Free Republic

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/02/15/president-election-2016-hillary-clinton-column/5340999/

The federal government is, indeed, too big; it spends far, far too much; it taxes and borrows an awful lot more than it should; and it intrudes habitually and without fanfare into what should of right be the business of the states. The president is guilty as charged — increasingly lawless and typically dismissive of anybody who dares to protest — and his still-unpopular signature legislation is not only creaking under the weight of its own contradictions but is the proximate cause of our current political trench warfare. And, as ever, the whole sorry mess appears to be rolling on...

The first wave of Tea Party lawmakers strode into Congress in 2011 on a wave of denial and anger. They were angry at President Obama and business as usual in Washington. But they were also in denial about their power—or rather powerlessness—to change it. Three years later, the right-wingers have progressed through the stages of grief (which are not real, incidentally, when it comes to grieving). Now, in the debt-ceiling debate currently under way in Washington, we have proof they’ve reached the final stage: acceptance.

The latest budget battle in Washington has Democrats and Republicans once again at loggerheads. Democrats think Republicans should get nothing in return for another debt ceiling increase. Republicans think they should get less than nothing. The House GOP leadership has longed to stop the gory budget showdowns of the past few years. That means giving up on further cuts and passing a clean debt ceiling increase; a cringeworthy proposal, but one that should have attained enough Democrat and establishment Republican support to pass the House. Instead, the GOP found a creative way to make it worse. Republicans attached a provision...

There’s no man or woman in red-state America these days with more power than Cruz to set a new conservative litmus test. But c’mon: How many of you need to be formally warned at this point by your favorite Republican that the House is looking to sell out border hawks on immigration reform? It’s like blaming Rand Paul for turning libertarians against the NSA. He plays a useful role in bringing attention to the issue, but those people turned on their own initiative ages ago. Same here.Cruz won’t mind being blamed for this one, though. House Republicans who supported the...

Michael Sam appears to be a fine young man. But, no, he isn't the first openly gay male U.S. athlete to play in a major sport. And "brave"? Can we please dispense with the absurd Jackie Robinson comparisons? Wake me when a black collegiate pro prospect "comes out" as a Republican. A starting senior on the University of Missouri football team, Sam looks like a mid-round draft pick in the NFL. He recently "came out" to his teammates, many of whom said they already knew or suspected. Neither teammates nor coaches had an issue. Most normal people ask, "Who cares?"...

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Is there any end to this debauchery?By now, we all know President Obama has received a bill that raises the debt ceiling through the mid-term elections. After all, we can't have another fight like this when our politicians have better things to worry about. Such as winning another term. The House Republican leadership (I refuse to say House Republicans because some of them stayed the course and voted against this nonsense) capitulated earlier, voting to raise the debt ceiling and sending the bill to the Senate for approval. As seems...

Current Speaker of the House John Boehner pushed through a clean debt limit bill on Tuesday that gives the White House unlimited borrowing power for the next year. Only 28 Republicans - mostly allies of Boehner - voted for the bill while 199 Republicans opposed it. I say current speaker because a revolt by GOP back benchers is a real possibility. Several prominent conservatives like Mark Levin and Sean Hannity have already called for the speaker's head while the Senate Conservative Fund has also urged Boehner's removal. The thinking of the GOP leadership is that fiscal fights have become a...

Last week, Peter Wehner wrote a piece in Commentary magazine laying out a collection of data regarding recent elections and demographic trends.  He was mostly content to let the data speak for themselves, save for a codicil to the piece arguing that something had to change: “Republican problems are not superficial, transient, or cyclical. The trends speak for themselves. The GOP therefore needs to articulate a governing vision and develop a governing agenda that can reach groups that have not traditionally been supportive of it.” His ultimate takeaway is that the GOP needs to substantially revise its platform, and make...

Let’s have a moment of dirty, honest reality. The quicker we can recognize our faults, the faster we can rectify them. If there is one gigantic lesson that came out of the 2012 presidential election it is that Republicans are stuck in the past. We have a ground game that is largely ineffective and antiquated. We got caught with our pants down. We lost an election that should have been easily won after having endured some of the roughest four presidential years in our history. It was ours for the taking…but we blew it. The Democrats played guerilla warfare, engaging...

