Free Republic

Rush Limbaugh is taking a “whistling past the graveyard” approach to Barack Obama’s scandals. He is being very cautious about allowing himself to feel that some damage will be done to Obama when the dust from these scandals clears. Rush even quotes James Carville’s liberal wishful thinking about this lasting “only 30 days” to help convince himself he’s right; nevertheless, Rush is wrong. While there is no doubt that Obama won’t be impeached, as Rush allows that isn’t important. Saying there won’t be any damage to Obama, his Party and their dangerous agenda is simply wrong. These scandals will do...

A battle within the Republican Party over same-sex marriage is unfolding on two fronts, in public, and behind the scenes. In the latter case, one of the most influential players is a billionaire hedge fund manager largely unknown to those who don’t work in finance or mix with political mega-donors. That man is Paul E. Singer, who over the years has used his wealth to spur Republicans to support gay marriage laws. Now, Singer is expanding his reach with the creation of an advocacy group which aims to spend millions influencing the legislative debate over same-sex marriage across the country.

Long menacing bolts of lightning flashed, noisy rumbles of thunder rolled, but patriots unfurled the Gadsen flag above the Star of David, right next to a large beautiful American flag at the May Day Protest against Marco Rubio and his Gang of Eight’s cruel immigration bill. No one does a thunderstorm like Florida does, and she was in her glory Wednesday night. I haven’t gotten that soaked, soaked to my skin, since I canoed the Des Plaines River in Illinois many years ago with a supervisor from the Big House in Joliet. Between rain drops he told me about the...

Back in the 1970's with guys like Al Franken behind the skits, you could always count on a political edge to comedy on "Saturday Night Live." One such skit featured Garrett Morris as Martin Luther King and Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi as the Kennedy brothers (John and Bobby). The skit was about King asking for support for civil rights from the Kennedys and the Kennedys changing the subject. As a child I read John Birch Society literature ("Teddy Bare" by Alan Stang) making the point that Ted Kennedy was more "liberal" than his older brothers. Presidents are the ultimate...

A Republican media consultant recently showed us who he really is. In a conversation he thought was “off the record” Frank “Rat Top” Luntz has tipped his hand and reminded us why we can’t trust him. When he thought only those in front of him would hear his words he attacked talk radio conservatives for destroying Marco Rubio’s plans to erase our national borders. A Fox News favorite, Luntz has a big mouth and awful horse tail brown toupee. (Does it ever occur to people like this that no one on earth has that color hair?) He is a stereotypical...

As the far left pass into law unconstitutional and unforgivable statutes by which to confiscate the firearms of the American people, a number of gun rights supporters believe the reclamation of our 2nd Amendment rights must depend upon the continued election of declared, pro-2nd Amendment Republicans. Unfortunately, such is the rose-colored-glasses thinking of individuals either too foolish, too gullible or too cowardly to recognize the perpetual treachery of elected Republicans for what it truly is— a politician’s perception of political necessity taking precedence over his duty to support the God given rights of the American people. And never mind the...

The Republican establishment is still trying to blame conservatives for last November’s disaster. The phonies of the Karl Rove Wing of the Republican Party didn’t get it then and they still don’t. They are fooling themselves by refusing to look at the numbers. The GOP just doesn’t understand that asking us to vote for a Republican because he is not a Democrat doesn’t fire conservatives up, and the stupid fools think they can win without conservative support. For conservatives the road to settling on a Republican presidential candidate had many ups and downs. Nevertheless, almost to the very end Mitt...

One reads S.E. Cupp on Rush Limbaugh and the late Lee Atwater and has to wonder. One reads her compatriot young conservative friends in the New York Times and has to wonder. Do these conservatives even listen to themselves? Are they really conservatives — or just the latest, newest incarnation of that age old 20th century invention: the GOP moderate? The newest sparkling edition of a wannabe Ruling Class? Making the rounds of the bar scene in Manhattan and New York and longing to be hip? Or are we witnessing something else? Something simpler yet more troubling? A lack of...

WASHINGTON -- It has happened again. Sam Tanenhaus, the editor of the New York Times Book Review referred to by Paul Krugman the other day as "a long-time conservative," has essayed in the New Republic the modern conservative movement, and traced us all back to John C. Calhoun. I suppose our point of origin could have been more sinister. Sam could have traced us back to Nathan Bedford Forrest, the former Confederate General who went on to be an early member of the Ku Klux Klan, but John C. Calhoun is bad enough. Of course, Calhoun is no kind of...

The United States, from day one, was a project about principles and ideals. The super power that emerged and grew from the handful of colonists that began settling here was not the product of where those colonists happened to land, but the ideals and principles in their head and heart – applied in how they lived their lives. The Republican Party was founded in 1854 to address one great blot on the nation’s founding legacy – the existence of slavery in a nation founded under the ideal of freedom under God. Runaway slave and self-educated abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass said...

On January 28, 2013, a group of Republicans in Congress decided to close down the Republican Party. Their "going out of business sale" involves converting an estimated 12 to 20 million trespassing illegal aliens into solidly-Democrat voters. Republicans will ensure Democrat control of Congress and the White House with millions of new voters for generations to come. Will there really be 12 to 20 million new Democrat voters? Have you heard of "chain migration?" Each new citizen can petition to bring their immediate and extended family with him. So we are talking about perhaps an eventual 40 million new Democrat...

The best thing about math is that it’s a constant. The numbers are what they are. That’s why I’m a data guy, because as a person that believes in absolute truth I have a tendency to like things cut and dried. Leading up to the 2012 election several lies and clever myths were postulated by the ruling class know-it-alls and the charlatans who act on their behalf, and you can bet they will continue peddling their wares this year in light of the results. But the beauty of real numbers is they cut through all the horse puckey right to...

The Republicans in Congress look like they are about to sell us out on the question of protecting the Second Amendment. The way they took a dive on the “fiscal cliff” gives us an idea of what they will probably do when confronted with Barack Obama’s fearsome attacks on gun ownership. They won’t listen to us. They will jump as high as the media and Obama tells them to and count themselves lucky if they aren’t singled out as a Hillbilly and an ogre for opposing “common sense” gun control. According to a newly released report, based on the results...

I’m a Tea Partier! I’m also a lifelong Republican as was my father, a Chicago Packard dealer Service Manager in the Capone Era. We even owned Machine Gun Mike McGurk’s ’29 Packard coupe for a while. Dad said he got to vote against that SOB Roosevelt 4 times! I went to Tea Party meetings on 3 occasions – 3 different groups. I attended a big rally here in Bakersfield where John Boehner and my Congressman Kevin McCarthy attended and were denied an opportunity to speak. They never forgave the Tea Party. It was such a stupid move, but that’s history…...

I DON'T FALL IN LOVE with politicians – the last presidential candidate I voted for with ardor was Ronald Reagan in 1980 – and my heart doesn't break when those I support don't win. Nor am I a party loyalist. As a conservative I vote for Republicans more often than not; for those of us committed to free enterprise, limited government, military strength, and a healthy civil society, there is usually no better option. But the Republican Party isn't the conservative movement. And a GOP defeat doesn't mean conservatism – or the GOP, for that matter – is in crisis....

"Thank You America" was the theme of a commercial I saw on the Rose Bowl Game telecast yesterday. The bailed out AIG was singing the praises of our tax dollars being pumped into their company from a nation that is now trillions of dollars more in debt than it was before bailouts like theirs were pushed through Congress. The pushing through Congress of band aids like the bailouts and now the new legislation called the "Taxpayer Relief Act" will not stop the trillions of dollars in debt from continuing to expand until new band aids will be needed. Who is...

Our Declaration of Independance in its first sentance, includes "it becomes neccessary to dissolve the political bands" will take on a new meaning startng February 27. There is a movement afoot to celebrate the fourth anniversary of Rick Santelli's tea party rant on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, live on CNBC television, which had the effect of spurring thousands, and then millions to form Tea Parties all across America, by re-registration of Tea Party members from Republican to indeependant.It is believed that a sudden drop of more than millions of GOP registrations will send a message to the...

In 1992, six Jewish people from Los Angeles decided to go to the Republican National Convention in Houston. It was the first such convention for all of us thus we were novices about the whole affair. We went to see the speeches, but these events are more about the parties. One of the gang got a flyer about a group called the National Jewish Coalition (now the Republican Jewish Coalition) which we felt was right up our alley. We went to the event and our story begins. I met the person hosting the event and we became instant friends....

"God put the Republican Party on earth to cut taxes. If they don't do that, they have no useful function." Columnist Robert Novak was speaking of the party that embraced the revolution of Ronald Reagan, who had hung a portrait of Calvin Coolidge in his Cabinet Room and set about cutting income tax rates to 28 percent. But, to be historically precise, the GOP was not put here to cut taxes. From infancy in the 1850s, its mission was to halt the spread of slavery. From 1865 to 1929, it was the party of high tariffs. Mission: Build the nation...

Does the Republican Party want to remain relevant? Or are they willing to be cast, by the not so subtle scorched earth tactics of Barack Obama, the Democrats and the mainstream media, into permanent second class status, and eventual oblivion? The only political weapon, but a potentially powerful one, the Republicans have is control of the House of Representatives. The Speaker of the House thus becomes, by default, the national spokesman and face of the Party. This person is the one sitting alone across the table from the twin juggernaut of Barack Obama and his celebrity persona and the sycophantic...