Free Republic

LaGrange, IL— This weekend’s epic showdown between movement conservatives and more moderate elements of the Illinois Republican Party ended with a split result. Embattled Party Chairman Pat Brady remains at the helm of the State Central Committee but the committee is beginning the process of lining up a successor in the event Chairman Brady resigns or his detractors can garner enough votes to oust him while simultaneously navigating party rules to make it happen. Brady’s term runs through the 2014 primary season when a new, 18-member central committee, selected under the downsized 2011 congressional map, will organize itself and elect...

Sarah Palin took to her Facebook this morning to pen a short note regarding the latest gun-control legislation: Please see the link below for why the latest gun control bill should be filibustered and defeated. I can not and will not support politicians who support any more limits on our Second Amendment rights. linkMark Levin followed suit to do the same: I join Sarah Palin...

Karl Rove sought to turn the tables Sunday on Sarah Palin, jabbing her for stepping down early as Alaska governor, a day after she blistered the GOP consultant in a speech at CPAC. Palin launched a broadside against the GOP establishment on Saturday at the gathering of conservatives, but directed her sharpest aim at Rove, reports Huffington Post. “If these experts who keep losing elections and keep getting rehired and getting millions — if they feel that strong about who gets to run in this party, then they should buck-up or stay in the truck,” Palin told CPAC Saturday, according...

"Pat Caddell, the Fox News Contributor and Democrat pollster who engineered Jimmy Carter’s 1976 Presidential victory, blew the lid off CPAC on Thursday with a blistering attack on "racketeering" Republican consultants who play wealthy donors like "marks.""

“The chatter is he's up to something,” says one Florida operative. If Jeb Bush decides to convert his media tour into a presidential bid in a couple years, he won't have to look far for a campaign staff: The well-funded education foundation he runs out his office in a Miami hotel is stacked with former political operatives, a large communications team, and a rapidly growing staff whose work stretches into 40 states. It is common practice for undeclared presidential candidates to build a campaign infrastructure under the guise of a political action committee, but Bush appears to be laying the...

Even though it changed the terms of the political debate, thus giving them a majority in the 2010 elections, many in the Republican establishment deeply resent the Tea Party. They don’t like being monitored by taxpayer-friendly groups that will expose them when they side with special interests (as they have in recent months on Export-Import Bank subsides and housing handouts). And they really hate the idea of being held accountable at the polls when they side with the corrupt big-spenders in Washington. Just ask Senator Bennett and Congressman Inglis.Pork…or principles? Now the Washington establishment is fighting back. Karl Rove, best...

NEW YORK — Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is moving swiftly behind the scenes to lock down some of Wall Street’s biggest donors ahead of the 2016 presidential race. In recent weeks, the rising GOP star and possible 2016 hopeful has quietly met with some of the most powerful GOP backers in the world of high finance. The roster includes Blackstone Group Chief Executive Officer Stephen Schwarzman, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. CEO Henry Kravis and senior executives at Goldman Sachs and Barclays Capital among others. Rubio has gotten backing from big Wall Street titans before, notably hedge fund manager and...

Modern Republican leaders, with the exception of the Reagan Administration, have been partners in the expansion of government, indeed in the growth of a government-based “ruling class.” They have relished that role despite their voters. Thus these leaders gradually solidified their choice to no longer represent what had been their constituency, but to openly adopt the identity of junior partners in that ruling class. Republican leaders neither parry the insults nor vilify their Democratic counterparts in comparable terms because they do not want to beat the ruling class, but to join it in solving the nation’s problems.... (excerpt)

As Country Club Republicans Link Up With The Democratic Ruling Class, Millions Of Voters Are Orphaned On January 1, 2013 one third of Republican congressmen, following their leaders, joined with nearly all Democrats to legislate higher taxes and more subsidies for Democratic constituencies. Two thirds voted no, following the people who had elected them. For generations, the Republican Party had presented itself as the political vehicle for Americans whose opposition to ever-bigger government financed by ever-higher taxes makes them a “country class.” Yet modern Republican leaders, with the exception of the Reagan Administration, have been... --snip-- Similarly the entire country...

Blistering new book coming out about Rove and the establishment - been in teh works since day after election. Some pull quotes about Rove, Romney, the establishment, how liberals are undermining entrepreneures on purpose, etc. The image of a typical OWS encampment allows us a peak at the future, which is a powerful object lesson by itself. The fear of even having this discussion with the voters is why we are not happy with the establishment. They would rather change the subject to something trite like “jobs and Ohio” without realizing that a communist movement central to the Democrat universe...

