Free Republic

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Presumed 2016 Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker has faced serious backlash over his “flip-flop” on immigration reform and one prominent conservative journalist has gone so far as to refer to the Wisconsin governor’s spin on the issues as “Clinton-esque.” The Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis wrote on Wednesday: “This is really a remarkable example of political spin. According to Walker’s definition, you can change your mind as many times as you want — on as many hot-button issues as possible — so long as your past public support didn’t involve casting a vote. It’s a pretty convenient argument for a Midwestern...

Even Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) most ardent supporters would probably concede, albeit grudgingly, that he faces very long odds in the 2016 presidential race. So why run? Because there’s value in having a national platform for bold, progressive ideas that might otherwise be ignored. Bloomberg Politics reported yesterday, for example, on Sanders’ new plan to make public college tuition-free in the United States. The plan will provide tuition-free higher education to students at four-year colleges, the statement said, and is modeled after the way many European nations handle the costs of college. “Countries like Germany, Denmark, Sweden and many more...

Latin Post presents "Turnout," a series featuring leading Latino politicians, government leaders and advocacy groups discussing and debating the most important issues facing the Latino voting bloc. Listen to the Unedited "Turnout" Interview with People for the American Way's Coordinator for Political Campaigns Carlos Sanchez:(AUDIO-AND-VIDEO-AT-LINK)More than two-thirds of the U.S. Latino electorate live in six states -- Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas -- but one progressive advocacy organization has been working on having anti-Latino and anti-immigrant representatives accountable and heard for Latinos across the country, especially for the presidential election season. With people entering their names for...

He really wants to know! "ISIS is executing homosexuals — you want to talk about gay rights?" Ted Cruz was at his Ted Cruz-iest today after a meeting with local officials in Beaumont, Texas. The senator and GOP presidential candidate faced questions from reporters about gay marriage, and responded with this, according to a report in the Washington Post. “Is there something about the left — and I am going to put the media in this category — that is obsessed with sex? “ISIS is executing homosexuals — you want to talk about gay rights? This week was a very...

BEAUMONT — Presidential hopeful Ted Cruz hit some of his main stump points while meeting with local leaders here Tuesday afternoon — promising to defend the Constitution, step back from the Obama administration's foreign policy and promote economic growth. Then Texas' junior Republican U.S. senator, visiting Beaumont to meet privately with county officials and others, got in a light sparring round with reporters, mainly working on his attacks on Hillary Clinton and defending his views on same-sex marriage. "Is there something about the left — and I am going to put the media in this category — that is obsessed...

MANCHESTER, N.H. —When Texas Sen. Ted Cruz returns to New Hampshire from May 29 to June 1, he will meet activists and voters at six events in southern New Hampshire. According to an email sent Tuesday to the Cruz New Hampshire leadership team, obtained by WMUR.com, the GOP presidential candidate will have a town hall meeting on Friday, May 29, at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge. On Saturday, May 30, he will host a town hall meeting at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester. The following day, Cruz will attend a meet-and-greet at the home of David Scott in Dover,...

A Cruz/Martinez ticket is already one of the desired tickets many conservatives are banking on. But another advantage of a Cruz/Martinez ticket, both last names are in the top 20 most common Hispanic names in the United States. Martinez is in the top five, there may be a million or close to a million Martinez's in the USA. Cruz is in the second tier(10 to 20th most common). Now wouldn't anyone assume that aside from the general hispanic vote, Cruz/Martinez will already have the "Martinez/Cruz" vote already locked up. Why would any latino with either last name vote for an...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2015/05/19/ted-cruz-livingston-county-gop/27598145/

Senator Ted Cruz, who appeared in Georgia over the weekend at the Republican state convention in Athens, sees his candidacy for President of the United States as Reaganesque. Comparing the 1980 and 2016 election cycles, he noted the similarity between incumbent Democratic presidents Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. And in an interview late Friday afternoon, he told me how he hopes to win the presidency in 2016. Cruz noted that since World War II, the GOP has only won the presidency when they ran on all three legs of the proverbial Republican Stool. The winning candidate has been a fiscal...

In Bible-belt Georgia, one would think that pro-life organizations would support the federal “Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” which imposes a 20 week abortion ban (with exceptions for rape and incest).  The bill passed the House last week generally along party lines, 242-184.  But one pro-life organization vigorously opposed this bill. Georgia Right to Life wrote that the bill, H.R. 36, “contains dangerous exceptions that allow babies conceived via rape or incest to be murdered despite the ability to feel pain.”  And while that’s true, this is more than a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.  It’s a...

