republican. That puts him in proximity with guns and gun posters, as seen in this picture from Associated Press photog Charlie Neibergall, more often than Democrats. Still, imagine a similar situation–a U.S. Senator campaigning for President–and instead of a pro-2nd Amendment event, it’s a pro-gun control event. Imagine this Senator is standing in front of a giant poster of a pistol–one meant to demonize the weapon rather than promote it. Imagine that this same AP photographer, instead of shifting a foot to the left or the right, framed a picture with...

Republican strategist Karl Rove said on “Fox News Sunday” the only way to stop gun-related violence, like the Wednesday massacre at Emmanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston S.C., was to repeal American citizens’ Second Amendment rights.rWhat do you think? When Chris Wallace asked Rove how we can, “stop the violence,” the long-time gun-rights advocate stated that we have made great strides as a nation in empathizing with the victims of these types of shootings, but the only way to guarantee they will stop is to “remove guns from society.”r1 WALLACE: How do we stop the violence?rWhat do you think? ROVE:...

Scott Perry, 53, is a sophomore congressman from Dillsburg, Penn. Exuding a humble intensity and a mindfulness of his oath to the U.S. Constitution, his daily orientation in public office means he takes no vote for granted.rWhat do you think? “It’s a fight every day,” Perry says in this 22-minute exclusive video interview with The Daily Caller. Yet, Republican leaders, increasingly governing by fear, risk continuing dissension and disarray. Evidence is building that Republicans, who are failing to persuade those members with differing opinions, and catering to monied interests in Washington, are alienating Americans who voted for them. This interview...

It’s time for conservatives to take out House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)35% and all of his comrades in primaries, nationally syndicated radio host, New York Times bestselling author, and conservative movement thought leader Mark Levin argues in an exclusive comment to Breitbart News. Levin’s comments come after Boehner’s retaliation against conservatives hit a new low this weekend, with a report from Politico about how House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT)80% —playing along with Boehner’s scheme to attack Republicans for voting their conscience—removed Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC)96% as the chairman of a subcommittee on...

Finally explaining their unexplainable actions in Congress since the midterm elections last November, House and Senate leaders announced today that they were “transpolitical,” meaning they consider themselves to be a member of both political parties. The move was made after Speaker of the House, John Boehner, said he viewed being called a “RINO” (Republican in Name Only) to be a political micro-aggression, and it always made him cry. Congressman Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also said that conservative lawmakers and critics have been hurting their feelings for quite some time by questioning their decisions and they were...

Sensing the window of opportunity is closing, John Kasich is on a last-minute dash across the country to convince party donors and power-brokers that there’s room for one more candidate in the most crowded Republican presidential field in decades. The Ohio governor, who’s expected to formally announce his White House bid next month, is jetting to America’s political money capitals — from Dallas to New York City to Palm Beach — with the goal of securing the financial support he’ll need to wage a 2016 campaign. He’s huddled with Ann Romney at a lavish Utah ski resort and pushed to...

No, no, no! Another Bush?!” Such was my reaction, and that of many other conservatives, last year when rumors of a potential Jeb Bush 2016 candidacy began to surface. Words like “dynasty” and “legacy” were a constant. “What don’t you like about Jeb?” someone would ask, to which we would sputter the following nonsensical retort: “Hm, well — c’mon, a Bush?” Yet several realities began to dawn upon us: (1) in all the kneejerk reflectiveness against the idea of a Bush, we had hardly evaluated the man on his actual record; (2) the idea of “not another Bush” was a...

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush — a fluent Spanish speaker — told ABC "World News Tonight" anchor David Muir in Spanish Wednesday that he and his wife, Columba, speak "more Spanish than English at home." "Our grandkids, almost all of them speak Spanish, two of them also speak a little Arabic," the former Florida governor added in Spanish. Columba Bush, Florida's former first lady, was born and raised in Mexico. The pair fell in love when Jeb, then 17, studied abroad in León, Mexico. Here’s a translation of Muir and Bush's conversation en Español -- which also touched on immigration...

