Free Republic

----- Paul Singer, Dan Loeb and Cliff Asness — three hedge fund managers and major players in donor circles — each cut six-figure checks toward the landmark effort to legalize gay marriage in New York. Singer, the intensely-private head of Elliott Associates, has been especially active in donating to groups aimed at legalizing gay marriage in different states over the last five years, concurrent with his rise as one of the Republican party’s mot prominent bundlers and donors to party committees. According to a recent New York Times story, Singer has donated $8 million to pro-gay marriage efforts since 2007.He’s...

PHILADELPHIA -- Mitt Romney's aides soft-pedaled his latest tax pronouncements on Monday, insisting he wasn't tipping his hand when he told donors privately that he might seek to end the tax break for mortgages on second homes and curb other deductions for the wealthy as part of tax reform. "He was just discussing ideas that came up on the campaign trail," said former Sen. Jim Talent of Missouri, a frequent campaign surrogate. The remarks, made at a closed-door fundraiser in Florida and overheard by reporters, did not mark any "change in policy," Talent said on a conference call with reporters....

Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno (R) is a sleeper pick for the No. 2 spot on the 2012 presidential ticket, according to GOP strategists. Republican front-runner Mitt Romney has kept his cards close to his chest on vice presidential prospects, saying that it would be “presumptuous” to think about it before winning the nomination. But in a recent interview with Newsmax, he described Fortuno as “a solid conservative and a firm leader.” He also dubbed Fortuno “one of the great leaders of our party.” Republican strategists say that whomever Romney picks, the selection has to resonate with Hispanic voters. Sen....

The Washington Times is usually pretty good, but they really blew this one. They claim that Romney is now getting Tea Party support. The writer for the Times either didn’t know better or engaged in some creative writing. Among other things, he claims that Freedomworks has dropped its opposition to Romney, something that Freedomworks denies. The Times in its blatant desire to see Romney as the nominee claims that Freedomworks launched the Tea Party movement. Ignoring the fact that is not true, I don’t think even Freedomworks makes that claim. They did help organize a big DC rally in 2009,...

Youtube video where Romney explains his and the Mormon Church's views on abortion.

. . . . . What sort of justice to the Supreme Court will Mitt Romney nominate - a Souter or a Thomas? A Miers or an Alito? A Kennedy or a Scalia? His record as governor of Massachusetts gives no cause for optimism. Mr. Romney nominated 36 judges while governor, just nine of whom were Republicans. What he says of this record today is that the Massachusetts Governor's Council had to confirm the nominees, and the members of the council were all Democrats. So his answer was to nominate persons palatable to Democrats. But this all-Democratic Governor's Council is...

"Whoa Nellie! Where did THIS come from? The Fox News network, with its deep bench of producers, associate producers and “investigative journalists” didn’t have access to these video clips? Of course they did. The truth is that this is about as scandalous as the Machiavellianism their sister company Sky News engaged in their phone tapping/hacking scandal that caused Rupert Murdoch’s son James to resign in humiliation. Fox news apparently sat on these clips as though they didn’t exist – just as they CONCEALED the fact they damned well knew – that Mitt Romney repeatedly lied to us and his challengers...

Conservatives shouldn’t fret about the politics of their nearly-presumptive nominee. Mitt Romney will most certainly govern as one of them. He’s guaranteed to — for the exact reason they think he won’t. If Romney really is the political animal his detractors on the right suspect him to be, he’ll shape his presidency with a single goal: Winning a second term. To do that, he will need to make sure there is no running room on his right for someone to launch a primary challenge.

Now we will put to the test what was always an odd claim, namely that Mitt Romney is well positioned and well equipped to defeat Barack Obama this fall. This is a man who lost by 17 points to an incredibly weakened Ted Kennedy (people forget how vulnerable Kennedy was that year) in one of the most pro-Republican years in history, 1994 (the same year in which Rick Santorum won yet another upset victory); a man who would have been handily defeated if he had run for re-election as governor of Massachusetts in 2006; and a man who could barely...

RALEIGH, N.C. — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s campaign Monday began morphing into less of a pursuit of the presidency and more into an effort to shape the Republican platform and to influence the discussion in the fall elections. Campaigning in Raleigh, Gingrich said he planned to battle front-runner Mitt Romney in North Carolina’s May 8 primary and all the way to the GOP convention in Tampa, Fla., but conceded the prospects of overtaking the former Massachusetts governor were not bright. But he said Republicans still face serious choices at the convention and into the fall — whether the GOP...

