Free Republic

Are you ready for the great Sarah Palin Revival of 2013? The former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate is back from her exile at Fox News and, like the former child star played by Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, the self-described Mama Grizzly is ready for a big comeback. But, to be blunt, she seems more like a relic of a bygone, little-missed era in showbiz-cum-politics. Indeed, she no more represents a viable future for the GOP than her 76-year-old “angry bird” running mate, John McCain.To give her full credit, Palin is talking what sounds...

“No soldier should fear a court martial for expressing his or her faith or made to fear negative reprisals for reporting threats to their freedom to worship God,” he said. “The men and women of the military risk their lives every day to protect our Constitutional rights, and they should not be forced to surrender their religious liberty to do so.”

He’s opposed the Gang of Eight bill, but some think not aggressively enough. By Andrew Stiles Since taking office in January, Senator Ted Cruz has earned a reputation for being one of the most unapologetically outspoken lawmakers on Capitol Hill. So much so, perhaps, that when it comes to the Gang of Eight’s immigration-reform bill, of which Cruz has been one of the strongest Republican critics, it might seem like he’s been taking it easy.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Monday announced his intention to file another amendment to the so-called “gang of eight” immigration bill that is facing tough opposition from some GOP lawmakers. “I’ll file amendment to immigration bill that permits states to require ID before registering voters & close this hole in [federal] statutory law,” Cruz wrote via his official Twitter account. I'll file amendment to immigration bill that permits states to require ID before registering voters & close this hole in fed statutory law. Ted Cruz to Introduce Voter ID Requirement Amendment in Immigration Billabout 10 hours ago via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite Ted...

As video becomes available, we’ll be adding them to this thread throughout the day. Governor Palin made her return to Fox this morning. She was very comfortable — especially when she was able to do what she loved which is talking about smaller government and solutions to putting our country back on the right track. My personal favorite segment was when Senator Cruz dropped in. And of course when she learned of CBS’s Elizabeth Palmer comparing the tea party to Iran’s presidential candidates. Governor Palin accurately described Palmer as putting “the ‘BS’ in CBS.”

Via the Examiner, a short but noteworthy clip insofar as it exposes a potential fault line between Cruz and Rand Paul. McCain lumps them together as “wacko birds� but I’m not so sure that’s true of Cruz on national-security issues. His alliance with Paul interests me because it strikes me as a personification of the uneasy libertarian/tea-party alliance. The groups overlap heavily on spending issues, and both are deeply suspicious of Obama’s expansion of government. The master stroke of Paul’s drone filibuster was that he found a sweet spot for both, making the philosophical case for due process while humiliating...

Sarah Palin pushed back against Jeb Bush’s argument that decreased fertility rates in the United States meant that immigration reform was necessary. “I say this as someone who’s kind of fertile herself,” the mother of five told attendees at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Conference today. “I don’t think that’s where we want to go in deciding how will we incentivize the hard-working responsible families who want to . . . follow the law and become Americans versus those whose very first act on our soil is to break the law. “ During his speech at the...

Ralph Reed’s now annual Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in Washington last week drew a surprisingly small audience of mostly Protestant evangelical political activists — but still attracted a bevy of Republican political stars. The audience of fewer than 400 was a fraction of the thousands who once thronged Pat Robertson’s annual Christian Coalition “Road to the White House” when it reigned as the premier event for rallying religious conservatives in the late 1980s and 1990s. Mr. Reed is a political consultant, one-time candidate for lieutenant governor of Georgia and born-again Christian. Mr. Robertson, who was honored at an FFC...

Freshman Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has become an increasingly controversial figure in American politics as evidenced by comments MSNBC’s Chris Matthews made this week comparing Cruz to Nazi sympathizer Father Coughlin. Fox’s Bill O’Reilly laid into Matthews last night for equating his “black Irish” looks with Cruz’s and today Megyn Kelly picked up the thread by asking what it is about the senator that makes liberals so angry. Conservative radio host Mike Gallagher said people are only attacking Cruz because he’s “effective.” He said people are “impressed” with the “tea party darling” who “rose out of nowhere” and used this...

