Free Republic

In recent months, at least three major newspapers have carried columns attempting to push Chief Justice John Roberts into voting to uphold a grossly unconstitutional federal law. But their cheap distortions and Chicken Little yammering will fail. The chief justice will do his job, and the country will be better off for it. On Sept. 9, the U.S. Supreme Court reheard arguments in the landmark campaign finance and free speech case, Citizens United v. FEC. At issue in this case is whether the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) could ban documentaries about candidates when Election Day is approaching. This...

A new book reveals for the first time the drama that unfolded on election night 2008, when McCain campaign staff battled Sarah Palin over a concession speech she planned to deliver. An excerpt published in The Daily Beast includes both the victory and concession speeches Palin had prepared to give, depending on the election outcome. The McCain campaign insisted several times that she not give the speech, and even turned the lights out on her while she and her family took pictures, fearing that she would speak anyway. The revelations offer little for those looking for more inside dirt on...

— Getting the news from Fox: Sarah Palin learned from Fox News that she and John McCain wouldn’t win last year’s presidential election. When she heard anchor Brit Hume announce that Barack Obama had won Ohio, “Palin swallowed a mouthful of air. ‘Oh, well, that’s it,’ she said.” — No concession on the concession: Palin wanted to give a concession speech, but that was nixed by McCain and his aides. It had been written by former Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully, and would have had her say, “when a black citizen prepares to fill the office of Washington and Lincoln,

(Washington, D.C.) -- Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) predicted on Thursday that there will be a constitutional challenge to the provision in the health care bill under consideration in Congress that would require all Americans to buy health insurance. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government has never before mandated that Americans purchase any good or service. When asked by CNSNews.com on Thursday where in the Constitution is Congress given the authority to mandate that people buy health insurance, McCain said, “That is an excellent question and I’m sure that if they pass health care legislation, I think there...

We strongly object to the President creating a two-tier system of justice for terrorists in which those responsible for the death of thousands on 9/11 will be treated as common criminals and afforded the kind of platinum due process accorded American citizens, yet members of Al Qaeda who aspire to kill Americans but who do not yet have blood on their hands, will be treated as war criminals. The President offers no explanation or justification for this contradiction, even as he readily acknowledges that the 9/11 conspirators, now designated "unprivileged enemy belligerents," are appropriately accused of war crimes. We believe...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Tensions within John McCain's presidential campaign boiled over on Election Night last November when Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate, repeatedly ignored directions from senior staffers who told her she would not be delivering her own concession speech. Those fresh details on the conflict between Palin and members of the McCain team come in a new book - "Sarah from Alaska" - by Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe, two members of the press corps that traveled with Palin during the 2008 presidential race. The pair spent much of the following year reporting on the campaign turmoil and the...

Many thanks to Jim Robinson and Hildy who encouraged me to post here. I don't do much blogging or posting other than Facebook so you can go over there to learn more about me and my platform. I am running for the U.S. Senate in Arizona. I will be a primary challenger to John McCain. I am a Constitutional conservative. I need your support in our effort to right the wrongs of how our federal government operates and repeal bad laws, regulations and protect states. Thanks for taking the time to read all this and yes I look forward to...

Eighteen months later, Nevada Republicans have completed a count of all delegate ballots from last year's state convention. A group of disaffected Republicans says it feels vindicated after a Friday night count of missing ballots from the April 2008 gathering showed three delegates for U.S. Rep. Ron Paul should have been sent to the national convention. Paul supporters said they felt party leaders cheated them out of a place at the national convention when they abruptly recessed the convention before delegate ballots from the state's 2nd Congressional District could be counted. The district was allowed to choose three of the...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A new charge has been issued against a man police describe as a suspected serial rapist. Mauricio Morales is already in jail and charged with raping two Nashville women in separate cases. Metro police believe Morales is the man behind the rape of a 10-year-old girl in her own South Nashville home near Old Hickory Boulevard and Nolensville Pike. The alleged incident happened back in April. Crime Scene investigators collected evidence from her room and the TBI crime lab determined the DNA matched Mauricio Morales. A Grand Jury indicted him Friday on the new charges. Morales had...

