Free Republic

The American Conservative Union released its congressional scorecard for 2014 today, providing instant fodder for Republican primary contests — and some head-scratching for Florida Democrats. Of the three Republican senators running for president, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz retains conservative bragging rights with a 100 percent score for 2014 and 100 percent lifetime score. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul aren’t too far behind however. Both got 96 percent ratings for 2014 and have lifetime conservative scores of 98 percent....

With over a dozen hopefuls for the republican nomination in the 2016 presidential election, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is the least likely to pull support from the GOP because of his overly conservative politics. A telephone poll conducted by ORC International in April that surveyed 435 republicans found only 7 percent of potential voters in favor of Cruz—sixth place on the list of republican hopefuls led by Jeb Bush with 17 percent. Deporting immigrants, denying climate change, fighting gun-control and opposing gay marriage are issues that may all seem consistent with republican agendas, but when they are being pushed by...

Sen. John McCain, the man that gave us President Barack Obama by running the most anemic, ineffective campaign in modern history, has decided to constantly interfere in this election cycle, demeaning any principled conservatives in favor of establishment Republicans that share his failed ideological viewpoint. McCain’s recent comments in regards to Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Rand Paul, both of whom are running for the Republican nomination for president, are clearly indicative of his desire to give his best effort to destroy any and all principled conservatives that dare challenge the establishment wing of the Republican Party. According to an...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is cosponsoring a major new surveillance reform bill, as he seeks to thread the needle in an upcoming debate over the Patriot Act. Cruz, a 2016 Republican presidential candidate, on Tuesday put his support behind the USA Freedom Act, which would rein in the National Security Agency’s (NSA) bulk collection of Americans’ phone records and reauthorize portions of the Patriot Act currently set to expire June 1. Reauthorizing the law without changes “is not acceptable,” Cruz said in a statement. “It is absolutely critical for Congress to balance the privacy interests of law-abiding citizens against the...

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has already filed seven amendments, some with the backing of Republican colleagues. They include a proposal to require certification that Iran has recognized Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and another to require certification that the Iranian government has released all detained Americans. Depending on your perspective, the Senate is looking for pass a “foundationally” solid bipartisan Iran bill, in the words of Sen Lindsey Graham, or a watered down nothing burger that really does nothing but allow the Senate to express their disapproval of Obama’s Iran deal, without the teeth to stop it.

“Marco gives the same speech with donors that he does in public,” one Rubio advisor assured BuzzFeed. I’m sure he’s right. After all, when has Marco Rubio ever said different things to different audiences about his stance on immigration? I do think it’s safe to say that Rubio’s choosing his words carefully on this subject, even among friends in private settings. All it would take to blow him up for good on the right is a hidden smartphone recorder catching him crowing about amnesty, and he knows it. He’s the safest pick in the field precisely because he’s not prone...

A Republican congressman ripped congressional leadership for their inaction on President Obama’s executive amnesty plan for illegals and pointed a finger at Sen. Marco Rubio for U.S. problems with open borders. Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks was a guest on Tim Constantine’s “Capitol Hill Show” on Tuesday and the conversation was dominated by the topic of illegal immigration and the effort by the Obama administration to circumvent existing law and grant amnesty to millions. “What I am very disappointed in is the House and Senate leadership,” Mr. Brooks explained....

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) on Monday described an editorial in the Lexington Herald-Leader equating those opposed to climate protections to slaveholders as a “depressing new low.” In an editorial last week, the Lexington Herald-Leader wrote that McConnell and others opposed to stricter environmental rules “will be regarded one day in the same way we think of 19th-century apologists for human slavery.” “How could economic interests bind them to the immortality of their position?” the paper asked then. The editorial said McConnell should listen to public opinion and drop his opposition to President Obama's greenhouse gas reduction plans. “The...

LITCHFIELD, N.H.—Appealing to New Hampshire’s powerful gun culture, Sen. Ted Cruz said Sunday that he’s “pressing” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain to hold hearings on whether soldiers should be allowed to carry their own concealed firearms onto military bases. “I am very concerned about that policy,” the Texas senator told 120 gun owners at a hunting club here, before taking a trip to a firing range for some target practice. “I think it’s very important to have a public discussion about why we’re denying our soldiers the ability to exercise their Second Amendment rights.” Defense Department leaders oppose...

Bernie Sanders couldn’t have said it better: “There’s a group of folks in our party who would have troops in six countries right now — maybe more,” the Kentucky senator told hundreds of activists at a GOP cattle call that has drawn every major presidential aspirant. “This is something, if you watch closely, that will separate me from many other Republicans. The other Republicans will criticize Hillary Clinton and the president for their foreign policy, but they would have done the same thing – just 10 times over!” “Six countries – maybe more”? Which countries, Senator? And how many of...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)SEN. CLAIRE McCASKILL (D-MO): Frankly, Darrell Issa is so over the top. He is like the lead drum major of the Hillary haters. And they're a legion out there. But let's get to the policies. And that's what the American people are going to do, Chris. They're going to look at these people, and they're going to decide who has the stable of a resume that is incredibly varied and strong? Who is confident? Who has gravitas on the world stage, and who cares about them in terms of the policies? This parade of characters they have, none of them...

