Free Republic

Halper believes that the Clintons’ effort to in effect keep their friends close while turning enemies into friends has been a masterful and hugely overlooked part of the rebuilding of their machine: "What has been little understood in the past decade, from 2001 to the present, is how successfully the Clintons undertook a systematic, comprehensive, and sustained effort to win over leaders in the GOP, especially figures who were once the biggest critics. In return, both Clintons were able to develop a bipartisan, statesmanlike image that had eluded them through eight years in the White House."

When White House press secretary Josh Earnest said this week that President Barack Obama had "substantially improved the tranquillity of the global community," many observers reacted with disbelief. When the President refused to go to the U.S.-Mexico border last week to see the crisis of young people flooding into the United States because "he's not interested in photo ops," lesser mortals noted he had played pool with Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, dropped by a brewery to have a beer and shook hands with a man wearing a horse-head mask. When he went to Delaware on Thursday and opened with a...

. July 7, 2014 Newt Gingrich : President Obama's Border Absurdity ===================================================== President Barack Obama is in Texas today. Texas is the center of the current crisis at the border. From Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, thousands upon thousands of children are pouring into the United States. This flood of foreign children is not a problem of border security. They are not sneaking across the border illegally. Under the Feinstein Amendment of 2008, unaccompanied minors from these countries can present themselves at a legal border crossing, claim to be political refugees and seek asylum. The argument on the left is...

More than half of the country has a message for former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin: enough. That's the result from a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Annenberg poll in which 54 percent of voters say they've heard enough from Palin and would prefer that she be less outspoken in political debates. That includes nearly two-thirds of Democrats, a majority of independents, and even nearly four-in-10 Republicans. And the results come as Palin has called for President Barack Obama's impeachment. (VIDEO-AT-LINK)But Palin isn't the only former politician voters wish would stay away from politics. Fifty-one percent of voters say they've heard...

the Gallup numbers show that in 2006 the United States was one of the top countries in the world when it came to satisfaction with freedom. By 2013 it had dropped out of the top 25% of all countries. A country in which 4 out of 5 people believe their government is corrupt is a country teetering between a populist uprising and a collapse into cynicism, passivity, and fatalism. These results suggest we will either renew our commitment to the rule of law, the punishment of corruption and the insistence on honest self-government or we will cease to be America...

. June 27, 2014 Newt Gingrich Obama's Insane Illegal Immigration Policy The flood of children coming to the United States is a much worse and more alarming story than you might imagine. This disaster is a direct result of deliberate Obama administration policy that encourages illegal immigration. In August 2012 the administration announced, basically, that it would not deport most children who come to the United States illegally. By any reasonable standard, the Obama policy is insane and the results were predictable. This is a humanitarian crisis that the President himself created. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte and the...

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) has just unleashed his latest endorsement for re-election. It comes from former Gov. Mike Huckabee. Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and 2008 presidential candidate, has a strong following of social conservatives and activists drawn to his populist political message. "He's been your governor, university president, America's secretary of education. He brought the automobile industry to Tennessee," Huckabee explains in the ad. "Lamar Alexander is now a remarkable senator that Tennessee needs to return to office." (VIDEO-AT-LINK)Alexander has released a series of endorsements in recent days, including that of country music star Kix Brooks and former...

Fans already got You’re Welcome, America: A Final Night with George W. Bush; now the Clintons are getting their moment in the New York stage spotlight. Clinton: The Musical will make its New York stage premiere as part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival. The show description: “It’s hard enough being president by yourself. Bill Clinton’s problem is that there are two of him. Literally. Clinton follows two Bill Clintons and Hillary on their quest to save their presidency, change America and prove that ‘politics is show business for ugly people.’” The show, which will run July 18-25 at...

. June 22, 2014 Newt Gingrich Bureaucrats Should Keep Their Hands Off Our Smartphones Does a week go by without news of federal bureaucrats outrageously extending their tentacles of authority over more of society? Earlier this month it was the EPA, announcing its plan to introduce on its own the carbon dioxide limits that Congress specifically rejected. Then it was the FDA, insinuating itself into the centuries-old process of aging cheese. Last week it was the IRS trying to shed at last the inconvenience of congressional oversight. Now the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration is claiming sweeping authority over our...

. June 18, 2014 Newt Gingrich We are watching the most significant crisis of constitutional order since Watergate, the last time an administration broke the law deliberately and repeatedly. And none of the current cases look more Nixonian than what has been happening at the IRS. Thirteen months ago, President Obama stood before the American people, acknowledged that the IRS had “improperly screened conservative groups,” and promised to get to the bottom of the matter and to “hold the responsible parties accountable.” “It’s inexcusable,” he said, “and Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about...

