Free Republic

The friendly fire directed at Sen. Ted Cruz from establishment Republicans is giving the Texan first-in-line status among Tea Party supporters and building a base for him to run for president, according to a new analysis from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.“To the establishment, Cruz is the embodiment of all the forces conspiring to threaten the GOP's long-term viability. And, on a personal level, they also just can't stand Cruz: He drives them crazy,” wrote Kyle Kondik in Center Director Larry Sabato's popular Crystal Ball.But, added Kondik, the “venom” directed at Cruz, whose effort to defund Obamacare...

All we've been hearing the last three years is if you like your policy you can keep it.... I'm infuriated because I was lied to," one woman told this newspaper, as part of a story on how some middle-class Californians have been stunned to learn the real costs of Obamacare. And that lie looks like the biggest lie about domestic policy ever uttered by a U.S. president. The most famous presidential lies have to do with misconduct (Richard Nixon's "I am not a crook" or Bill Clinton's "I did not have sexual relations") or war. Woodrow Wilson campaigned on the...

<p>Heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko announced his intention to run for president of Ukraine in 2015.</p> <p>The older brother of fellow heavyweight champ Wladimir Klitschko declared his candidacy in front of the Ukrainian parliament during a speech Thursday.</p> <p>Klitschko hasn't fought since defending his WBC belt against Manuel Charr in 2012. He was scheduled to make a mandatory title defense against Bermane Stiverne last month but pulled out, saying he had a right hand injury.</p>

Presidential Soros donates big bucks, joins Ready for Hillary national finance council Billionaire investor and hedge fund titan George Soros is backing an effort to lure Hillary Clinton into a 2016 White House bid. Soros signed on to be a co-chair for Ready for Hillary, a super PAC trying to trump up support for a presidential run by Clinton. “We are proud to welcome George Soros as one of the co-chairs of @ReadyForHillary’s national finance council,” the organization tweeted Thursday afternoon. Soros’ political director, Michael Vachon, said in a statement that the 83-year-old is “delighted to join more than 1...

Don’t donate to the tea party or to evangelical Christian groups — that was the message soldiers at a pre-deployment briefing at Fort Hood said they received from a counter-intelligence agent who headed up the meeting.If you do, you could face punishment — that was the other half of the message, as reported by Fox News.The briefing was Oct. 17, and about a half-hour of it was devoted to discussion about how perceived radical groups — like tea party organizations and the Christian-based American Family Association — were "tearing the country apart," one unnamed soldier said, to Fox News.Among the...

FORT WORTH (CBS 11 NEWS) – A surprising statement from one of Texas’ top leaders: President Obama should be impeached. This came from Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, who is running for re-election and appeared at a Tea Party candidates forum. Dewhurst warned that freedoms are being trampled on, and so the President should be impeached. Later he fleshed out his thoughts for the Texas Observer’s Christopher Hooks. “I think this President, Barack Obama, has disregarded federal law. He has tried to do things which are not authorized under federal law. Things he’s disregarded such as immigration. He’s not, not...

Sen. Ted Cruz confronted President Barack Obama over his health care law during a meeting at the White House Friday attended by dozens of GOP senators. Cruz told Obama that any deal to reopen the government must also provide relief for those negatively affected by Obamacare. In a long gaggle with reporters, Cruz did not use the word “defund” to describe his aspirations for changes to the health care law, but said he wants “substantial” changes. “I told the president exactly the same thing I have told you here today: That we need to work together and fund the government...

SAN FRANCISCO—The government shutdown is beginning to ensnare a lot of people and businesses who didn't think it had anything to do with them. On Wednesday, a random canvassing of spurned visitors outside the Cliff House—a tourist spot perched above the Pacific Ocean at the city's western edge—revealed that even those related to President Barack Obama aren't immune. Two members of the president's extended family were denied entry to the historic dining establishment, which is privately operated but has been ordered to close because it is on national park land. Virginia Goeldner, 78 years old, Mr. Obama's maternal great aunt,...

I want this to be a Ted Cruz thread, we need to support him with all we have in us.

WASHINGTON — Shortly before the federal government shut down at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, a small group of top White House officials huddled in the West Wing for what turned out to be a discussion of critical importance: how to run the place. They listened as soon-to-be-furloughed junior staff members showed them how to send a news release, issue a proclamation and distribute daily reports of President Obama’s activities. One crucial piece of information was how to clear someone through the security gates for Oval Office appointments. “I didn’t know how to do that before Monday night,” said Josh Earnest, the...

