Free Republic

Tuesday, January 20, 2015 Rauner picks Planned Parenthood Vice-Chair to head Healthcare and Family Services SPRINGFIELD, IL - Last week Governor Rauner announced a number of additional appointments, including those he wants to head the Department of Revenue, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Department of Agriculture, Department of Natural Resources, Department of Public Health and Illinois Commerce Commission.One appointment raising social conservatives' eyebrows is Felicia Norwood, who was named by the governor to be the new Director of Illinois' Department Healthcare and Family Services. Norwood, who will lead the state's agency focused on caring for Illinoisans' health, is also...

Mitt Romney’s opening pitch for a third shot at the White House left many Republicans scratching their heads, in part because his plans to fight poverty and tyranny seemed to borrow the lexicon of liberals like FDR, LBJ and Woodrow Wilson. With a full house of Republican National Committee members listening aboard the USS Midway in San Diego, Mr. Romney implored his party last week “to lift people out of poverty” and “to make the world safe.” The first phrase is a favorite of liberals who gush over Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs...

Taxes on a pack of cigarettes would nearly triple from 79 cents a pack to $2.29 per pack. And taxes on liquor would rise to 12 percent from 8 percent.

Kansas would nearly triple its cigarette tax, raise taxes on alcohol and slow down promised income tax cuts to balance its budget under proposals Republican Gov. Sam Brownback outlined Friday. Brownback presented detailed recommendations to the GOP-dominated Legislature for eliminating projected shortfalls totaling more than $710 million in the current budget and for the fiscal year beginning July 1. He also presented a spending blueprint for the fiscal year beginning in July 2016 designed to leave the state with some cash reserves. The state’s budget problems arose after lawmakers aggressively cut personal income taxes in 2012 and 2013 at Brownback's...

The big question that spawned many pundit opinions after Romney lost the presidential election: what happened to the four million Republican voters who didn’t vote for him? To be honest, since Bush’s second-term win, there has been a steady decline in Republican voters in presidential elections, but that still doesn’t answer the question. The blunt answer is that many “conservative” Republicans have grown tired of putting up faux support for RINO presidential candidates. This has turned into a snowball effect and will culminate in an even larger number of conservative Republicans not voting again in 2016 if there is another...

Almost overnight, former governors Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Jeb Bush of Florida have transformed the 2016 GOP presidential campaign into a mad scramble for support and funding for a lengthy and hard-fought battle.

In 2007, when President Obama announced that he was running for president, he did it in Springfield, Ill., to highlight his supposed connection to Abraham Lincoln. He brought in his biggest fans to cheer him on. When George W. Bush announced in 1999, he did it in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The Bush campaign, likewise, brought in a big crowd of supporters. John Kerry announced in Patriot's Point, S.C., in 2003, amid a sea of American flags, war veterans and an aircraft carrier in the background. And where was Mitt Romney when he announced on Friday that he was thinking of...

A Republican amendment that could leave hundreds of thousands of young immigrants open to deportations is running into stiff opposition in the House – a rare show of rank-and-file rebellion over the leadership’s catering to the right. The measure – which would kill the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program – is scheduled to come to the House floor Wednesday as part of a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security through the end of September. But more than a dozen House Republicans have told the GOP whip operation that they will not vote for the amendment, according to...

A former Republican lieutenant governor of Florida is joining attorney John Morgan's push to legalize medical marijuana statewide. Jeff Kottkamp, who served in Gov. Charlie Crist's administration, signed paperwork to lobby for a Morgan-backed bill, called the Florida for Care bill, which would expand – not overwrite – the existing "Charlotte's Web" law.

Chris Christie could be setting up a leadership political action committee before the end of the month to help raise money with an eye toward the White House in 2016, according to a published report.... ....advisers and supporters insist his timetable hasn’t budged with news that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney may campaign in 2016. Christie is unlikely to make a formal announcement before the end of the spring, the newspaper reported.

For nearly five years, Republicans have been fighting to repeal President Obama’s healthcare law. But repeal is not enough. Even if simple repeal were politically obtainable, Americans would still be left with a broken healthcare system. Government regulations would still be stifling competition and individual choice and government healthcare programs would still be driving the nation’s unsustainable long-term debt problem. If Republicans achieved repeal without agreeing on a way to reform healthcare along free market lines, it’s inevitable that Democrats would eventually lead another overhaul of the system that would grant even more power to the federal government than the...