It's early in the campaign cycle, but it's never too early to speculate on who will win in 2016. Though most of my friends are "Ready for Hillary," I am confident that Marco Rubio will be the next president of the United States. Here's why: Marco Rubio is handsome. The effects of physical looks on presidential elections are well documented. The most famous example was 1960, when John F. Kennedy was perceived by television viewers to have beaten Nixon in their presidential debate and radio listeners said Nixon won. Data confirms the importance of looks. Researchers at Princeton University found...

A new Rasmussen poll has found that First Lady Michelle Obama would be the strongest challenger to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton if she chose to run in 2016. According to Rasmussen: In a hypothetical matchup with Hillary Clinton, the putative Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, Obama earns 44% support from black voters to Clinton’s 36%. Among Likely Democratic Voters, it’s Clinton 56%, Obama 22%. That appears to be a better showing against Clinton than Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the only other announced Democratic presidential candidate, makes at this point. Among all voters, Clinton earns 37% support to Obama’s 17%....

The Planned Parenthood abortion business is running a new poll for its abortion activists to determine which of the pro-life Republican presidential candidates and potential candidates they hate the most. Apparently the pro-abortion stalwarts at Planned Parenthood are not fans of Ted Cruz and Scott Walker. Ad Row 1 Not in use The abortion business couches the poll in it’s typical “pro-woman” phraseology, designed to shield itself from abortion and make it appear pro-life candidates hate women, never mind that Planned Parenthood aborts hundreds of thousands of baby girls every year and kills and injures their mothers in abortions. Here’s...

Most people buy rooftop solar panels because they think it will save them money or make them green, or both. But the truth is that rooftop solar shouldn’t be saving them money (though it often does), and it almost certainly isn’t green. In fact, the rooftop-solar craze is wasting billions of dollars a year that could be spent on greener initiatives. It also is hindering the growth of much more cost-effective renewable sources of power. According to a recent Energy Department-backed study at North Carolina State University, installing a fully financed, average-size rooftop solar system will reduce energy costs for...

He thus pointed the finger on the "Control Act of violent crime and public order" adopted by the Clinton administration in 1994. Ted Cruz, one of the many Republican candidates in the race to the White House, accused former President Bill Clinton have put a generation of African Americans in jail, so he stated that his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, should respond to this. Cruz and pointed his finger on the "Law on Control of violent crime and public order" adopted by the Clinton administration in 1994. One measure introduced tax incentives for States launched the "harder"...

The official Republican debate calendar is here, and I don’t mean to scare you, but you have less than three months before this whole thing goes to eleven. Or I should say at least eleven, because the Republican National Committee seems to be moving toward capping the early debates at 12 candidates. Even that is much higher than the number included in the scrums of 2012, and it has party leaders concerned that it might make for a big mess on TV. And they’re probably right – except for the bit about changing the channel. Who doesn’t love to watch...

We all know that if the Republican debates include all the declared candidates that it's going to be a circus. Each candidate will only get to speak for a few minutes and we won't learn much. We'd learn more if the debates were limited to the candidates who had the greatest chance of getting the nomination. Here are the most realistic candidates--not the best candidates, but the ones who have at least a chance to win the nomination: Scott Walker: Current governor of Wisconsin, an inspirational speaker, riding high in several polls. Jeb Bush: Former governor of Florida, he's been...

There are so many Republicans running for president, or thinking about running for president, that the Republican National Committee is having a hard time keeping track of them all. An official GOP online straw poll lists 36 potential candidates (and as Politico noted, that list actually missed at least two former governors who have said they're mulling White House bids). Regardless of the final tally, it's becoming increasingly clear that debate planners will need to come up with creative ways to fit so many podiums on the stage when the candidates first face off in August. But what makes this...

Republican Party chiefs are concerned that the sprawling size of the 2016 GOP field could compromise its chances to win the presidency. "We're in a danger zone," Doug Gross, a top Republican establishment figure in Iowa, told The Washington Post. "When the party poobahs put this process together, they thought they could telescope this to get us a nominee who could appeal to a broad cross-section of people. "What we've got instead is a confederation of a lot of candidates who aren't standing out — and in order to stand out, you need to scream the loudest." Former Florida Gov....

Last week I wrote that Bill Clinton, deep down, didn’t really want his wife to be president. On reflection, I don’t think she really wants to be president either. And for that matter, neither does Jeb Bush. Both Jeb and Hillary think they want to be president, have had it in their dreams for umpteen years, but now, faced with the reality, they don’t know why they’re doing it. At least they don’t act that way. They are lost people, running not on fumes, but on habit. They’re supposed to run. They were bred to run. But they don’t have...