Free Republic

Guns don’t kill people, the Constitution kills people, at least according to Karl Rove, Republican strategist and architect of George W. Bush’s election and reelection as president. Rove, speaking on Fox News Sunday, and in the wake of the South Carolina church massacre, embraced the liberal mantra that there are too many guns on the street and went a step further and a step too far, saying the way to avoid more such tragedies is to repeal the Second Amendment and its guarantee of our right to keep and bear arms: Now maybe there’s some magic law that will keep...

Posted By The Tatler On June 22, 2015 @ 2:07 am In Second Amendment | 16 Comments Karl Rove made an appearance on Fox News Sunday and said the only way to stop gun violence is to repeal the Second Amendment and “remove guns from society.”The subject was the tragic shooting at Charleston, South Carolina’s Emanuel African Methodist Church. WALLACE:How do we stop the violence?ROVE: I wish I had an easy answer for that, but I don’t think there’s an easy answerWe saw an act of evil. Racist, bigoted evil, and to me the amazing thing is that it was...

GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump didn't take kindly to Republican operative Karl Rove saying on "Fox News Sunday" that people should ignore Trump as a serious candidate. As he often does with his critics, Trump took to Twitter Sunday to denounce Rove: Donald J. Trump ✔ ‎@realDonaldTrump .@KarlRove still thinks Romney won! He doesn't have a clue! @FoxNews 7:54 PM - 21 Jun 2015 Trump specifically addressed Rove's criticism that even though he announced his run on Tuesday, he still had not filed a one-page declaration of candidacy with the Federal Elections Commission. Rove said Trump will put that off...

Republican strategist Karl Rove said on “Fox News Sunday” the only way to stop gun-related violence, like the Wednesday massacre at Emmanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston S.C., was to repeal American citizens’ Second Amendment rights. When Chris Wallace asked Rove how we can, “stop the violence,” the long-time gun-rights advocate stated that we have made great strides as a nation in empathizing with the victims of these types of shootings, but the only way to guarantee they will stop is to “remove guns from society.” WALLACE: How do we stop the violence? ROVE: I wish I had an easy...

Republican voters like having plenty of options but could quickly sour on negative campaigns. The Republican presidential primary is a jumbled mass of competitors, with new ones joining the jostling for support seemingly every week. Meanwhile, the Democrats have more a coronation than a contest, with one figure ignoring the rabble en route to the nomination. So why did a May 18 Pew Research Center poll find that 57% of Republicans have an excellent or good impression of their party’s candidates, while 54% of Democrats have an excellent or good impression of theirs? Bigger fields and active contests sometimes generate...

This is a time when it’s necessary to read beyond the headlines. A May 10 Gallup survey shows that the share of Americans calling themselves social liberals has risen to 31% from 25% in 2009, while the share of self-described social conservatives has fallen to 31% from 42%. It is the first time social conservatives have not outnumbered social liberals since Gallup began asking the question in 1999. As recently as 2010, social conservatives led by 17 points. All this was trumpeted as bad news for Republicans. But what’s driving this shift is largely Democrats lurching further leftward. In 2010,...

Popular Sen. Elizabeth Warren, still being urged to run for president, is calling Republican White House hopefuls Sen. Ted Cruz and front-runner Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker "scary," two potential presidents that could undo a decade of Democratic policies. "Just the thought of a possible President Ted Cruz or President Scott Walker is scary," she warned in an email to supporters. "But here's something even scarier: A President Ted Cruz or President Scott Walker with a Republican-controlled Senate – confirming extremist judges, repealing health care and financial reform, and rigging the system even further for the rich and the powerful," she...

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert paid a man to conceal sexual misconduct while the man was a student at the high school where Hastert taught, a federal law enforcement official told NBC News on Friday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity. Tribune newspapers reported earlier in the day that two unnamed federal officials said that Hastert paid a man from his past to conceal sexual misconduct. Hastert was indicted Thursday on charges that he structured bank withdrawals to avoid federal reporting requirements and later lied about it to the FBI. The indictment said that Hastert was paying an unidentified...

For three election cycles, American Crossroads, the brainchild of Karl Rove and other leading Republican strategists, has been among the most powerful forces in national politics, a shadow party that has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising, data and opposition research to help elect candidates. But in the early days of the 2016 presidential campaign, Crossroads — among the first outside groups to fully exploit the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision unleashing wealthy donors and corporations — has been buffeted by a rapidly changing political landscape that is testing its pre-eminence, and potentially its survival. The nonprofit arm...

Establishment Republicans know I'm a reliable conservative but a lousy party guy. Where we live, most local offices are held by Republicans. If conservative — any — voters here wish to influence who will hold the local offices that most immediately affect them, it's a logical decision to register Republican to vote in primary elections. There's no way to control — or know — how voters will cast general election ballots for statewide or national offices. That logic helps to explain a common national media misconception about conservatives and Republican party politics. National Review's Kevin Williamson wrote: "What a great...