Former McCain strategist is about to lose his health insurance. BY PHILIP RUCKER If history had taken a different course, Doug Holtz-Eakin would be inside the McCain White House driving the Republican president's domestic agenda, including health-care reform. But now, one year after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) lost the presidential election, the man who was by McCain's side as the campaign's top health-care guru remains unemployed -- and his COBRA health coverage is running out. Irony of ironies, it gets worse. Holtz-Eakin, who is about to start shopping for insurance on the individual market, is 51. And he has one...

Years ago, Mark Twain said, "Buy land, they're not making it anymore." It's a wise admonition, unless you live in one of the many states that disregard private-property rights. In Connecticut, if a landowner won't sell you his land, then the government is happy to seize it in order to generate new taxable income for the government. Shockingly, four years ago this month the Supreme Court held that cities could take land from a private owner and transfer it to another private owner for economic development. Nine homeowners were forced out of their well-maintained homes in New London, Conn., because...

"Republican Dede Scozzafava today endorsed Democrat Bill Owens, her former opponent, in Tuesday's election to fill the North Country congressional seat formerly held by John McHugh. Scozzafava suspended her campaign for the 23rd District seat Saturday, citing weak poll numbers and inadequate campaign funds. In a statement released this afternoon, she called Owens ''an independent voice devoted to doing what is right for New York.''"

U.S. Sen. John McCain said Friday that Americans are in the toughest times he can remember and that President Barack Obama hasn't brought the change in Washington that he promised. The Arizona Republican spoke at a town hall Friday to a couple hundred people at Mesa's Central Christian Church, reiterating many of the same arguments he's made in recent similar events. McCain took to the stage with standing ovations and an aim to address key issues affecting Arizonans, such as the economy, health care reform, the war in Afghanistan, among other things.

MESA, Ariz. (AP) — Sen. John McCain says Americans are in the toughest times he can remember and that President Barack Obama hasn't brought the change in Washington that he promised. McCain spoke at a town hall Friday to a couple hundred people in a Mesa church, reiterating many of the same points he's made in recent similar events.

Democrats are getting closer to agreeing on a health care reform bill, but there are still town hall meetings held across the country where people can go to voice their opinions on the issue. At times, the meetings have been heated. On October 30 and 31, Senator John McCain will discuss issues affecting Arizonans, including the economy, health care reform, and the war in Afghanistan in Town Hall meetings. Town Hall Meetings: Oct. 30, 2:00 pm Central Christian Church 933 N. Lindsay Rd., Mesa, AZ Oct. 31, 10:00am Skyway Church of the West Valley 14900 W. Van Buren St., Goodyear,...

This bill is more of a fun bill, but I think if Michelle gets a bunch of these from people, I think Barack's not going to be happy for long (the reverse side, not the front side!) I guess I needed one a little more funny than anything else, and also it's kind of appropriate since Barack made homosexuals and pedophiles part of protected classes under the entirely flawed, illegal concept called 'hate crimes' law. Finally threw a bone to the radical activist LGBT-NAMBLAs screaming for this for years. To make a group of people a protected class because they...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) says Wednesday on the Senate floor that Republicans should have a say in the crafting of health care reform legislation.

LISBON, Portugal – A Lisbon hospital says it has discharged the 97-year-old mother of U.S. Senator John McCain after a weeklong stay following a fall. The Sao Jose hospital said Wednesday that Roberta McCain left the neurology ward where she had been under observation. Senator McCain's office in Washington said his mother had fainted and injured her head last Thursday while on vacation in the Portuguese capital. It said McCain's wife Cindy would accompany her mother-in-law home.

THE promise of immigration reform benefiting the undocumented Irish in America took a quiet but very important step forward in Washington, D.C. last week with a pivotal meeting between Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Ciaran Staunton, president of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR) and South Carolina Ancient Order of Hibernians board member Jim Lawracy. The meeting, also attended by ILIR consultant Bruce Morrison, discussed immigration reform proposals and their impact on the Irish American community. Graham was very interested to learn of the Irish dimension to the immigration reform debate and urged Irish and Irish American...

Republican Sen. John McCain, along with four of his colleagues on the Hill, yesterday introduced a bipartisan post-9/11 Troops to Teachers Enhancement Act, which expands and modernizes the current Troops to Teachers (TTT) program with the goal of having more troops continue their service in the classroom.

