Free Republic

In what was described as a murderous attack – and the most serious violence since the extremist group was elected to the country's parliament last year – about 50 men wielding crowbars and bats set upon leftists as they distributed posters in a working-class district of the capital late on Thursday. In a statement KKE, the Communist party of Greece, said: "The way in which they acted and the weapons employed … are evidence of the murderous nature of the attack. Among the Golden Dawners, some of whom had covered their faces or wore helmets or [party] shirts, were their...

A distant cousin of President Obama is mulling a primary challenge to Kansas Republican senator Pat Roberts for 2014. Milton Wolf, a radiologist in the Sunflower State, is the president’s second cousin once removed. Wolf is a prominent tea-party activist in the state and nationally who has made several media appearances, such as on Fox News as well as penning columns in the Washington Times. Last month, he sent an e-mail to Republican activists in the state asking if they wanted more senators in the mold of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, according to Politico. He also criticized Roberts’s record...

Ten months out from his primary election against three different Tea Party candidates, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has dropped to below 50 percent in the polls, meaning he is particularly vulnerable to a runoff strategy conservatives have employed against him. Graham received just 42 percent of support from likely South Carolina GOP voters in an Aug. 25 poll of 500 likely GOP voters conducted by Landmark Communications and Rosetta Stone Communications, UnitedLiberty.org reports. “These numbers should be of concern to the Graham campaign. The senator fails to reach 50% of the vote against any of his opponents,” Rosetta Stone Communications...

Wyoming senatorial candidate Liz Cheney definitively stated her opposition to gay marriage on Friday, despite the pro-marriage stance of her father Dick Cheney, and her sister Mary Cheney, who married her partner last year. “I am strongly pro-life and I am not pro-gay marriage,” declared Cheney in a campaign statement. “I believe the issue of marriage must be decided by the states, and by the people in the states, not by judges and not even by legislators, but by the people themselves.” Cheney issued the statement because she felt opponent (and friend of her father’s) Mike Enzi was “distorting her...

LAKE WYLIE, S.C. — Some of the early shots in the Republican primary battle against Senator Lindsey Graham have been fired from this tiny community on the northern border of the state where the Civil War began. Mr. Graham's challengers so far in the Republican primary campaign include Nancy Mace, the first woman to graduate from the Citadel. A small group called Carolina Conservatives United, one of dozens organized loosely under the flag of limited government, low taxes and strict adherence to the Constitution, sent out images last week of a milk carton bearing Mr. Graham’s face and asked Gov....

State Representative Joe Carr announced on Ralph Bristol's Nashville talk radio program on Tuesday that he is a candidate for the Republican nomination for the United States Senate. Carr will compete against incumbent Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) in the party's August 2014 primary. Bristol had promised his listeners on Monday that someone would make a "major announcement" that will "alter the Tennessee political landscape," and at 7:10 in the morning Joe Carr delivered on that promise. "I am announcing as a candidate for the United State Senate," Carr told Bristol. Carr left no doubt with whom he will stand in...

Georgia Republicans are becoming increasingly worried that a divisive primary coupled with a strong Democratic candidate might lead to a loss of the Senate seat of retiring Saxbe Chambliss. The Hill: Recent polling shows the two candidates Republicans are most anxious about - Reps. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) and Paul Broun (R-Ga.) - leading the pack. Whoever emerges from the clown-car primary, with seven candidates and counting, will face a candidate Democrats are high on in a state where shifting demographics benefit their party. "Gingrey has a history of making some gaffes, and Broun it seems like it's a gaffe every...

Tea party groups have publicized their desire to find primary challengers for Republicans they don't like as well as vulnerable Democrats who are already in office. Here are a few tell-tale signs that a tea party challenger might jump into a race near you.

It was inevitable that the field of primary challengers to Lindsey Graham would grow, but the sheer number of ambitious Republicans seeking to oust the South Carolina senator may end up being the undoing of them all. With a new opponent entering the race over the weekend and another poised to join soon, the question is whether enough variables could fall into place to cause a different result this time. It’s possible, according to several South Carolina GOP operatives who spoke with CQ Roll Call in recent days. But it would take an extraordinarily large amount of money, extensive support...

