Free Republic

At least one House Republican thinks Mitt Romney will make another run for the White House in 2016 — and this time, he says the 2012 runner-up will emerge victorious. “I think he actually is gonna run for president. He probably doesn’t want me to say that,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told host Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s “Hardball” on Monday. Chaffetz also backed the former Massachusetts governor early in the GOP nomination process for 2012. “A hundred times he says he’s not, but Mitt Romney has always accomplished what he’s set out to do. I think he’s proven right on...

After black voters helped Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran survive an intense Republican primary runoff against an insurgent conservative challenger, some civil rights leaders in the South want him to repay the favor. Their request? Cochran should lead the charge in the Senate to renew a key section of the Voting Rights Act struck down last year by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority. […] Cochran angered some conservatives with his unabashed appeal to Democrats in the June 24 runoff election against state Sen. Chris McDaniel, who eked out a win with the support of tea party groups in the state’s primary...

Virginia state Republican lawmakers have lost one of their most reliable sources of campaign cash with U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's defeat in a GOP primary contest last month. Cantor's campaign account and the Cantor-controlled 7th District Republican Committee have given more than $700,000 directly to Republican state candidates since Cantor was first elected to Congress in 2000. That is according to campaign finance reports compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonprofit that tracks political contributions. Helping Cantor help state politicians were big-name donors from around the country attracted by the majority leader's former star power. They...

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has asked a pro-Thad Cochran Super PAC, called Mississippi Conservatives, to provide additional information about what the newspaper Roll Call said “appears to be campaign finance violations.” At issue are last-minute expenditures made by the PAC in the days before the initial June 3 primary. The FEC “Request for Additional Information” says the PAC does not appear to have disclosed some of its spending in a timely manner. The FEC notes in the letter sent to treasurer Brian Perry that failure to “adequately respond” by Aug. 1 “could result in an audit or enforcement action.”...

From WJTV News Channel 12 twitter: U.S. Senator @ThadforMS plans to hold a press conference today at 2 to discuss McDaniel's accusations against the election process.

The end of primary season is nigh, and Republicans are now optimistic their slate of House candidates will yield a net gain of female members in the conference after November. Republicans are now focusing their efforts on a specific slate of top female candidates with a strong chance of coming to Congress. On Tuesday morning, a top aide to Rep. Ann Wagner, a Missouri Republican and leading voice in the conference for women, emailed Capitol Hill colleagues and K Street allies to highlight these female candidates, according to an email obtained by CQ Roll Call. “As many of you know,...

Chris McDaniel should mount a write-in campaign to be elected to the Senate from Mississippi, here’ why. The first thing to consider in the aftermath of the underhanded stunt the GOPe pulled to keep their hands on power in Mississippi is that right now the candidacy of Chris McDaniel is dead. It cannot be killed because it is dead. That said, McDaniel has nothing at all to lose and everything to gain by pursuing every legal and political option available to him and even those “not” available to him. After the votes were counted, Thad Cochran had 6693 votes more...

Because “friends and foes” view President Barak Obama’s America as weak, people should donate to the Republican National Committee, says U.S. Sen. John McCain. McCain On Monday, the RNC sent out a mass email to supporters containing a letter from the Republican senator from Arizona, in which he blasted the president. “President Obama’s policies continue to cost millions of Americans jobs and access to health care,” McCain says in the email. “When the world needs American leadership, our President fails to lead. As a result, friends and foes alike are coming to see America as weak, unreliable and lacking credibility....

One week after traveling to Mississippi to do his utmost to help Senator Thad Cochran (R) beat Tea Party rival Chris McDaniel, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) talked about the strengths he saw in Cochran's approach to campaigning. According to AZ Central, McCain dismissed criticism over the tactics the Republican Establishment used to get black Democrats to cross over and vote for Cochran. Said McCain, "There are some people complaining that African-American voters voted. [But] I thought one of the major priorities of the Republican Party was to get all minority and ethnic voters out to vote for Republicans." He described...

In hopes of avoiding Chris McDaniel’s fate, Rand Paul has worked tirelessly to shed his image as a fringe, right-wing ideologue. (SNIP) "Every day, the guy looks more and more like a Democrat. Every speech he gives, ‘Republicans are too quick to wanna fight…’. Every day, Rand Paul is showing himself to be the shrimpboat that I always knew he was." I never trusted him. I liked his father better than him.

