Free Republic

Rick Perry, who declared just this Saturday, is now leading the Republican field by 11 points. Next up in the new Rasmussen poll is Mitt Romney with 18 percent support. Michele Bachmann, who triumphed in the straw poll this weekend, is in third place with 13 percent support, while Ron Paul — who only received about 150 fewer votes than Bachmann at Ames — is at 9 percent. Results via Michael Barone, who got an early peek; I’ll add the rest of the numbers when they’re made available. UPDATE: The full poll is now online. Remaining results: Herman Cain (6...

Article from 2007: AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry said today he will oppose efforts to repeal a law, which he signed six years ago, giving tuition breaks to undocumented immigrants attending state universities. ``I'm for leaving the law like it is because I think it serves a good purpose,'' he said. Perry said he and the media might have failed to adequately educate the public about the tuition law, which has drawn fire during the ongoing debate over illegal immigration. State legislators have filed at least four bills to repeal the measure, which grants lower, in-state tuition to the children...

I went through what Red State's Ben Howe experienced about a year before the Palin biopic "The Undefeated" came out. I'm not exactly sure why. I too used to share Ben Howe's somewhat clandestine opinion of Sarah Palin. But like so many other conservatives, I wasn't sure how "my" opinion of her got there...

Gov. Rick Perry hammered Washington Wednesday and bragged about Texas' economic growth ... at a gathering of state legislators from all over the country. "Over the last two years, 40 percent of the jobs created in the United States were in this state," he said. "These numbers represent more than just statistics. They are about a way of life, about a quality of life." "You can't tax your way to prosperity," he said while blasting President Barack Obama’s administration and the stimulus package. "Until Washington figures out that the only true stimulus is more money in the hands of employers...

Good for Governor Sam Brownback for standing up to the monstrosity known as Obama"care" and SENDING THE MONEY BACK! And if any of my dear readers entertain the slightest doubt about just how bad Obama"care" will be, you can begin your journey towards enlightenment by giving the following a read...

While I was doing research for another blog post, I happened upon a lamestream media (LA Times) story from 2008 about the massive budget surplus that accumulated under Sarah Palin’s bountiful watch as governor of Alaska. Try to imagine waking up one morning and reading a newspaper article in which the experts quoted had something like this to say about our nation’s federal budget:...

Mike Ditka went out of his way to praise Sarah Palin and scold the media yesterday during his Lessons from Leaders keynote address in Washington, IL...

Polls indicating that the Republican Party is moving further to the right are leaving a large faction of moderate Republicans feeling disenchanted with the party’s conservative drift, reports The Boston Globe. In 2010, some of the GOP’s most outspoken leaders helped propel Republican candidates into power in the House. The tea party movement was influential in securing this takeover. But Gallup poll findings to be released Friday indicate that the GOP’s conservative shift is isolating its moderate wing, the Globe reported. Self-described moderates made up almost one-third of the Republican Party just 10 years ago. Now, that fraction has dropped...

August 4, 2011 Dear Mr. Robinson, Thank you for contacting me regarding our mutual desire to see the debt limit standoff resolved so that America will not default on its loans and that our government can continue to provide the services that our seniors and veterans depend on and deserve. I appreciate hearing your thoughts about how to resolve the debt crisis. I assure you that I took the views of my constituents very seriously as I cast my vote throughout the entire debt limit crisis. While the legislation that was signed into law is not perfect, it is an...

Yep, you heard it right. The New York Times is in awe of Sarah Palin's timing! What exact timing is the NYT marveling at, you ask? They are marveling at how Sarah Palin has once again gone rogue by...

SAN DIEGO, July 27, 2011—As debt talks heat up in Washington, D.C., tensions continue to unfurl between the Republican establishment and Tea Party Movement. To motion support for the Boehner plan, the Speaker of the House called out fellow Republicans and told them, “Get your [expletive] in line.” Additionally, comfortable and equally seasoned politicians like Senator John McCain (R-AZ) have expressed their dismay in the Tea Party Movement. Accordingly, McCain lashed out at conservatives on the Senate floor Wednesday and called them “tea party hobbits” for proposing a balanced budget amendment. Does this mean war? You betcha. It is time...