Michelle Malkin doesn’t run away from fights, she runs toward them. And she’s running faster than ever headlong into the 2014 Republican primary battles on behalf of upstart conservative candidates who are mounting insurgent challenges to the GOP old guard. Twitter is Malkin’s weapon of choice. Battles with her almost always devolve into wars, and those who follow the conservative social media scene know she has a proven formula online: Taunting quips from foes bring out the full force of her Twitter arsenal, with snappy replies, catchy hashtags and the mobilization of a legion of energized followers. Malkin, 43, says...

Why is the Republican establishment pushing for amnesty? Compassion towards immigrants. I don't know. They want cheap labor.

Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) delivered the keynote speech yesterday at the Washington Press Club Foundation. The far left politician compared Republicans to monkeys and gave a shout out to Nancy Pelosi and “all my sisters in the libido caucus.” The Politico reported: Washingtonians sit through terrible speeches all the time: dry rules hearings, partisan floor lectures and, let’s face it, even the State of the Union some years. So it was a bad day for Rep. Donna Edwards Thursday, when Washingtonians gathered at coffee pots and in lunch rooms across town and deemed her performance at the Washington Press Club...

Bill Kristol played the role of mischief maker on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Thursday. Prompted by host Joe Scarborough, Kristol tallied off the nine Republicans he thinks will be finalists for the 2016 Republican nomination — and one of the nine was Scarborough himself. “Why would you put Joe on that list?” show co-host Mika Brzezinski asked. “He’s a former elected official. He’s got a real following out there. He’ll fill the Jon Huntsman lane,” Kristol said with a wry smile, eliciting cackles from Scarborough. After his failed 2016 presidential run, Huntsman has become a punchline for many conservatives. “OK, I’ll...

(Reuters) - Residents of bankrupt San Bernardino, California on Tuesday voted to complete a rout of the city's pro-union old guard, electing business-friendly pragmatists who have pledged to try to reduce pension costs and take on vested interests. As San Bernardino enters into a fourth month of mediation with its creditors, the biggest of which is Calpers, California's giant retirement system, voters on Tuesday elected Carey Davis as the crisis-hit city's new mayor. Davis, a businessman and political novice, ran in part on a campaign to reduce the city's pension obligations. In an interview in November, when he became one...

Was Bill Kristol kidding—just throwing a sop to the not-inconsiderable ego of his host—or could he have been serious? On today's Morning Joe, unveiling his line-up of the nine Republicans he sees running for president in 2016, Kristol included none other than Joe Scarborough himself. But in an unkind cut to someone prospectively facing the famously conservative GOP primary electorate, Kristol described Scarborough as "filling the Huntsman lane" and representing a "Morning Joe conservatism." Ouch! As interesting as were Kristol's nine [which included Sarah Palin] were the names he left off his list, including Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio. View...

The “Chris Christie for President” moment may already be over. Former allies are souring on him. His poll strength against Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical matchup has evaporated. Once-friendly media figures like Jimmy Fallon and Bruce Springsteen are mocking him, and their joint parody of “Born to Run” now has more than 4 million views on YouTube. If Christie’s appointee David Wildstein is telling the truth when he claims evidence exists that proves the governor knew about the lane closures on the George Washington Bridge, and if that evidence is made public, then all the “Christie in 2016” talk is...

A conservative group is launching a new campaign which calls on "the GOP leadership in both the House and the Senate to step aside." ForAmerica told CNN that it's putting six figures behind its "Dump the Leadership" campaign between now and November's leadership elections. The group says that its digital ads will target House Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, as well as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Whip John Cornyn, and the group adds that the first paid spots are now up online. "Time and again, year after year, the Republican...

Another important conclusion of our report is that there is no evidence that amnesty or inviting more immigration will produce Republican votes and abundant evidence that it will produce more Democratic votes. After Ronald Reagan signed the 1986 amnesty, George H. W. Bush received only 30 percent of the Latino vote in 1988, seven percentage points less than Reagan in 1984. Those supporting a big increase in legal immigration point to the successful assimilation of Great Wave immigrants (roughly 1880 to 1920). But that wave was followed by a slowdown of immigration from the 1920s to the 1960s, which allowed...

More Americans would blame Republicans in Congress than President Barack Obama if the nation's debt ceiling is not raised, according to a new national poll. The release of the CNN/ORC International survey on Monday came as Treasury Secretary Jack Lew issued yet another public warning to Congress to act quickly to extend the nation's borrowing authority. Fifty-four percent of those questioned say they would blame the GOP in Congress if the debt ceiling isn't raised, with 29% saying they'd hold the President more responsible. Twelve percent say they'd point fingers at both sides. The numbers are little changed from last...