Free Republic

Republicans have assumed this entire elections season that a candidate must have won at least 8 state primaries or caucuses to be eligible for the GOP nomination, but apparently that is not the case and apparently a rule change hasn’t technically occurred, but that’s not the way it seems. Even Ted Cruz said just last night that John Kasich wasn’t eligible because he hadn’t won enough states, so even he was mislead. Insiders now say rule 40(b) only applied to the republican convention in 2012 and was never intended to be used in future elections. From Washington Examiner: Party officials...

Weaver said that while both campaigns have reached out to each other to ensure that Trump is denied the requisite 1,237 delegates to win the nomination, only the Kasich campaign has held up its end of the bargain . . . Even Mitt has urged Cruz to work with us! To no avail," Weaver lamented. "As usual they want it both ways, appearance of attempt to work together/victim, but no action. To question [John Kasich's] motivation is underhanded, and opposite of what they say in private. Facts are JK best positioned in most states moving forward & in general election....

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker said Thursday that in the event of a contested convention, the Republican nominee will likely be someone who is “not currently running.” “I think if it’s an open convention, it’s very likely it would be someone who’s not currently running,” Walker said. “I mean, who knows. The one thing I qualify — it’s like the qualifications you see on those ads you see for car dealerships. I think any of us who comment on this election have to qualify that almost every prediction’s been off, so it’s hard to predict anything,” Walker added. Walker’s own run...

On his Friday radio program, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh expressed disappointment in the House and Senate Republican leaderships for the passage of the end-of-the-year omnibus spending bill.

Joe Scarborough prefaced his remarks this morning by saying "this is the sort of thing that right-wing bloggers get very angry about." So let's oblige him . . . On Morning Joe, Scarborough said "I am shocked by how many Republicans, that have always voted Republican, that have said they're going to vote for Hillary if it's Cruz or Trump running against Hillary. I'm talking Deep South, Southern Baptist. I asked people who I expect to say yes, Cruz, go "hell no. No. I will never vote for Ted Cruz or Donald Trump. I will vote for Hillary Clinton." View...

House Republican leaders are cracking down on rebellious members after a near-disaster on a trade vote last week, but another imperiled rule coming to the House floor Tuesday is making it difficult to punish the members who leaders need to pass the measure. Reps. Cynthia Lummis, Steve Pearce, and Trent Franks have been removed from the whip team after they sided with GOP rebels to vote against a rule governing debate on a trade bill, according to sources close to the team. Lummis, a deputy whip and a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, was perhaps the whip team's...

Establishment Republicans desperately trying to secure the passage of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which would give President Obama fast-track authority to secure congressional approval of at least three secretive trade deals, are now willing to increase taxes on small businesses in a way that would violate a pledge almost every Republican Congressman has taken when elected into office. To secure final passage through Congress of a package that would include TPA fast-track authority—which would ensure finalization of the secretive Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) and Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), among other deals—the House would...

House Republican leaders are cracking down on rebellious members after a near-disaster on a trade vote last week, but another imperiled rule coming to the House floor Tuesday is making it difficult to punish members leaders need to pass the measure. Reps. Cynthia Lummis, Steve Pearce and Trent Franks have been removed from the whip team after they sided with GOP rebels to vote against a rule governing debate on a trade bill, according to sources close to the team. Lummis, a deputy whip and a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, was perhaps the whip team's highest-ranking bridge...

 In an indication of just how desperate the Republican establishment and their Big Business paymasters are to revive the package of fast track Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) and Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) bills that went down last week, the House Rules Committee slipped the rule for reconsideration of the failed TAA bill into the rule for H.R. 2596, the Fiscal Year 2016 Intelligence Authorization bill.Along with the National Defense Authorization bill, the Intel Authorization bill is considered to be one of the “must pass” bills of each legislative year.According to the existing Rules, the Motion to Reconsider the vote on...

House Republicans, coming up with every excuse under the sun to avoid stopping President Obama, are letting slip the real reason. Congressman Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX)69%69%, chairman of the House Rules Committee, is telling Democratic lawmakers he wants total amnesty. The Daily Caller reports Sessions met with Democratic lawmakers telling them how expansive his vision of immigration is before Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)N/AN/A announced the GOP would give up the fight on immigration. More details are here. It is more and more obvious the only way the GOP will stop Obama is if House conservatives hold the line and oppose...