These RINOs are still getting under my skin. Felt like I needed to do another one of these. Send one to McCain and brighten his day. I will be. For the whole series of Zero dollar bills, go here: "Flickr Archive of Zero Bills"

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) —Nevada Republicans who supported Ron Paul in last year's GOP presidential contest announced a political action committee Monday to oppose the U.S. Senate bid of former state party chairwoman Sue Lowden. Robert Holloday, spokesman for the Fair Nevada Elections PAC, said Lowden's handling of last year's state convention when delegate selections were stopped amounted to betrayal. "Sue Lowden's leading role in improperly halting the delegate election disqualifies her for any position of trust in government," Holloday said. "Our group hopes to raise awareness of the dismal record of Sue Lowden and to oppose her election to...

The FCC voted unanimously yesterday to move forward with the debate in an effort to formalize net neutrality guidelines. Senator John McCain followed up by introducing a bill that would prohibit the FCC from governing communications.

PHOENIX - Sen. John McCain ended the third quarter with 500 times more cash on hand - $5 million in all - than his closest declared Republican rival, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. "He's clearly on the path to continue raising money in a substantial amount," said Frederic Solop, a Northern Arizona University political science professor. McCain, who lost the 2008 presidential election to Barack Obama and is seeking a fifth Senate term, raised $919,000 during the three months ending Sept. 30. That included $116,000 from political action committees and other groups. . . . ....

"Blue dogs bark but never bite"

Senator John McCain made clear that he and the Republican Party should send the message that they support whatever President Obama's strategy in Afghanistan ends up being, rather than send messages that the U.S. is "waffling" or "dithering." In response to former Vice President Dick Cheney's recent remarks, in which he said, "signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries," McCain said, "I wouldn't use that language." Speaking Wednesday evening while accepting an award from the conservative Center for Security Policy, Cheney said, "The White House must stop dithering while America's armed forces are in...

(snip) SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you about health care quickly. It looks like that’s coming finally to a head in the Senate. It looks like that the majority leader, Harry Reid, is going to put the government- run insurance option in there, the so-called public option. Do you think at this point that that will pass the Senate?MCCAIN: I think that the Democrats have the votes. I think that Blue Dogs bark but never bite. So I don’t think they have a problem over in the House side.MCCAIN: In the Senate, I think that the Democrats are very aware that...

Just been getting real tired of the RINOs spouting off about the party and ripping conservatives as the problem. These people are cancer to the GOP and need to be excised. Follow the lead of your ass-face Arlen Specter and admit what you are and go to the Democrats. Look how happy Arlen is now that he's come to grips about who he really is. All you jackasses are more concerned if the libs like you and the media likes you and that you better listen to the media pundits when they tell you what you need to do to...

By MICHAEL BARBARO and DAVID W. CHEN Michael R. Bloomberg, the Wall Street mogul whose fortune catapulted him into New York’s City Hall, has set another staggering financial record: He has now spent more of his own money than any other individual in United States history in the pursuit of public office. Newly released campaign records show the mayor, as of Friday, had spent $85 million on his latest re-election campaign, and is on pace to spend between $110 million and $140 million before the election on Nov. 3. That means Mr. Bloomberg, in his three bids for mayor, will...

The FCC voted unanimously yesterday to move forward with the debate in an effort to formalize net neutrality guidelines. Senator John McCain followed up by introducing a bill that would prohibit the FCC from governing communications. Oddly, the bill also contains text stating that any regulations in effect on the day before the Internet Freedom Act is officially enacted are grandfathered in and exempt from the provisions of the Internet Freedom Act. The implication seems to be that if the FCC can formalize net neutrality rules before McCain can get the Internet Freedom Act signed into law, the net neutrality...

She 'had a fainting episode and injured her head' while on vacationThe 97-year-old mother of U.S. Senator John McCain spent the night in a Lisbon hospital after a fall, Portuguese health officials and the senator's office said Friday. The Sao Jose hospital said in a written statement that Roberta McCain was in stable condition and was undergoing tests after being admitted Thursday evening. It provided no further information. Senator McCain's office in Washington said Roberta McCain "had a fainting episode and injured her head" while on vacation in the Portuguese capital.

Combing through Colorado GOP Senate candidate Jane Norton’s campaign filings this week, Congressional Quarterly finds Rick Davis among the many notables on the impressive Norton donor list, a collection of interested parties that generated a cool half million dollars in 16 days. Who is Rick Davis? Grassroots Colorado Republicans not in the know already will be interested to learn he was an adviser to John McCain during last year’s failed presidential bid. Davis is yet another McCain connection for Norton, who has been taking heat from state conservatives as a doomed McCain-driven national party pick since even before she announced...