Wednesday on CNN's "Crossfire," former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said the prisoner exchange of five top Taliban terrorist for the release of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was not an example of President Barack Obama negotiation with the terrorist but instead the president surrendered to the Taliban saying "this deal is a totally surrender to the terrorist." To prove his point Gingrich showed the videos released by the Taliban showing the release of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and the greeting of the terrorist in Qatar. Co-host and former deputy campaign manager for Obama, Stephanie Cutter dismissed the...

Hillary Clinton's leadership as secretary of state regarding the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram could become at least as serious an issue as her decisions surrounding the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. Much of the attention Thursday was on the announcement that the House will create a select committee to investigate Benghazi, but the same day, Daily Beast reporter Josh Rogin revealed details about her time as secretary of state that raise significant questions about her broader record on issues of terrorism. Rogin reported that from 2011 through early 2013, the Clinton State Department repeatedly rejected efforts to...

One of the most liberal Representatives in Congress wants California to raise its minimum wage to $26 an hour. Appearing on Crossfire on Friday, co-host Newt Gingrich asked Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) whether it was a good idea for the mayor of Seattle to propose a minimum wage of $15 an hour. Lee said, "good for him." "In California, more than likely from what I remembered, a living wage where people could live and take care of their families and move toward achieving the American dream was about $25, $26 an hour," Lee said. When pressed further, Lee said she...

California Democratic congresswoman Barbara Lee expressed support for a $26 minimum wage in her state — a move Republican congressman Andy Harris encouraged, assuming jobs would rapidly flee California to his state of Maryland. Lee and Harris appeared Friday on CNN’s “Crossfire,” hosted by former Obama advisor Van Jones and former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. The panel discussed the proposed increase in the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour. “Let me ask you this question, you’re a good advocate for this,” Gingrich asked Lee. “The mayor of Seattle is proposing that the minimum wage...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Tuesday joined a growing list of out-of-state political figures who have endorsed Portland pediatric neurosurgeon Monica Wehby in her race for the Republican Senate nomination. . . Wehby's chief rival in the Republican primary, state Rep. Jason Conger of Bend, has been promoting himself as the real conservative in the race and has been emphasizing his opposition to abortion rights. Wehby has said that she supports a woman's right to choose.

The former House speaker and Republican presidential candidate calls Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and other Democrats “are nut-cake ideologues” and less than competent. Gingrich is among the prominent Republicans appearing Saturday at a GOP Freedom Summit in Manchester, N.H., the Associated Press noted. Several potential Republican White House contenders — among them Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Sen. Ted Cruz, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — are headlining the conference hosted by the conservative groups Citizens United and Americans for Prosperity. Gingrich and other speakers attacked the health law — a central piece of the GOP’s strategy...

Newt Gingrich laid it out perfectly on Sunday. The forced ouster of Mozilla co-founder and CEO Brendan Eich this week was a sign of the "new fascism" of liberalism that's sweeping American life. "People need to realize, if you're a young faculty member, in a lot of places if you're a young member of a news department and you have the wrong views – meaning conservative – you have no career," Gingrich said on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." "This is just the most open and blatant example of the new fascism, which says, 'if you don't agree with us...

NEWT GINGRICH: First lady, Senator, Secretary Clinton is very famous for being famous and as long as she can continue to be famous, she will be famous. Now, you're in the middle of a mess in Russia, her reset, which by the way was mistranslated and actually said in Russian overcharge and had apparently been taken from a jacuzzi or a swimming pool from a Geneva hotel. The reset -- the fact is as Secretary of State, she reset our relationship with Russia so well that you currently have the occupation of Crimea and the potential occupation of Ukraine. So,...

Left-wing activist turned CNN host Van Jones ran to John Kerry's defense on Wednesday's Crossfire, after co-host Newt Gingrich slammed Kerry as "delusional" for recently hyping climate change as "the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction." Jones retorted, "It's not delusional to focus on climate disruption. It's delusional not to." Moments earlier, the former Obama green jobs czar himself made a doom-and-gloom prediction about the hypothetical effects of what he labeled "climate disruption:" [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump](VIDEO-AT-LINK)VAN JONES: Now, here's a good question: should serious people focus on global political instability – terrorism, failing states,...

Former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich took to Twitter to call for Secretary of State John Kerry to resign for calling global warming the “world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.” Gingrich, a failed Republican presidential candidate, tweeted out his disgust with Kerry’s comments (Note: He spells Kerry’s name wrong in the tweets): Does kerrey really believe global warming more dangerous than north Korean and iranian nukes? More than Russian and Chinese nukes? Really? ? — Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) February 18, 2014 On his trip to Indonesia, Kerry said that global warming is “the world’s largest weapon of...