Free Republic

It's never too early to start playing the "will he or won't he?" game with presidential contenders. For anyone who has ever met Ted Cruz, or listened to the senator speak, I think it's fairly obvious that this guy has some big ambitions. But behind any great man is an even greater staff, which which why some recent hires made by Cruz's campaign suggests he's beefing up with the best and brightest ahead of a presidential run in 2016. Some recent moves in Senator's Cruz's staff include: •Joel Mowbray, a consultant and Middle East and terrorism expert for the think...

No, red state women didn't save the party. But Ebola was a phony GOP-made crisis and Dems shouldn't have cowered. Thanksgiving is a great time for writers to reckon with whatever we got wrong over the year – and to be grateful that in this day and age we get to write every day, and put mistakes behind us quickly. So with the 2014 midterm election rapidly disappearing in the rearview mirror, I thought I’d reckon with my one big political mistake this past election cycle, as well as one big thing I got, sadly, right. In July 2013, long...

Now that President Barack Obama has granted legal relief to as many as 5 million unauthorized immigrants, Republicans are thrashing about for an effective response. Only a few hard-liners are talking about impeachment now, but more could join them out of frustration with their other options. Many people in both parties have tried to quell such talk by saying the president is within his powers to issue the order. The problem is the pro-impeachment Republicans are right: There is a plausible case for taking that step. By constitutional design, impeachment for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” is...

Michele Bachmann is one of those Republican extremists who will keep Hispanics voting in the Democratic column for a long time. The Minnesota Republican said President Barack Obama’s executive order on immigration will “flood” the country with “millions of unskilled” foreigners “who can’t speak English” but will become “illiterate” voters. Bachmann’s response was not unusual. The once and future presidential hopeful, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), said the president’s policy would take jobs away from good American workers and give them to illegal aliens. These over-the-top Republican responses — and talk of impeachment, censure and lawsuits targeting Obama — can...

Sen. Rand Paul is blaming politicians for the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, arguing that the criminal justice system fuels racial tension by disproportionately targeting African-Americans. The so-called war on drugs has created a culture of violence and put police in a nearly impossible situation," Paul said in an op-ed published for TIME. He acknowledged that the shooting death of Michael Brown by a Ferguson police officer wasn't related to drugs, but argued that outsized penalties for nonviolent drug crimes creates a "tension in some communities that too often results in tragedy." The comments are another attempt by Paul, a Kentucky...

The New York Observer excerpted some choice lines from Ted Cruz’s meetings with various prominent Jewish leaders in New York City this week. He’s definitely doing prep work for 2016 and, thanks to gross mischaracterizations of him by both Republicans and Democrats, he is probably quite underestimated all around. He is also smart enough to turn this to his advantage in these early stages of the election cycle. Responding to a question inspired by one of the more popular narratives — he can’t win — that Democrats and moderate Republicans are eerily in sync on, Senator Cruz had this to...

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus on Monday called the grand jury decision not to indict Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson a “slap in the face” for those seeking justice for the death of Michael Brown “The Ferguson grand jury’s decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown is a miscarriage of justice,” CBC Chair Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) said in a statement released after the decision was announced late Monday evening in Missouri. “It is a slap in the face to Americans nationwide who continue to hope and believe that justice will prevail.” “This decision...

Sen. John McCain is prodding one of his closest allies in the Senate to consider a run for the White House – Sen. Lindsey Graham. “I think he is looking at it, and I am strongly encouraging him to take a look at it,” McCain, R-Ariz., told ABC News. “I know of no one who is better versed and more important on national security policy and defense than Lindsey Graham, and I don’t think these challenges to our security are going away.” “He is eminently qualified,” McCain added. In an interview with The Weekly Standard last month, Graham, R-S.C., said...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) needs to stop defending the disastrous 2013 shutdown. The stunt he inspired was, for all but the Kool-Aid drinkers, a low point in recent Republican history. It plunged the party into a slump and allowed the president to divert attention from the looming Obamacare debacle. It was only after the shutdown ended by complete surrender that Republicans and the media could focus on the horrible Obamacare rollout. The shutdown was so harmful that virtually no conservative — not even Cruz — recommends a repeat over the president’s executive order on immigration. So why is Cruz still...

GOP's Sessions: Obama's amnesty 'worse than you think'WASHINGTON – Phone lines are melting on Capitol Hill with outraged citizens calling their elected representatives to complain about the president’s order effectively granting amnesty to illegal immigrants. A number of Capitol Hill offices closed today for the Thanksgiving recess, but aides report hearing from upset voters even at the offices in lawmakers’ home states. The offices of Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, confirmed a flood of complaints, and an aide to Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., told WND, “We are getting tons of phone calls to block executive amnesty.” “I...

