Free Republic

We told you so. That's what conservative Republican leaders in Bakersfield are saying about GOP Assemblyman Kevin McCarthy after reading media descriptions of him as a moderate on abortion and other social issues. They say that's not the way McCarthy described himself when he ran as a conservative in last year's primary election against Bakersfield Councilman Mike Maggard. They didn't believe McCarthy then, and they say his two faces are now being exposed. McCarthy says they're all wet. No matter what the media says about him, he insists he is a anti-abortion conservative on social issues and he has the...

Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) decision to resign from Congress at the end of October is “a victory for the crazies,” Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) said Friday. “I’m disappointed. This is a victory for the crazies,” King told Newsday. “You can’t appease these people.” King said Boehner was resigning “to avoid putting the party through tumult” amid challenges to his leadership and an impending government shutdown. The Long Island Republican also told Reuters that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is the leading contender to replace Boehner as Speaker. …

This Irish spring, potato loving, lucky charms eating MF'er needs to go as well

Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA) gave his own Republican congressional leadership a failing grade for not going “all in” to solve the nation’s fiscal problems and for not fighting President Obama’s executive overreach. “I’d give them all F’s. Fail. We did not fight. We didn’t win. My district sent me up here to score some points,” Brat said Friday after C-SPAN Washington Journal host Peter Slen asked the Tea Party-backed freshman congressman what he thought about House Speaker John Boehner’s leadership over the past year. Brat noted the Republican-controlled Congress’ failure to defund Planned Parenthood in the wake of graphic undercover...

Congress’ Republican leaders face stark tests as they fight to keep the government open past month’s end, amid fears a shutdown could imperil their party’s White House ambitions. For House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, any wrong move could throw his very future into question, opening him to a threatened showdown vote on the floor of the House over whether he can remain in his job. If that happens, there is no certain outcome. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., must contend with the ambitions of several GOP presidential candidates. One of them, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, has made it...

In the wake of the latest televised Republican presidential debate, New York businessman Donald Trump has more support than ever for the GOP's 2016 presidential nomination, according to an NBC/Survey Monkey Poll released Sunday. According to the survey, Trump has the support of 29 percent of Republicans, up from 22 percent in July and August. Other contenders for the nomination are far behind Trump, according to NBC. Maryland pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson is second with 14 percent. Carson has gained steadily in NBC polls, registering 7 percent in April, 8 percent in July, and 10 percent in August. Carly Fiorina,...

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McALLEN, Tex. — At the Republican debate Wednesday and throughout the campaign, candidates led by Donald J. Trump have assailed illegal immigration, and some have questioned whether children who are born to immigrants in this country illegally should be considered American citizens. But here on the Texas border some communities are engaged in activities that go beyond talk, enforcing some of the toughest rules in the country limiting the types of ID parents can show to receive copies of birth certificates. The result has been a refusal to issue birth certificates to many of the Texas-born children of immigrants here...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged Wednesday that he and the House Speaker are discussing a short-term government funding bill to avoid a shutdown on Oct. 1. McConnell (R-Ky.) also warned his GOP colleagues that they are almost certainly going to have to accept spending levels above those in the 2011 Budget Control Act that introduced the sequester, the series of automatic cuts and ceilings meant to restrain federal spending. The GOP leader blamed Democrats for not allowing Republicans to move forward on any appropriations bills, which he said had delayed any progress. “And so we are inevitably going to...

If you imagine a scenario in which Donald Trump vanishes from the Republican presidential race, and isn’t replaced by an equally brash panderer—that is, where his supporters scatter to a variety of other second-choice candidates—then you can make the case that behind all the dirt Trump has kicked up, the Republican presidential field is basically healthy. Conservative Bloomberg View columnist Ramesh Ponnuru flirted with that argument at the end of August, by listing all the reasons Trump is unlikely to win the primaries, including the fact that “Republican elected officials would consolidate behind a consensus choice if Trump started winning...

This is a sequel to To bring America back we need to break some stuff. The mainstream media -- particularly CNN this evening -- as well as most of the Republican candidates, are out to eliminate Trump as a viable candidate. How can he turn their own long knives against them?It's reasonable to anticipate that Trump has a pretty good idea of what's likely to happen tonight and that he and his team have been making plans to win despite, or perhaps even because, of it. It is also reasonable to anticipate that the media and Republican establishment think they know how Trump will behave and are...

So as we all start another day in Paradise, and as we lick our wounds from yet another defeat by our House and Senate Republican majority, over the dastardly Iran deal, who is worse, John Boehner, or the House Republicans that keep him on as Speaker? A poster on a great thread about “The Donald Trump Show” is revealing some pathetic details about the tan man and where his fealty really lies. “In June, 1995, Boehner distributed campaign contributions from tobacco industry lobbyists ON THE HOUSE FLOOR (emp. added) as House members were weighing how to vote on tobacco subsidies....

A majority of Republican registered voters want either Donald Trump or Ben Carson to be their party's 2016 presidential nominee, according to two new national polls from the Washington Post-ABC News and the New York Times-CBS News. Let that sink in for a minute. Neither Trump, who made his name as a real estate mogul and reality star, nor Carson, a renowned pediatric neurosurgeon, have run for any office prior to their presidential candidacies. Both men have staked the entirety of their campaigns on the idea that they are the furthest thing possible from a traditional politician. And it is...

When conservatives held a Washington, D.C., rally last week in opposition to the nuclear deal with Iran, which names do you suppose inspired the loudest boos from the crowd? Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and John Kerry would be good guesses. So would Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But none of those are the right answer. Instead, it was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner, the two most important Republican leaders in Washington, who seemed to get the loudest boos. When Dave Brat, who won his Virginia congressional seat by beating then-House Majority Leader...

Former Texas governor Rick Perry exited the presidential race on Friday in the same manner in which he conducted his second presidential race, with maturity, largeness of spirit and devotion to conservative policies that improve the lives of all Americans.

President Obama has earned enough Democratic votes in the Senate to filibuster a Senate effort to block the Iran nuclear deal, if necessary. On Monday, Sens Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) , Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) , and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) announced their support for the deal, tallying enough votes to successfully filibuster the deal. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced his opposition to the deal in a surprise defection from Obama, citing Iran’s support of terrorism and the death of American soldiers. “This regime has shown no signs that its deplorable behavior will change, and this deal does nothing to...

The “Terror Threat Snapshot” for August 2015, released by the majority staff of the House Homeland Security Committee, states the terror threat level in America is high and “getting steadily worse,” and that there have been “more U.S.-based jihadist terror cases in 2015 than in any full year since 9/11.”The “Terror Threat Snapshot” also reported that the Islamic State “is fueling the Islamist terror” globally; that Islamist terrorists “are intent on killing law enforcement” officers and U.S. troops, as well as civilians; and that 25,000 fighters from 100 countries have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State.In...

Trump told reporters following a speech in Nashville Saturday that he's going to make a decision "very soon." He says he thinks the decision will make a lot of people "very happy." Trump has so far refused to pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee. He says it gives him leverage.

President Barack Obama is highlighting good economic news during a period of wildly erratic stock markets to make the case the United States remains an anchor of global strength. […] Obama is warning lawmakers not to keep the economy hostage over what he describes as ideological demands. He also says Congress will eventually pass the budget, so “let’s just do it without too much drama.” …

Rejected GOP leader Eric Cantor will endorse Jeb Bush and become the co-chair of Bush’s presidential campaign in Virginia, according to Politico.