Yes, FReepU GOPe, but surrender? NUTS! The battle rages on. Landslide in November and again in 2016! Repeal all of Obama's Marxist disasters! Take our country back!! Rebellion is brewing!!

It has become a daily frightening occurrence, hearing politicians, commentators, pundits, and stunned Americans say, “That's outrageous!” **snip**For example: the GOP was moving too slow in caving to Obama's amnesty scheme, so Obama said, Heck with it, I'll bypass everyone and make it happen. **snip** As with every other extremely arrogant action by Obama, from blatantly lying about ObamaCare to releasing the Taliban five, while everyone expresses disbelief, outrage, and concern, nothing happens. The same is the case concerning the disaster happening at our border. Despite bipartisan outrage, the tsunami of illegals continues. Then there is the absurd lie from...

News Corp Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch Rupert Murdoch said his "heart sank" after he learned of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's stunning Republican primary loss last week, because he believes Congress needs to tackle the issue of immigration reform this year. Murdoch, the chair of News Corp., has an op-ed in Thursday's Wall Street Journal in which he argued immigration reform "can't wait." After Cantor's loss, immigration reform was almost universally pronounced dead as a possibility this year, as it was perceived to be one of the issues on which Cantor lost favor with his Republican constituents. But Murdoch,...

Top environmental officials for four Republican presidents are telling Congress what many Republican lawmakers won’t: Action is needed on global warming. EPA administrators for Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan said Wednesday they hoped to inject reason into a debate that is increasingly colored by politics. …

Last year, American Crossroads, the super-PAC conceived of by Republican operative and fundraiser Karl Rove, hatched a plan: Inject itself into 2014 GOP primary races to protect incumbents from hard-line challengers in the mold of Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock who could cost the party winnable seats in Congress. Immediately, conservatives howled with outrage over an establishment group targeting tea partiers—Mike Huckabee called it "fratricide." The plan never got off the ground, and American Crossroads itself has largely shied away from picking primary fights. But here's an exception: A brand-new Crossroads ad slams Matt Doheny, who's vying with Elise Stefanik...

Surprised that he is facing a run-off against State Senator Chris McDaniel to represent Mississippi in the US Senate, sitting Senator Thad Cochran (R) made an odd bid to corner the bestiality and animal cruelty vote. With a knowing wink to his Pine Bluff audience, Cochran boasted that he'd done "all kinds of indecent things with animals" growing up in rural Mississippi. Cochran campaign spokesman Jordan Russell downplayed Cochran's comments contending that they were "the sorts of antics that many boys and young men engage in as youths. Let's face it, rural Mississippi is just plain boring. Who can blame...

Just a pep talk in the wake of all our anger at the crooked pro-amnesty and H1b RINO Lindsey Graham winning the SC primary, even amid the jubilation at David Brat's win-- I was in South Carolina myself recently and Lindsey Graham really has suffered tremendously for his support of that disgusting immigration reform bill as a Gang of 8 member. But it didn't surprise me that he was able to hang on, due to simple circumstances he was going to be all but impossible to unseat in this go-around, and in fact the lessons from 2014 will guide us...

Now that primary season is almost over, some establishment Republicans are looking for retribution Ted Cruz has not made himself a popular man in Washington, D.C. The Texas Republican would argue that’s the point. But even for a Senator—an elected office with the backing of an entire state—ticking off powerful people can have consequences. In his first two years in Washington, Cruz has managed to help force a government shutdown, undermine the GOP’s chances of taking over the Senate and force uncomfortable votes for his fellow Republicans. Not to mention the verbal bombs he lobs on a regular basis, many...

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is dismissing Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum as “outside celebrities” who have gotten involved in the highly-charged Mississippi GOP Senate primary to “help themselves nationally.” Voters in Mississippi head to the polls on Tuesday, when incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran will face a challenge on the ballot from state Sen. Chris McDaniel. Ahead of the primary, Barbour, the influential Republican in the state, is arguing that McDaniel is relying on out-of-state conservative stars, while Cochran is boasting support from Mississippi Republicans. “The McDaniel campaign emphasizes the outside celebrities (Palin and Santorum) who are involved in MS...

On Thursday, the House of Representatives approved two immigration enforcement amendments offered by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) to the Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Act. The bill includes funding for the Justice Department, and Rep. King's amendments addressed the recent report of more than 36,000 criminal illegal aliens being released from custody and sanctuary cities. SNIP Nine Republicans voted against the amendment, including pro-amnesty supporters Mario Diaz-Balart, Peter King, David Valadao, and Jeff Denham.