Free Republic

In our first ranking of the very large and very unsettled 2016 Republican presidential field back in April of last year, we decided to not even include the name of one of the brightest stars in the GOP universe: Jeb Bush. We just didnÂ’t think, at the time, that the former Florida governor and brother and son of presidents was all that interested in running.But during 2013 and into this new year, weÂ’ve gotten the sense, like many others, that things might be changing. So much so that we now consider Bush the leader of the field if he decides...

Two things happened over the weekend in the race for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. 1. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul led the field in a national poll conducted by CNN/ORC International. 2. Paul won the straw poll at the Northeast Republican Leadership Conference. 3. Those two events come just a week after Paul cruised to another 2016 straw poll victory at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Add those things up and it's quite clear that Paul is the candidate of the moment on the Republican side. There's no one -- not even Ted Cruz or Jeb Bush -- who has...

Mike Huckabee had asked me to send him my picture. He’d be sans entourage for our meeting at a Starbucks near Fox News’s midtown Manhattan headquarters, and he wanted to be able to pick me out of the crowd. Sure enough, at the appointed hour, he’s waving at me through the glass walls before he even makes it through the entrance. The barista line is long; since Huckabee hasn’t brought anyone to stand in it for him, coffee is forgone. “We’ll do our work,” Huckabee says with a shrug. Later, after he realizes he has been droning on, he implores,...

Opening a door to hedge his political bets, Sen. Rand Paul has asked the leader of the Kentucky Senate for legislation to ensure that Mr. Paul can run both for the White House and for re-election to the U.S. Senate in 2016, The Washington Times has learned. “Yes, I am working on clarifying an ambiguous state law that Rand Paul believes is unconstitutional if it is interpreted to bar running for re-election to the Senate and for president at the same time,” Kentucky Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer told The Times on Monday. “The purpose of the bill will be...

If the next president wins two terms, regardless of the party, the Supreme Court could reach a near ideological monopoly unknown in the post-World War II era of American History, perhaps a monopoly never achieved since FDR's eight Supreme Court nominations. However, FDR presided during a time when both parties had liberal and conservative wings; therefore, there was more ideological overlap in a judicial nomination, even if he/she was from the opposing party. With two deeply divided parties, the next president has a crucial influence on the future of the Supreme Court that is rarely discussed as we get closer...

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal’s latest moves indicate he is gearing up for a presidential bid. Though Jindal skewered Mitt Romney just a week after the 2012 election, he’s now turning to the Romney camp in an effort to beef up his fundraising operation. Sources say he is looking to tap Romney’s vast donor network and has asked Romney’s finance director, Spencer Zwick, for an assist with introductions to some of the Romney campaign’s top givers. A number of the GOP’s likely Republican presidential candidates, including Rand Paul, are looking to Zwick to make these introductions. That’s in part a rite...

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick signaled Sunday that he would be open to a White House bid at some point, though the governor has previously ruled out seeking the presidency in 2016. Asked in an interview whether he could see himself as a national candidate — not necessarily in 2016 — the second-term Democrat responded: “Maybe. Maybe.” “That’s a decision I have to make along with my wife of 30 years, and she’s a tough one to convince,” Patrick said. Prodded further, the former Justice Department official responded: “Let’s just see what time tells.” Only the second African-American elected governor of...

Allen West, the fast-talking former congressman and tea-party hero, isn’t ruling out a presidential bid come 2016. “No one should ever sit around and say, ‘I want to be president,’” the retired lieutenant colonel tells me. “That’s a position that somebody needs to be called to serve.” West, who spent 22 years in the U.S. Army and one term in Congress before losing his bid for reelection in 2012, says he will always be ready to serve his country. “You have to have yourself in a position to be available for your country and to be obedient to God’s will,”...

Ask Mitt Romney if he would run for president a third time, and he will deny it every which way. “I’ve had my turn,” he told CNN. “We’re so ready to watch the next person step up and take that nomination,” his wife told Fox News. “Oh, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no,” Romney told The New York Times. But in recent weeks, a strange thing has happened: Some supporters and donors, pollsters and pundits are starting to suggest — without irony — that the former Massachusetts governor run for president in 2016. “Once a...

