Free Republic

Former two-time Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is set to host six declared and potential GOP contenders at a Utah retreat next week. Mr. Romney, who considered a third run for president earlier this year but declined to run, will gather big GOP donors and other party bigwigs in Park City, Utah for his annual “E2 Summit.” The private event at a mountain resort kicks off with a dinner June 11 and wraps up with a luncheon on June 13, according to a copy of the invitation. Declared and potential Republican presidential contenders scheduled to speak include Sens. Marco Rubio...

In the past week, several more Republicans, with varying degrees of gravitas, have joined an already crowded field of contenders. Lindsey Graham became the fourth sitting senator to enter the race. Former New York Gov. George Pataki is in, too — despite not having been in office in nearly a decade. Rick Santorum recently announced as well, looking to springboard off of a 2012 runner-up finish. Mike Huckabee is going even farther back, hoping to springboard off of his 2008 runner-up status. Ohio Gov. John Kasich has made it clear he intends on entering. His counterpart in Michigan, Rick Snyder,...

Saying it's "obvious," best-selling author and national talk show host Hugh Hewitt is urging all of the nearly two dozen potential Republican presidential candidates to pick 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney as their vice presidential choice. In his upcoming book The Queen, directed at Hillary Rodham Clinton, Hewitt said that Romney has the influence and status of former Vice President Dick Cheney, making him a formidable campaigner and White House partner. That, he added in the book provided to Secrets, will force Clinton to make an equally top-notch pick, not somebody like Joe Biden, the "lovable dolt" chosen by Barack...

The motormouth claims the U.S. is being ruined by an influx of immigrants from Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Is this performance art or is she for real?When it comes to Ann Coulter—the conservative blonde avenger, the loud-mouthed provocateur, the human hot-button of mass-media notoriety who is forever tossing turds into liberals’ punch bowls—people always want to know: Is she for real? Even the title of her latest book, ¡Adios, America!: The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole, is guaranteed to raise many folks’ blood pressure and strain their credulity. Does Coulter actually believe the...

Here’s how you profile Ann Coulter by the numbers. Job well done, Daily Beast! Lloyd Grove’s new piece has it all — multiple Ted Kennedy cracks, a sexy description of what she’s wearing, provocative but not too serious conversation about immigration, and finally an Adolf Hitler kicker. Here are the highlights! Ann Coulter arrives. The Daily Beast swoons: “She wears tight, seemingly painted-on jeans, a hint of midriff showing beneath her blouse; at 53, she still rocks that “Vixen of the Right” thing that once prompted Playboy to ask her to take it all off. In a rare display of...

The soul of a bureaucrat Robert Gates has long been surrounded by men in uniform, first as secretary of defense, now as president of the Boy Scouts of America. His time at DoD coincided with the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on homosexual soldiers — a repeal effectively imposed by the courts — and as the leader of the Boy Scouts he is calling for a repeal of that organization’s policy banning homosexual adults from serving as troop leaders or in other leadership roles. Gates, whose likeness appears in Webster’s with the entry for “bureaucrat,” says that...

Well that was then. Boy Scouts President Robert Gates Calls for End of Ban on Gay Troop Leaders The new policy is coming quicker than you can say Jack Robinson. In effect gay scout leaders are now permitted since Gates says he will not revoke the charter of troops that allow homosexuals leaders.  Any parents who leave their sons in the Boy Scouts are insane. Homosexuals represent about 3% of the population; they commit about thirty percent of child sex abuse. Not every homosexual is an abuser, but those who are look for opportunities to be around children -- especially...

Shortly after 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney withdrew from the presidential campaign of 2016, I suggested that he was probably pursuing a brilliant strategy intended to let the other Republican candidates wear each other down while the media investigated them all, paving the way for Romney to step in as the savior of the party. My Machiavellian theory early this year is starting to look pretty good today! In my column this week about the magic of Bill Clinton, I suggested that because of the great success of the Bill Clinton presidency, the vast experience of Hillary Clinton and huge...

Has there ever been a hypothetical question asked without malice aforethought? Bradford is overwhelmed with the gravitas of the hypothetical question posed to him.If the question comes from a lawyer or journalist the answer is no. Just ask Michael Dukakis or Mitt Romney if you don’t believe me.So as Big Guy’s foreign affairs strategery continues to implode experience some setbacks, the journo-class has been having a field day asking Republican candidates, and presumed candidates, the hypothetical question of the week:  "Knowing what you know now, would you have authorized the invasion (of Iraq)?" No matter how many times you try...

Mitt Romney and Evander Holyfield had a charity boxing match last night:-snip- Holyfield was declared the victor, but perhaps only because Romney saved his best jabs for Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid and Candy Crowley.-snip-Mitt Romney with the joke about wanting his fight against @holyfield to be "as clean as Hillary Clinton's server"-snip-Romney after Holyfield fight: "I'm ready to take on Harry Reid's exercise equipment now.-snip-Romney, with some bite post-fight: "I'm happy to fight anybody so long as Candy Crowley isn't the referee."-snip- Mitt Romney, winner by TKO.

I think it may be a good idea for Big Guy to lay low for awhile. It seems every time he opens his mouth lately somebody sticks his foot in it.Take yesterday for example, when he was whining about people in general and Cherokee Princess Senator Elizabeth Warren in particular for not supporting his Trade Bill:  NOW president: Obama’s Warren critique sexist. National Organization for Women (NOW) president Terry O’Neill on Wednesday called President Obama’s critique of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sexist.O’Neill told The Hill she took issue with Obama calling Warren by her first name during an interview with...

BOMBSHELL! Newly Released Emails Reveal Obama Admin’s Reaction to Benghazi April 29, 2014 By Greg Campbell Emails obtained by Judicial Watch have revealed that the top priority after the Benghazi terrorist attack was not national security nor was it ensuring a proper investigation into who orchestrated an attack on our consulate that left four Americans dead. No, the priority of top advisors in the earliest days after the Benghazi attack was ensuring that President Obama “looked good” prior the 2012 election. As part of a Freedom of Information Lawsuit, the Obama Administration released nearly 100 pages of documents to Judicial...

If the GOP doesn’t put together a sensible immigration policy it will lose the 2016 presidential election. When President Obama beat Mitt Romney in 2012, with the former Massachusetts governor attracting only 27% of the Hispanic vote with his self-deportation argument, Republicans across the map decided they must develop an immigration-reform policy with an outreach approach to minority groups. According to the Republican National Committee, the days of harsh language and punitive legislation must end. In its place, the GOP must reconstruct the Ronald Reagan/Jack Kemp “big tent” theory of politics, where there is plenty of room for all groups...

Hillary Clinton is moving so quickly to the left that it’s hard to keep up. Her aides are telling the New York Times she wants to “topple” the One Percent, she’s pledging solidarity with union bosses over lunch meetings at Mario Batali restaurants in Midtown, she supports a constitutional amendment to suppress political speech, she’s down with a right to same-sex marriage, she’s ambivalent over the Keystone Pipeline and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, she’s calling for an end to the “era of mass incarceration,” she wants to go “further” than President Obama’s illegal executive amnesty. It’s called pandering, but the press...

Mitt Romney, who earlier this year decided against a third presidential bid after briefly flirting with a run, will jump back into the national political scene next month when he hosts GOP presidential hopefuls and some of the party’s biggest donors in Utah. Romney’s 2015 E2 Summit will take place June 11-13 in Deer Valley, a ski resort east of Salt Lake City, according to an invitation obtained Thursday by The Washington Post. Confirmed speakers from the likely 2016 Republican field include Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and...

Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is holding what will amount to his fourth annual political summit, according to a report in The Washington Post. The summer affair is Romney’s fourth annual summit. The events began as a way for him to personally connect with the power brokers and financiers backing his political operation. The theme of this year’s gathering is the “strength and future of American leadership.” It appears Jeb Bush is opting out and, for whatever reason, GOP hopefuls Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) 93% and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 96% are not among those on the current attendee...

CNN reports that, while speaking to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, Ted Cruz took a swipe at Mitt Romney’s infamous “47 percent” remark. Cruz reframed the conversation, taking the opportunity to connect the remark to the Hispanic vote: “The media repeatedly said the reason Mitt Romney got clobbered in the Hispanic community was because of immigration…the data don’t bear that out…” “What the polling data showed is actually Hispanic voters agree with Mitt Romney on a great many issues. Where he got clobbered was ‘cares about somebody like me.’ Where he got clobbered was the 47 percent–you...

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus cautioned GOP faithful on Friday that they won't recapture the White House if the party gets too obsessed with choosing its nominee while Democrats continue to outpace Republicans on campaign tactics. "We have become a candidate-crazy party to the detriment of all the mechanics," Priebus told hundreds of GOP donors and activists at a South Carolina party dinner. Describing the 2012 nomination fight as a "total disaster" and a "traveling circus," Priebus said the Republican National Committee has learned its lesson....

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Already creating distance from the last nominee of his party, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz took aim at Mitt Romney's infamous "47%" remark that created a firestorm of controversy during the 2012 campaign. Speaking about the Latino vote and the economy to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Texas senator bluntly critiqued on Wednesday Romney's personal assessment that as a candidate he didn't need to worry about that part of the vote because they were government-dependent and would reelect the president in 2012. "Where he got clobbered was 47%," he said. "I think Romney is a good man...

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who is putting a lot of emphasis on Iowa in his presidential campaign, is continuing to notch endorsements from some well-known activists in the state. Former Secretary of State Matt Schultz told the Quad-City Times on Wednesday he is endorsing Cruz for president. "I’m looking for somebody who’s going to stand up and fight for our country, and he gives me hope we can turn things around," said Schultz, who is now the Madison County Attorney. "He's not going to back down from a fight." In a letter to two dozen members of the Cruz...