Free Republic

The UK Independence Party — the anti-European Union, tough-on-immigration party that has bedeviled Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservative party in recent years — is riding high following its best-ever showing in nationwide elections. As sure as night follows day, when UKIP does well it means the issue of Britain’s relationship with the EU is pushed to the top of the political agenda.UKIP secured 23% of the national popular vote in local government elections earlier this month, just two points behind the Conservatives. The left-wing Labour party came in narrowly ahead with 29% — a pitiful showing...

Fewer groups sught recognition as 501 (c)(4) social welfare organizations that year than in 2009, according to the Treasury Department. ...

Remember all the headlines during the election, wondering what happened to the Tea Party, the liberal crowing that it had gone silent? NPR, February 2012: "Strong in 2010, Where Is the Tea Party Now?" - "what's most striking about the movement this election has been its notable absence." Mother Jones, "The Tea Party is Dead." ." ABC: "What Happened to the Tea Party?" New York Times, June 2012: "The Movement Has Fizzled Out." Remember how odd it was hear conservative pundits saying, 'our voters would crawl over broken glass to vote against Obama', while pollsters correctly predicted that Republican turnout...

The scandals appearing in the news are merely symptoms of THE most important problem at hand, which has yet to explode on the scene. The Democrats stole the last presidential election (they first tried with Gore) and have probably stolen many legislative elections. Evidence seems to be mounting as one reads about the many precincts in Philadelphia having not a single Romney vote (statistical impossibility) and then the latest news were "True the Vote" was harassed by not only the IRS, but the FBI, OSHA AND the ATF. Since no charges were filed, WHO sicced four Federal agencies on an...

RICHMOND — After Virginia Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II formally accepted his party’s nomination for governor and Virginia GOP scion Mark Obenshain secured the same for attorney general, it was a political neophyte who stole the show Saturday with multiple helpings of 11th-hour drama. Chesapeake Bishop E.W. Jackson, who mounted an unsuccessful run for U.S. Senate last year, emerged the wire-to-wire winner in the race for the GOP nomination for Virginia’s lieutenant governor at the state GOP’s nominating convention Saturday. It took four ballots and about 10 hours of voting for Mr. Jackson to emerge from a field of...

As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association with an “A+” rating for her voting record in the Tennessee House of Representatives, Debra Maggart never imagined that her political career would end this way. Maggart, who chaired the Republican caucus, killed an NRA-backed bill that would have permitted Tennesseans to keep firearms in their parked vehicles wherever they went — work, school or the neighborhood bar. Months later, Maggart was stunned to see NRA-sponsored ads on billboards in her district. Her face was next to a picture of President Obama. The ads proclaimed: “Sure, Rep. Debra Maggart Says She...

This must be part of that new civility Democrats promised us. Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) has a gun firing off at the head of GOP opponent Gabriel Gomez in his latest campaign ad. Coincidence?

Former White House Counsel during the Clinton Administration, Lanny Davis, is calling for the resignation of Obama White House Counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler. ... the White House counsel's office reportedly knew about the Inspector General's investigation into harassment ofdconservative groups, since April. Davis contends that if this is true and Ms. Ruemmler chose not to inform President Obama of the investigation and the possible legal and political ramifications, she should step down. ...

The woman who ran the Internal Revenue Service's tax-exempt organizations division has been promoted, and now heads the agency's health-care office, ABC News reported. Sarah Hall Ingram was commissioner of the embattled IRS office from 2009 to 2012, roughly the period that the agency is accused of singling out Tea Party and conservative groups for extra scrutiny, based on nothing but their political bent. As a firestorm grows around the IRS, Ms. Ingram quietly left the tax-exempt office and was made director of IRS Affordable Care Act Division...

NBC's Lisa Myers reported this morning that the IRS deliberately chose not to reveal that it had wrongly targeted conservative groups until after the 2012 presidential election:

Last November Barack Obama squeaked through with arguably the weakest reelection in American history. He won the race even though he got fewer popular and electoral votes than in 2008. But would he have been given a second term if voters knew what his administration had been up to? Let’s review...

Recently, Politico ran an article piquantly entitled “Calvin Coolidge, civil rights pioneer?” One might surmise such an opinion piece might be penned by Amity Shlaes, author of the recent best-selling biography of Silent Cal—but even more remarkably it had been authored not by the ubiquitous Ms. Shlaes but by Kurt L. Schmoke, the black former Democratic mayor of Baltimore. Schmoke, taking note of Senator Rand Paul’s April visit to Howard University, reminded readers of Coolidge’s June 6, 1924 commencement address there. “Coolidge gave the commencement . . .,” noted Schmoke, now vice president and general counsel at the school, “and...

DENVER - Four Colorado lawmakers are facing a possible recall after supporting new gun control legislation in Colorado. Three senators and one representative are targets by different groups across the state, but those organizing the recalls have an uphill battle. Under Colorado law, each recall petition needs to have 25 percent of all the votes cast in the previous election for the targeted lawmaker. Senate President John Morse, who is term limited, is being challenged by two different groups, "I am surprised," he said by phone Sunday. "It's not really an affective, appropriate way to deal with political issues." His...

Allies of Colorado Senate President John Morse (D-Colorado Springs), who faces a potential recall election because of his unpopular support of strict gun control measures, recently launched a misleading website along with a series of robocalls and radio ads labeling recall petitioners as frauds and criminals. In what seems a desperate attempt to stop the possibility of Sen. Morse’s ouster in a special election, the political action committee (PAC) “A Whole Lot Of People For John Morse” has created a website called “Colorado Recall Watch.” The site is vaguely eerie, with a black and red color scheme and typesetting apparently...

It looks like one of the things that will be inflicted on New Yorkers as a result of the scandal at the Internal Revenue Service is a whole new round of tirades from the New York Times calling for state-funded electioneering.

Prior to the 2012 Election and after the first Romney/Obama Presidential Debate I started creating prediction models for each of the contested "Battleggrounds". OH was the first and most detailed state I reviewed because it seemed like it could go either way. The original model spreadsheet I posted on FR contained county by county results for the 2004 and 2008 Presidential Elections, the 2010 OH Governor Race, and the 2010 Referendum Union Question. I used this data to develop the probable voter turnouts for each county and determined the number of votes and vote margin the GOP candidate would need...

Donald Trump said Monday that if the details surrounding the IRS targeting tea party groups and last week’s Benghazi hearing had come out last fall, President Barack Obama might not have won reelection. “This is a big, big story that is probably going to get a lot bigger,” Trump said of the IRS scandal on Fox News. “This is a terrible thing. It’s just not supposed to happen. They have laws against it. If this were somebody else, this would be the biggest story.” Trump continued: “I’ve been watching it for the last four days getting bigger and bigger and...

Imagine you’re a red-state Democrat contemplating a run for Senate. Here’s what you’ve seen during the opening months of President Obama’s second term: A still-tepid economic recovery, a culturally polarizing agenda on immigration and guns, and fears of Obamacare’s possibly haphazard implementation. The White House’s uneven second-term start shows little sign of improving. Questions about what administration and State Department officials knew about the origins of last year’s deadly attack on a consulate in Benghazi have hounded them since last week’s congressional hearing. The explosive revelation Friday that the IRS targeted conservative non-profit outside groups seems certain to put Obama...

Bill and Hillary Clinton will not support Anthony Weiner in his dream of becoming mayor even though they love his wife, Huma Abedin, sources say. “The Clintons wish Weiner would just disappear. Every time he pops up, it’s a reminder of Bill’s scandal with Monica Lewinsky, and it isn’t helpful to Hillary’s hopes for 2016,” one Democrat told Page Six.

THE capital is in the throes of déjà vu and preview as it plunges back into Clinton Rules, defined by a presidential aide on the hit ABC show “Scandal” as damage control that goes like this: “It’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true, it’s old news.” The conservatives appearing on Benghazi-obsessed Fox News are a damage patrol with an approach that goes like this: “Lies, paranoia, subpoena, impeach, Watergate, Iran-contra.” (Though now that the I.R.S. has confessed to targeting Tea Party groups, maybe some of the paranoia is justified.) Welcome to a glorious spring weekend of accusation and...