The House on Thursday voted to bar the executive branch from deferring the deportation of undocumented workers, taking its first direct action against President Obama’s executive actions on immigration. The 219-197 vote was largely symbolic as the measure is headed for certain death in the Senate, where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said he won't take up the legislation. The White House has also threatened to veto the measure. The vote on legislation sponsored by Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) is intended to help Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) move a bill next week that would fund most of the...

The Yoho bill is not designed to block Obama's use of federal monies to carry out his unlawful amnesty. The Yoho bill is designed to dupe Republicans into thinking Boehner has attempted to block Obama's use of federal monies to carry out his unlawful amnesty. It is designed to trick the Stupid American Voter. As usual. This has court implications as well. Boehner supposedly will sue the Administration over its power-grabs. However, Congress has the power itself to delimit executive overrreach -- through its power of the purse, of course. The Supreme Court may very well decline to hear any...

Press reports say House Speaker John Boehner will ask Rep. Nancy Pelosi to help him overcome “snowballing” GOP opposition to the GOP leadership’s draft 2015 government budget bill.Boehner’s draft bill funds the entire government for 2015, but makes merely token efforts to stop President Barack Obama’s agencies from implementing his unpopular amnesty, according to rank-and-file GOP legislators.That claim of snowballing opposition was boosted early Wednesday evening, when aides to House Speaker John Boehner said they would change their funding bill to reduce the number of months of funding for Obama’s immigration agencies.Late Wednesday night, the Washington Post reported that top...

House Speaker John Boehner’s top committee chairman says he wants an immigration bill that would allow millions of foreign migrants to stay and work jobs sought by Americans. “I’m going to use my assets and resources in the new year to work with this Congress… to have a well-understood agreement about what the law should be, and how we as communities, and farm communities, and tech communities, create circumstances where we can have people be in this country and work, and where not one person is quote ‘thrown out’ or ‘deported,’” said Rep. Pete Sessions, the chairman of the powerful...

House Speaker John Boehner’s top committee chairman says he wants an immigration bill that would allow millions of foreign migrants to stay and work jobs sought by Americans. “I’m going to use my assets and resources in the new year to work with this Congress… to have a well-understood agreement about what the law should be, and how we as communities, and farm communities, and tech communities, create circumstances where we can have people be in this country and work, and where not one person is quote ‘thrown out’ or ‘deported,’” said Rep. Pete Sessions, the chairman of the powerful...

At a Capitol Hill news conference on Wednesday, conservative members of Congress said that President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration should not be funded in the next spending bill, a continuing resolution, to keep the government operating, either in the short term or the long term. […] “We’re presented with this proposal that we ought to fund the president's lawless, unconstitutional act,” said Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) at the press conference. “And I can look at this thing, as I have all throughout the Thanksgiving break, and try to conclude how it is that anybody can step into the...

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Sunday defended the party's strategy in the Virginia gubernatorial race against attacks from conservative groups that it didn't do enough to help GOP candidate Ken Cuccinelli. Tea Party groups said the GOP establishment kept its wallet closed to Cuccinelli, the conservative attorney general who lost to Democrat Terry McAuliffe on Tuesday. Democratic party organizations, those groups said, spent more heavily on McAuliffe than the GOP did on Cuccinelli. But Priebus said the RNC invested heavily in Cuccinelli's "ground game," commenting that he was "proud" of the effort. "The RNC outside the presidential election...

House Majority Leader-designate Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Monday that Republicans will not be seeking to completely scrap the healthcare reform law. Cantor said there are certain elements of current law that will be included in the GOP plan, which he said will move simultaneously with a repeal measure through the House. Provisions that Republicans will seek to retain include the barring of insurance companies from refusing coverage to patients with a pre-existing condition and allowing young people to stay on their parents' insurance plans until age 26. Speaking to more than 100 students at a town hall event at American...

Kathleen Parker has an interesting little shtick. Few noticed her when she was writing from a conservative point of view...until she started attacking conservatives about a year ago. Then she went whole hog and has made a lucrative new career of attacking conservatives...while still going through the motions of pretending to be conservative. Parker's latest column on the topic of townhall protests is but the latest in her role of pretend conservative. Here is how "conservative" Parker refers to those protesters: Generally considered a fringe group, the demonstrators have been described derisively by Democratic leaders. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed...