Free Republic

Scraps Border Fencing, Delays Biometric, Preserves Catch-and-Release, Allows Work Permits for Border-Crossers...The pace at which this bill is being rammed through the House suggests that the leadership is eager to pass a token bill and then inform the public that the border problem has been solved, while leaving the president's executive amnesty intact and his abuse of authority unchallenged.

Hopes that a political wedding between former governors Jeb Bush (R-Fla) and Mitt Romney (R-Mass)--both potential Republican contenders for the presidency—would sweep aside other rivals fell through this week. While both the Bush and Romney camps were loath to release many details, insiders say the chief sticking point was who would be on top. Romney spokesman Richard Butz laid the blame on what he termed "Bush dynastic aspirations. It was our feeling that Mitt ought to be the one at the top of the ticket. Our polling shows that a substantial number of voters wish they had voted for Mitt...

I was expecting some action out of the new Congress, but I really never saw this one coming. A group of Republican Senators led by Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) are floating the idea of further extending the nuclear option enacted by the Democrats to take filibusters off the table when considering nominees to the Supreme Court. Clearly wiser heads than myself have been able to determine why this is such a great idea, because I’m not seeing it at the moment. Top Senate Republicans are considering gutting the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees — a move that could...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is adding a veteran GOP strategist and Iowa expert to his political team as the Wisconsin Republican considers a possible 2016 presidential bid. The addition of David Polyansky gives Walker's team a big dose of Iowa experience. The strategist helped engineer former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's win in the 2008 Iowa Republican caucuses and also served as deputy campaign manager for former Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, who won the 2011 Iowa straw poll.

Washington (CNN)Mark it down as a rare win for House GOP moderates. After scrambling into the evening on Wednesday, House Republican leaders decided to scrap a vote on a controversial anti-abortion measure scheduled to coincide with an annual gathering of anti-abortion advocates on Thursday because they couldn't round up enough support.

House Republicans ran into divisions Wednesday over the new Congress’ first abortion bill, and leaders were trying for a way to advance the legislation without an embarrassing split over the issue. Legislation set for debate Thursday would ban virtually all abortions for pregnancies of 20 weeks or longer. It would offer some exceptions, including for victims of rapes that have already been reported to authorities. Some Republicans were upset about that requirement, saying that many women feel too distressed to report rapes and should not be penalized. …

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee—who’s mulling another run for president—says his potential rival, Jeb Bush, is a lot more conservative than people think—even further to the right than his brother, George W. Bush. Asked Tuesday on The Steve Malzberg Show on Newsmax TV whether the former Florida governor was a true conservative, Huckabee said: “Jeb will have a lot of issues that he’ll make front and center. He was an excellent governor of Florida. He was a very conservative governor of Florida. We’ve served contemporaneously during the late ’90s and early part of 2000. So when people say, well, ‘Jeb...

Pro-life leaders are expressing their fury toward Rep. Renée Ellmers (R-NC) for seeking to delay what has been expected to be a relatively easy passage next week of a House bill that would restrict abortions to 20 weeks of pregnancy based on scientific evidence that unborn babies experience pain at 20 weeks of gestation. According to the National Journal, Ellmers is leading a group of moderate Republican congresswomen who appear to have concerns about the political ramifications of the bill – which is to be voted on next week on the 42nd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision – because it...

Republican voters believed they had sent a message to Washington in November when they voted to increase the GOP majority in the House and give Republicans a Senate majority for the first time since 2007. If a message was sent, it was not received. Weeper of the House of John Boehner got only a token challenge for his speakership. Most of the new freshmen sent to Congress to change the status quo in the House turned into congressweasels before they’d even moved their furniture into their new Capitol Hill offices. That’s even quicker than usual. Normally, they hold out a...

Liberal media outlets will host six of the nine 2016 GOP presidential debates that the Republican National Committee (RNC) will sanction. On Friday, the RNC announced the nine sanctioned debates from August 2015 through March 1, 2016 with three more that are pending. Though there is a pending “Conservative Media Debate,” conservative new media outlets and talk radio did not receive a sanctioned debate. RNC Communications Director Sean Spicer has previously said that conservative media outlets can often hold Republican candidates more to account than mainstream media outlets. Fox News outlets will host three of the sanctioned debates while CNN,...

President Obama told Senate Democrats in a private meeting that he plans to "play offense" against the new GOP-controlled Congress, showing little hesitation about clashing with Republicans for the next two years. Congressional sources confirmed the comments, made Thursday during a summit in Baltimore, as Republican lawmakers held their own summit in Hershey, Pa. The president, who already has issued a string of veto threats in the opening days of the 114th Congress, indicated he's prepared to keep opposing legislation he finds objectionable. This includes legislation with bipartisan support. Not only has Obama threatened to veto bipartisan legislation authorizing the...

I am no longer a Republican. John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and their Democrat-lite, RINO Republican establishment have seen to that. They have betrayed their own constituents. They have actively turned against the American people – the very voters who granted them power to do good. Even before the gavel has sounded on the Republican-led 114th Congress, these treacherous cowards shamelessly, eagerly, it seems, squandered perhaps the one opportunity they had to stop, in his tracks, America's first cultural Marxist, anti-American, palpably evil president. If ever there were, there can no longer be any doubt. Barack Obama is bent on turning...

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...

Gas prices are the lowest they've been in five years — a welcome relief for many drivers. But now that fuel prices are falling, some lawmakers are talking in a serious way about raising the gas tax — Republican lawmakers. The debate is at an early stage, and it’s fair to say House conservatives will hate the idea. But a few powerful GOP senators are signaling they're open to the idea. Even House Speaker John Boehner, who personally opposes raising the gas tax, hasn't ruled it out. “Some Republicans in the Senate are speaking up,” says Todd Zwillich, The Takeaway's...

Republicans “will get walloped” in 2016 if they do not deliver on campaign promises, such as working to scrap the controversial national health care law and blocking President Barack Obama’s immigration proposals, Sen. Ted Cruz said Monday. The freshman Texas lawmaker said fellow Republican candidates promised during last year’s elections to scrap the health care law, which they call Obamacare, and to deny Obama’s executive actions, which they call “amnesty.” Cruz, a tea party favorite considering a White House campaign in 2016, said voters will punish Republicans in two years unless lawmakers have something to show for their new majority...

It's all very simple: the Republicans lost Florida in the 2012 presidential election by 0.88. If conservatives stay at home in 2016 in the same numbers as they did in 2012, then there is no chance of the GOP winning. If conservatives are advised by Governor Palin (unlike in 2012) and Mark Levin to either stay home or vote third-party, then it is impossible to see how Florida could be won by, for example, Jeb Bush. However, for argument's sake, if, because of Bush's Florida connection and a bad economy, Florida is won, then Ohio (-2.98%), Virginia (-3.88%), and Colorado...

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....

The Gold ‘N Silver Inn in Reno, Nev., has long offered health coverage to its employees — but many of the cooks, dishwashers and waiters who make close to minimum wage can’t afford the $100 monthly premium. Last January, when Nevada became one of more than two dozen states to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, 10 of the diner’s 55 employees qualified for the government insurance program for low-income Americans. None of them realized it, however, until the family-run restaurant hired BeneStream, a New York-based start-up funded partly by the Ford Foundation. BeneStream charges $40 to screen each...

Glenn Beck on Tuesday tore into Congressman Chris Stewart (R-Utah) over his decision to vote for John Boehner as speaker of the House, saying he believes Stewart — who has been his friend for years — is losing his soul. Beck asked the congressman whether it was Boehner’s decision to fund Obamacare, his support of the CRomnibus bill, or his decision to continually delay any action in opposing President Barack Obama’s agenda that garnered his support. Stewart said the allegations against Boehner aren’t true, and continued: “I think in the time we have here, we can’t go back and review...