If Republican leaders were to fully embrace a conservative reform agenda, it would address pressing national needs. It would position the GOP as forward looking, contemporary, and have appeal to swing voters. It would demonstrate a commitment to a brand of conservatism that is practical rather than narrowly ideological. And it contrasts well with today’s reactionary liberalism, by which I mean liberalism that opposes virtually every effort to reform institutions and programs that are sclerotic, outdated, and ineffective. .... There are five obvious areas for Republicans to focus on, beginning with entitlement reform ... A second area Republicans should focus...

Responding to a flurry of complaints from conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, the Internal Revenue Service admitted Friday it made "mistakes" in the last few years while trying to process those requests. Multiple tea party groups reported significant delays and excessive questioning from IRS officials while trying to obtain 501(c)(4) status. ,,,, Asked when the IRS began looking into complaints, Lerner said she could not give a time frame. Pressed further on when senior IRS officials became aware of the situation, Lerner said she "did not feel comfortable answering."

In the short time as a Republican, Emmanuel "Manny" Roman has made more than a few enemies at the Miami-Dade Republican Party. And now that Roman is running for vice-president of the county party, he's feeling the backlash....

Live Stream Full Committee Hearing: "Benghazi: Exposing Failure and Recognizing Courage"

A new NBC/Marist poll on Virginia’s gubernatorial race — a.k.a., the only competitive governor’s race in the country in 2013 — released this morning has some slightly different findings than the WaPo poll from last weekend, which had Republican candidate Ken Cuccinelli edging Democrat Terry McAuliffe with a five-point lead among Virginia voters; the NBC poll has McAuliffe beating Cuccinelli by a within-the-margin-of-error 43 to 41 percent among registered voters. Cuccinelli, however, has some very distinct advantages going for him — Virginia voters are more familiar with the state attorney general than they are the former DNC chairman, as well...

Access to all ballots and registration information has been granted to True the Vote for citizen-led audit of the 2012 contest for Florida's 18th Congressional District HOUSTON, TX. May 7, 2013 - True the Vote (TTV), the nation's leading voters' rights organization, today announced its settlement with the St. Lucie County Supervisor of Elections regarding records inspection rights under federal law and the Florida Constitution. The agreement provides True the Vote access to all ballots, registrations, and other election related data necessary to conduct an audit of a federal election in Florida's 18th congressional district. The audit is unprecedented in that it will be led...

Update: The “A Whole Lot of People for John Morse” committee gets slightly bigger than six people. Update at the bottom. As Colorado lawmakers entered the last frenzied 72 hours of the legislative session — 90 bills were still on the docket when the legislature was called to order Monday morning — four state politicians are facing efforts to recall them from office. Recall drives are in full swing against Senate Democrats John Morse, Evie Hudak and Angela Giron as well as Democratic Rep. Mike McLachlan.

Is there a pattern here with Hillary? Remember the supposed sniper-fire? How could she mistake no sniper fire for sniper fire? Thus, how could she have misspoken? And now Benghazi? Has she told the truth? Did she tell the truth on Bosnia? Just curious...

Today’s the day that voters in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District march to the polling stations and decide whether to elect the disgraced former governor or the comedian’s sister to represent them in the House of Representatives. As if that wasn’t bad enough, now visitors will be coming to town to watch them make this embarrassing choice, and I don’t mean the media: The Justice Department will monitor voting in Charleston County, South Carolina, in Tuesday’s special election to fill a House of Representatives seat, the department said on Monday.Former South Carolina Republican Governor Mark Sanford is facing Democratic newcomer...

After yesterday’s opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, many in the media are taking a look back at the presidency of George W. Bush after a little time to put it in perspective, and the results do a Catholic heart good: Former fierce critics are acknowledging the kindness and accomplishments of the man. When millions of Catholics see Bush standing in between Presidents Clinton and Obama in those pictures, surely we remember him more fondly than ever. Because of the abortion extremism of Bill Clinton, pro-life Catholics were rooting for Bush to win. When he did,...

