Free Republic

Rand Paul likes to say that the Republican Party should follow the advice of painter Robert Henri, who said people should "paint like a man coming over a hill singing." But Paul, one week away from an announcement that he is running for president, often seems like a man running down a hill so fast that his feet can't keep up with his momentum. As he prepares to take a formal step onto the biggest stage in politics, Kentucky's junior U.S. Senator has previewed his campaign message as one of "winnability." "Ted Cruz is a conservative — but it also...

The further I travel down this rabbit hole, the more I feel divorced from the good conservative people that I choose to call my own. I hold some stories back from our readers. My thought is that people have a hard enough time embracing the basic fact that our government is corrupt on both sides of the aisle. If you knew how corrupt I thought these people really were, I feel like you’d rush to the phone and soon bad men would show up to haul me off in a straight jacket. Do they still do that? Regardless, today I...

Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report is somewhat baffled. A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll gave Republican voters a list of potential presidential candidates and asked whether the voters could support each candidate in the primaries. On that measure, Marco Rubio finished first. And yet when pollsters have asked GOP voters to name a top pick, Rubio inevitably finishes far from the top. Why is that? And why is Scott Walker doing better? Walter writes: Yet, if Rubio’s got such obvious advantages, why is he stuck in the low single digits while Walker has become a “co-frontrunner” with Bush?...

War On Terror: The head of U.S. Southern Command has warned lawmakers that IS is radicalizing converts and other Muslims in Latin America and could train and send them north via human traffickers. Gen. John Kelly issued his warning in a hearing Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee on defense appropriations for fiscal 2016. He's concerned that in addition to the Iranian terrorist puppet Hezbollah being active in Latin America, the Islamic State is promoting and recruiting for jihad against the United States in the region. "Last year, IS adherents posted discussions on social media calling for the infiltration...

In the interview, Cornell issued some chilling warnings: “I got orders from the brothers overseas because I’m with the Islamic State. My brothers over there, in Syria and Iraq, gave me specific orders to carry out jihad in the west, so I did so.” “What do I think is coming? Many things. There will be many, many attacks. Like I said, we are ready for the battle over the Capitol.”

Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul earned a standing ovation at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Friday, with members of the conservative activist crowd chanting “President Paul” at one point. Paul made clear overtures to a presidential run. The video of his speech is below. Here are some highlights: “Your rights are in your DNA and the government, quite frankly, can get over it.” “I say that your phone records are yours! I say that the phone records of law-abiding citizens are none of their damn business.” “Hillary’s war made us less safe. … As Hillary was declaring victory in...

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced on Monday night that a federal judge has “granted” his request to “halt” President Barack Obama’s “Executive Amnesty Order” across the country. Abbott didn’t immediately offer any other details, but promised for information later. BREAKING: Federal Judge just granted my request to halt Obama's Executive Amnesty Order Nationwide. More later. #txlege #tcot @TexasGOP — Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) February 17, 2015

Marco Rubio sees room for himself in the GOP's crowded 2016 field — and is starting to throw elbows to make space. The Florida senator is moving full throttle towards a White House bid, hitting the road hard to raise money and elevate his profile. While allies and advisors say he hasn’t made a final decision, most now privately expect he’ll take the plunge.

Why don't candidates -- Republican/Conservative ---go after the media bigtime for this kind of BS as soon as the stories pop up?

I stand with the Santa Barbara News-Press. How about you? The newspaper is under fire for refusing to kowtow to left-wing word police and militant propagandists who demand unfettered illegal immigration. Last week, in the wake of angry protests against the publication, vandals threw paint bombs and spray-painted graffiti on its offices. So, what exactly is the News-Press' unforgivable crime? Calling illegal aliens "illegals" in a headline for a story about illegal aliens descending on California DMVs. A new law went into effect last Friday allowing illegal aliens to obtain driver's licenses without proof of lawful residence. The article featured...

12 DEAD IN PARIS MASSACRE: Islamic gunmen execute French police officer as he pleads for his life after terror attack on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo at centre of Mohammed cartoon storm Masked gunmen storm Paris headquarters with AK-47s shouting 'Allahu akbar!' and 'the Prophet has been avenged' Stalked building asking for people's names before killing the editor and cartoonist during weekly editorial meeting Horrific footage shows a police officer begging for his life before being shot in the head at point-blank range Killers fled in stolen car across eastern Paris after a 'mass shoot-out' with police officers and remain on...