The Republican Party is in search of a message to attract voters who are angry with just about everything — healthcare, the U.S. deficit, Wall Street bonuses, increased unemployment and home foreclosures to mention a few. “There’s a lot of anger out there and there’s a lot of frustration,” said Republican Senator John McCain, who was defeated by Democrat Barack Obama for president last year. Thousands of people are turning up at townhall meetings and “tea party” protests against government policies, he noted. “So there’s something going on out there. And I’d love to sit here and tell you that...

WASHINGTON, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Republican Senator John McCain said on Wednesday his party needed a positive agenda to better attract those Americans who are disenchanted with Democratic policies. McCain said he sensed "a lot of anger and a lot of frustration" among Americans over taxpayer-backed bailouts of banks and auto companies while they cope with a persistently high U.S. jobless rate of 9.8 percent and see bank executives get "obscene" bonuses. McCain, who was his party's presidential nominee and lost the 2008 election to Democrat Barack Obama, spoke to a Reuters Summit in a roundtable interview with journalists.

Earlier this year, a TV reporter in Arizona coaxed Sen. John McCain into a quick on-air game of word association. The reporter would say a word or two, McCain would offer a short response and it all went along well until the reporter said the following words: “Joe Arpaio.” The 2008 Republican presidential nominee, seldom at a loss for words, momentarily went blank. Arpaio — the bombastic Maricopa County sheriff who’s immensely popular with the right but widely reviled by Hispanics for his anti-immigration sweeps — has a long and turbulent history with Arizona’s most famous politician. And now McCain...

VIRGINIA BEACH -- Sen. John McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, headlined a packed veterans rally for Virginia's Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell on a cold, rainy Saturday morning. About 300 supporters crammed into a Veterans of Foreign Wars post that had been decorated with massive red, white and blue "Veterans for McDonnell" signs. "This is the man who will bring about fiscal discipline, who understands what it means to balance a budget, who understands what pork barrel spending is, who understands that we have an obligation not just to our present citizens and out present veterans but to our...

Politics: Move over, John McCain and Olympia Snowe. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is fast becoming the Democrats' favorite Republican as he partners with John Kerry to push cap-and-trade through the Senate. Earlier this year, eight Republican congressmen made it possible for Waxman-Markey, the 1,400-page job- and economy-killing cap-and-trade legislation, to barely pass the House of Representatives. At the time it seemed dead on arrival in the Senate if it was brought up there this year. Once again, as with their medical plan, the Democrats seek to better the odds by putting a GOP hood ornament on a Democratic clunker....

In an unusual alliance fostered by their alma mater, the top aides to 2008 presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama are joining forces to build a new political center at the University of Delaware. Obama campaign manager David Plouffe and McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt are working to develop the university's first Center for Political Communication, a coup for the Blue Hens, who also count Vice President Joe Biden among their alumni. ---SNIP--- The two have been instrumental in the development of the Center for Political Communication, which will combine several academic disciplines—political science, communication, visual communication, marketing, sociology,...

Sen. John McCain -- a fervent sponsor of immigration reform -- is once again being dragged into the messy border war of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is defying the Obama administration's ban on his highly controversial illegal immigrant sweeps in the Phoenix area. Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano excluded Arpaio -- reviled by Hispanic advocacy groups for alleged racial profiling-- from a joint federal program that gives local law enforcement agencies the power to dragnet for illegals. McCain's office wouldn't say whether he supported or opposed the move. But late Friday, McCain wrote Napolitano asking for...

In the days since I first started publishing on the issues surrounding Natural Born Citizenship and why it matters with regards to Barack Obama, I have been asked a great many questions regarding why it matters at all. Why the Founding Fathers would bother with a distinction that only ever matters for one governmental position in the world, the President of the United States? ***Snip*** Why didn’t McCain USE that weapon against Obama? He knew about it as much as the DNC did. The answer is simple. He couldn’t. He isn’t a Natural Born Citizen either. ***Snip*** The Founders were...

