Free Republic

There is a fierce battle brewing between three sects of a divided Republican Party. The Rand Paul libertarians and the Ted Cruz social conservatives are drumming up support for what could be a bloody competition to rule the roost of 2016. In the safe middle is the establishmentarian moderates and the elites of the Republican Party, like Chris Christie and Marco Rubio. The most watched and most important battle, however, will be the battle between the GOP's two rights – the battle between Paul and Cruz. In an interview with Vocativ, Rand Paul spoke of a Republican Party that requires...

It's time for a public hearing about what's going on with our stock market. I've said Michael Lewis' claim that the stock market is "rigged" is a gross exaggeration, but we can thank him for one thing: the megaphone he has with "60 Minutes" has helped revive a sleepy debate on what is right—and wrong—with our market structure. And now, it is time to strike while the iron is hot: It's time for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to convene a series of public hearings on the stock market. Read More Michael Lewis, 'Flash Boys,' and '60 Minutes' Bring...

Seven Decades of Nazi Collaboration: America’s Dirty Little Ukraine Secret Paul H. Rosenberg and Foreign Policy In Focus The Ukrainian nationalist party Svoboda holds a rally in Kiev, January 1, 2014. (Reuters/Maxim Zmeyev) As the Ukrainian crisis has unfolded over the past few weeks, it’s hard for Americans not to see Vladimir Putin as the big villain. But the history of the region is a history of competing villains vying against one another; and one school of villains—the Nazis—have a long history of engagement with the United States, mostly below the radar, but occasionally exposed, as they were by Russ...

Erick Erickson reported that Republicans John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy and 25 other Congress members will fly to Amelia Island next weekend to meet with a group dedicated to defeating conservatives in Congress. “Main Street Advocacy” is hosting the event at the Ritz Carlton – only the best for these sorts. Steve LaTourette, liberal Republican and former congressman, is the face of the group and a good friend of Boehner’s.

State Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) was charged Wednesday with conspiring to commit wire fraud and traffic firearms, part of a sweeping public corruption case outlined by federal prosecutors. The charges sent shock waves through the San Francisco and Sacramento political establishments, as FBI agents searched Yee's Capitol office. Last year the FBI raided the offices of Sen. Ron Calderon (D-Montebello), who was targeted in a bribery sting. SNIP The indictment alleges Yee and Jackson defrauded "citizens of honest services" and were involved in a scheme to traffic firearms in exchange for thousands in campaign donations to the senator. SNIP...

After Pressure, World Vision Reverses Policy on Hiring Gays By Julio Severo After a backlash from Evangelicals, World Vision, an international nonprofit ministry, has reversed its decision to allow those in same-sex marriages to be employed. Organization board leaders said in a letter to supporters Wednesday that they had made a “mistake” by changing its policy. “We are brokenhearted over the pain and confusion we have caused many of our friends, who saw this decision as a reversal of our strong commitment to Biblical authority,” the board said in the letter. The quick reversal was result of a firestorm...

When House Republicans penned their Pledge to America in 2010, they convinced American voters they would advance a conservative agenda if they regained control of the House that year. Four years later, what promises have they actually delivered? ObamaCare is still intact, our national debt has grown by $3 trillion, and Republicans have capitulated to Democrats on every issue from the debt ceiling to the budget. Republican leaders in both the House and the Senate have failed conservatives and have failed to keep their Pledge to America. Let’s examine how the GOP pledge has fallen flat.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Less than six months on the job, the mayor of Charlotte was arrested Wednesday and accused of accepting more than $48,000 in bribes from undercover FBI agents posing as businessmen who wanted to do work with North Carolina's largest city. Mayor Patrick Cannon, a 47-year-old Democrat who rose from the city's public housing projects to become a successful businessman and politician, faces federal theft and bribery charges. Cannon solicited and accepted more than $48,000 in cash, airline tickets, a hotel room and the use of a luxury apartment as bribes, according to a criminal complaint. If...

Just days before local rivals Louisville and Kentucky face off in the Sweet 16, the state's senior senator, Mitch McConnell, released an ad for his reelection that called out "socialist notions" and climaxed with a quick clip of a blue-and-white basketball team celebrating its NCAA championship. It was Duke. "Obviously we were horrified by the error and quickly changed it," said UK alumnus and McConnell spokesperson Allison Moore. But the new edit failed, too. A second version featuring star freshman Julius Randle dunking was quickly swapped in, only to be hit with a cease-and-desist from the University of Kentucky for...

WASHINGTON, March 24 -- FreedomWorks issued the following news release: Tonight, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) headquarters is hosting a fundraiser for North Carolina moderate and Senatorial candidate Thom Tillis. Headlining the fundraiser invite was a "who's who" of beltway establishmentarians, including Senator Mitch McConnell, Senator Lamar Alexander, and Senator Richard Burr. Attendees must pay a minimum of $1,000 per PAC or $500 per person to rub elbows with the D.C. elite. According to the Washington Post, (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/03/21/nrsc-chairman-obamacare-has-helped-dramatically-expand-senate-map/) NRSC Chairman Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) explained today that playing in races like this one are a priority because the "map and...

Kentucky is known for its basketball, with the last two national champions residing in the Bluegrass State. Seeing as its March Madness and Kentucky and Louisville are set to play in an epic Sweet 16 matchup on Friday night, it seemed like the ideal time to run a campaign ad incorporating Kentucky’s strength on the hardwood as part of the state’s great success. However, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made one, tiny mistake during the 100-second commercial. It didn’t feature Kentucky. It showed Duke celebrating its 2010 National Title. Hold on, it gets worse. McConnell’s staff swapped the incorrect championship...

Senator Rand Paul is being criticized and condemned by the Washington establishment. That’s almost certainly a sign that he’s doing the right thing. And given the recent events in Russia and Ukraine, we should say he’s doing a great thing. This is because Senator Paul is waging a lonely battle to stop the unthinking and risky move to a world where governments – including corrupt and evil regimes – collect and share our private financial information. I’ve written about this topic many times and warned about the risks of letting unsavory governments have access to personal information, but the Obama...

On this blog, over the last few days – and we will be providing more evidence over the weeks and months ahead – we have documented sick levels of genocide against Christians and Shia Muslims in Syria. The even bigger scandal is the deafening silence of the media, the church, the Jewish Organizations, the Obama administration, and leaders from both political parties. Obama: Stay silent on Christian persecution. Why is it that our government and the leaders of both parties are saying and doing nothing about these atrocities? The answer is simple. We as a country are allies of the...

The danger is this: In the USA’s upcoming 2014 elections, Republican elites assume that everyone all now agrees that conservatives ‘must’ support non-conservative candidates to win more elections. The GOP is operating on the belief that everyone is on board, simply because insiders have officially decreed it to be so. However, the grassroots in the USA remains unconvinced. Worse, the Republican establishment has no plan for truly healing the actual wounds. Elites want to avoid change more fervently than they do want to win elections. Elites violated trust by advancing liberal policies in the U.S. Congress, but they won’t apologize...

A top campaign advisor to Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Democratic challenger to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, scoffed at the notion McConnell is "invincible" in a new memo set to be released Friday.... after The New York Times published a lengthy analysis of the unprecedented nature of a potential McConnell loss. The memo delves into the details of why the Grimes campaign believes McConnell is more vulnerable than ever. First, McConnell is devoting precious time and energy to a challenge from the right in Republican Matt Bevin, with the primary on May 20. Hurst also argues Grimes has...

Muslims in Syria have butchered 400 people in mass killing fields, and have also impregnated 3000 women through sex jihad. We have learned this information through our Middle East contact Sister Hatune Dogan, who we partnered with in order to rescue Christians in Syria and Iraq, Turkey and Jordan. “Abd Alluhud tells his story driving to his farm, taking the regular route near Idlib and what he sees was so horrific; hundreds of bodies on the side of the road, all decapitated”, so reports Sister Hatune Dogan to Shoebat.com after she came back from her mission to aid Christians in...

RUSH: The White House pastry chef has been forced out. The White House pastry chef! This is an outrage. The White House pastry chef has resigned. He was forced out, and he's doing it because he needs to defend cream, butter, sugar, and eggs, because nobody else will. He is gay...and Michelle Obama still told him: I don't care what you're good at. You're not gonna use butter in the White House, and you're not gonna use cream, and you're not gonna use sugar, and you're not gonna use eggs. So this guy had to come up with fruit puree...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was caught Thursday on a live microphone offering to help the Obama administration pressure Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) into supporting the Senate’s aid legislation for Ukraine. According to multiple reports, Graham, who is facing a tough reelection race this year, was caught on a live microphone after a hearing telling Secretary of State John Kerry, “Let me know what I can do to help you with Boehner.”

KIEV - The man Russian President Vladimir Putin has cast as one of Europe's potential new Adolf Hitlers is a little late for coffee this Saturday morning. Igor Mazur, or Topoyla (Poplar) as he's known because he's 6'7" is the leader of the Ukranian Right Sector at Maidan, Kiev's Independence Square. The Right Sector are the radical nationalists of this Ukranian Revolution. There are others: the right-wing Svoboda (Freedom) Party, for one, which has an actual political following, 12 percent of the vote in the last elections. It used to identify itself as a national socialist movement, just like the...

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, had an "oops" moment on the House floor, as seen in C-Span video. The Houston representative declared the U.S. Constitution was some 400 years old. Unfortunately, that's incorrect. The Constitution was created in 1787 and ratified nearly a year later. Four hundred years ago, Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America, was founded.