Jeb Bush once called for building prisons and emphasizing “punishment over therapy” for juvenile offenders. Today, he supports reforming the criminal justice system, arguing that incarceration can harden low-level lawbreakers into career criminals. In the past, he stressed using deportation to rid the United States of unauthorized immigrants. These days, he describes crossing the border illegally as “an act of love” by migrant parents and supports a path to citizenship for those who have done so. He used to emphasize the rights of big landowners who felt cheated by environmental programs. Now, he is a champion of state-sponsored conservation, celebrated...

Die-hard House conservatives, after bungling a coup against House Speaker John Boehner, now look like winners who are pushing their Republican caucus farther right. Rather than punish and isolate those who opposed him as leader, Boehner surprised many on Friday by embracing a major immigration plan that's more stringent and conservative than lawmakers had expected. It not only would block President Barack Obama's recent limits on deportations, but also undo earlier protections for immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. The House is pushing toward a vote Wednesday. As the rebellious hard-liners celebrated, mainstream Republicans said Boehner's decision probably...

Who is Carly Fiorina? Well, for starters, she’s a hugely successful businesswoman who challenged Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) in 2010 -- and lost by double digits. She also once served as the CEO of Hewlett-Packard. Nonetheless, now that Sen. Boxer is calling it quits in 2016 -- and Republicans are over the moon -- is her former challenger maybe interested in the seat? Not at all. On the Hugh Hewitt Show Friday night, she confirmed widely reported rumors that she might have grander, and indeed more ambitious, plans:

48 second Video at link. (CNSNews.com) - House Speaker John Boehner (R.-Ohio) vowed today to fight “tooth and nail” against President Obama’s unilateral amnesty of up to five million illegal aliens—an amnesty the administration has been able to move forward with because Boehner’s House permitted funding of it. The 1,603-page omnibus spending bill that Boehner pushed through a lame-duck Republican-controlled House last month put no prohibition on Obama using government funds to implement the amnesty. That omnibus funded almost all the government through the end of this fiscal year on Sept. 30 and the Department of Homeland Security through Feb....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said on Thursday he doesn't like being called "spineless" or a "squish" by critics, and he vowed to prove his mettle to lawmakers who bopposed his re-election earlier this week. Boehner was re-elected Speaker of the House on Tuesday even as 25 members of his own Republican party declined to support him, the biggest such intra-party rebellion against a speaker candidate since 1859. His detractors, many of them on the right wing of his party, say Boehner is too prone to compromise with Democrats. Boehner said that portrayal is false....

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is defending his conservative bona fides after a failed attempt by conservatives to oust him from his speakership. “It does pain me to be described as spineless or a squish,” Boehner said to chuckles from reporters. “I tell you what pains me the most is when they describe me as ‘the establishment.’ Now I’m the most anti-establishment speaker we’ve ever had.” “Who was the guy who got rid of earmarks? Me,” he continued. “Who’s the guy who believes in regular order? Me. Who believes in allowing more members to participate in the process from both...

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn said he hopes his GOP colleagues hold off on a vote to fully repeal Obamacare until after Republicans have shown they can govern. “I think it’s important that we demonstrate that we can be productive before we have the inevitable fight over repealing Obamacare,” the Texas Republican said in an interview with CQ Roll Call Wednesday. “We are going to have that vote. But my own preference would be we have it after we’ve been able to demonstrate that we can actually get some things done.”

The average age of a member of Congress is 58. That makes Elise Stefanik, the 30-year-old from the 21st district of New York, stick out like a flashing neon light. Stefanik is the youngest representative ever elected to serve on Capitol Hill, and she just happens to be a bold conservative. Stefanik’s conservative credentials are bona fide. She was brought up in a small business family, is staunchly pro-life and has pledged to help replace Obamacare with common sense proposals. These qualities, along with an upbeat attitude, helped her to achieve incredible success in the Empire State’s North Country. Before throwing her...

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said in an interview with CNN Wednesday that if the Supreme Court eventually rules that same-sex marriage is constitutional, Americans would have to abide by that ruling. "I wouldn't agree with their ruling, but that would be the law of the land that we would have to follow until it's somehow reversed — either by a future Supreme Court, or a U.S. constitutional amendment, which I don't think is realistic or foreseeable," he said. He said he expects the question "is ultimately going to find its way to the U.S. Supreme court," noting that many federal...