Free Republic

It’s safe to say that most conservatives across the country think pretty highly of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and that he remains one of the few presidential candidates who are at least broadly acceptable to almost every sub-species of Republican. It’s not hard to find Wisconsinites who will wax rhapsodic about Walker’s job performance as well as how friendly and engaging he is. Yet in the wake of Donald Trump’s bluster, Walker’s quieter but battle-tested toughness and policy successes have seemed to fade a bit from view. In response, Walker hasn’t tried so much to match Trump’s glitz as to...

MADISON, Wis. – A bill that would reform Wisconsin’s controversial John Doe procedure – a grand jury-like procedure used to hound Gov. Scott Walker and his conservative allies for years – is now headed to the Assembly floor. Assembly Bill 68 passed Thursday in an executive session of the Assembly’s Judiciary Committee. The bill’s authors, state Rep. David Craig, R-Town of Vernon, and Sen. Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst, said the committee’s vote is an important step toward “ensuring the John Doe statute isn’t abused going forward.” AB 68 was inspired in large part by lengthy campaign-finance probes launched by Milwaukee County...

MADISON, Wis. – They illegally seized the property of their political targets in an unconstitutional investigation. Now two top investigators in Wisconsin’s political John Doe probe are asking the state Supreme Court to hold on to that property so they can use it to defend themselves against civil rights lawsuits. David Budde and Robert Stelter, investigators with the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office, want to intervene in John Doe special prosecutor Francis Schmitz’s appeal. Schmitz is asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to reconsider its ruling last month that shut down the investigation. As part of that ruling, the court ordered...

MADISON, Wis. — Former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, one of the louder critics of speaking fees for government officials, still hasn’t answered his critics’ calls to release the full amount of honoraria the Democrat has pocketed. A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel piece this week revealed Feingold took in more than $100,000 in speaking fees between February 2012 and June 2013, much of that money for discussions on the corrupting influence of money in politics. The Wisconsin GOP, however, believes Feingold, the godfather of campaign finance reform, has yet to reveal all of his earnings from speaking engagements before that period. “To...

Ted Cruz got a big boost in Iowa this week when the influential social conservative activist and radio host Steve Deace endorsed him. To call it a sought-after endorsement would be an understatement. Deace says prospective 2016 GOP campaigns began contacting him well before the 2012 election. (All just assumed that Mitt Romney was going to lose.) The recruitment efforts picked up in 2013 and 2014. When few people were paying any attention to the still-forming Republican race, Deace was hard at work. "For me, this vetting process has been going on for a couple of years," he says. "In...

Before Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidates could deflect tough questions on immigration with vague promises to secure the border and oppose all “amnesty” for illegal immigrants. Not anymore. Mr. Trump has offered a plan to “take back our country” from what he calls the rapist-murderer-job stealers being exported from Mexico. He is full of ideas. He would expel 11 million immigrants, and their families, and let only “the good ones” back in. He would restrict legal immigration, and impose a national job-verification system so that everyone, citizens too, would need federal permission to work. He would build a 2,000-mile border...

There are some things you just can’t do in politics, not at the presidential level, anyway. This is a game like any other, with rules honed over decades by the pros in blue blazers clutching focus-group results: Be likable. Don’t make enemies. Respect the party elders. Avoid funny hats. And never wear white bucks or French cuffs to the Iowa State Fair, a flyover fantasy­land of cholesterol and common decency where the life-size butter cow grazes behind glass with the life-size butter Uncle Pennybags from Monopoly. That’s why Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker wore jeans to pose atop the hay bales...

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke (D) declared “no longer can blacks as a whole claim victim status, except for one situation. They are victims to the Democrat Party in the United States of America” on Wednesday’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel.

It's time to go on the offensive about birthright citizenship. Congress has the broadest power under the Constitution to pass a statute and put an end to birthright citizenship. Today Mark had Professor Erler who is an expert on the 14th amendment and who has the right to decide who becomes citizen. He maintains Congress has that authority. There is no basis in the constitution for birthright citizenship. Hopefully people will listen to get an authoritative perspective. I'm not really interested in hearing opinions from people who won't take the time to listen. It is very clear who gets to...

