Free Republic

Running for president while simultaneously serving in the Senate has its shortfalls. You have to go on the record taking tough votes. You have a day job, which pulls you away from the campaign trail. But there’s also the perks not afforded to the other candidates. Namely, you can lob red meat at your base in the name of your official job. Exhibit A: Sen. Ted Cruz’s hearing Wednesday afternoon. He sat in the chairman’s seat, gavel in hand, to proceed over the Congress’ umpteenth hearing on the Internal Revenue Service’s alleged targeting of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status....

WASHINGTON, D.C. — While chairing a Judiciary Subcommittee hearing yesterday, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) questioned Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner John Koskinen and delivered a powerful statement on the IRS’ illegal targeting of conservative groups. Fox News: Cruz on Lost IRS Emails: ‘Nixon’s Ghost Must Have Been Smiling’…Ted Cruz grilled IRS Commissioner John Koskinen and assailed the agency he leads at a heated hearing Wednesday where he likened claims that emails from controversial ex-official Lois Lerner were lost to a Richard Nixon cover-up. View video coverage of the hearing here.  Washington Post: Ted Cruz Beats Up on IRS, Obama White House, Comparing It to...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) accused the IRS on Wednesday of purposefully targeting conservative groups for political reasons, and failing years later to have cleaned up the problem. But Cruz, who’s running for president in 2016, made sure that a comparison of two White House occupants — President Obama and Richard Nixon — were part of his case as well. Cruz, who’s made abolishing the IRS a part of his presidential pitch, noted that Nixon had tried to use the agency to target his political opponents some four decades ago. The difference during Obama’s tenure, Cruz suggested, is that the IRS...

Donald Trump is certainly unlike most Republican presidential candidates of recent years. But as he has come to dominate the GOP's 2016 contest, there's been a touch of Richard Nixon in the tirade-friendly tycoon. At least, Nixonian rhetoric. In the past few weeks, Trump has deployed some of Tricky Dick's most memorable flourishes. Is this a mere coincidence? One of Trump's top political strategists is Roger Stone, a veteran political operative and unapologetic dirty trickster who is an ardent fan of the scandal-ridden but politically savvy Nixon. (On his website Stone, who has a tattoo of Nixon on his back,...

Lois Lerner, the former IRS official accused of targeting conservative non-profit groups, is longtime friends with a Wisconsin state regulator who helped local prosecutors investigate aides and conservative allies of Gov. Scott Walker. The Wall Street Journal reports in an editorial ["Wisconsin's Friends at the IRS"] that Lerner and Kevin Kennedy, the director of the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB), were in routine contact via email between 2011 and 2013. Emails viewed by The Journal show that the two regulators discussed issues ranging from the personal to political. They shared news articles about campaign finance and also discussed dinner plans....

It’s become almost cliché in American politics to call a politician Nixonian or “like Nixon” -- and it’s rarely a positive to compare an officeholder or candidate to the only U.S. president to resign from office. Yet to Evan Thomas, the author of a new Nixon biography who also covered the Clinton White House, comparing Hillary Clinton to Nixon works -- to an extent. “Mrs. Clinton does have some Nixonian attributes. She can be guarded and defensive, a little bit too tough on her enemies,” Thomas said in ABC News' “Power Players” series. “I saw this firsthand. She needs to...

President Richard Nixon was drunk during the height of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, according to veteran journalist Tim Weiner writing for Politico magazine. Weiner’s book, One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon, makes the charge. The former New York Times reporter claims that a call recorded by Henry Kissinger proves Nixon was drunk on the fifth day of the crisis after Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel which caught their Intelligence agency by surprise. It became clear in the hours after the 1973 Yom Kippur attack that the Arabs had surprised Israeli forces...

Woodrow Wilson. Here's Why. If you wanted to identify, with confidence, the very worst president in American history, how would you go about it? One approach would be to consult the various academic polls on presidential rankings that have been conducted from time to time since Harvard’s Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. pioneered this particular survey scholarship in 1948. Bad idea. Most of those surveys identify Warren G. Harding of Ohio as the worst ever. This is ridiculous. Harding presided over very robust economic times. Not only that, but he inherited a devastating economic recession when he was elected in 1920...

As Clinton scandals continue to mount and her credibility plummets, gleeful Republicans are quietly discussing what once seemed impossible: Hillary Clinton might not survive primary season, let alone make it all the way to Pennsylvania Avenue. That may well turn out to be the case. But it’s not because of the allegations about “Clinton cash” or deleted emails. Those are major political scandals, to be sure, but of a kind that a shameless Bill Clinton skated through easily during his own administration. The deeper problem is personal. As the veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum put it to me, rather forlornly,...

(‘They came with a battering ram.”) Cindy Archer, one of the lead architects of Wisconsin’s Act 10 — also called the “Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill,” it limited public-employee benefits and altered collective-bargaining rules for public-employee unions — was jolted awake by yelling, loud pounding at the door, and her dogs’ frantic barking. The entire house — the windows and walls — was shaking. She looked outside to see up to a dozen police officers, yelling to open the door. They were carrying a battering ram. VIDEO: David French Discusses ‘Wisconsin’s Shame’ She wasn’t dressed, but she started to run toward...

