Free Republic

Tech entrepreneur Scott Banister has long been an ally to the liberty movement. The angel investor, IronPort founder, and PayPal board member donated $3 million to a Rand Paul supporting Super PAC, and has been a vocal supporter of the libertarian Republican. Now that Rand Paul is out of the presidential race, Banister has thrown his support behind Ted Cruz. Cruz is a self-described constitutional conservative who earned the endorsements of both Rand and Ron Paul in his 2012 Texas Senate race. Scott Banister Our best chance for a constitutional presidency is now @tedcruz. #LibertariansForCruz Cruz's relationship with the Pauls...

George Will on Primary Race (video)

(CNN)--How much does Lindsey Graham dislike Ted Cruz? Count the ways. On the question of foreign policy, the Texas senator is "just as wrong as Obama, if not worse," Graham told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Thursday. "In Ted Cruz's world, dictators do very well," he continued, comparing his colleague's foreign policy to that of Ron Paul, the former congressman, Republican presidential candidate and long-time leading libertarian. Asked why his fellow senators are reputed to have such a distaste for Cruz, Graham accused the winner of the Iowa GOP caucuses of being an "opportunist" to his core -- one who "gets...

Knocking on doors for Ted Cruz...

Texas senator Ted Cruz appears to have the support of a plurality of the most active local Republicans after winning the straw poll Thursday night at the final Sumter County GOP meeting before the South Carolina primary.Cruz, whose campaign also sent surrogates to the meeting to speak on his behalf, received 33 percent of the vote among the partisan crowd, well ahead of Presidential hopefuls Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson, each of whom received 15 percent in the straw poll to finish tied for second. Florida senator Marco Rubio finished fourth in the poll, with 13 percent.Slightly surprisingly, the...

The liberty movement must help elect Senator Ted Cruz the next President of the United States. Many of us in the liberty movement saw the handwriting on the wall some time ago, as far as the Rand Paul campaign was concerned. He came in a distant fifth in Iowa, a state many thought he would win a year ago. His polling looked bleak in the other early states, and he was short on resources. He likely could have gone on, but instead, suspended his campaign Wednesday morning. He'll focus on securing re-election to the Senate, which he should easily accomplish....

I think we now know why Ben Carson and his campaign are making such a fuss over Ted Cruz’s campaign. The Cruz camp took advantage of the Carson campaign’s misstep in Iowa. The Carson campaign generated headlines that Carson was packing it up after Iowa and heading back to Florida. It read to a lot of people, including the Cruz camp, that Carson was dropping out.No, according to Carson, he just needed clean clothes.But since then, the Carson camp has bludgeoned Ted Cruz’s campaign for daring to rapidly respond to Carson’s news far more rapidly than Carson walked it back....

he establishment media and Iowa Caucus losers Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Marco Rubio have been savaging Ted Cruz and his campaign team for the tactics that helped Senator Cruz win the Hawkeye State's first-in-the-nation election contest. But we think that Republicans, and especially conservatives, should celebrate the fact that they have a candidate and a campaign team in the race that are smart, technologically savvy, in the moment, right on the issues and ruthless enough to use every issue and advantage they can identify to win. First, let's knockdown the ludicrous charge by Donald Trump (repeated to our disappointment...

Philadelphia (CBS) – Chris Stigall criticized presidential candidates Ben Carson and Donald Trump for blaming Ted Cruz after rumors were spread by his supporters in the moments before the Iowa Caucus that Carson was dropping out and returning home to Florida.Stigall, on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, said this entire controversy is Carson’s fault for running such a poor campaign and making mistakes that can be exploited by his opponents.“These people are in perpetual, constant dog fights. On the mic, off the mic, on the camera, off the camera, on Twitter, they’re never off, they’re never off, they never go away....

Markeece Young is a nationally recognized political blogger and activist. As a former Democrat he now dedicates his time to reaching minority and millennials voters to the right...

In the announcement speech for his presidential campaign, Donald Trump railed against Obamacare. "We have a disaster called the big lie: Obamacare," Trump declared. "I would repeal and replace the big lie, Obamacare." Well, that sounds like something a Republican candidate would say. But there is one problem: Trump helped finance the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006 - which put in place the liberal majority that passed Obamacare over the objections of congressional Republicans. And he continued to support a Democratic Senate majority after Obamacare...

Donald Trump is blaming rival Ted Cruz - wrongly - for President Barack Obama's health care law. Trump says Cruz is "the one that got Justice Roberts onto the United States Supreme Court. He pushed him, he approved him and Justice Roberts approved Obamacare twice when it should have been rejected." Trump says, "Ted Cruz gave us Obamacare." Cruz did indeed support John Roberts' nomination. But Roberts was confirmed in 2005, years before Cruz was elected to the Senate. Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler says, "Trump's claim is ridiculous, especially considering that he has advocated and supported a single-payer health care...

Ex-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin launched her political action fund, Sarah PAC, in 2009 with the stated purpose "to help elect principled conservative leaders" across the country. But the latest Federal Election Commission filing indicates that money raised in small contributions by Sarah PAC is going to consultants, speech-writing services, direct-mail appeals, as well as stays by Palin in fancy hotels. Sarah PAC raised $950,000 in 2015, spent a total of $1.4 million, and donated just 23,500 to 45 campaigns. It also...

Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt joined Dave and I to talk Ted...no not Ted Talks, Ted Cruz. Attorney General Laxalt will be stumping for Ted all across the state leading up to the Republican Nevada Caucus February 23rd, he believes that Senator Cruz is the best candidate, not only for the Country but for Nevada. One of the biggest issues in the west and specifically in Nevada is the amount of Federally controlled lands, something Attorney General Laxalt has been fighting against and he believes Senator Cruz would be the best candidate to help champion that fight.

Good morning from Augusta, where a large group of Republican legislators and activists is set to endorse presidential hopeful Ted Cruz on Thursday. Between 40 and 50 legislators will hold a noon news conference at the State House to announce support for the Texas senator, who won the Iowa caucuses on Monday, finishing ahead of runner-up Donald Trump and the third-place Marco Rubio...

I know there are some of you who are willing to do what it takes to win but you want to make sure you do so with character and integrity. There's a line you don't want to cross. You are fine going up to that line and doing whatever you can that is within bounds but you don't want to cross that line and I am totally with you on that. I am going to walk you through this faux outrage story regarding Ben Carson and Ted Cruz. I'm going to walk you through a timeline but before I do,...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has openly attacked Donald Trump and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on the trail for months, but his campaign has been working behind the scenes to diminish another top opponent: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, the governor's son, held a private call with grassroots supporters on Wednesday and sought to reassure them that the Iowa caucus, which Cruz won, was an "aberration."...

After years of running up against unconstitutional federal education mandates imposed on states using bribes and bludgeoning from Washington, D.C., a group of parents and grassroots education activists from across America is launching a fresh effort to shut down the U.S. Department of Education once and for all. The mission: "Stop Fed Ed." In the crosshairs is everything from dumbed-down "standards" such as the Obama-backed Common Core nationalization of schooling and associated federal testing regimes, to the deeply controversial federal data gathering and data mining encouraged and financed largely by the feds. The group hopes to pressure Congress into ending...

The one question left unanswered amid the fight over campaigns sharing media reports about Ben Carson dropping out is why the report was so easy to believe in the first place.  Carson’s campaign has been a series of stops and starts over the past few months – with a smattering of book promotion in between.  It is through that prism that Carson’s Florida swing to pick up his laundry was viewed. But first, a look at what happened on caucus night is in order.  Yes, CNN reported that it was “unusual” for a candidate who is “serious” about winning to...

The establishment has spent the past few weeks warning conservatives that Ted Cruz is simply too mean and nasty to be the Republican Party's nominee for president. "We'll lose if he's our nominee," said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah."His ability to grow the vote of the Republican Party is almost zero," said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham."There's no doubt he has harmed relationships," added Sen. John McCain of Arizona."There'll be wholesale losses if he's the nominee," former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole warned. "Our party is not that far right."Aside from their moderate political philosophy and a shared loathing of Cruz,...