The Obama Non-Enforcement Doctrine holds that a president is not required to implement or enforce laws passed by Congress with which he disagrees. Obama’s use of the doctrine sets an interesting precedent for the next chief executive, who likely will be a Republican. For example, a Republican could adopt the Obama Non-Enforcement Doctrine with regard to corporate income taxes by directing the IRS to cease all efforts to enforce those portions of the Internal Revenue Code relating to income taxes payable by corporations. This would be great public policy. My law school tax professor once remarked that there is no...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)President Obama’s controversial move to open the nation’s door to millions of illegal immigrants is a fulfillment of former President Reagan’s dream of building a “shining city on a hill,” according to a progressive group’s TV ad. The video from Americans United for Change shows Reagan talking about his move to relax immigration rules. In it the Gipper references his “shining city” that has doors open “to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.” It immediately flips to Obama who adds, “that’s the legacy we must leave for those who are yet to come.” The ad, previewed...

Dear Republican Party, On November 4th the American people spoke with a resounding voice, and voted “no” to President Obama’s Marxist Progressive agenda/tactics. The numbers show the American people gave you a definitive mandate as well. Democrats are now at their lowest numbers in state legislatures nationwide in 86 years, and Republicans now control more than two-thirds of the state legislative chambers across the country. Republicans have the most seats in the U.S. House of Representatives since before the Great Depression. Republicans posted one of the top five election year swings in the U.S. Senate in the past 70 years....

All but drowned out by Republicans’ clamorous opposition to President Obama’s executive action on immigration are some leaders who worry that their party could alienate the fastest-growing group of voters, for 2016 and beyond, if its hottest heads become its face. They cite the Republican Party’s official analysis of what went wrong in 2012, the presidential-election year in which nominee Mitt Romney urged Latinos here illegally to “self-deport.” “If Hispanics think that we do not want them here,” the report said, “they will close their ears to our policies.” “Both the president and the Republican Party confront risks here,” said...

There's no official Sen. Ted Cruz presidential team — yet. But the Texas Republican is already surrounding himself with key strategists and advisers that could make his transparent White House ambitions a reality. The tea party firebrand relies on a small circle of advisers to inform his views and amplify his ultraconservative message. The inner circle breaks down into two groups: his chief advisers in the Senate office, and the chiefs of his nationally-focused political operation, which he beefed up in the summer of 2014 by hiring a crop of seasoned Republican campaign operatives. These are the key players that...

Democrats have long lamented that they do not enjoy the kind of enthusiasm which Republicans benefited from with the rise of the tea party. The left has gone to great lengths to manufacture this sort of energy, including touting the volatile Occupy Wall Street movement as a rough tea party equivalent. Though some have fretted that tea party’s downsides – the targeting and ousting of electable Republican candidates – would necessarily follow the ascension of a liberal version of this grassroots movement to prominence. Democrats got lucky, in a fashion, when it became clear that the Occupy movement had no...

Okayyyyyyy… Elizabeth Warren, in her first major public speech since being elevated to the Democratic leadership in the Senate, slammed Republicans on education, job creation and other economic policies, warning Wednesday that “the American Dream is slipping out of reach.” “We must fight back with everything we have,” Warren told a gathering hosted by the Center for American Progress in Washington. “The game is rigged but we know how to fix it. We know what to do. We tested the Republican ideas and they failed. They failed spectacularly there’s no denying that fact.” As a science fiction fan, I have...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) President Obama has invited senior lawmakers to the White House for dinner Wednesday night so that he can explain his plans to use executive authority to change the nation’s immigration laws, according to several congressional aides. Obama has invited Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the leaders of the congressional Asian, Black and Hispanic caucuses....

Watch for a shift in their perspective, which is already underway.Conventional wisdom is malleable, and it appears that conventional wisdom on the wisdom of shutting down the government is shifting, at least within the Republican party. While the old CW was that it was a terrible idea that Republicans suffered for, and it would be foolish to do it again, the new CW seems to be, "Hey, didn't we shut down the government and win the next election?" The other day, influential conservative journalist Byron York began pushing this line, writing that the 2013 shutdown "so deeply damaged GOP prospects...

Sen. Ted Cruz’s piece in Politico Magazine on Wednesday has drawn a lot of attention, not all of it kind. In the piece, the Texas Senator charges that President Obama’s impending executive action on immigration “is lawless” and that if he makes the move, “he will be acting as a monarch.” Since his election in 2012, Cruz has vocally opposed comprehensive immigration reform. A fellow Republican in the Texas congressional delegation said that Cruz’s energetic opposition to comprehensive immigration reform doesn’t adequately represent his constituents. “I don’t think it’s reflective of Texas as a whole,” said Rep. Gene Green, chuckling....