Free Republic

Cap and trade legislation may be one of the biggest issues facing the oil and gas industry according to Dr. Daniel Fine, Associate of Policy, Strategy and Development at New Mexico Tech. He also serves on the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy which is hosting the presentation by former Shell Oil executive, John Hofmeister tonight. “What is the purpose to cap and trade?” asks Fine. “Is the purpose to raise revenue? Is the purpose to lower CO2? Or both?” The bill (Waxman-Markey) coming out of the U.S. House of Representatives claims both purposes without a clear policy declaration.

He now will be challenging the 8-year incumbent party chair, who is seeking a fifth term in the wake of the defeat suffered by the local GOP in the 2008 elections, and amid lingering questions about the recent management of the county party.

Nearly all dissatisfied with the administration's policies and almost half saying they are "angry" about them...

Sarah Palin is keeping a tight lid on her political ambitions for 2012, but her influence on other would-be politicians can by seen by the growing number of women she has inspired to seek public office. Sarah Palin is keeping a tight lid on her political ambitions for 2012, but her influence on other would-be politicians can by seen by the growing number of women she has inspired to seek public office. The 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate's conservative philosophies and her folksy, hockey-mom approach to politics have galvanized other mothers to launch political campaigns -- at all levels of...

Looking toward the 2012 presidential primaries and election, one must ask, whether the Republicans can nominate a candidate that has the convictions of the founding fathers, the good looks of Kennedy, and the public relations of Reagan. Our current president has seen his favorable rating drop. He spoke of change but has proven himself a true blue liberal, even bordering on Marxist. So then, the question needs to be asked, Who will replace Obama as our national chief?

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-LA, has been in the spotlight since her vote Saturday, allowing debate to begin on the national healthcare bill. Included in the deal, Landrieu secured as much as $300 million for Louisiana's Medicaid program, something she said Gov. Bobby Jindal asked for, leaving him in a sticky situation. "It is the number one request of my governor, who is a Republican," Landrieu said Saturday on the Senate floor. She told her fellow senators she is proud of the move she made Saturday. She voted to allow debate on the national healthcare bill...

House Republicans have floated ten points they think are strong enough to vet candidates. Further, as the preamble suggestions, they foist these ten points out there as if they reflect the believes of conservatives. They are insultingly weak. My comments [are in italics and bracketed].

Abortion Activist Judge Hamilton Confirmed with Help of Ten Republican Senators by James Tillman and John-Henry Westen WASHINGTON, DC, November 20, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Senate voted 59-39 yesterday to confirm President Obama's first circuit court appointee, the pro-abortion Judge David Hamilton. Although hailed as moderate by various news sources and dubbed "thoughtful and distinguished" by President Obama, many conservatives have condemned him as a judicial activist who places his own preferences above the law. "As a judge, Hamilton has shown himself to be soft on crime, radically pro-abortion, and hostile towards religion," wrote a group of prominent conservatives upon...

The Republican party wonders why conservatives are so disappointed with it?Another glowing example of the problems confronting the Republican party occurred yesterday.  The Senate Republicans had the opportunity to force a full reading of the Senate's proposed health care bill so that every bit of the 2,200 pages would be made public by the reading, and so the people could become much better informed about its contents before it is passed...if it is passed.  It had the opportunity to really hold the Democrats' feet to the fire over this abominable excuse for legislation that is being crammed down the throats...

A Denver-area businessman has formed an exploratory committee to look into running for the suburban 7th District congressional seat now held by U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter. Jimmy Lakey, a Republican who owns concert-promotion and artist-management companies... is concerned with the growing size and scope of government and with “reckless spending” in Washington... Perlmutter, G-Golden, has held the 7th District seat representing parts of Adams, Arapahoe and Jefferson counties since 2007... The seat was previously held by Republican Bob Beauprez, who stepped down for an unsuccessful gubernatorial run against Bill Ritter. Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier, a Republican, already has filed...

November 19, 2009 Brown, Whitman tied in new Rasmussen poll With nearly a year until the general election, a new Rasmussen Reports poll puts GOP gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman and still-undeclared Democratic contender Jerry Brown locked in a tie with 41 percent support a piece. The results show Whitman gaining traction since a September Rasmussen survey, in which Brown outpolled Whitman 44 percent to 35 percent. Whitman's two rivals for the Republican nomination, former U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell and Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner trailed Brown in the telephone survey of 500 likely voters. Brown came out nine-points ahead of Campbell...

Asian voters switching to Republicans? Prowling through the election returns in the governor races two weeks ago, I was surprised to find that Middlesex County, New Jersey, voted for Republican Chris Christie over Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine by a 48%-44% margin, almost exactly the same as Christie’s 49%-45% statewide margin. Middlesex County has been a Democratic county for as long as I have been studying election returns (going back to the 1960 election). In close elections it voted 58%-42% for John Kennedy in 1960, 46%-43% for Hubert Humphrey in 1968 (when he failed to carry New Jersey), 51%-47% for Jimmy...

Newt Gingrich. His name became familiar in 1994, when Republicans took control of Congress following Bill and Hillary Clinton’s disastrous attempt to take over the health care industry. In the year or so that followed, Republicans instituted welfare reform and balanced the budget for the first time since LBJ’s presidency. Clinton, of course, was quick to take credit for the new fiscal conservatism in Washington, and he and the Congress were just as quick to spend the “surplus.” Many of the Republicans who won in 1994, as Newt will readily proclaim to all who will listen, were moderates. Therefore, moderate...

Republican women convening at the Galveston Island Convention Center this weekend said they are “energized” about the 2010 and 2012 elections and view them as a turning point for the state and nation. Women from across the state, many of whom donned Republican red, gathered Saturday for the third of a four-day convention hosted biennially by the Texas Federation of Republican Women. Highlighting the convention’s agenda during the last few days were keynote addresses by party front-runners Gov. Rick Perry and gubernatorial challenger Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison Hutchison addressed the delegation Saturday morning announcing, as expected, she won’t resign her...

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour says the decision by seven Simpson County elected officials to switch from Democrat to Republican comes at the right time.

There's something strange going on up in New York's 23rd congressional district, as noted by the TCOT guys. Unless Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman got exactly zero votes in the town of Fenner (Owens got 157, Scozzafava got 248), and at one polling place in the town of Hamilton (Owens got 75, Scozzafava got 79), and at one polling place in the town of Sullivan (Owens got 173, Scozzafava got 251), the initial vote totals look rather hinky.

"Republicans have moved ahead of Democrats by 48% to 44% among registered voters in the latest update on Gallup's generic congressional ballot for the 2010 House elections, after trailing by six points in July and two points last month." "Over the course of the year, independents' preference for the Republican candidate in their districts has grown, from a 1-point advantage in July to the current 22-point gap."

Dede Scozzafava, the Republican nominee who issued an election eve endorsement of Democrat Bill Owens in the Nov. 3 New York special election, will meet with Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb Monday to discuss whether she will be stripped of her Assembly leadership position. POLITICO has learned that Kolb will announce after the face-to-face meeting whether Scozzafava, the Minority Leader Pro Tempore, will remain as the GOP floor leader. “Fundamentally my members are very disappointed with her endorsement of Bill Owens and aiding him in helping achieve the Nancy Pelosi health care plan in Washington,” Kolb said. Scozzafava’s last-minute endorsement,...

Are You Finally Ready To Trust Your Conscience? Most politicians are not bad people, but the system has a way of chewing them up and spitting them out. Once in the system, they learn to play the game and almost always compromise their integrity when it can be justified and even sometimes when it cannot. This is done while we look the other way if it’s “our guy” and/or they give us something we want. That’s the insidiousness of democracy and these “representatives” continue to do anything to stay in power. Many of the problems that we face today can...

AUSTIN — State Rep. Chuck Hopson says he's leaving the Democratic Party and becoming a Republican. Hopson says President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress don't reflect the conservative values of his East Texas district. Hopson, in a phone interview from Jacksonville, said Friday that more than 70 percent of voters in his district voted for Republican John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. The decision is tough blow for the Texas Democratic Party. The split in the Texas House of Representatives was a narrow 76-74 in favor of the GOP. State Democratic Party chairman Boyd Richie said he's disappointed...

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Despite the best efforts of the White House and much of the media to portray this week’s elections as a meaningless barometer of the public’s mood toward the Obama administration, the results were clear. The voters were communicating buyers’ remorse. One year after reaching its zenith, the Democratic Party is now grappling with what could be the beginning of the end of the Obama era. In Virginia, former Attorney General Bob McDonnell, a solid pro-family, pro-life conservative, won a landslide victory, as did down-ticket conservative candidates. Repeated Obama visits to his own backyard did...