"If they unite generally in all things, as much as they certainly will in respecting each other's wealth, birth, and parts, and conduct themselves with prudence, they will strengthen themselves by insensible degrees, by playing into each other's hands more wealth and popularity, until they become able to govern elections as they please, and rule the people at discretion. An independent member will be their aversion; all their artifices will be employed to destroy his popularity among his constituents, and bring in a disciple of their own in his place." - written in 1786. How little times change.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is moving forward with votes on President Obama’s trade agenda next week, even though pro-trade Democrats have yet to promise their support. McConnell on Thursday filed motions to advance fast-track authority and a separate package of trade preferences for African nations combined with an extension of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), a program that helps workers displaced by foreign competition. The Senate will vote to end debate on fast-track Tuesday and then will vote on final passage of the measure later that day or Wednesday. Immediately afterward, the Senate will vote to end debate on...

Well. This is telling. One of the striking aspects of Donald Trump’s announcement that he is running for president is the vehemence of his critics – on the conservative side. The normally even-keeled Dana Perino almost foamed on the set of Fox News’ “The Five” as she fumed about Trump’s line that he would not only build a wall that only he could build along the Mexican border but he would make the Mexicans pay for it. Over at National Review the normally astute Kevin Williamson went off not just the deep end but the very, very deep end in...

The path of destruction House Ways and Means Committee chairman Paul Ryan is blazing to sneak Obamatrade past unsuspecting Americans is getting longer and wider. Now it’s become clear he’s using firefighters, of all people, to get it done. To engage in the complicated procedural chicanery needed to revive the once-dead Obamatrade, bringing its Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) portion back to life, Ryan needed to gut a previous bill that has passed the House and Senate and then insert Obamatrade into it. It’s actually a very similar process to how Obamacare passed the House. So, the bill Ryan chose was...

A very interesting dynamic was present in the race for San Antonio mayor last weekend that bears watching for both parties.Ivy Taylor, who was appointed San Antonio mayor when Julian Castro left to run HUD last year, won a full term on Saturday, defeating a long-time Democrat, former state senator Leticia Van de Putte. Taylor is the first black to get elected mayor.San Antonio is a Democratic city, Texas’s second largest, and is majority Hispanic. The city is represented in Congress by Democratic Rep. Will Hurd, a former CIA agent and a conservative who opposes amnesty and favors increased...

In the final hours before the House votes on a new leadership-concocted scheme to sneak Obamatrade past the American public, it’s been revealed that pro-Obamatrade forces are now aiming to sneak a renewal of the highly controversial Export Import Bank into the deal to secure Senate passage later if the House passes it on Thursday. “I and all the other members there are looking for a guarantee … for a deal to be good it’s got to have enforcement, TAA, I think it’s got to have Ex-Im reauthorization,” Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat who’s angling for this in the deal,...

Ever since the mid-1990s, the House of Representatives have operated under an informal governing principle known as the Hastert Rule, a rule that required a “majority of the majority” in order to pass legislation. Simply put, the rule meant that the Speaker of the House would not allow a floor vote on a bill unless a majority of the party in charge supported the bill, while preventing the minority party from passing legislation unwanted by the majority. This practice came to an end under Gutless On Principles (GOP) Hall of Shame member John Boehner, and it served as the perfect...

When a group of House conservatives voted last week to kill a trade bill favored by President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner and other GOP leaders who support the measure steamed. Representative Mick Mulvaney (R., S.C.) celebrated the revolt as a coming-of-age moment for rebel backbenchers. “Yesterday will be the day that we look back at as the day that conservatives finally started getting organized in the House,” he wrote in a note to the Spartanburg Tea Party. Led by Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), a platoon of conservatives demanded that Boehner agree to a series of concessions in exchange...