Sources close to MSNBC host Joe Scarborough think he is seriously considering the prospect of leaving morning television to run for president in 2016. Last week, Scarborough was all smiles — even letting out a laugh — on “Morning Joe” when Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol suggested on the air that Scarborough could represent the “Jon Huntsman lane” in a 2016 GOP primary. But behind the scenes, those who know Scarborough are not laughing. It’s widely believed at MSNBC — including among network brass — that Scarborough is actively mulling a presidential bid, sources said. Meanwhile, some of Scarborough’s guests...

With Chris Christie still stuck in a traffic scandal at the foot of the George Washington Bridge, the donors and Main Street Republicans who make up the bulk of the GOP center-right establishment can be forgiven for feeling a little nervous. If Christie fades, this cohort, which boosted both Mitt Romney and John McCain to the nomination, fear that a Tea Party-fueled candidate will take over the party, leading to a drubbing at the hands of the Democrats come November 2016. Thus hopes have turned to Jeb Bush as a possible savior, even though the Florida governor has been out...

One poll showing him ahead is a fluke. Two polls showing him ahead? We call that “momentum.”I’m not in the habit of making pledges, but I promise you this: I will never, ever tire of trolling you guys with numbers showing Huck as some sort of contender for the nomination. Ever. Fourteen percent of Republicans and independents who lean toward the GOP say they would likely support Huckabee for their party’s nomination if he runs.Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is next at 13% followed by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Christie tied at 10%…That’s a change from November, when...

"“OK, Bill, you’ve got a long list of my mistakes,” "

President Obama’s high school pot dealer who he thanked in his yearbook for the 'good times' was beaten to death by his lover after a series of fights over flatulence and drugs, MailOnline can reveal today. Raymond Boyer, known as 'Gay Ray' to Obama and his marijuana smoking 'Choom Gang', was bludgeoned to death with a hammer seven years after he sold the future president and his friends drugs. His lover Andrew Devere, a male prostitute, gave police a laundry list of reasons for the killing, including that Boyer, a surfer and unemployed chef, constantly put him down, made him...

alk about campaign trail déjà vu. As hundreds of bundled-up supporters gathered around him on a freezing January day, Rick Santorum towered over a lectern and rallied his troops. Aides pecking at smartphones lined the perimeter of the hotel conference room. An army of young children scurried across the floor. Volunteers collected email addresses and phone numbers at a fold-up table near the door. The people, the “candidate” — even the weather — gave the event a presidential primary campaign feel. But this scene played out in the Capitol Hill Hyatt in Washington, not a Sheraton in West Des Moines...

Part of the progressive agenda is to create hate and envy. One component of that agenda is to attack the large differences between a corporation's chief executive officer's earnings and those of its average worker. CNNMoney published salary comparisons in "Fortune 50 CEO pay vs. our salaries." Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf's annual salary is $2.8 million. CNN shows that it takes 66 Wells Fargo employees, whose average salary is $42,400, to match Stumpf's salary. It takes 57 Wal-Mart employees, who earn $22,100 on average, to match CEO Michael Duke's $1.3 million. At General Electric, 44 employees earning $75,300 a...

WASHINGTON — Worse than Richard Nixon. An unprecedented abuse of powers. The most un-American president in the nation’s history. Nat Hentoff does not think much of President Obama. And now, the famous journalist says it is time to begin looking into impeachment. Hentoff sees the biggest problem as Obama’s penchant to rule by executive order when he can’t convince Congress to do things his way. The issue jumped back into the headlines last week when, just before his first Cabinet meeting of 2014, Obama said, “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone … and I can use that...

A prosecutor who was sacked after attempting to indict Chris Christie's political cronies for corruption told MailOnline today about his ordeal at the hands of the New Jersey Governor's 'mafia.' Bennett Barlyn, a prosecutor for 18 years in New Jersey’s Hunterdon County, has spoken out following the revelations over the Bridgegate scandal to reveal his firsthand account of being fired and shamed at the hands of Christie and his political henchmen. He said there were parallels between a criminal case he tried to prosecute – before, he says, it was unlawfully dismissed – and the Bridgegate scandal, where Christie’s staff...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie just endured the worst week of his five years in elected office, battered by a scandal involving traffic jams as political payback and implicating several top — and now former — aides. And yet, Christie still holds down the top spot in our rankings of the 2016 Republican field — a sign of both the considerable strengths he retains in the race and the lack of an obvious challenger to his dominance. Make no mistake: Bridge-gate has hurt Christie and slowed, badly, the considerable momentum he built during a sweeping reelection victory in 2013. But,...