Free Republic

Last week, the GOP-led Congress passed a budget resolution which, Republicans claim, will balance the budget in 10 years. The resolution is a policy document, intended to guide the appropriations process, and doesn’t itself have the force of law. More important than the details of the budget document, the action sets up the GOP to finally match its action to its rhetoric and undo the worst aspects of Obama’s fiscal policies. Over the next two weeks, while Congress is in recess, the House and Senate will begin to hammer out small differences between the budget resolutions that passed each chamber....

Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” host Dana Bash grilled Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on his lack of experience being similar to then-Sen. Barack Obama’s when he ran for president . Cruz defended his qualifications saying, “In his time in the Senate he had basically been a backbencher; he had not been leading on any issues of any significance. In my time in the Senate you can accuse me of being a lot of things but a backbencher is not one of them.” “Unlike Barack Obama, I was not a community organizer before I was elected to the Senate,”...

As we have discovered since he jetted from the starting blocks as 2016’s first declared presidential candidate, Ted Cruz seems to be a lot of things: scholar, radical (or patriot), genius (or know-it-all), upstart, loner, throwback (or traditionalist) and all-around lightning rod. Unproven, however, is that Cruz, a devoutly conservative Republican, is not qualified to seek the presidency, which was the position staked out by feather-trigger snipers even as Liberty University students showered his announcement with standing ovations. (Yes, they sort of had to be there, but they didn’t have to be enthusiastic about it.) Cruz, 44, is a first-term...

Ted Cruz has developed a reputation as the most conservative of the major 2016 Republican presidential candidates, but he hasn't taken many specific policy positions to earn that moniker. One exception? His longtime support for a flat tax. The flat tax dramatically lowers the top tax rate and exempts capital gains and dividends from taxation. It's astonishingly regressive: the rich pay far less, hedge fund managers and private equity types like Mitt Romney would pay literally nothing, and while the exact rate varies from plan to plan, it's certainly not going to be as low as 10 or 15 percent,...

Winter is over! Winter is over! Excuse the jubilation, but we ink-stained wretches love the ritual excitement that occurs every spring. This spring is extra exciting, because it comes with our big quadrennial first sighting of a red nose popping out of the presidential wannabe clown car. This seasonal harbinger is Ted Cruz, who announced his candidacy for the highest office of the land. Throwing his 10-gallon hat into the ring at Liberty University, Cruz spoke to an assembly of students whose attendance was required. Mandatory attendance at Liberty University. Sounds like definition of the word "freedom" is fairly fluid...

This is the most hilarious interview with Ted Cruz I’ve seen thus far. Thank you CNN, for delivering this epic bit of blowback: [IVDEO] Please, somebody, help me, I can’t stop laughing. Bash tried to smack Cruz around by comparing him to Obama (funny, she didn’t have a problem with the current president having no executive or much political experience when he ran for the White House in 2008), hoping it would silence and embarrass the senator from Texas. She got a healthy dose of “you’ve got to be kidding” me instead. Two years in the Senate, not much experience...

Repair and realignment of our federal government The size of the federal government has exploded over the last century. The legislative and judicial branches of government have grown to serve the increased number of states and its growing population. The size and scope of the executive branch has grown to reflect an expanded role of the federal government over the last 100 years. Apparently the staffing of fourteen separate Cabinet Departments were not enough to manage the current executive branch, so Barack Obama felt the need to appoint a number of “czars” to focus on special emphasis areas. Recent studies...

With the announcement of Ted Cruz's candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination and his speech at the convocation of the ultra-conservative Liberty University, the country finds itself jilted to the right on the ideological spectrum. Ted Cruz is quite the curious ideological torchbearer precisely because he is Latino. The general assumption in politics is that growing Hispanic Latino participation in politics will only mean an ideological shift to the left. This makes Ted Cruz' candidacy a welcome reminder that Latino candidates won't, for good or bad, necessarily stray from traditional American politics any time soon. The son of Cuban immigrants...

A new poll of New Hampshire GOP primary voters from the Boston Herald and Franklin Pierce University finds Jeb Bush and Scott Walker are tied at 15 percent support, with a slew of other likely candidates close behind in the first presidential primary of the cycle. Here's the Herald on the implications of the survey: Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has lost his front-runner edge in New Hampshire, not because GOP voters are sick of the Bush family but because conservatives are roundly rejecting him, a new Franklin Pierce University-Boston Herald poll shows. Bush is tied with Wisconsin Gov. Scott...

(AUDIO-AT-LINK)On Monday, The Chad Hasty Show was joined by GOP strategist Matt Mackowiak to recap the last week and weekend in state and national politics. Mackowiak talked about Ted Cruz’s announcement that he is running for president, and discussed standings of Cruz (R), Martin O’Malley (D), Hillary Clinton (D) and Elizabeth Warren (D). When asked how he thought Cruz’s campaign is going so far, Mackowiak replied, I think fairly well. Particularly the first two or three days, he earned a lot of media. Looks like he’s raised about three million dollars so far. He said he wanted to raise about...