Arizona Sen. John McCain partnered with liberal Democrat Ted Kennedy in 2005 to offer illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship, then allied with border security hardliners during a tough 2010 Republican primary. "Complete the danged fence," McCain cracked in a widely publicized television spot. Less well known is the equally dramatic pivot by Marco Rubio, from 2010 candidate who dismissed McCain’s proposal as “amnesty,” to U.S. senator who on Monday championed reforms McCain said had “very little difference” from his previous plan, which became the blueprint for failed legislation in 2006 and 2007. During a March 28, 2010 Fox News...

It’s has been widely assumed this morning by some immigration advocates (and by yours truly, too) that the new immigration reform plan’s process of citizenship for the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants is contingent on a commission of Southwestern officials declaring the border secure. Not true. I’ve now got clarification from Senate staff working on the bill, and it turns out that the enforcement commission’s judgments will only be advisory, and are entirely nonbinding. Congress’ actions will not be dictated by what this commission concludes; neither will actions taken by the Department of Homeland Security. The citizenship process will be...

Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press this afternoon, former GOP vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) praised Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and lamented that she did not win the presidency in 2008, as he believes that would lead to a better chance for deficit reduction today than under President Obama. Host David Gregory showed Rep. Ryan video of Sec. Clinton speaking with him at the inaugural luncheon, which Ryan characterized as “chumming it up” over a variety of personal topics. The congressman then praised Clinton: “Look, if we had a [Hillary] Clinton presidency, if we had Erskine Bowles...

PALIN: 'WE HAVEN'T YET BEGUN TO FIGHT!'—EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH BREITBART NEWS What's Next: Short term: I encourage others to step out in faith, jump out of the comfort zone, and broaden our reach as believers in American exceptionalism. That means broadening our audience. I’m taking my own advice here as I free up opportunities to share more broadly the message of the beauty of freedom and the imperative of defending our republic and restoring this most exceptional nation. We can't just preach to the choir; the message of liberty and true hope must be understood by a larger audience. Focus...

Marco Rubio, Florida's GOP senator, unveils his reform ideas to 'modernize' the system and put illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship. Marco Rubio—41-year-old son of working-class Cuban exiles—has lived the upwardly mobile immigrant experience. In his fast rise, the Florida Republican has also experienced the politics of immigration [....] "Here's how I envision it," he says. "They would have to come forward. They would have to undergo a background check." Anyone who committed a serious crime would be deported. "They would be fingerprinted," he continues. "They would have to pay a fine, pay back taxes, maybe even do community...

The absence of a House conservative publicly campaigning to challenge House Speaker John Boehner in Thursday's leadership elections has even his harshest critics, still angered with the "fiscal cliff" deal, expecting the Ohio Republican to keep his post, according to multiple sources. "If there's a coup in the works, no one has seen fit to tell me about it," said a key conservative leadership aide. The split vote for the fiscal cliff deal, however, has drawn fire from outside critics and even led to a poll on the Drudge Report showing opposition to Boehner beating support, 85 percent to 15...

The 257-167 roll call Tuesday by which the House passed the agreement that avoided the so-called fiscal cliff of middle-class tax increases and spending cuts and sent the measure to President Barack Obama. Voting yes were 172 Democrats and 85 Republicans. Voting no were 16 Democrats and 151 Republicans. X denotes those not voting. There are 3 vacancies in the 435-member House.

The word among some Senate Republicans is that a fiscal cliff deal is likely to be struck by Sunday, or Monday at the latest... If such a deal is made, it would mean that many Republicans would be backing off their longstanding position against raising taxes on anyone, including top earners... So a deal will most likely be done. But the bottom line is that the fiscal cliff fight will not end happily for Republicans. They will have given in on what was an article of faith — that taxes should not be raised on anybody, poor or rich —...

We are watching a slow motion train wreck. The train wreck is Obama’s destruction of America. What makes this destruction worse, no wait, even possible is the fact that we do not have a real opposition party to stand against Obama and the Party of Treason. What should happen? What will happen? What must happen? What should happen is that the Republicans should just let the nation go over the fiscal cliff. Why? Because there is no deal that John Boehner can craft that does not involve his complete surrender to Obama. Boehner will surrender because he is singularly incapable...

Almost every challenge facing the Republican Party boils down to one issue: How is it possible for Republicans to win elections? The GOP establishment fights, undermines, lies to, and betrays conservative Americans because GOP insiders do not believe it is possible to win elections on a tea party agenda. We’re looking at everything all wrong. We want Republican leaders to champion our tea party issues. But they can’t. They don’t know how. Conservatives believe that a properly-run campaign based on conservative values will win. More than that, we know it is the only way that a Republican candidate can win....