Does Mitch McConnell’s primary challenger have a chance? Watch and decide. (VIDEO)

Interesting developments: Matt Bevin is challenging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in the Kentucky GOP primary. Checking his biography, I’m glad to see that Bevin is a graduate of Washington & Lee University, a U.S. Army veteran, and a small business owner — exactly the kind of outsider “not a politician” profile anyone would want in a Tea Party candidate. If grassroots conservatives in Kentucky rally behind Bevin, I think we can start chilling the champagne for Mitch McConnell’s retirement party. However, defeating the party’s Senate leader in a primary would be completely unprecedented. If this is Star Wars, Luke...

Downers Grove business owner and West Point graduate Doug Truax (True-axe) will announce Monday morning he is seeking the Republican Party’s nomination for Illinois’ senate seat currently held by Dick Durbin. “Dick Durbin and his crew have been in charge in Illinois and the United States for years. Their policies are not working, yet they continue to pursue them again and again as we sink deeper into economic stagnation,” Truax says in an announcement video posted to Youtube.

It’s only just begun, but the reelection battle of Mitch McConnell – the top Republican in the Senate – is already shaping up to be the marquee race of the 2014 midterms. Start with the primary challenge Senator McConnell faces from Matt Bevin, a wealthy, tea-party-backed businessman, reportedly willing to spend his own money. If McConnell makes it past Mr. Bevin, he’s poised to face likely Democratic nominee Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky’s secretary of state and member of a well-connected political family, in the general election. Add to the mix McConnelll’s mediocre job approval ratings in the state – only...

FANCY FARM — For the first time, Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell shared the stage with challengers who want his job and stuck around long enough at Saturday’s Fancy Farm picnic to hear one of them speak. Democratic candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes — and later Democrat Ed Marksberry and McConnell’s Republican primary challenger Matt Bevin — slammed McConnell for being in Washington too long and not doing enough to help Kentuckians, fix what ails Washington or both. McConnell, for his part, ignored Bevin completely, both in the senator’s speech and by leaving before Bevin addressed the crowd, which organizers estimated...

The contenders looking to primary the controversial South Carolina senator in 2014 are starting to come forward. Watch out, Lindsey Graham: the Tea Party says that you are next. Tea Party members demonstrate outside the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 19. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty) According to sources in South Carolina and within the Tea Party, at least two serious challenges to Graham are expected to emerge in the next few weeks. Dustin Stockton, a leading conservative activist and head of Western PAC, told The Daily Beast that he is headed to South Carolina next month to help build a ground...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will have a challenger from the right in Matt Bevin, a local businessman and Tea Party candidate who plans to announce his run for Senate this week. Bevin, who has been exploring the race since February, is reportedly already buying airtime and has met with multiple conservative groups about his run. He'll launch a 3-day, 8-stop tour of the state after he formally announces his intentions on Wednesday. Bevin is a partner at a Kentucky investment firm and the owner of Bevin Brothers Manufacturing, a Connecticut bell-making company founded 160 years ago. He previously...

You can get agreement from almost all points on the political spectrum that the worst aspect of our political system is the presidential nomination process. It is perhaps no coincidence that it is the one part of the system not treated in the Constitution. That’s because the Founding Fathers abhorred political parties and hoped that presidents would be selected by something like an elite consensus. But we have political parties, the oldest and third oldest in the world, and they are not going away.Surely a better system is possible. The current system of primaries, caucuses and national conventions is the...

In the latest poll out regarding the Wyoming GOP primary for senate, incumbent Senator Mike Enzi holds a strong lead over challenger Liz Cheney. After announcing she would run for the Republican nomination in the 2014 Wyoming senate race, many Republicans had opinions of the choice. But in the latest poll out of Wyoming, Mike Enzi leads the former VP’s daughter by over 30 points. If the race were held today 55 percent said they would support Senator Enzi, whereas only 21 percent support Cheney’s efforts. Just over three-quarters of the state’s voters view Enzi favorably, compared with just 6...

Michael Steele on Wednesday said Liz Cheney’s decision to challenge fellow Republican Sen. Mike Enzi for his Wyoming Senate seat will be disastrous and split the party. The former Republican National Committee chairman told MSNBC’s Alex Wagner that he thinks former Sen. Alan Simpson was right to call the situation a “disaster.” “I think he’s right, I think it’s going to open a lot of fissures in the party. I think this is an insurgent move by Cheney,” Steele said Wednesday on “Now with Alex Wagner.” Steele criticized Cheney’s comments that Enzi has compromised too much and “gone along to...

It is time for the GREAT state of SC to set an example for the rest of the nation on how to deal with their mistake. Let Nikki Haley find another great replacement (in the Tim Scott tradition)until the next election. (video)