(Reuters) - The Justice Department will monitor voting in Charleston County, South Carolina, in Tuesday's special election to fill a House of Representatives seat, the department said on Monday. Former South Carolina Republican Governor Mark Sanford is facing Democratic newcomer Elizabeth Colbert Busch, sister of television political satirist Stephen Colbert, in the First District House race. The Justice Department said in a statement it was monitoring the election under provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The law bars election discrimination on the basis of race, color or membership in a minority language group. The department did not give...

<p>Would you support Sarah Palin should she decide to run for the presidency in 2016?</p>

Ahead of Pakistan's election next week, there is little cause for celebration. [snip] In a country where almost no-one pays income tax, including more than two thirds of MPs, it only took seven months for Ali Arshad Hakeem to become a hated man. As Pakistan's newly minted chief taxman, he built a database designed to monitor the spending habits of millions of people, and work out how much tax they owed. [snip] This [snip] came to a juddering halt last month, when Mr Hakeem was suspended by judges over allegations that his appointment breached government rules that demand each job...

Outrage After Democrats Insult Nikki Haley's Indian Heritage Saying They'll Send The Republican Gov. 'Back To Wherever The Hell She Came From' 3 May 2013 Conservatives are outraged after a Democrat in South Carolina allegedly insulted Republican Gov. Nikki Haley's Indian heritage at a party gathering in Columbia on Friday. The state's Democratic Party Chairman, Dick Harpootlian, is believed to have said the party will take on the Conservative in the next gubernatorial race and send 'Nikki Haley back to wherever the hell she came from.' Gov. Haley was born in the U.S. but her parents are from India. Read...

Iowa Congressman Steve King sent an email to supporters Friday night announcing he would not seek the state’s open U.S. Senate seat in 2014. The announcement is not unexpected. King said in February that he was leaning toward running. However, as he struggled with the decision for three months, it became less likely that he would enter the fray. King would have been an overwhelming favorite in a Republican primary. His decision not to run opens the field for other candidates to enter. Former U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker has stated he would run for the seat if King opted not...

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she "prays" Hillary Rodham Clinton will run for president. [snip] Emily’s List, a national group that focuses on electing pro-choice women, launched a campaign Thursday aiming to put the first woman in the White House that coincided with a poll showing Mrs. Clinton as the overwhelming favorite to win the 2016 Democratic nomination for president. In making the announcement, Stephanie Schriock, president of the group, said the nation is ready for a female president and is “hopeful” Mrs. Clinton will take another stab at the Oval Office.

"But what if Romney had been able to reach a mind-blowing 70 percent of the Hispanic vote? Surely that would have meant victory, right? No, it wouldn't. Romney still would have lost, although by the narrowest of electoral margins, 270 to 268. (Under that scenario, Romney would have won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College; he could have racked up huge numbers of Hispanic votes in California, New York and Texas, for example, and not changed the results in those states."

Something is happening in Colorado, and you better pay attention. Colorado Democrats, with the active help of some Republican county election clerks interested in shirking work, have devised a revolutionary plan to remake future Colorado elections. The plan is simple: ballots are automatically mailed out to every single person on the voter rolls. Ballots are even mailed to people listed as “inactive” voters at their last known address. Ballots are then voted and returned by mail. No more polling places. No more voters actually demonstrating an interest in participating in an election. The government will decide that for them, and...

Something is happening in Colorado, and you better pay attention. Colorado Democrats, with the active help of some Republican county election clerks interested in shirking work, have devised a revolutionary plan to remake future Colorado elections.This bill is about power, not good government. If it passes, Colorado will likely remain blue for years. Those who doubt that don’t understand how important process is to election outcomes. ...The Left cares about process so much they are pouring $100,000,000 into the “Democracy Initiative,” a plot to permanently reshape American politics by altering election process laws. The conservative and GOP response? Next to...

Medicare Already Means-Tested, Retirement Expert Says 01 May 2013 The Obama administration's controversial proposal to "means-test" Medicare recipients is ostensibly aimed at generating more cash for the government from those who can afford it - or squeezing more money out of upper-income seniors, depending upon one's point of view. But according to a University of Illinois expert on retirement benefits, the Medicare program is already means-tested. Law professor Richard L. Kaplan says whenever the issue of cutting Medicare emerges, one of the first ideas to "fix" the program is to make its upper-income beneficiaries pay more. "Indeed, the claim is...

