Free Republic

When confronted with the Republican Party’s poor standing among minority communities, GOP politicians have usually taken one of two approaches: claim these communities constitute “natural conservative constituencies” or advocate a broad change in policy or ideology to attract minority voters. Neither one of these tactics has been effective, for various reasons–chief among those reasons is that the communities under consideration are usually not “natural conservative constituencies.” Take Hispanics, for example. It is often noted by GOP politicians that Hispanic immigrants are hard-working, family-oriented strivers who tend to be religious. That may be true, but polls showed that while Mitt Romney...

Sen. Rand Paul R-Ky. delivered an effective speech at Howard University, even though he rhetorically stumbled at points. The audience was mostly silent through Paul’s prepared speech, which highlighted traditional Republican policies such as school choice, free markets, and limited government. Paul’s more libertarian ideas, however, appeared to resonate with the audience, as they applauded for his views on reduced jail penalties for non-violent drug users and a more humble foreign policy. “Republicans are often miscast as uncaring or condemning of kids who make bad choices,” Paul said. “I, for one, plan to change that.” Paul admitted that Republicans had...

Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele on Tuesday said he doesn't understand why gun owners fear the registration of their firearms. "I don't get the fear of registration," Steele said on MSNBC. "I don't get the, the concern about trafficking. Are we saying that we want criminals to, you know, make … back-alley sales out of the trunks of their cars?" Steele was part of a panel on MSNBC's "The Daily Rundown," during which former Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) said that responsible gun owners insure their guns, which means they're registered. "I mean, I don't understand," she said. MSNBC...

Sources inside the Senate tell me that the Republican Conference is scared to death of the tactics of Senators Lee, Cruz and Paul – that it is supposedly putting them in a tough spot. Several of the Republicans are using the Manchin-Toomey compromise plan as an excuse to cave on the gun filibuster. They claim that Senators Lee, Cruz, and Paul are running ahead of the conference in their insistence on a filibuster. What they fail to see is that the cloture vote is the vote to stop the gun legislation from passage. Several Republican Senators intend to vote against...

...First, and most important, is focusing on the economic concerns of working-and middle-class Americans, many of whom now regard the Republican Party as beholden to “millionaires and billionaires” and as wholly out of touch with ordinary Americans. This is a durable impression—witness Bill Clinton’s effective deployment of it more than 20 years ago and its continued resonance during the 2012 campaign when Team Obama portrayed Mitt Romney as a plutocrat who delighted in shutting down factories and moving jobs overseas. Sure enough, in November exit polls, 81 percent of voters said that Barack Obama “cared for people like me”; a...

Once again, those “moderates” of the Republican Party inner circle are exhibiting a determination to obliterate any lingering shred of credibility left in the GOP. Appearing in the shadow of a stellar CPAC 2013 gathering this past weekend, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus outlined the results of an introspective analysis of the party’s lapses during the November 2012 elections. Predictably, the advice from the self-anointed “experts” is to move the party further left in order to persuade its opponents of a general willingness among the party hierarchy to abandon principle in a futile quest for votes. The venue from...

Hey, remember that awesome CPAC speech by Mitch McConnell? The one where Mitch McConnell said — and I quote — “Obamacare should be repealed root and branch. And we’re not backing down from this fight.” And the same speech where Mitch McConnell also said, “This law is a disaster, and anybody who thinks we’ve moved beyond it is dead wrong.” Well, as I told you, Mitch McConnell excels at saying one thing and doing another. Yesterday, Mitch McConnell voted to fund Obamacare. Hey Utah, he joined Orrin Hatch in doing so. Remember, just last year on the campaign trail Orrin...

--snip-- The ever-growing U.S. government has an edgy social, ethical, and political character. It is distasteful to a majority of persons who vote Republican and to independent voters, as well as to perhaps one fifth of those who vote Democrat. The Republican leadership’s kinship with the socio-political class that runs modern government is deep. Country class Americans have but to glance at the Media to hear themselves insulted from on high as greedy, racist, violent, ignorant extremists. Yet far has it been from the Republican leadership to defend them. Whenever possible, the Republican Establishment has chosen candidates for office –...