Every generation of conservative leaders must rise to the occasion to confront the challenge of the time. The challenge at present is to stop Obama’s war on our borders and thereby his war on the rule of law. Will conservatives rise to the occasion? When the 114th Congress convenes in January, Republicans from across the political sphere will be offering advice concerning the focus of the new GOP-led majority in both houses of Congress. Conservatives will want to focus on taxes, others want to focus on entitlement spending. Still others want to focus on an anti-regulatory agenda. All of these...

The German PEGIDA movement held its largest meeting yet last night to protest what they call the ‘Islamisation of the Western World’, despite stiff opposition from all sections of Germany’s elite including politicians, media, and the arts. PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against Islamisation of the West) has grown rapidly since its inception in October, a peaceful ‘strolling’ movement opposing the exceptional violence seen in street battles between Salafist Muslims and ethnic Kurds seen in many German cities this year and enormous immigration. Now on it’s tenth ‘evening stroll’, it has grown from a couple of hundred people, to 15,000 last week,...

he leading contender for the GOP's presidential nomination is polling at a measly 3 percent in two new national surveys testing Republican primary candidates. He wasn't even included in Bloomberg's November poll of likely New Hampshire primary voters. He's been overshadowed by the media's obsession with brand-name candidates, like Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, even though his profile is more compelling than either. But Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida is as well-positioned as any Republican to emerge from the crowded scrum of potential candidates—and his strengths are significant enough that many are forgetting what made him a top Republican prospect...

There could be between 10,000 and 13,000 victims of slavery in the UK, higher than previous figures, analysis for the Home Office suggests. Modern slavery victims are said to include women forced into prostitution, "imprisoned" domestic staff and workers in fields, factories and fishing boats. The figure for 2013 is the first time the government has made an official estimate of the scale of the problem. The Home Office has launched a strategy to help tackle slavery. It said the victims included people trafficked from more than 100 countries - the most prevalent being Albania, Nigeria, Vietnam and Romania -...

President Barack Obama claimed he has been "restrained" on immigration and that his position on executive actions has not changed after he unilaterally granted temporary amnesty and work permits to millions of illegal immigrants. On ABC's This Week, Obama said that he has "been very restrained with respect to immigration" and has "bent over backwards and will continue to do everything I can to get Congress" to pass a more permanent and comprehensive executive amnesty bill.

Obama's Executive Immigration Order was a brilliant move on his part. Politically, that is. Obama needed to cater to the radical anti-border crowd, but he also needed to limit the legal challenges that would have mounted from all directions with a blanket amnesty. So what did he do? Nothing. No seriously, Obama didn't really do much of anything on the action front. He basically proclaimed that our government (his government these days) will no longer deport illegal immigrants. Obama made it sound like he was doing a lot. He made it sound like he was giving the radical amnesty groups...

Amnesty: Pundits warn that a funding fight over the president's move to grant de facto amnesty to illegal aliens threatens a politically risky government shutdown. But there's something much more important at stake here. The Founders had good reason to give Congress the power of the purse: Short of impeachment, it's the most effective way to stop a lawless president from disobeying the will of Congress and usurping powers not granted by the Constitution. The question is: Will Congress use this power to thwart President Obama's shredding of the Constitution with his executive amnesty plan? Incoming Senate Budget Committee Chairman...

A Brooklyn man, who recently returned from West Africa, was rushed to Bellevue Hospital with Ebola-like symptoms Thursday, police sources said. The man, whose name is being withheld by The Post, returned from Mali on Nov. 14, and came down with flu-like symptoms which are similar symptoms to those exhibited by patients suffering from Ebola, the sources said.

Senator Rand Paul is reportedly planning to launch his campaign for the Republican nomination for president next Spring. Paul is a pro-life senator from Kentucky who maintains a 100% pro-life voting record but has made some comments in the last 12-18 months that have raised some eyebrows. randpaul5According to a Politico report, Paul would open up a presidential campaign headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky and would run simultaneous campaigns for president and for re-election to his Senate seat in case he fails to clinch the GOP nomination in early 2016. The report also indicates Paul will rely heavily on advisers to...