Hillary, Hillary, Hillary! Will this never end? It’s all about Hillary. I’m beginning to know exactly how Jan Brady felt: NOW we find out that nobody even read Hills’ deleted emails? They just deemed them to be personal? Since when can you even do that?Naturally, that prompted the inevitable comparisons like this, from Big Fur Hat at iOTW:And the accompanying commentary is even worse; like this, from “Tim” Nixon was an American. Nixon loved America. Nixon strove to get America out of Vietnam. Nixon GOT us out of Vietnam. Nixon didn’t enrich himself at American expense. Nixon didn’t sell American largess...

This is an excerpt with some particularly timely clips. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ To avoid handing over all of the 42 subpoenaed tapes to the House Judiciary Committee, Nixon instead released 1,254 pages of edited transcripts of 20 tapes in the spring of 1974. But the transcripts caused a national sensation as Americans glimpsed behind closed doors for the first time at a cynical Nixon who frequently used obscene language in the Oval Office, in contrast to his carefully tailored public image. The transcripts also revealed Nixon frequently discussing Watergate including the raising of "hush money" to keep the burglars quiet. "We could...

Hillary has become who she once despised. I think she was 27 then, a young lawyer, briefly brought on as a staffer for a House committee tasked to write up articles of impeachment. Like many young progressives of her generation, the demon before her was Richard Nixon. He was the first hated president of the modern era, and he deserved it. Brilliant in his way, he was also imperious, superior and arrogant. So convinced of his own infallibility that he believed the rules didn’t apply to him. He became secretive, and in time made keeping the public and the press...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDPQHKmU0P8 The video includes home footage of her talking about Nixon. In the video are quotes from Jerome Zeifmann, with whom I have spoken in the past on talk radio. She hid documents and made a false statement to a federal judge that there was no precedent for Nixon being able to have counsel. This story must be told by the mainstream. It is very damning.

In an interview for Newsmax TV, released on Monday, Texas Senator Ted Cruz (R) accused President Obama of turning America into a monarchy. He also condemned Congressional Democrats for being “partisan rubber stamps for a lawless president”. While that style of blustering rhetoric is not unusual for the Republican Senator, he also went a step further by comparing President Obama to corrupt former President Nixon. Trying to draw parallels to Nixon’s lawless abuse of power during the Watergate scandal, Cruz complained: We’ve had presidents in the past who have abused power. But when that has happened: When Richard Nixon abused...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is not a fan of his Democratic colleagues' "disturbing" unwillingness to criticize President Barack Obama's executive actions that protected undocumented immigrants from deportation. "It's very interesting. Democratic senators privately will admit all sorts of things," Cruz mused during a Newsmax TV interview published Monday. "But it's really disturbing: Democratic senators have been unwilling to stand up to this president, really on almost anything." Cruz, a likely 2016 presidential contender, compared this alleged slavishness to Obama to how Republicans reacted when one of their own, former President Richard Nixon, was in the middle of the 1972 Watergate...

Protesters and Looters Burn Business District to the Ground— And the National Guard was nowhere in sight. Now we know why… And top state Democratic leaders all knew about this. Governor Jay Nixon (D-MO) ordered the National Guard out of Ferguson before the verdict was announced. And….. TOP MISSOURI DEMOCRATIC LEADERS including Claire McCaskill, Lacy Clay, Chris Koster, Mayor Francis Slay and St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley all knew about this order.

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- A state lawmaker from St. Louis is asking a legislative committee to investigate whether St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch "manipulated" the grand jury in the Michael Brown case. A joint House and Senate committee is investigating why Gov. Jay Nixon did not use National Guard troops to prevent burning and looting in Ferguson on Nov. 24, the night McCulloch announced that the grand jury would not indict Ferguson officer Darren Wilson in the August shooting death of Brown....

(KTVI) – While parts of North St. Louis County burned, hundreds of National Guardsmen waited on the sidelines. We`ve learned that all 2,200 Guardsmen were in St. Louis area before the Darren Wilson Grand Jury decision. Not all of them were used, when it appears they were most needed. Hundreds of them were part of a special force ready to act, yet remained on standby while businesses burned. During FOX2 live coverage the night of November 25th, Ferguson Mayor James Knowles said, ‘It`s one in the morning. There are fires all over North St. Louis County, buildings burning in Ferguson,...

Incompetent, irresponsible, and immoral media outlets who are in bed with Obama, Holder, Nixon, Sharpton, ad nauseam. They really should be in jail together! If there is any justice in this nation then some high profile individuals will to go to jail as a result of their ineptitude, incompetence, and irresponsibility as exhibited at Ferguson. But don’t hold your breath unless blue is your favorite color! Highly placed officials such as President Obama, Attorney General Holder and Governor Nixon were the epitome of irresponsibility. Frankly, they are responsible for much of the looting, burning, and other illegal activities and should...