Sen. Rand Paul says he'll wait until 2014 to decide whether to run for president, but he believes voters are ready for a Libertarian-minded Republican candidate. "I would absolutely not run unless it were to win," the Kentucky Republican said on "Fox News Sunday." "Points have been made, and we we will continue to make points. But I think the country is really ready for the narrative coming — the Libertarian Republican narrative." Voters want a "different face," he said. In order to expand the party's reach, Paul believes the GOP should embrace candidates who are willing to push a...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) will deliver the Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address on Feb. 12. Rubio's response will be delivered in both English and Spanish, according to Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) office. "Marco Rubio is one of our party’s most dynamic and inspiring leaders. He carries our party’s banner of freedom, opportunity and prosperity in a way few others can. His family’s story is a testament to the promise and greatness of America," Boehner said in a statement on Wednesday. "He’ll deliver a GOP address that speaks from the heart to the hopes and dreams...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tells Newsmax that Republicans need to be the “party of ideas,” offering real solutions instead of playing “bumper sticker politics.” Gingrich also says the GOP’s stance on immigration during the presidential campaign was “devastatingly destructive,” but he’s hopeful that reform can be implemented thanks to Sen. Marco Rubio’s “very important leadership” on the immigration issue. … In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV, Gingrich discloses how he reacted to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s recent pronouncement that the GOP should “stop being the stupid party.” “I broke out laughing because when I was first running for...

It’s has been widely assumed this morning by some immigration advocates (and by yours truly, too) that the new immigration reform plan’s process of citizenship for the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants is contingent on a commission of Southwestern officials declaring the border secure. Not true. I’ve now got clarification from Senate staff working on the bill, and it turns out that the enforcement commission’s judgments will only be advisory, and are entirely nonbinding. Congress’ actions will not be dictated by what this commission concludes; neither will actions taken by the Department of Homeland Security. The citizenship process will be...

ou might remember that in July of 2011, when fighting over the debt ceiling, president Obama- right before he left for his 17th vacation at Martha’s Vineyard that year- complained about congressional inaction by saying that’s it time for the country “to eat its peas.” From CBSNews:"I've been hearing from my Republican friends for some time it is a moral imperative to tackle our debt and deficits in a serious way," Mr. Obama said. "What I've said to them is, let's go."The president said today he would not accept a smaller, short-term deal. "We might as well do it now," he said....

ou might remember that in July of 2011, when fighting over the debt ceiling, president Obama- right before he left for his 17th vacation at Martha’s Vineyard that year- complained about congressional inaction by saying that’s it time for the country “to eat its peas.” From CBSNews:"I've been hearing from my Republican friends for some time it is a moral imperative to tackle our debt and deficits in a serious way," Mr. Obama said. "What I've said to them is, let's go."The president said today he would not accept a smaller, short-term deal. "We might as well do it now," he said....

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is sharing his regrets about his "fiscal-cliff" strategy, less than a month after the House bitterly swallowed a last-minute deal hatched in the Senate. In a private speech to the Ripon Society on Tuesday, Boehner said that he should have taken a different course after the November election by immediately demanding that the Senate produce a bill to avert the worst parts of a combination of tax increases and spending cuts that were due to hit on Jan. 1. Instead, Boehner delivered a formal speech at the Capitol on the day after President Obama won a...

(Reuters) - Ending a self-imposed silence about the November election, 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan said on Wednesday that he and presidential running mate Mitt Romney lost not because of ideas, but due to ineffective communication.

Speaker John Boehner said he believes the primary goal of President Obama’s second term is to “annihilate the Republican Party.” “Given what we heard yesterday about the president’s vision for his second term, it’s pretty clear to me that he knows he can’t do any of that as long as the House is controlled by Republicans,” Boehner said in a speech Tuesday to The Ripon Society. “So we’re expecting over the next 22 months to be the focus of this administration as they attempt to annihilate the Republican Party. “And let me just tell you, I do believe that is...

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke criticized the debt ceiling as an unusual device that can be used to prevent the United States from paying it’s bills, as he suggested that the country would be better off if the debt limit did not exist. “I think it would be a good thing if we didn’t have [the debt ceiling],” Bernanke told students at the University of Michigan today. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think it’s going to be around.” Those remarks put Bernanke in agreement with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who has said that Congress should eliminate the...

If financial aid to Israel were slowly decreased over time, it would increase the Jewish state’s sovereignty because they wouldn’t need to get permission from the U.S. every time they need to defend themselves against aggressive neighbors, Sen. Rand Paul said on Monday. Paul said that while he knows the idea of decreasing any kind of foreign aid is a “minority opinion” in Washington, it will be a lot harder for America to help others “if we are out of money,” reported Fox News. …

Let me see if I understand this correctly.  QE4 is announced and it was declared that bonds will be purchased for as long as the eye can see or until we achieve an unemployment rate of 6.5%.  Several weeks later, the majority of Federal Reserve officials announced that it would be “appropriate” to end QE4 prior to the end of 2013 or by the end of 2013.  So, what the heck happened to 6.5% unemployment?  The Fed, for almost 100-years, has operated with two mandated objectives, namely stable prices and full employment.  In order to achieve those goals, they can...