Free Republic

Representative G.K. Butterfield (D., N.C.) accused Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) of opposing the confirmation of President Obama’s attorney general nominee because she is “an African American legal scholar.” “The Congressional Black Caucus recognizes Senator Paul’s unfounded argument as nothing but an excuse to keep an African-American legal scholar from holding this high position, and we directly call on him and Republicans to allow the nomination of Loretta Lynch to proceed to an up or down vote in the Senate,” Butterfield, the chairman of the CBC, said in a Thursday statement. Paul says he opposes Loretta Lynch taking over for...

Sen. Rand Paul on Wednesday pointed to several ways he was personally open to teaming up with the White House, noting that the 2016 Republican nominee will be affected by whether the GOP-dominated Congress can accomplish anything. Paul (R-Ky.), a near-certain presidential contender, offered those remarks to the Ripon Society, a Republican group, at the Capitol Hill Club in an early-morning speech the day after the State of the Union. During the speech, he also offered an impassioned defense of his foreign policy views. “If we’re looking forward to 2016, and some of us are,” he said to laughs, “we...

Sen. Lindsey Graham is knocking Sen. Ted Cruz’s effort to block Loretta Lynch from becoming attorney general over immigration. Graham said Cruz’s proposed blockade would just leave Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in charge. “Nobody is going to say that the executive order is illegal that President Obama appoints, so the idea that we would block an attorney general nominee until you’ve gotten somebody to agree with Sen. Cruz about the executive order is probably not feasible,” he said. “It ensures that Eric Holder stays in place for two years. It’s picking a fight that we can’t win.” Graham,...

Potential presidential contender Lindsey Graham thinks he can appeal to typically right-skewed Republican presidential primary voters, despite non-conservative views on immigration, climate change and federal spending. Graham, a Republican senator representing South Carolina, is serious about his recently declared interest in entering the already packed 2016 GOP field, even while the move has left the political punditry puzzled. On Thursday, Graham announced the launch of a formal exploratory committee, “Security through Strength,” to determine, he said, if he can enter the race with a viable campaign. Graham last week began selling his candidacy on Capitol Hill, telling reporters if he...

The sure sign that someone is running for president is whether he or she is raising money and hiring staff in advance of the big announcement. In that vein, according to a Sunday article in the Houston Chronicle. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas is all but certain to run for president. He is raising and spending money through his Pac and is hiring heavy hitter political talent. ”Entering 2015, Cruz’ PAC had $131,000 on hand and his fundraising committee had $227,000. His Senate campaign account had not yet filed its end-of-year report.” On the other hand, Cruz has not formed an...

Peter King running for president in order to prevent other Republicans from winning the 2016 election. In numerous interviews, Congressman Peter King from New York has confirmed that his main reason for entering the presidential race is to serve as an obstacle to conservatives like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul.Peter King running for president not because he thinks he can make it to the White House, but because he wants to stop several Republicans from becoming the most powerful leader in the world. For over two years now, Mr Peter Thomas King, who is the U.S. Representative for...

38,000 FEET ABOVE AMERICA — Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a likely 2016 GOP presidential candidate, tells Breitbart News he’s “gauging support” for a potential White House bid. In an exclusive interview aboard an American Airlines flight from Washington, D.C., to Dallas, Texas, he also said he thinks Republicans need to select a conservative — such as himself — as the 2016 GOP nominee for president, rather than a moderate such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush or New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. “I think one of the biggest debates we will see is: Do we want the leader of our...

Why Republicans fall in love with inexperienced, no-hope candidates every four years.Conservative Republicans have finally called it quits with short-term former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (she lasted just two-and-a-half years in that position before quitting). The final straw, it seems, is the 2008 vice-presidential candidate’s recent speech at the “Iowa Freedom Summit” that has charitably been called “an interminable ramble,” “an extended stream-of-consciousness complaint,” and simply “bizarro.” So America’s most-famous snowbilly is out of the running for the 2016 Republican nomination. But what about all the other manifestly unqualified novices, jackasses, and publicity hounds that surface every four years when...

The Embarracuda is finished. Where will her peeps go? To one obvious successor. She may not field dress a moose, but she castrates pigs.Before the 2016 campaign for president could even begin in earnest, the greatest political romance of our times has already died. And it could make all the difference next November. In a turn that was perhaps inevitable but nonetheless remarkable, Sarah Palin delivered a hyped-up speech (at Iowa's high-profile Freedom Summit) that drew disappointing reviews from within her own base of support. To the surprise of no one, Palin's critics blew a gasket straining to capture the...

Ted Cruz, an outspoken attorney whose first elected role was as a U.S. senator from Texas, is seen as a strong contender for a run for president in 2016. Although he’s only been a senator since 2012, Cruz has already ingratiated himself with the Tea Party. Here are seven highlights from his pre-politics life: 1. His father was a political prisoner of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista during Fidel Castro's revolution and nearly lost his life. "Being the son of an immigrant who came here fleeing oppression and seeking freedom, I think, is an incredible gift," Cruz has said. "It makes...

They’re baaa-aack… Those who follow this magazine know I wrote five e-books profiling the GOP circus in the 2012 Presidential campaign. This past weekend saw me put the above title to bed, the first of 2016 and two full months before I thought it would ever be necessary. It’s your official handbook to the crazy as everyone rushes to get in the race before the dark money is all sewn up by establishment candidates. I’ve profiled everyone considering a run, their record, stand on the issues and to which of the five key rabid core constituencies in the Republican Party...

Politicians who oppose President Obama can bluster all they want, grab headlines and curry favor with donors yet don’t have to be responsible for their (too often) irresponsible critiques and prescriptions on foreign policy. So it was refreshing to hear Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky split with some of his fellow Republicans on Iran during a presidential forum on Saturday organized by Freedom Partners. As far as Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida are concerned, negotiations involving the United States and five other major powers on Iran’s nuclear program are endangering America and the world. “They’ve...

Sen. Rand Paul prefers exhausting diplomatic efforts in dealing with overseas conflicts, and on Sunday he highlighted the difference between his softer approach to foreign policy and that of two other senators who are likely 2016 presidential candidates -- Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. The Kentucky Republican joined fellow first-term senators Cruz of Texas and Rubio of Florida on stage Sunday evening in California for a summit organized by Freedom Partners. That group is the central hub of the powerful network of organizations backed by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch....

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) once supported President Reagan’s amnesty for illegal aliens back in the 1980’s, but has since stated that he and others made a mistake in doing so. He now supports a piece-meal approach to immigration reform as opposed to a comprehensive approach to fixing the existing immigration problem. During a brief Q & A with the veteran Senator at the Iowa Freedom Summit in Des Moines, Grassley laid out what he feels first needs to be done in any immigration reform bill and then talks about what he feels his colleague Senator Ted Cruz is doing...

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz used his appearance at this weekend’s Iowa Freedom Summit to excoriate Obamacare, Islamic State militants and that other evil scourge: the Internal Revenue Service. “The most important tax reform we can do is abolish the IRS,” Cruz said to the delight of attendees at the conservative event. (VIDEO-AT-LINK) Turning his aim on Obamacare, the senator said it’s time to “repeal every word” of President Obama’s signature health care legislation. But Cruz saved his harshest critique for Obama’s handling of Islamic State, the terrorist group some refer to by the acronym, ISIS. “What’s happening in Iraq is...

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas has earned a singular honor once reserved for movie villains, according to a Friday story on Breitbart TV. Bill Maher laid into the possible Republican presidential candidates on his HBO political rant show. He had little good to say about any of them, but he reserved a special sort of ire, on the level of what he has used for Sarah Palin, for Cruz. Putting it simply, the bad boy of pay for view cable is deathly afraid of the junior senator from Texas. Maher minced no words about how terrified he is about Cruz. “Maher...

Ted Cruz unveiled a possible new theme for a 2016 presidential campaign — “reigniting the miracle of America” — as he wooed the Iowa conservative activists critical to a victory in the Republican caucuses next year. “It is the most important cause that unifies us together, and Iowa believes in the miracle of America,” he said Saturday. Appearing at the Iowa Freedom Summit, the unofficial kickoff of the race to win the Iowa caucuses, Texas’ junior senator appealed to the evangelical voters who could cast about half of the votes in February. Cruz spoke thoroughly about both Mayor Annise Parker’s...

There are enough potential candidates for president (on the GOP side at least) that you need an Excel spreadsheet just to keep them all straight. Instead of a complicated algorithm, I've boiled each candidate down to his/her most basic elements. At the end of the day, these are the things more likely to define a presidential wannabe. It's also important to distinguish between durable traits and those that are more ephemeral. For example, low name ID is something easily overcome. But, being on the "wrong side" of the base on key issues can be a campaign killer. This is by...

For now, senators say it’s not a problem that one of the most powerful Republicans in D.C. already has a likely presidential candidate. “I work with Sen. McConnell on stuff, I make sure he knows what I’m doing to try and get it across the finish line,” Paul said. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made no secret that he’ll support his fellow Kentuckian, Sen. Rand Paul, should Paul run for president in 2016. And Paul has also made no secret that he very, very likely will do just that. But there’s a lot of time between now and the...

A new Congress means change—change in the way that votes swing, legislature is pushed past, and committees are formed. With the 2014 midterm elections, the Republican Party took control of Congress, and subsequently, new senators were named to positions in congressional committees. Recently, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R.) was named chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Science and Space, while Fla Sen. Marco Rubio (R.) was named chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard. Interestingly enough, neither seem to have the education or beliefs necessary to head such influential positions. Cruz is infamous for his...