Tuesday night, Democrats took New York's 23rd Congressional District-- a feat they haven't achieved in 16 years. How did they achieve this victory? They can thank Glenn Beck for serving it to them on a silver platter. It all began six weeks ago with the announcement of the special election to replace John McHughes in upstate New York. Local Democrats and Republicans nominated their respective candidates--as is the precedent for such elections. Republicans chose New York State Assembly member Dede Scozzafava, a moderate who is pro-choice and same sex marriage, confident that she would win the district. As anticipated, Scozzafava...

Last night, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its score of the House Republican health care plan, reporting that it will reduce healthcare premiums by up to 10 percent and lower federal budget deficits by $68 billion over the next ten years. In a letter sent to sent by the CBO to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), the CBO said: "The amendment includes a number of provisions intended to increase the availability and improve the affordability of private health insurance. "According to CBO and JCT’s (Joint Committee on Taxation) assessment, enacting the amendment would result in a net...

This is the way this article appears on the website Red Ferret Journal: The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (or secret copyright treaty as it’s being called) is as perniciously nasty a piece of proposed legislation as you’re likely to find anywhere on the planet. Ostensibly being created to defend the rights of copyright owners, this is yet another instance of stupid government serving the narrow agendas of greed of the massive entertainment corporations. This is not good law. Unless we all want the dead soul less hand of government stamping out our freedom to communicate, every single Internet user on the...

New York's District 23 Congressional race should send a clear signal to the Republican party that conservative candidates can win elections, and stand up for the values that the party should support now and in the future, says Mike Brasovan, Republican Congressional candidate for Texas District 12. "I believe this race clearly indicates that if the Republican party will stick to its conservative principles and lead based on those principles, people will follow," he said. Brasovan says he's glad the campaign of conservative New York Republican Doug Hoffman overtook that of Republican state assemblywoman Deidre "Dede" Scozzafava. She was supported...

US Republicans score big in off-year electionsAFP November 4, 2009, 1:06 pm NEW YORK (AFP) - US Republicans won two governors' seats in off-year elections that dealt a stinging blow to President Barack Obama and his Democrats exactly 12 months after they swept into power. In New Jersey, Republican Chris Christie pulled off an upset to defeat Jon Corzine, the incumbent governor in the heavily Democratic state, by a margin of 55-44, according to preliminary results. And in the first Republican victory of the night in Virginia, Bob McDonnell took back the governor's mansion from the Democrats by defeating Creigh...

But enough with the blind contributions to the Republican Party, and with the blind voting for establishment-backed candidates. That the establishment attempts to save face every time it loses, at it is doing now by supporting Hoffman two days before the election, should not blind anyone from the fact that only hours ago, it was throwing money at a genuine leftist while trashing Hoffman, and that in the coming months, it will be supporting a decidedly non-conservative Charlie Crist over a perfectly conservative and perfectly electable Marco Rubio in the Florida Republican Senate primary. Thus, until the Republican establishment truly...

Republicans win Virginia, New Jersey governorshipsReuters | 11/04/2009 12:11 PM WASHINGTON – Republicans rolled to victory in governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey on Tuesday in a sharp blow to Democrats that showed the limits of U.S. President Barack Obama's influence. After suffering a one-two punch in those two states, Democrats were trying to salvage a victory over a conservative candidate in a congressional district in upstate New York. The election outcome in Virginia and New Jersey could offer clues on the mood of America a year after Obama was elected president and a year before 2010 congressional elections...

Chris Christie, an aggressive former prosecutor who racked up a perfect conviction rate in public corruption cases and became the darling of New Jersey's Republican Party establishment, has unseated the deep-pocketed but unpopular Gov. Jon Corzine. .

TRENTON, N.J. – Republican Chris Christie has defeated Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine in New Jersey. With 71 percent of precincts reporting Tuesday night, Christie had 50 percent of the vote to Corzine's 44 percent. Christie, a 47-year-old former federal prosecutor, became the first member of his party in a dozen years to win a statewide contest in heavily Democratic New Jersey. The Republican victory deals a blow to President Barack Obama as he readies for next year's midterm elections. Obama campaigned heavily for Corzine.

Snowe to TPaw: GOP should "borrow" my approach Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) is sending a don't-tread-on-me message to Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty -- dismissing his claim that party moderates need to obey the conservative base -- and suggested her critics "borrow" from her middle-of-the-road model. Snowe, often the target of the Republican right flank, turned the argument back on the possible 2012 contender -- saying "litmus tests" of Republican candidates will guarantee the party's position as a two-House minority. Pawlenty, speaking early Monday on MSNBC, said many Republicans were "mad" at Snowe for working with the Democratic majority on health...