Is this anecdote from Byron York new or did I miss it when he first published it? Either way, can’t wait until Rubio gets asked whether he still believes this at his first presidential campaign townhall. Oh, by the way: What he says here is 100 percent correct. “Here’s my big worry,” Rubio told me during an interview while the bill was making its way through the Senate. “I fear that if this thing fails, the president will basically say to anyone in the U.S. who has been here more than three years, who has not committed a serious crime…he’ll...

If Ron Paul weren’t Ron Paul, I’d assume this denunciation was just a stunt orchestrated by him and Rand to put some foreign-policy distance between them before the primaries. Are you a mainstream conservative worried that President Rand would be too much like Ron in office? Well, here you go. Let your conscience be eased. The nation’s most famous isolationist thinks his boy’s a bit of a warmonger. But c’mon. With the possible exception of his vote for the Afghanistan AUMF in 2001, has Ron Paul ever endorsed a position that he didn’t sincerely hold? Of course he thinks the...

Ted Cruz remains a conservative favorite in 2016. In 2012, the establishment backed his Senate opponent in Texas, then Lt. Governor David Dewhurst. The conservative grassroots backed Cruz and pushed him over the finish line. Cruz has since remained a favorite of the grassroots with a continually antagonist relationship with the Republican establishment. In 2010, Rand Paul, before Cruz, was a grassroots favorite. The Republican Establishment backed his rival, Trey Grayson. Paul rallied a coalition of conservative grassroots and Ron Paul acolytes to trounce Grayson and win the Kentucky Senate seat. Since then, Paul has wobbled between maintaining grassroots support...

I just love it when a Republican candidate who is currently serving in Congress explains why Republican policies fail. Lindsey Graham did it twice on CNN's State of the Union this morning. First, when asked about Ted Cruz, Graham criticized his decision to shut down the government over Obamacare, saying it "hurt our party." He also intimated that Cruz doesn't have the temperament or experience to bring about consensus on policy issues. He begins by blaming Hillary for everything that's wrong in the Middle East, as though she was a puppetmaster while serving as Secretary of State. When he gets...

Have any of us already visioned what the GOP debates will look like? Who will be in the middle and who will be on the left and right of the leading candidate. Maybe we can already "Envision The Conservatives" on stage in a strategic order. I think we can all presume that Ted Cruz will be dead center. So who will be to the left and right of Cruz along with the other three or four. Try to go with an "Even Seven Candidates". Although by the time of the first debate we may be down to five or six.

Watching the ads that run during Hannity, it's not a great mystery to figure out who the show's target audience is: retirement savings plans, arthritis cream, and of course, Cialis. But speaking to Sean Hannity on Tuesday night—in an interview taped just after he announced his presidential run—Sen. Rand Paul made his pitch to expand the Republican party beyond the largely older, white party base. Hannity successfully pushed Paul to nail down his positions on topics from Iran ("we should not trust them with a nuclear weapon ever") to vaccines ("the benefits are a million to one, you should vaccinate...

Texas Senator Ted Cruz announced his 2016 presidential campaign last month, making him the only current official Republican candidate — for now. All of that is expected to change next week as Marco Rubio and Rand Paul make their own announcements, and likely push Cruz into the presidential background. But it’s not just me who believes that Ted Cruz has no shot of being the party nominee, much less the eventual President in 2016. Here are four pretty persuasive groups who also say that President Cruz is never going to happen. 1. His fellow Texas politicians It’s pretty hard to...

Appearing before a room full of Democratic partisans in his first speech as a 2016 Senate candidate, Rep. Patrick Murphy compared Republican Sen. Marco Rubio to conservative firebrand Allen West, took jabs at the tea party and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and cheered the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency. Murphy, who announced his Senate candidacy last week, made a brief appearance at Thursday night’s Palm Beach County Democratic Party meeting in West Palm Beach. Murphy was elected in 2012 by presenting himself as a moderate alternative to outspoken conservative West, unseating the Republican in a district where the GOP...

Thought exercise: What if the indictment of Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez ... could once again potentially place an appointment of a U.S. senator in the hands of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie? To trigger this scenario, Menendez, who was indicted Wednesday on corruption charges, would first have to step down or be convicted. Menendez has given no indication he's going anywhere. Then again, stranger things have happened. Consider why Christie might want to think about appointing himself IF a Senate seat were to be vacated: 1.He's term-limited as governor. He can't run again after serving two consecutive terms; and 2.His...