2012 should prove to be an ideological election about the economy. Not all campaigns are so clear cut. Sometimes moderate Republicans raise taxes (like George H.W. Bush did); at other times, pragmatic Democrats cut spending (like Bill Clinton did). But this year, Mitt Romney, the likely Republican nominee, will run an ideological campaign calling for smaller government and fewer taxes against an equally ideological President Obama, who wants more government and higher taxes. In this divided red state/blue state era, the supporters of each candidate demand no less and will have a clear choice. This year's campaign sloganeering will remind...

Yesterday, Sarah Palin emphasized in her interview with Matt Lauer that whoever becomes the GOP nominee should not play it safe in his selection of a vice presidential running mate. She declined to answer outright whether she thinks this year’s VP nominee should have more experience on the national stage than she did in 2008, but she did say she thinks the presidential nominee should “go rogue” with his pick. Former GOP presidential nominee John McCain backed up those statements today with this: On CBS’s This Morning, McCain, the 2008 GOP nominee, was asked whether he agreed with his former...

Fox News & CNN are projecting Romney wins MD in their banners. Santorum wasn't on the DC ballot. Wisconsin polls close at 8pm CDT/9pm EDT.

GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s camp is defending a controversial program he created that handed out free wheels to Massachusetts welfare recipients — including state-funded insurance and AAA memberships — even as the plan drew fire from conservatives the former Bay State governor is wooing. “Over 80 percent of participants have moved off of welfare,” said Romney spokeswoman Gail Gitcho.

It is pretty well-known among political junkies that Mitt Romney imposed a lot of new fees in Massachusetts to balance the budget without raising taxes. But what is not well known is how crazy and offensive these fees could be. Here are the two craziest we could find: Romney Charged A Fee For Being Blind.[snip] Romney Also Proposed Imposing A Fee On The Mentally Retarded

A new poll shows Mitt Romney, who is locked in a prolonged GOP nomination fight, with lagging approval ratings, raising questions about his strength in a likely November match-up with President Obama. Half of those surveyed hold unfavorable views of the GOP front-runner, a new Washington Post/ABC News poll released Wednesday finds. In the poll, 50 percent of all surveyed and 52 percent of registered voters held unfavorable opinions of Romney. Thirty-four percent hold positive views on Romney, the lowest for any leading presidential contender in Post/ABC polls dating back to 1984. The poll also finds that Romney’s unfavorability tops...

Same-sex "marriage" is still NOT legal in Massachusetts, and was NOT created by the Supreme Judicial Court's Goodridge ruling. Timeline documents Mitt Romney's role in creating same-sex "marriages." In fact, it was Governor Mitt Romney who was ultimately responsible for same-sex "marriages" taking place. The Supreme Judicial Court only issued an opinion and advised the Legislature to act (which it never did). Even the Court acknowledged that it had no power to change the law. Governor Romney created these "marriages" through an unconstitutional and illegal directive to his Department of Public Health (to print new "marriage" licenses), and through his...

A defining moment in Mitt Romney's post-pro-life-conversion political career came in his third year as governor of Massachusetts, when he decided Catholic hospitals would be required under his interpretation of a new state law to give rape victims a drug that can induce abortions. Romney announced this decision — saying it was the "right thing for hospitals" to do — just two days after he had taken the opposite position. The story begins in 1975, when Massachusetts enacted a law that said, "No privately controlled hospital .. shall be required to permit any patient to have an abortion ... or...

...Romney said, “If they are 45 years old and they show up and say I want insurance because I have heart disease, it’s like, hey guys. We can’t play the game like that. You’ve got to get insurance when you are well and then if you get ill, you are going to be covered.”

Whoever chooses to merely dismiss the significance of today’s exchange between our President and Russia’s President should have their intelligence and patriotism questioned. Let this exchange be a warning to voters: President Obama will have “more flexibility” to weaken us if he’s re-elected in November. He was caught speaking candidly to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev before a “hot mic” today (and surely one must believe he didn’t know the mics were still on; surely he’s not so audacious as to purposefully broadcast his intentions), as reported by ABC’s Jake Tapper. Here’s the exchange: President Obama: On all these issues, but...