Hollywood put out some great movies in 1939, films such as Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. But one movie that year—now largely forgotten—served a purpose even greater than helping a Depression-ravaged American public forget their dire straights, not to mention the storm clouds gathering around the world. It was called, Code of the Secret Service, and it starred a handsome young actor named Ronald Reagan. Jerry Parr was nine years old the day his dad took him to a Miami theater to see Reagan play a...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) narrowly leads the pack of potential GOP contenders in 2016, according to a new poll. If the GOP presidential primary were held today, 17 percent of GOP voters would elect Paul, according to a new Quinnipiac Poll released Wednesday. He leads among Tea Party Republicans as well, with 22 percent. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie rates second with 13 percent, followed by Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) with 12 percent and Jeb Bush with 11 percent. Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) garner 10 percent. Nineteen percent of Republicans are undecided. Rubio’s numbers have...

Day 2 of the government shutdown, and look out the window. The sun is still shining, and the sky is still blue. The birds are chirping. The Great Government Shutdown is not that big a deal, even for the government. The federal civilian workforce includes 2.9 million bureaucrats. Out of that, only 800,000 are being furloughed, or just 27%. Even for these workers, the shutdown just amounts to a paid vacation for a few days. Just like the overballyhood sequester, average Americans won’t notice any change in their lives at all. But for those you who are offended and indignant...

Fresh off his 21-hour filibuster against Obamacare funding, a new poll shows that Sen. Ted Cruz has leapfrogged past his potential rivals for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination and that GOP primary voters trust him more than their party leaders on Capitol Hill. The Public Policy Polling survey found that 20 percent of those surveyed supported Mr. Cruz, Texas Republican, while 17 percent supposed Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, 14 percent supported New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and 11 percent supported former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SEE ALSO: Sen. Ted Cruz says he speaks for most Americans about stopping...

Since Franklin Roosevelt, every modern U.S. president has opened his own presidential library. On Friday, President George Washington, the nation’s first, finally will get his turn, as a state-of-the-art presidential library is christened in his honor. Washington’s beloved Mount Vernon steps into a bold new era with the formal opening of The Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington. Some 800 dignitaries, officials, and VIPs will be on hand to witness the unveiling of a library purpose-built to preserve the original books and papers from Gen. Washington’s personal collection. Noted historian and best-selling author David McCullough...

The defeat of Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner in the primaries Sept. 10 should make Hillary Clinton very nervous. Clinton, of course, wants to be president, although she hasn’t officially announced it yet. Spitzer and Weiner were running for public office again despite very public sex scandals. We all know about Bill Clinton’s sexploits. But do we know everything about Hillary’s?

Yes, strong statement that the US elects Serial Killers as President. Really? This lady deserves to be in jail. (The Hill) Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that it “would be a very strong statement” for the U.S. to elect a female president. Clinton was asked “how important” it would be for the U.S. to elect a female president by moderator Sanjay Gupta during a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative. “That is a question that I will answer taking myself totally out of it,” she said, according to The Washington Post. She then added: “The idea...

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are expressing misgivings about President Obama's potential meeting with Iran's new president on the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York next week. The White House said Friday that the president was “ready to engage” with Rouhani, further adding to the speculation that the two could meet face-to-face in what would be the first such encounter since the two countries broke off diplomatic ties in 1980. Several lawmakers believe such a meeting would be a mistake, empowering Iran before it has made any real concessions on its alleged nuclear weapons program....

President Barack Obama says that he is less concerned with scoring “style points” for his improvisational handling of the Syria crisis than in “getting the policy right.” This dismissive defense comes at the precise moment that Washington is awash in brutal critiques of the Obama leadership style. The president’s harried, serial about-faces on Syria — coupled with the collapse of Larry Summers's candidacy for chairmanship of the Federal Reserve — have combined to highlight some enduring limitations of Obama’s approach to decision-making, public persuasion and political management. Across the capital, anxious friends and chortling enemies alike are asking: What’s wrong...

<p>He was born of a mixed race parentage, who graduated from Columbia University, and worked as a community organizer, before being elected president. He has now announced his resignation.</p>