President Barack Obama had better clear this up today, right now. Surely he is just allowing his handlers to throw up this kind of ridiculous, amoral, un-American trial balloon. I call on Obama to address this immediately with the American public, clear it up, and renounce these reports as the nonsense they surely in God's name must be. - Sarah PalinBreaking: Pentagon Confirms May Court Martial Soldiers Who Share Christian Faith

Hmmm... Obama has replugged the record player that plays the broken GIMO record: "I'm gonna close GITMO...I'm gonna close GITMO...I'm gonna close GITMO..." He had a filibuster-proof Senate (and even with Dem holdouts, using a finance maneuver, Reid could have used the nuclear option or something similar to it on the 5-6 Senate Dems that would have wanted to keep it open). And the Pelosi House at one time could have defunded GITMO, or refused to fund it in 2009. Things must be worse with his hard-core base than we thought...for him to try this redux. But... the Pentagon supposedly...

Should Congress investigate Barack Obama's Constitutional eligibility?

Last Thursday, according to Fox News, a jury in Indiana found that “fraud put President Obama and Hillary Clinton on the presidential primary ballot” in the 2008 election. We wrote about the discovery of this fraud in our book, Who’s Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk. The mastermind behind the ballot-petition fraud was one Butch Morgan, then the Democratic-party chairman of St. Joseph County. With the help of three other employees of the county board of elections, Morgan faked names and signatures on ballot petitions that qualified Obama and Clinton for the May 6 Democratic primary....

Former St. Joseph County Democratic party Chairman Butch Morgan, Jr. was found guilty of felony conspiracy counts to commit petition fraud and forgery, and former county Board of Elections worker Dustin Blythe was found guilty of felony forgery counts and falsely making a petition, after being accused of fabricating signatures on petitions that enabled Senator Barack Obama, to get on the presidential primary ballot in 2008. The finding means that Obama lacked sufficient valid signatures to qualify. Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, David Plouffe, labeled the convictions “irrelevant and of no consequence. Look, we’re talking about a few hundred forged signatures...

A jury in South Bend, Indiana has found that fraud put President Obama and Hillary Clinton on the presidential primary ballot in Indiana in the 2008 election. Two Democratic political operatives were convicted Thursday night in the illegal scheme after only three hours of deliberations. They were found guilty on all counts. Former longtime St. Joseph County Democratic party Chairman Butch Morgan Jr. was found guilty of felony conspiracy counts to commit petition fraud and forgery, and former county Board of Elections worker Dustin Blythe was found guilty of felony forgery counts and falsely making a petition, after being accused...

Demographics Overtakes Economy as Prime Presidential Election Indicator Geoffrey Skelley, Political Analyst, U.Va. Center for Politics April 25th, 2013 One of the questions we asked prior to the 2012 election was whether or not state-level unemployment figures would matter much on Election Day. As it turned out, the answer was “probably not much.” Throughout the 2012 election cycle, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly jobs report became a highly anticipated event. Politicians, journalists and election handicappers (the Crystal Ball included) waited eagerly every first Friday of the month, anticipating what the national unemployment number would say about President Obama’s reelection...

Officials found guilty in Obama, Clinton ballot petition fraud: A jury in South Bend, Indiana has found that fraud put President Obama and Hillary Clinton on the presidential primary ballot in Indiana in the 2008 election. Two Democratic political operatives were convicted Thursday night in the illegal scheme after only three hours of deliberations. They were found guilty on all counts.

Anthony Weiner admitted in an interview Wednesday that there might be other embarrassing photos of him out there that have yet to surface.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the well-funded group co-founded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is seriously considering a months-long television, radio and direct-mail campaign against Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor, one of four Democrats who opposed expanding a background check for guns. The goal: Make an example of him. Senior members of Mayor’s Against Illegal Guns met at length Sunday to debate potential responses to the failure of President Obama’s gun regulation package, including a watered-down background check provision that fell five votes short. In addition to Pryor, three Democratic senators abandoned Obama: Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska...