Free Republic

Both political parties like to reinforce the image of Democrats embracing government regulations while Republicans fight them but a new study from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University shows that, as George Gershwin might put it, “It ain’t necessarily so.” Barack Obama “President Obama not only oversaw the greatest increase in regulatory restrictions in a single term, his first, but as of 2014 he edged past President George W. Bush as the president with the greatest total increase in restrictions since 1976,” Patrick McLaughlin and Oliver Sherouse write. “Presidents Carter and George H. W. Bush both had increases of...

This is from Mark Levin's radio show today, 13 August 2015. The best part starts 18 minutes into the show when Levin reads Ronald Reagan's 1977 speech where he talks about The New Republican Party.

Former First Lady Nancy Reagan is inviting 16 Republican presidential candidates to participate in the CNN/Reagan Library presidential debate on September 16. Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, who participated in the debate of lower-tier candidates last week, has not yet been invited. Candidates must achieve an average of at least 1% of support in three recognized national polls before September 10 to be included in the debate, as well as meeting other criteria. The top 10 contenders who made it into the primetime Fox News/Facebook debate last week - Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Ted...

It was 88 years ago this month that President Calvin Coolidge handed out strips of paper (that he cut himself) to members of the press during a brief conference with these words: I do not choose to run for President in 1928. This stunning event took place at the Summer White House in the Black Hills of South Dakota on August 2, 1927. The implications of Coolidge not actively seeking the Republican presidential nomination for 1928 reverberate to this day. While the terse phrasing appeared to leave the door open for a draft movement, the result was that Herbert Hoover...

...“The American people,” (Carter White House chief of staff) Hamilton Jordan said, “are not going to elect a seventy-year old, right-wing, ex-movie actor to be president.” So went one of the much reported views of the day on Ronald Reagan, this one by President Jimmy Carter’s White House chief of staff and campaign manager.

First, Republicans tried calling Donald Trump too conservative. When that didn’t work, they started calling him too liberal. The fact that Trump occasionally donated to Democrats (usually Democrats who could help him get real estate built in New York, mind you) has caused many of his rivals to accuse Trump of being a lefty, ridiculous as that may sound. However, one recently-unearthed picture tells the truth about The Donald: Yes, that’s Trump, posing with the greatest Republican president since Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan. And Reagan was certainly no lefty or RINO. If that’s not enough, here’s video of Trump praising...

Another GREAT speech by Carly at Reagan Library...and received a long standing ovation at end. The Q&A was just as impressive!

Ever since Donald Trump announced he was seeking the White House, his foot has rarely left his mouth. Yet voters are still enamored by him. Why? He couldn’t make it through his announcement speech without calling Mexican immigrants rapists and vowing to build a wall that he would make Mexico pay for to keep them out. This, of course, led to business partners including NBC and Macy’s to sever ties with Trump, but that didn’t stop him. (VIDEO-AT-LINK) While most candidates would realize their mistake and back down, Trump did exactly the opposite. In a way only he could, Trump...

Am I the only one who has noticed that Donald Trump stole Ronald Reagan's c campaign slogan from 1980?

Presidential campaigns from across the political field are releasing fundraising reports on Wednesday, but supporters of Ted Cruz already celebrated this past weekend. A week after announcing they had raised $52 million, the Texas senator met in Colorado Springs with about 45 of his top bundlers this weekend at The Broadmoor, a luxury resort at the foot of the Cheyenne Mountains, to celebrate the haul. Thanks to a mix of grassroots donors and a few billionaires, Cruz's supporters boast a position few anticipated: Second place in the crowded and competitive GOP fundraising race. In between expeditions of fly fishing and...

President Obama has two routes for getting the Iran nuclear deal approved by Congress. The more difficult path involves attempting to woo Republicans, though they've already vowed to kill the deal. Or Obama could just shore up support among Democrats so when he vetoes the GOP's "resolution of disapproval" Congress won't have the votes to override him. Supposedly the White House has not settled on which path it will pursue, but Obama's decision to invoke the name of the GOP's favorite human in explaining his rationale for the deal suggests he isn't all that concerned about angering them further.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s devastating opinions on same-sex marriage and Obamacare, some conservatives are asking themselves: Has America reached the point when we have become like ancient Rome in its final days, all bread and circuses, that we cannot make our way back to the ideas on which we were founded? Do the actual words of the Constitution matter anymore? Should we give up the fight for limited, constitutional government and simply accept that the left has won? Of course not! Conservatives have never been quitters as two of our greatest heroes—Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan—demonstrated when...

