Free Republic

On Friday's Hardball, Chris Matthews and Howard Dean slammed the supposedly "lunatic" Republican Party for opposing President Obama's $3.7 billion request to deal with the ongoing crisis at the U.S-Mexico border. Dean likened the political stalemate over this issue and in general in Washington to McCarthyism in the 1950s: "It reminds me of the 'who lost China' debate...where one side is frothing at the mouth and finding communists under every bed; and the other side – including some reasonable Republicans...actually trying to run the country." Matthews endorsed the former Vermont governor's take, and targeted fiscal conservatives/the Tea Party as somehow...

Iowa Senate candidate Joni Ernst will take a break from campaigning for two weeks to take part in active-duty training for the Iowa National Guard. But before lacing up her boots, Ernst was to record the Republicans' national radio address, the Republican National Committee said Friday. Ernst, a lieutenant colonel and state senator from southwest Iowa, recorded the speech Thursday evening just hours before she was scheduled to report for duty at 6 a.m. From central Iowa Ernst was leading a convoy to Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, where for the next two weeks she will drill with her transportation battalion....

It has been a while since former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) embarrassed herself, but staying out of the news isn't good for her livelihood, which relies on lucrative speeches, television appearances and a regular stream of news accounts of her Facebook posts where she offers up her special brand of leadership. So since things have been a bit quiet for her, this week she insisted that everyone who resists impeaching President Obama must go. In her words, "we should vehemently oppose any politician on the left or right who would hesitate in voting for articles of impeachment," and this other...

The WMUR/Granite State Poll gives Christie a first-place 19 per cent showing among New Hampshire Republicans But when Romney is added to the mix, he draws 39-percent support and leaves everyone else in single digits Paul Ryan has the highest 'favorable' numbers of the field, at 55 per cent Christie's 46 per cent favorable number is soft since a separate 36 per cent say they don't like him When asked which potential White House hopeful they would never support, More Republicans name Christie than any other pol.Chris Christie narrowly leads the pack of potential Republican presidential candidates in a poll...

For a few political cycles now, Republican leaders have strained to distance themselves from some in their midst and focus on the basics to secure and extend their power in Washington: The less-than-sweeping economic recovery and President Obama’s foundering, as they see it, at home and abroad. And those in their midst have continued to define the party in ways that drew an injurious response from key voter groups. There was the dust-up in 2012 when Todd Akin, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Missouri, defended his opposition to abortion by positing that women’s bodies blocked conception resulting from rape....

Twenty years before he killed a cap on magazine rounds, the Republican entered politics explicitly to fight for an assault-weapons ban and bullet limit. A gun control bill landed on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s desk on July 2, the same day that two parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, took to the Trenton State House to try to convince him to sign it. When Christie vetoed the bill instead—not even blinking at the pleas from the victims’ families—he sent a message to conservatives and gun-rights groups that he is still a...

A few recent developments have revealed the tea party temperament in its most distilled, potent form. Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin called for the impeachment of President Obama on the theory that his border policies are "the last straw that makes the battered wife say, 'no mas.' " Excavating the layers of mixed metaphor - the straw that broke the camel's back is somehow causing an abused woman to surrender in Spanish - Palin demands the ousting of an American president on the constitutional theory that "enough is enough." Republicans who disapprove of this plan, according to Palin,...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Go ahead, President Barack Obama told House Republicans Thursday. Impeach him. “You hear some of them: ‘Sue him! Impeach him!’” Obama said in a relaxed, sniping campaign-style speech in Austin, Texas, recounting the resistance he’s run into for signing executive actions. “Really? For what, doing my job?” So punchy that he was leaning arms hanging off the front of his podium, telling a few hecklers to “sit down,” and instructing the Secret Service not to bother removing them, Obama said he was feeling liberated. “I don’t have to run for office anymore, so I can just let it rip,” he...

In an unusual move that is getting some national political buzz, the chairman of the Missouri Republican Party is asking the national GOP to investigate campaign ads and robocalls that attacked Mississippi Tea Party candidate Chris McDaniel in his failed attempt to unseat U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss. Missouri Republican Party Chairman Ed Martin has requested that Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus appoint a task to investigate the “racially divisive” ads and robocalls that alleged McDaniel had racist ties. The request has turned some heads because, as the leader of a state Republican Party, someone in Martin's position would...

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...

Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin teamed up to show "Reformicons" just how tough reforming the GOP will be. The last couple of weeks have been a coming out party of sorts for the “Reformicons,” the group of conservative intellectuals who have taken it upon themselves to reform the Republican Party into something less dogmatic and more electable. They were the subject of a New York Times Magazine profile and countless thinkpieces. They were the topic of a panel discussion at the Brookings Institution. Pundits were commenting on the resurgence of conservative intellectualism and wondering whether a gaggle of economics-obsessed conservatives...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Texas Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted Google Map directions to border towns from President Obama’s planned fundraiser stops in Austin and Dallas. “If President Obama wants to have a real border meeting with @GovernorPerry, here are a couple suggested detours,” the Republican tweeted Tuesday to his 327,000 followers. Mr. Cruz has joined Gov. Rick Perry in criticizing the president for refusing to visit the troubled southern border while he fundraises in Texas, a Houston CBSaffiliate reported. One map shows the driving route from Austin to the border town of Laredo, and another shows the route from Dallas to border town McAllen....

Hardball host Chris Matthews made some bizarre comments about the potential Republican candidates for president in 2016 on Tuesday night. Speaking to Jeanne Cummings of Bloomberg News and Republican strategist John Feehery, Matthews took a swipe at Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and suggested “he's the Republicans' John Edwards.” [See video below.](VIDEO-AT-LINK)The Hardball host never explained why in the world he would compare a man who cheated on his wife while pursuing the presidency to Senator Marco Rubio, but nevertheless the snide remark took his panelists by surprise. While Republican John Feehery didn’t directly condemn Matthews’ unusual comparison of Edwards and...

On Hannity, Sarah Palin claimed to have a list of 25 impeachable offenses, and that Democrats also want to impeach President Obama. After six years of attacking President Obama in hopes of being noticed, Ms. Palin is rather disgruntled. So like all relentlessly rejected stalkers, she’s upped the ante in a desperate bid for attention. Now she wants him impeached. That will teach mean old Mr. President to ignore Sarah Palin from Alaska Arizona. On Hannity, Palin claimed that Obama is a lawless and imperial president. She said it was time for a little less talk and a lot more...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky dismissed allegations from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, of impropriety in the Mississippi Republican primary — but noted it’s an issue for state officials to decide. “I assume the people in Mississippi will look at what ever complaints are filed,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday when asked to comment on Cruz’s call for an investigation in to voter fraud. “That is what typically happens in a post election situation if there are complaints filed they are dealt with at the state level.” “I think it’s pretty clear who won. Sen. [Thad Cochran, R-Miss.,] ran a...

The unaccompanied children from Central American crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally should be deported except in extreme circumstances, according to House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer. “We have an immediate humanitarian crisis that confronts this country, we also have a crisis in terms of this country cannot continue to absorb, nor should it, a limitless number of people who — particularly children who want to cross our border,” Hoyer told reporters Tuesday. According to the Democratic whip the influx is unsustainable in the U.S. “We cannot give these children sanctuary except in extraordinary circumstances. Obviously we have refugee status and protective...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is so angry over the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in the Hobby Lobby contraception case last week that he apparently forgot Justice Clarence Thomas is black. The Nevada Democrat lamented the court’s ruling which allows Hobby Lobby and other for-profit companies with religious objections to certain forms of contraception to avoid providing them to employees in health insurance plans mandated under Obamacare. Hobby Lobby approves of 16 out of 20 forms of contraception that have been approved by the FDA. “People are going to have to walk down here and vote, and if they vote...

Despite Sarah Palin's calls, the president won't be impeached. But here's how her demand normalizes other lunacy. “By the Grace of God,” the English used to say, when asked by what authority their monarch ruled. “Divine right” was the answer, and that was that – you didn’t have to like the queen, but God did, and that’s why she was in charge. Simpler times, those were. Today, former GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin announced her belief that President Obama should be impeached. Last week, Speaker of the House John Boehner announced his intention to launch the first congressional lawsuit against...

Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., got lost on his way to a Senate Republican luncheon on Tuesday and ended up at the Democrats' gathering instead, the Hill reported. The Mississippi senator, who recently won an intensely ugly primary election against Tea Party-backed candidate Chris McDaniel, apparently forgot where he was going while navigating the halls of Congress. “After exiting a Senate elevator on the wrong floor” Cochran re-boarded, the report notes. “He then found the right floor but turned away from the Senate GOP luncheon, a few yards from the elevator, to stroll the opposite direction, arriving at the Democrats' weekly...

In a press conference on Monday, Mitch Tyner, lead counsel for the McDaniel campaign, announced their intentions to challenge the outcome of the June 24 run-off election against 6 term incumbent Senator Thad Cochran, who McDaniel defeated on June 3, but did not meet the required 50% +1 thresh-hold, setting the stage for the run-off, and all of the race baiting, illegal vote buying, and more by the Cochran campaign.(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Video courtesy iizthatiiz Tyner is confident they will find enough votes to surpass the amount Cochran won the election by. We’re hearing they have already identified over 5000, with more...