In what could be a nightmare scenario for Republican Party officials, conservative activists are gearing up to challenge leading GOP candidates in more than a dozen key House and Senate races in 2010. Conservatives and tea party activists had already set their sights on some of the GOP’s top Senate recruits — a list that includes Gov. Charlie Crist in Florida, former Rep. Rob Simmons in Connecticut and Rep. Mark Kirk in Illinois, among others. But their success in Tuesday’s upstate New York special election, where grass-roots efforts pushed GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava to drop out of the race and...

The final push is underway in Virginia and New Jersey, where President Obama has campaigned hard for the Democratic gubernatorial candidates, while New York's hotly contested 23rd Congressional district has attracted conservative leaders and Vice President Joe Biden. Is Tuesday's vote a referendum on President Obama and his administration? .

Having fended off Hollywood’s lascivious advances for five full decades, Barbie has finally collapsed onto its couch with her legs spread, exhausted from years of being chased around a desk by horny, pantsless studio-executive suitors promising to make her a big movie star. Variety reports that Universal is the beneficiary of the Mattel icon’s weary willingness to surrender her big-screen virtue to the highest bidder, announcing today they’ve reached a deal for a live-action film based on America’s favorite plastic bundle of unhealthy body-image issues. Reaching the deal was the easy part; with the relationship consummated (awkwardly, we’d assume, as...

Pauline McAreavy voted for President Obama. From the moment she first saw him two years ago, she was smitten by his speeches and sold on his promise of change. She switched parties to support him in the Iowa caucuses, donated money and opened her home to a pair of young campaign workers. But by the time she received a fund-raising letter last month from the Democratic National Committee, a sense of disappointment had set in. She returned the solicitation with a handwritten note, saying: “Until I see some progress and he lives up to his promises in Iowa, we will...

For the third straight month, the number of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats inched up while the number of Republicans fell slightly. In October, 37.8% of American adults considered themselves Democrats. That’s up three-tenths of a point from September and a full-percentage point since July. While President Obama’s party has been regaining ground since bottoming out in July, the number of Democrats nationwide remains lower than in any month from December 2008 through June 2009. (See the History of Party Trends from January 2004 to the present.) Still, there are more Democrats than Republicans. A total of 31.9% now claim...

Richard Viguerie, the legendary hard-right activist who spent much of the past decade arguing that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were too liberal, now declares that: "Tea Party Activists Are the New GOP." There is little reason to argue with the man whose direct-mail campaigning funded the rise of the Republican right in the late 1970s and who grumbled loudly when Newt Gingrich, Bush, Cheney and Republican leaders tried to soften the party's roughest edges. Viguerie isn't grumbling now. He's celebrating. And rightly so. With the decision of moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava, the party's nominee in New York state...

What has happened in NY-23 is that the newly empowered conservative base decided the national party had gone a candidate too far in choosing liberal Republican Scozzafava to represent them and decided on their own to adopt third-party candidate Doug Hoffman, while telling the GOP establishment to take a hike. Why the national party believed this colorless career politician who supports gay marriage and would have voted for the stimulus bill represented Republican principles, much less conservative ones, will remain a mystery. Dan Riehl has uncovered some information that former GOP Congressman Tom Reynolds may have played a large role...

A mentor once told me, speaking of the Republican Party, "This isn't a religion for me. I'm a Republican because it's the party that I believe is best suited to promote my values and my vision. If it stops being that party, I'll find another one." The abandonment of Dede Scozzafava by the conservative voters in her district is that threat put into action. If the Republican Party has moved so far away from its conservative base that it has turned to promoting liberals like Scozzafava over real conservatives, simply because they think they have a better chance of winning...

Okay, let's find out who the Freepers would vote for in a Republican Primary.

There’s something weird about Law Abiding Citizen, and it isn’t simply the movie’s attempt to gussy up the legal thriller genre with gruesome, Saw-style theatrics. No, the most notable thing about the film is how it appears to inadvertently channel the recent, inchoate Republican anger at the Obama administration and use it to power a violent revenge fantasy. Don’t believe me? Here are four ways Law Abiding Citizen feels like a Republican wet dream. Mild spoilers ahead: Sympathy with the Devil Jamie Foxx’s district attorney Nick Rice is ostensibly our hero, struggling to put an end to the murderous schemes...