In his weekly presidential report card, pollster John Zogby found that President Obama's legacy was greatly improved by two key Supreme Court decisions, endorsing same sex marriage and Obamacare, and passage of controversial trade agreements. "There have been some bad weeks and some less than stellar ones. This one was the kind of week that most presidents can only dream about." A GOP Congress passed the largest free trade pact with the largest market in the world. "The Supreme Court voted 6-3 to uphold 'state' subsidies under Obamacare." "A combination of major southern states and retailers vowed to stop manufacturing, selling,...

The origins of Friday's landmark Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage can be traced back almost 30 years to the Senate's confirmation process for justices. Officials in President Ronald Reagan’s administration, reeling after two failed nominees to the court, were looking for a reliable conservative who could get Senate confirmation. They found him in U.S. Circuit Judge Anthony Kennedy. But CQ's review of documents in the Reagan Library in California found the president's aides identified "disturbing aspects" in Kennedy's record. Foremost among them: Kennedy's actions in a gay rights case. Kennedy on Friday cast the deciding vote and wrote the...

I was in Secret Service headquarters when they told me about former President Ronald Reagan’s biggest secret. I write fiction for a living, but in my thrillers, I try to get the details right. So what better way to understand how a President lives for my newest thriller than by spending time with the Secret Service agents who spend so much time with him? So there I was, on my tour of Secret Service headquarters. The agents had taken me into a small museum they have on the premises. It’s a room lined with photos of Presidents and archival exhibit...

At Powerline this week, Steve Hayward penned a post aptly entitled “The Insincerity of Rand Paul.” The senator’s legal arguments against the Patriot Act, he posits, mimic papa Ron Paul’s 2003 calls for a formal declaration of war against Iraq: mere “constitutional punctilio to cover his real feelings.” Steve is right. Congress statutorily authorized the use of military force in Iraq. Nothing more was constitutionally required. The real reason for Representative Ron Paul’s formalistic nattering about a declaration of war was his opposition to American intervention in Iraq. That, in turn, was driven by his theory that it was American...

President Reagan's Address at a United States-France Ceremony Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion/D-Day - 6/6/84

3:08 video: Governor Scott Walker’s Interview with Young America Foundation Reflects on Reagan’s “A Time for Choosing” SpeechGov. Scott Walker: “You can give that speech [Ronald Reagan's "A Time for Choosing"] today, not tell people who it was, just play it, play the audio, and I think people would find it just as compelling today as it was the day he gave it.”[Oct 1964] .................." “President Obama and his allies tend to measure success in government by how many people depend on the government, how many people are on medicare, food-stamp, unemployment. We instead, we the conservatives measure success in...

-as a nation, anyway But with stupidity and ingratitude in fashion -and meritocracy out of style-  who has time to hear about Reagan's towering success? Some of us in this country do still honor Ronald Reagan's memory -and heed the lessons of his glowing example, i.e. Ted Cruz- and yesterday, Fri June 5th was the 11th anniversary of The Gipper's passing- hard to imagine missing another politician the way I do this very, very great man. Sure wish he was here to talk some sense into our wayward nation...  and smack the beatniks, losers, and communist agitators upside the head. Nancy Reagan places flowers on Ronald...

Soviet Communism, the dark tyranny that controlled nearly 40 nations and was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 100 million victims during the 20th century, suddenly collapsed 20 years ago without a shot being fired. In just two years--from 1989 to 1991--the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union disintegrated, and Marxism- Leninism was dumped unceremoniously on the ash heap of history. There was dancing in the street and champagne toasts on top of the Brandenburg Gate. For 40 years, the United States and the West had been following a policy of containment, détente, accommodation. Ronald Reagan decided it was...