In questions of powers, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. — Thomas JeffersonDon’t be embarrassed if you don’t instantly recognize those words from Thomas Jefferson. They’re not etched in marble on his memorial in Washington. While they express a common sentiment of the founding generation — that since men are no “angels,” the Constitution is necessary to control their baser acts — the occasion for Jefferson’s “chains” was anything but common. The words come from Jefferson’s draft of the Kentucky Resolutions, in which he...

There's something very dangerous happening in states across the country. A wave of legislation, introduced in more than two dozen states, would allow people to discriminate against their neighbors. Some, such as the bill enacted in Indiana last week that drew a national outcry and one passed in Arkansas, say individuals can cite their personal religious beliefs to refuse service to a customer or resist a state nondiscrimination law. Others are more transparent in their effort to discriminate. Legislation being considered in Texas would strip the salaries and pensions of clerks who issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples — even...

I spoke with my best source and he has information that the Russians training at Ft. Carson, CO., will a part of the Jade Helm 15 drill. This is in line with the Russians being allowed to train for the highly sensitive Grid Ex II drills in November of 2013. Further, this is also consistent with the omnipresent treason of letting the Russians train in the highly secure war games drill known as RIMPAC. In the following video, my BIN colleague, Lisa Haven, links Jade Helm 15 to the FEMA camps and Civilian Inmate Labor Camps. (Watch video at link)...

Myles Udland March 30, 2015The crash in oil prices is hammering the Texas economy. The latest manufacturing outlook index from the Dallas Fed plunged again in March, to -17.4 from -11.2 in February, indicating deteriorating business conditions in the state. Expectations were for the index to show a reading of -9. But the most important part of this report is the commentary from Texas business leaders, who have given an on-the-ground picture of how the decline in oil prices is affecting one of the country's economies most driven by oil. In March the tune didn't change, as it sounds as...

The crash in oil prices is hammering the Texas economy. The latest manufacturing outlook index from the Dallas Fed plunged again in March, to -17.4 from -11.2 in February, indicating deteriorating business conditions in the state. Expectations were for the index to show a reading of -9. But the big most important part of this report is the commentary from Texas business leaders, who have given an on-the-ground picture of how the decline in oil prices is impacting one of the country's most oil-related economies. In March, the tune didn't change, as it sounds like things are still tough in...

Says loyalty bound him to his lieutenant governor, says more of this quality is needed in US politics.Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry told a tea party group Sunday that he supported his lieutenant governor against Ted Cruz in the 2012 Republican primary for the U.S. Senate out of loyalty — a characteristic, he said, that is sorely missing in American politics. During a conference call hosted by Tea Party Patriots, Mr. Perry said he endorsed then-Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst because of the strong relationship they had developed over the years. “If nothing else, I am a principled, disciplined and loyal...

The left lost its collective grip last Monday, when Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas announced he was running for president. Really, it was the mirror image of the visceral way Republicans react to Hillary Clinton. It’s no overstatement to say that Cruz is absolutely hated by the left, loathed as the embodiment of right-wing insanity. Which, of course, makes conservatives love him even more. Following Cruz’s announcement, lefties comforted themselves by reassuring everyone within earshot that Cruz has no chance of winning. “It will never happen,” was the title of a post on the Talking Points Memo blog by...

WASHINGTON (CNN) — They’re both Harvard Law School graduates, constitutional lawyers and senators who launched presidential campaigns during their first terms.But Ted Cruz has little else in common with Barack Obama, he said Sunday.“I think there are a lot more notable differences between us than the similarities,” the Texas Republican told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”He said he’s had much more influence in the Senate than Obama, who he said was a “back-bencher” during his four years there.“He had not been leading on issues of any significance,” Cruz said. “In my time in the Senate, you can...

I’m not concerned about Sen. Ted Cruz running for the presidency. His extremist views doom his chances and predestine his failure, but will provide some needed amusement and head-scratching peculiarities necessary to punctuate the merciless bore of an endless presidential campaign. Surrounded by a massive infestation of indoctrinated followers, he preceded his announcement with a paint-drying, self-aggrandizing preamble trying to the patience of all but his most ardent acolytes. Even its earnest pomp and magnificent solemnity were threatening glazed eyes to crust over and anesthetized enthusiasm to reach for that relieve only found in liberating slumber. Oh, I could tell,...

LET’S SEE, why does this sound familiar? A charismatic constitutional scholar, with an inspiring life story, still in his first Senate term, promising a dramatic change of direction . . . . But wait: it’s 2015, and the candidate, officially as of Monday, is Sen. Ted Cruz. Here’s one way to tell Mr. Cruz (R-Tex.) from the winning constitutional scholar of 2008: Sen. Barack Obama promised to unite the country. Mr. Cruz — not so much. In fact, the most notable characteristic of Mr. Cruz’s brief time in elected politics has been his aversion to values that are essential to democracy’s functioning: practicality, modesty...