Amid a segment discussing the new generation of Republican voices in the U.S. Senate, MSNBC host Chris Matthews railed against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). Matthews said that Cruz “fits in the tradition” of reviled historical figures like notorious Nazi sympathizer and radio host Father Coughlin and 1950s-era anti-communist Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-WI). After playing a portion of clips of Cruz speaking to conservative audiences, Matthews noted that the junior senator from Texas has said even more inflammatory things off camera. “In 2010, when he said that [Barack] Obama would make a perfect president of Harvard Law School because, quote, ‘There...

Organizers behind the bodacious “Road to Majority” conference are determined to wrangle conservatives onto the same page as the 2014 midterm elections loom. The event, virtually ignored so far by the mainstream press, begins Thursday at a hotel just three blocks from the White House. “This conference is a chance to unify all conservatives. And I mean social conservatives, tea party folks, fiscal conservatives, middle of the road Republicans — everyone,” Gary Marx, executive director of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, tells Inside the Beltway. “This is a chance to focus, to get on the real road to a majority...

A conservative-palooza featuring firebrand Sarah Palin, Sens. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul and center-right populists Herman Cain and Donald Trump is crashing Washington Thursday to begin the right's bid to elect even more Tea Party conservatives to Congress in 2014 to fight the wave of government intrusions revealed in the IRS and NSA snooping scandals. The Faith & Freedom Coalition's "Road to Majority" Conference set for June 13-15 features some two dozen conservative lawmakers and pundits in an effort to train and arm the group's 700,000 members and supporters in advance of the mid-term elections. "The Teavangelicals are growing in...

“You know, when Orwell wrote about 1984, the image of an all-powerful central government that monitored the citizens at all times, that had an eye on the sky or an eye on the street video taping all of us, that had information about all of us, personal data — that was viewed as science fiction.”

Ever since he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2012, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has become a lightening rod for media criticism. At the same time, he has become a favorite among conservatives across the nation. On Tuesday, Cruz had a message for the media that is “so hysterical” over what he is doing in the Senate. “Let me say that the fact that the mainstream media and the New York Times is so hysterical about what I’m doing – to me frankly suggests that maybe we’re doing something right,” Cruz said on Mark Levin’s radio show. “Because I...

An inexperienced, relatively unproven man sits in the White House, and you can almost see the strings moving him about the theatre called Washington. He offers nothing new; his change is an amalgamation of socialist - communist doctrines from Marx to Malcom X written by countless Democratic operatives. America, the American Way is bad, the cause of all the evil in the world. The Constitution is an obstacle, not a governing contract to be revered and defended. Obama Care was not something President Obama conceived, but rather an idea from the minds of college pedigreed socialists who not only do...

“Obama administration has demonstrated the willingness to use the machinery of Government to target their political enemies

Senator Ted Cruz offered a solution to the IRS’s scandal: get rid of the agency entirely and simplify the tax code so that tax returns fit on a piece of paper the size of a postcard. “We ought to abolish the IRS and instead move to a simple flat tax,” Cruz said on Fox News over the weekend. “Put down how much you earn, put down a deduction for charitable contributions, for home mortgage, and how much you owe,” he continued. “It ought to be just a simple, one-page postcard.”...

Sen. Ted Cruz tells Eric Bolling, abolish the IRS and much, much more. June 1, 2013

On Fox News Thursday afternoon, Sen. Ted Cruz indicated that President Obama should ask for Attorney General Eric Holder’s resignation. “Yes. Absolutely,” the Texas Republican said flatly, after he was asked by Fox News host Megyn Kelly if Obama should ask for Holder’s resignation. Cruz cited the “unprecedented” investigations of reporters and Holder’s response to the Fast and Furious scandal as examples of the Justice Department disregarding the law. “Unfortunately, I think it’s part and parcel of a pattern from this administration of not respecting the Bill of Rights,” Cruz added. “Not respecting the First Amendment, not respecting the Second...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was the only featured guest at a New York Republican Party dinner Wednesday night, which a spokesman said raised nearly $750,000. During his 35-minute speech that roused a crowd of high-profile New York Republicans, it couldn't have been clearer where the GOP's rising star from Texas wanted to move — away from the divisive rhetoric of a failed 2012 for Republicans and onto a path that could set them up for success in 2014 and 2016. His speech served as a direct rebuke to the campaign of 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney. It will only further...

“Noticing quite a few fellow #Wackobirds tweeting tonight! Proud to stand with you as we #CruztoVictory for liberty!” Cruz wrote.

With news Wednesday morning that Michelle Bachmann won’t be running for re-election in 2014, the left has turned their sights quickly to another target: Ted Cruz. Not that they weren’t already focused on him. The left has been foaming at the mouth over Cruz since he boldly stepped on the scene and refused to play by their crooked rules. Bachmann’s exit, however, has introduced a new fervor on the left against Cruz and they’ve taken no time to come at him from every angle. Seemingly within minutes of Bachmann’s announcement, Washington Bureau Chief of the Houston Chronicle Richard Dunham posted...

One of the few bright spots in the recent immigration debate-such as it is- has been Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas. Unlike the spineless Republican leadership-which has been shepherding the Gang of Eight scheme through the Senate-he has resolutely stood against any attempt at legalizing the 10-20 million illegal aliens granted amnesty under the terms of this bill. Tomorrow afternoon he’ll be traveling to New York City and will most likely be greeted by an antagonistic open borders mob. NY ICE, on the other hand, is planning to stage a show of support for one of the few members of...

President Obama’s lecturecommencement speech to the Naval Academy graduates on Friday left behind such a poor and lingering aftertaste, I thought this commencement speech from Sen. Ted Cruz to the graduates of Hillsdale might make a nice sort of belated palate cleanser. Sen. Cruz’s message was all about the inherent virtues of freedom, the American meritocracy, and the accompanying economic mobility, in which people’s rises and falls are directly related to their “talent, passion, perseverance, and willingness to fight for the American dream.� The best part about it all, of course, is that by pursuing and developing your own unique...

"It is the soldier, not the reporter, Who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, Who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the organizer, Who gave us the freedom to demonstrate It is the soldier, Who salutes the flag, Who serves beneath the flag. And whose coffin is draped by the flag, Who allows the protester to burn the flag." Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC

This week's Mainstream Media Scream features MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews denouncing Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

One thing can be said about Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is that he attracts media ire as much as a Hollywood celebrity attracts paparazzi. If one’s worth is measured in the number of one’s enemies, Cruz is richer beyond the dreams of avarice. Chris Matthews, the MSNBC talking head, left a blog post on May 24, 2013 that stated, without apparent irony, “Pay attention to Senator Cruz because he is the unsmiling, contemptuous face of the wild, nasty, hard-right fringe of a party that once competed with the Democrats to be the country’s governing party.” Bill Maher, also without irony,...

Sen. Ted Cruz doesn't have as many friends as he says he does. In the latest round of Cruz's simmering debate with Sen. John McCain (who labeled Cruz a "wacko bird"), Cruz spoke of "my friend, the senior senator from Arizona" while painting him as out of touch with his party and country. It usually takes a while for senators to learn how to weaponize compliments and imprecations of friendship, but Cruz is a quick study. After a patient attack on McCain's understanding of history, Cruz said: "I know my friend from Arizona is well aware of that because he...

The Ted Cruz vs. John McCain feud is on, so proclaimed the Washington Post on May 24, 2013. The two senators have already clashed on raising the debt ceiling, with Cruz proclaiming that he does not trust Republicans like McCain and then betting the older senator that he could not get a majority of the GOP senate caucus to sign on to a debt ceiling increase. McCain has more than once expressed irritation at Cruz and his uncompromising version of conservatism. But it an ironic way, the former maverick from Arizona has only himself to blame. In a fit of...

Via Joel Gehrke, a scene from the intramural debate over the debt ceiling between Maverick McCain and the Paul/Lee/Cruz tea-party coalition. If you read Erika’s post last night, you already know the background. The tea partiers are threatening to block the Senate’s budget from being sent to the House for a conference committee unless Reid assures them that whatever emerges won’t raise the debt ceiling. (Or, if it does, that 60 votes will be required for passage rather than the simple majority typically required for budget bills.) Reid won’t budge on that — yet. McCain, who’s been busy lately recouping...

A long-simmering feud between establishment Republicans and tea partyers is in full view again with Sen. John McCain accusing younger colleagues of using tactics that might tempt Democrats to change Senate rules that now protect the minority party. How to deal with the government’s debt and spending became the latest quarrel between the GOP’s 2008 presidential candidate and tea party champions such as Senators Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah. …

On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Joe Scarborough lashed out at Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas for his criticism of his own party in debt-ceiling negotiations. Responding to Cruz’s comment that he did not trust the GOP to be an arbiter in the debt debate. Scarborough predicted Cruz’s “self-righteous” demeanor would be his ultimate undoing as a member of the U.S. Senate. “It’s going to be a hell of a lot of fun when Ted Cruz is standing in line in the cloak room to get hot dogs,” Scarborough said. “This is a guy that has obviously decided...

Tuesday afternoon, using her Twitter feed, BuzzFeed staffer Aswini Anburajan lashed out at Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) for not being left-wing enough when it comes to immigration. Anbuarajan not only knocked the Senator's chances at becoming president due to his stand on "immig and benefits;" she attacked Cruz racially, declaring him a LINO, or Latin In Name Only.

Ted Cruz was born "Rafael Edward Cruz" December 22, 1970 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. His mother is US citizen Eleanor Darragh. His father is Cuban citizen Rafael B. Cruz. (naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2005) Eleanor Darragh and Rafael B. Cruz were residents of Canada for at least four years from 1970, possibly earlier, until 1974. They conducted business there as Rafael B. Cruz and Associates, Ltd. Where they "permanent residents"? Is Ted Cruz a "natural born citizen" of Canada? Revised Statutes of Canada 1970:

Why Sarah Palin? Because when I write a blog here on Jeb Bush or President Obama, it will bring in maybe 10 comments. A piece on Sarah Palin last week brought 135. Same every time. She strikes a chord which runs deep. She has a purpose here. She may be today the most important person in American culture and politics. She may always have been. The flak you draw tells of your truth and importance, and no one has taken more flak than Palin. Most has been neutralized now as Tea Party meets the mainstream with the IRS affair in...

It's never comforting to have one's longstanding fears confirmed. Yet, that's exactly what's happened over the last week as Americans have been presented with a stunning array of facts that diminish faith in our government. Whether it's on foreign policy, taxes, or the health-care system our lives depend on, members of the Obama Administration are making it harder to trust them to perform the most very basic functions of public service. *snip* Next, the Department of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has found that conservative and Tea Party groups, after complaining for years of being unfairly targeted by...

When a former GOP governor asked me the other day whether he would see another Republican elected to the White House in his lifetime, I asked him exactly how old he was. Of course, I said, eventually there would be another Republican in the White House. It might even come soon. A Democratic president will screw up (think Benghazi, the IRS and higher taxes from the health care overhaul), and a Republican will be elected simply because voters want change. But I understood the question’s premise, as well as the larger point he was making. More than a few Republicans...

Hey, did you see what Senator Cruz tweeted out last week ahead of Big Guy’s “all-hat-no-cattle” trip to Texas? Here it is: That seems a little dismissive on Ted’s part doesn’t it? Even a little derisive? If I were Senator Cruz, I’d make sure all my tax records were in order: IRS agents singled out dozens of organizations for additional reviews because they included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their exemption applications…in some cases, groups were asked for lists of donors, which violates IRS policy… Yikes! That last part – about the list of donors - is a little disconcerting....

Famed Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz ranks Sen. Ted Cruz among the school’s smartest students, adding that the Canada-born Texan can run for president in 2016. Cruz was a “terrific student,” Dershowitz told The Daily Caller. “He was always very active in class, presenting a libertarian point of view. He didn’t strike me as a social conservative, more of a libertarian.” “He had brilliant insights and he was clearly among the top students, as revealed by his class responses,” Dershowitz added. Dershowitz also gave a high estimate of Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren — who has decidedly different political...

As I mentioned earlier this week, President Obama is visiting Texas today to mark the beginning of yet another of his (now infamous) “pivots� to jobs and the economy, talking up all of the reasons why the government needs to do more to “stimulate� the economy so we can keep spending and centrally planning our way out of this mess — because that’s all worked so remarkably well so far and everything. During his stay of about five hours in Texas, Obama was announcing a pair of executive actions the White House said would help the economy in the absence...

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz welcomed President Obama to the Texas Thursday, where Obama is scheduled to begin his "Middle Class Jobs and Opportunity Tour," by highlighting Texas' job record in comparison with the administration's. "America is stuck with high unemployment and low GDP growth, so it's encouraging to see the President coming to Austin to talk about jobs - perhaps he will learn how to create some from the folks who know how," Cruz said in a statement. "Texas is leading the nation in economic growth and job creation because of principled, conservative leaders who understand the keys to...

. . . . . . The office of Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, sent out a press release Wednesday pushing five amendments he filed to the bill, which generally tightens enforcement and provides a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants. Cruz’s amendments seek to further tighten border security, streamline the legal immigration process, deny public benefits to those here illegally, reform the high-skilled worker visa program and prohibit a path to citizenship for the undocumented. . . . . . . In a press release, America’s Voice, a leading national group that advocates for more lenient...

Democratic strategist and former Bill Clinton adviser James Carville said something about Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) on ABC's This Week Sunday that is guaranteed to raise eyebrows on both sides of the aisle. "I think he is the most talented and fearless Republican politician I’ve seen in the last 30 years." JAMES CARVILLE: I think he is the most talented and fearless Republican politician I’ve seen in the last 30 years. I further think that he’s going to run for president and he is going to create something. I’m not sitting here saying he’s going to win, and I think...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) aims to block any illegal immigrant from ever receiving any state, local, or federal welfare or public benefits with a series of amendments to the immigration reform bill currently under review in the U.S. Senate. Cruz has filed five amendments to the bill. The one currently marked “Cruz 2” on the Senate Judiciary Committee website (the amendments have not yet received official numbers) has a stated purpose to “provide that aliens who have entered or remained present in the United States while not in lawful status shall not be eligible for means-tested benefits.” The amendment would...

The tawdriness of American identity politics reached a new low this week as former New Mexico governor, frustrated 2008 democrat presidential candidate, and serial corruption suspect Bill Richardson offered his take on the junior senator from Texas. On Sunday, Richardson was a guest on ABC’S This Week when he said that because Ted Cruz doesn’t support amnesty for illegal aliens, he shouldn’t be considered an Hispanic! “Almost every Hispanic in the country wants to see immigration reform. No, I don’t think he should be defined as a Hispanic,” Richardson said. Such a politically perverse statement reminds me of how a...

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a newly elected Republican with a penchant for making headlines, filed an amendment that would bar undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States from ever earning citizenship. There are an estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally, and a bipartisan immigration reform measure would create a pathway to citizenship over the course of 13 years by requiring those people to pay penalties and back taxes, as well as learn English. Conservatives opposed to reform decry the path as amnesty, but Democrats say they will not support reform that does not cope with the...

In one of my first essays for NRO back in 2005 (“Are You an Originalist?”), I selected the Constitution’s “natural born Citizen” criterion for eligibility to be president—a provision that then seemed at the time to be beyond the distorting effects of political bias—to illustrate that everyone intuitively recognizes the common-sense principle at the heart of the interpretive methodology of originalism: namely, that the meaning of a constitutional provision is to be determined in accordance with the meaning that it bore at the time that it was adopted. The public debate in 2008 over whether John McCain, having been born...

Tuesday marks the six month anniversary of Republican Ted Cruz’s election to the United States Senate, but rather than the traditional honeymoon, the liberal media have gone on the attack against the Tea Party hero and emerging 2016 presidential candidate and his conservative beliefs. In their own liberal grassroots circles, leftists have even gone as far to openly hope for Cruz’s death, as the Daily Kos screeched: “Give this man enough rope and a tree, please.�  When former Bill Clinton political strategist James Carville, on Sunday, actually credited Cruz for being “talented and fearless,� it marked a rare moment when...

When your party controls the Senate, you are the majority leader, and you have a freshman GOP senator getting lippy and being right about it...you'd think you could handle it a bit more maturely...