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who has long resisted climate change legislation, has joined the ranks of those pushing for a bipartisan agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions. We welcome his change of heart. Mr. Graham has sensibly decided that it helps neither the planet, the country nor his party to block efforts to solve the problem of global warming. . . . . . Mr. Graham’s conversion could encourage Senator John McCain and Maine’s Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins — all past supporters of climate change legislation — to come forward again, and it could attract fence-sitters...

RICHMOND, Va. – A federal judge has ruled that Virginia violated the voting rights of military service members and other Americans overseas when officials failed to mail more than 2,100 absentee ballots in time for last year's presidential election. U.S. District Judge Richard Williams also ordered Friday that the Virginia Board of Elections count and certify the absentee ballots. The ballots from military service members and others living outside the state were the focus of a lawsuit filed by Republican candidate John McCain's campaign, which alleged that they weren't mailed in time for overseas voters to return them before the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. John McCain on Friday pressed President Barack Obama to give a posthumous pardon to Jack Johnson, the black heavyweight boxing champion who was imprisoned nearly a century ago because of his romantic ties with a white woman. McCain, R-Ariz., and Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., noted in a letter to Obama that both houses of Congress this summer passed their resolution urging a pardon. After the vote, the lawmakers wrote to Obama in August asking him to issue the pardon. "Regrettably, we have not received a response from you or any member of your administration," they wrote...

President Obama gave a nod yesterday to a budding bipartisan Senate effort on energy and climate legislation during a New Orleans town hall meeting where he also pledged to push for the bill's passage once Congress finishes its work on health care. "What I think we need to do is increase our domestic energy production," Obama said in response to a question about environmental policy from an audience member. "I'm in favor of finding environmentally sound ways to tap our oil and our natural gas." Obama also mentioned his support for nuclear energy, one of two key points of possible...

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime friend and ally of Sen. John McCain, is now going a step further, Democrats say, and actually becoming the new McCain. Senior members of the majority party say the South Carolina Republican has displaced his Arizona mentor as the dealmaker on two big agenda items of the Obama administration: climate change and immigration. As McCain, on the heels of his presidential election defeat, has distanced himself from Democrats, Graham has moved in to fill the vacuum.

Rule No. 1 for Being Taken Seriously: Don't post pictures of yourself on the Internet that are not safe for work (NSFW). Rule No. 2 for Being Taken Seriously: Don't whine and cry when people criticize you for posting NSFW photos. Meghan McCain doesn't know either one of these rules. But then, Meghan McCain doesn't know much of anything. McCain is obviously not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. This is a woman who, while appearing on Bill Maher's show, explained that she knew nothing about Ronald Reagan because "I wasn't born yet." (Paul Begala, no intellectual titan himself, quickly...

Although Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) vowed this week to introduce comprehensive immigration reform next month, his Senate counterparts expected to take the lead on the issue aren’t heeding a similar timeline. “That’s new to me,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said of Gutierrez’s announcement, made Tuesday at an immigration rally on Capitol Hill. “I’ve been talking to Sen. Schumer, and we hope to get something done that’s comprehensive,” Graham added. “We just don’t know when yet.”Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who chairs the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security, has been meeting periodically with Graham to discuss ideas on immigration,...

Meghan McCain, one of the daughters of former Republican presidential candidate John McCain, has apologised for using Twitter to post a picture in which she displayed an ample amount of cleavage. McCain, 24, who helped her father campaign for president last year and is a columnist for the website The Daily Beast, posted the photo she took of herself on Twitpic late on Wednesday. "My 'spontaneous' night in is my Andy Warhol biography and takeout," she said in a "tweet" accompanying the picture. "I'm getting old." After a string of comments were posted about the picture - mostly from apparently...

Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin has held a series of meetings in Washington with leading Democrats and Republicans on the issue of US immigration reform. Senior Republican Senator John McCain said he was still committed to a comprehensive deal. He said he hoped Congress would address the issue early next year. Senator McCain also said he was particularly anxious to resolve the difficulties facing up to 50,000 undocumented Irish in the US.

A report in the The Hill newspaper says that Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's potential 2012 presidential bid has attracted folks who signed up with Sen. John McCain's campaign in 2008. From the piece: Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) has enlisted a number of GOP strategists from John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, another sign that he’s planning a run for president in 2012. ... Among those interested in getting to know Pawlenty are Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Randy Scheunemann, two top policy advisers from the McCain presidential campaign who have joined the Minnesota governor’s host committee. A writer over at The American...