Well, either Obama and Geithner are lying to us now, or they and all defenders of the Social Security status quo have been lying to us for decades. It must be one or the other. Here’s why: Social Security has a trust fund, and that trust fund is supposed to have $2.6 trillion in it, according to the Social Security trustees. If there are real assets in the trust fund, then Social Security can mail the checks, regardless of what Congress does about the debt limit. President Obama’s budget director, Jack Lew, explained all this last February in USA Today:...

Mitt Romney (R) Answers Gun Control Questions On Meet The Press 12/16/2007 Tim Russert: "We turn to gun control. Here's the headline: Romney retreats on gun control. Romney who once described himself as a supporter of strong gun laws, is distancing himself from that rhetoric now as he attempts to court the gun owners who make up a sognificant force in Republican primary politics. In his 1994 Senate rum, Romney backed two gun control measures strongly opposed by the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups..." Tim Russert: "Suddenly Romney decides to run for president, signs up for a lifetime...

On Sunday, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) had a stark message for the GOP candidates on ABC's This Week: "We cannot move into [becoming] an isolationist party. We cannot repeat the lessons of the 1930's when the United States stood by while bad things happened in the world." Senator McCain is correct that American's should not withdraw from the world in response to the active internationalism of recent years. Fortunately, conservatives do not need to choose between intervening everywhere and walling ourselves off from the world economically, politically, and militarily. If we look to first principles, the proper foreign policy is...

It seems as if that is the case, given that John McCain has chastised those GOP presidential candidates who wonder how Libya posed a threat to the U.S., how Obama has grounds for claiming that the U.S. isn't even at war with Libya or how he can claim - through Harold Koh and Jay Carney - that "the limited nature of this particular mission is not the kind of hostilities envisioned by the War Powers Resolution." Obama is claiming that since U.S. troops are supposedly at little risk in this particular mission and that we have no boots on the...

SALT LAKE CITY — A majority of Utah voters believe Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has been in office too long and should be replaced, a new Deseret News/KSL-TV poll shows. The poll by Dan Jones & Associates found only 38 percent of registered voters agree that it's important to re-elect Hatch in 2012 because of his seniority. Fifty-nine percent said after 36 years, it's time for someone new.(snip) Hatch's most likely GOP challenger appears to be Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. In a primary race, 40 percent of poll respondents said they would vote for Hatch and 41 percent for Chaffetz....

"Um, let me tell you in my view it is not a good idea to go into a contract like was organized by the Republican party in Washington laying out a whole series of things which the party said these are the things we are gonna do. I think that's a mistake. I think instead that if you wanna get something done in Washington you don't end up picking teams with Republicans on one side snd Democrats on the other entering into a contract and saying ok were all gonna do this and if course then that works then the...

Charlie Gibson: "As I understand it everyone has to buy health insurance if their company doesn't provide it, and if they are they are too poor the state will give it to them or help them buy it." Romney: "That's a pretty fair statement."

CARSON CITY — Gov. Brian Sandoval will include taxes set to expire next month in a revised budget he will unveil Friday, according to a source. The move, which would run counter to his pledge not to raise taxes, comes thanks to a Supreme Court ruling today that prohibits the Legislature from taking local tax dollars to fund the state. In a statement this afternoon, Sandoval said he would present a revised spending plan on Friday that takes into account the lost funds. "The ruling raises questions about certain assumptions in the proposed executive budget," the statement said. "As governor,...

My apologies, first, for the hiatus in columns last week – I was moving from Vienna, VA., a suburb of Washington, D.C. to Poughkeepsie, a semi-suburb (it’s 73 miles away) of New York City. Many have clearly regarded this as an eccentric choice, and much of the motivation stems from things like hating the Washington summer more than the Poughkeepsie winter that are personal to each of us. Nevertheless, there is also a philosophical background for the move, in that I believe the rapid growth of the Washington area to be profoundly unhealthy. Washington’s unhealthiness has been highlighted during the...