Scott Walker has sought to reassure jittery donors and other supporters this week that he can turn around a swift decline in the polls in Iowa and elsewhere by going on the attack and emphasizing his conservatism on key issues. In a conference call, one-on-one conversations and at a Tuesday lunch, the Wisconsin governor and favorite of anti-union conservatives told backers that his campaign is shifting to a more aggressive posture and will seek to tap into the anti-establishment fervor fueling the rise of Donald Trump and other outsider candidates. During a conference call with top fundraisers Monday afternoon, Walker...

CNN)Donald Trump appeared to contradict his own immigration policy proposal Tuesday, just two days after releasing a detailed outline of his plans. Trump said he wants foreigners who study at American universities to be able to stay in the U.S., but his immigration plan released Sunday would make it more difficult for foreigners to obtain certain visas and green cards that would allow them to remain and work in the U.S. legally.

Trump, whom Bush fans everywhere will tell you is unelectable, is at 38/58 favorability among registered voters, essentially identical to Jeb himself. In fact, Trump’s numbers among independents here are slightly better than Jeb’s. He’s at 36/60; Bush is at 30/62. How often do you see a poll, as in the Bush data above, where a candidate’s popularity among Republicans is the inverse of his popularity among indies, not Democrats? What exactly is the argument for Mr. Electable again? That’s not the only metric where Trump trumps Bush. Unlike Jeb, Trump is at least well liked by parts of the...

“If making it easy to be an illegal alien isn’t enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant? No sane country would do that, right? Guess again. If you break our laws by entering this country without permission and give birth to a child, we reward that child with US citizenship and guarantee a full access to all public and social services this society provides, and that’s a lot of services. Is it any wonder that two-thirds of the babies born at taxpayer expense in county-run hospitals in Los Angeles are born to illegal alien mothers?” No,...

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. - US Constitution, Amendment XIV, Section 1

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Tuesday that birthright citizenship is a "constitutional right," casting doubt on fellow 2016 candidate Donald Trump's plan to do away with it. "That's a constitutional right," Bush told CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Major Garrett during an interview in South Carolina, where he is campaigning. "Mr. Trump can say he's for this because people are frustrated that it's abused. We ought to fix the problem rather than take away rights that are constitutionally endowed." Speaking to reporters later, he added, "I don't support revoking it."

LYNWOOD, Calif. — MANY monsters and ghosts haunt the dreams of Latino children. There is “La Llorona,” who is said to moan for her dead children. And more recently, the Chupacabra, which sucks the blood from farm animals and maybe a boy or a girl if he or she doesn’t behave. Now we can add a new boogeyman to the repertoire of scary Latino bedtime stories. His name is The Donald. Ever since he began his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination with a vicious screed against Mexican immigrants, Donald J. Trump has become a figure of dread and comic-book...

Marco Rubio is not echoing Donald Trump's call to repeal the constitutional provision that automatically grants citizenship to individuals born in the United States. "I'm open to doing things that prevent people who deliberately come to the U.S. for purposes of taking advantage of the 14th Amendment, but I'm not in favor of repealing it," Rubio, a Florida Republican senator and presidential hopeful, told reporters in Iowa on Tuesday.

Marco Rubio said Tuesday he does not agree with Donald Trump's call to end so-called birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants, though he said some abuses should be addressed. "I'm open to doing things that prevent people who deliberately come to the U.S. for purposes of taking advantage of the 14th Amendment. But I'm not in favor of repealing it," Rubio told reporters before embarking on a quintessential presidential campaign tour of the Iowa State Fair.

With his call over the weekend to "end birthright citizenship," Donald Trump reignited a political debate over whether children born in the United States should be denied citizenship if their parents are undocumented immigrants. Here's where the 2016 GOP contenders stand on the issue: -snip- THOSE OPPOSED TO ENDING BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP Jeb Bush: "Look this is a constitutionally protected right, I don't support revoking it," Bush said on Tuesday.

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush declined to say on Tuesday whether GOP front-runner Donald Trump is qualified to be commander in chief, but he urged his rival to speak more substantively about national security. -snip- The candidate also said that he is opposed to ending birthright citizenship -- something that Trump has proposed as a way to deter illegal immigration and that another GOP presidential candidate, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, said he supports. "Look, this is a constitutionally protected right. I don’t support revoking it," he said. "That’s not one of my – I mean, look, there’s a way to...