It is with great pleasure that I rise in praise of Karl Rove, who now largely agrees with me that Republicans should place into the dustbin their bogus proposal to repeal ObamaCare. In my recent column in The Hill, "The 'Clinton Cash' con," I suggested that the new book by Peter Schweizer proves absolutely nothing on the matter of whether Hillary Clinton committed any wrongdoing, and it is a con to suggest or imply otherwise. I add today a discussion of another con game by Republicans, the suggestion that they will repeal ObamaCare, which they know they will not do,...

A staffer for Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) admitted to distributing methamphetamine and another drug in exchange for sexual favors, according to a report in The Washington Post. Customs and Border Patrol officers in Cincinnati found a package of gamma-Butyrolactone (GBL) addressed to Fred Wesley Pagan, according to a court document. Homeland Security agents searched his house in the Brightwood neighborhood of Washington D.C., on Thursday and found a substance that tested positive for meth in plastic bags, the court document states. The Post reports Pagan is a long-time employee of Cochran and currently serves as his office manager. Pagan allegedly...

WASHINGTON — A U.S. Senate staffer is facing a federal charge after court documents say he bought drugs from China with the intent to exchange them for sexual favors. Senate staffer Fred W. Pagan is facing the federal charge of possession with intent to distribute after court documents say he shipped drugs in from China. Pagan is a staffer for Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Mississippi.

INGRAHAM: I just -- every time I hear someone in a position of power say that the war on terror has been abandoned when we have three quarters of the al Qaeda leadership in our custody, when our men and women in battle have done such an enormously great job all around the world, not just in Afghanistan, not just in Iraq, but our special forces operating in every country from The Philippines to Indonesia, all over this are globe. I think it's an insult to the troops, and I don't think Senator Graham really means it. B. GRAHAM: It's...

Riddle me this, fellow Republicans. An NBC survey April 9 reports that a huge majority (70%) of Americans doubts that Iran will abide by any agreement to limit its nuclear arms–but a majority (54%) still thinks Obama will do a better job than the Republicans in dealing with Iran! A majority of Americans – 54 percent – trust Barack Obama to do a better job handling an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program, compared to 42 percent who say they trust the Republicans in Congress. But nearly 7 in 10 Americans say that Iran is not likely to abide...

As Rare and other news outlets have reported, a SuperPAC has been running ads against Rand Paul tying his foreign policy positions to President Obama. A new report reveals who some of the people behind the ads are, and they have ties to one of the major Republican candidates likely to enter the presidential race. Matt Flynn of Breitbart News reports that the consultants who make up Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America have extensive ties to the Bush family. Flynn reports that many of these people also have ties to Karl Rove and other GOP establishment figures. According...

The “Herman Caining” of conservative presidential candidate Ted Cruz has begun. And first out of the attack gates are half-truths and no truth about his wife and her professional career. Tuesday, March 24, during an on-air interview on “The Manning Report,” the host, my good friend Dr. James David Manning, quizzed me pursuant to a Ted Cruz candidacy. My response was that we could expect in the very near future negative stories to start surfacing about not just Ted Cruz, but also his wife. I could not have been more prescient. The attack centers on Mrs. Cruz’s involvement in the...

Glenn Beck to NRA: It’s Norquist or MePosted By Robert Spencer On March 16, 2015 @ 12:21 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 12 Comments Glenn Beck has declared that he will leave the National Rifle Association (NRA) if Republican Party kingmaker Grover Norquist remains on the Board of Directors.This is long overdue: it has now been over eleven years since FrontPage Magazine first published revelations about what David Horowitz described as Norquist’s “alliances with prominent Islamic radicals who have ties to the Saudis and to Libya and to Palestine Islamic Jihad, and who are now under indictment by U.S. authorities.”...

EDINBURG — The political squabble between President Barack Obama and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over whether to negotiate with Iran will dominate the foreign policy conversation this year, agreed former presidential advisers Karl Rove and James Carville, who spoke Friday morning in Edinburg. The duo — one Republican and the other Democrat — had an hour-long conversation in front of a gathering of more than 100 Rio Grande Valley residents at the Edinburg Conference Center at Renaissance. Moderated by Evan Smith, editor of The Texas Tribune, the event was hosted by the Rio Grande Valley Partnership and IBC Bank....

Marco Rubio is hot again. The junior senator from Florida is in the midst of a comeback, fueled by a self-assured stand against easing relations with Cuba, some savvy campaigning in Iowa and a meeting that impressed well-heeled donors. He still faces a daunting path to the White House. Voters in his own state would rather he seek a second Senate term in 2016. He’s no longer the only bright young Republican star in the field. And he continues to come under fire for a shift on immigration, particularly from the Latino community that Republicans want to woo. Rubio seems...