I have reworked recent poll data to remove 'Fava from the race. My analysis indicates that Hoffman will pick up almost twice as many votes as Owens. Further, the most recent elections (1998 to 2008) all went Republican big time - by an average margin of victory of 39 points (and that's ignoring the cycle where the Republican ran unopposed ... and he wasn't even an incumbent!).

With Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman running neck and neck with the Democrat in Tuesday’s special election in New York, some other disaffected Republicans are seeing the third-party route as more viable. And it could hurt the Republicans in those races. In Virginia’s 5th district, state Sen. Robert Hurt’s entry into the GOP primary has spurred little-known candidate Bradley Rees to switch to the Virginia Conservative Party. And in Ohio, another GOP primary contender said this week that he’ll run as a Constitution Party candidate. Both will go at the GOP nominees from their right flanks and try to expose...

Sounding more like an independent than a Democrat, Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., tells ABC News he will campaign for some Republican candidates during the 2010 midterm elections and may not seek the Democratic Senate nomination when he runs for re-election in 2012. ABC News' Jonathan Karl chats with Sen. Joe Lieberman on the Capitol Hill subway"I probably will support some Republican candidates for Congress or Senate in the election in 2010. I'm going to call them as I see them," Lieberman said in an ABC News "Subway Series" interview aboard the U.S. Capitol Subway System.

This is why Republicans lose elections: Crabill is trying to position herself as a conservative in the 99th House of Delegates district of Virginia, against a popular Democrat incumbant. But at the Northern Neck Republican website, the visitor is presented with Crabill at a Yacht & Country Club with elitist-looking old white women. At a formal tea party. Not the populist, conservative mass movement tea party rallies, but an elitist tea party of rich old white women.

Conservatives are sick and tired of being taken for granted, misrepresented, and talked down to by the same "elite" Republicans in Washington who hopelessly screwed everything up during the Bush years.         Everybody knows exactly whom we're talking about here.  The same snobby, elitist, stuffed shirt, squishy, poll-obsessed Country Club Republicans who went to D.C., forgot who put them there, wasted the incredible opportunity they had to change this country for the better, and are now pointing the finger at everyone except themselves for their mistakes.         Here are five messages for those people:         We're not going back to the Bush years:...

Calling Former Senator Edward W. Brooke's life an "unlikely" journey President Obama today honored the first popularly elected African American senator for receiving the highest honor Congress can bestow, the Congressional Gold Medal. "I think today's honor bears a unique significance," Mr. Obama said in an afternoon ceremony in the Capitol rotunda, "bestowed by this body of which he was an esteemed member; presented in this place where he moved the arc of history; surrounded by so many -- myself included -- who have followed the trail that he blazed. " The President said that Brooke spent his life "breaking...

Writing in The American Conservative, Jack Hunter opines: Warning that popular talk radio and Fox News host Glenn Beck was "Harmful to the Conservative Movement," Peter Wehner wrote on Commentary's "Contentions" blog in September: "he seems to be more of a populist and libertarian than a conservative, more of a Perotista than a Reaganite. His interest in conspiracy theories is disquieting, as is his admiration for Ron Paul and his charges of American 'imperialism.' (He is now talking about pulling troops out of Afghanistan, South Korea, Germany, and elsewhere.)" Wehner is not alone in his criticism. When Beck told CBS...

This is why you lose elections. GOP officials: We won't abandon DedeThe National Republican Congressional Committee remains committed to embattled GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava in the upstate New York House special election, even as many of the party's top names throw their support to Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman. Two party officials tell POLITICO that the NRCC will continue to air TV ads propping up Scozzafava in the days leading up to the Nov. 3 contest and plans to keep up a near relentless barrage of press releases slamming Hoffman. Scozzafava, a state assemblywoman who supports gay marriage, abortion rights...

“These are the times that try men’s souls,” wrote Thomas Paine in 1776. George Washington read the first of Paine’s Crisis essays to his men at Valley Forge the next winter in order to encourage them in their hardship. Our current president likes to use the term “crisis” when it gives him and our hearing-impaired Congress the chance to pass some new liberty-robbing legislation. To Mr. Obama, we have an economic crisis, a health care crisis, an environmental crisis, an educational crisis, and so on ad infinitum. His chief-of-staff and secretary of state have both gone on record saying that...