Free Republic

1. Barack Obama Trump said in 2009 that Obama was “a strong guy who knows what he wants,” a person with “the mark of a strong leader,” and “totally a champion.” He even bestowed the greatest Trumpian honor upon Obama, saying, “I would hire him.”In 2011, while considering making a run for president, he placed himself at the vanguard of the “birther” movement, demanding that Obama show his birth certificate and fueling suspicions that the president was not born in the United States. 2. Hillary Clinton As has been widely reported, Hillary Clinton attended Trump’s wedding in 2005. Trump also...

Less than a decade ago, Donald Trump could be spotted on TV or in print gushing over Hillary Clinton. He publicly praised her health care plan (it had an individual mandate). He said he liked Clinton and her husband “very much.” He said she would do a good job negotiating with Iran. During the heat of the 2008 campaign, Trump took to his own blog to praise Clinton, writing that she’d make a great president. “Hillary Clinton said she’d consider naming Barack Obama as her vice-president when she gets the nomination, but she’s nowhere near a shoo-in,” wrote The Donald...

"The USA Freedom Act has not made us less safe at all." Republican Sen. Mike Lee on Wednesday slammed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for attacking Texas Sen. Ted Cruz over the USA Freedom Act at Tuesday night's GOP debate. Lee, who along with Cruz sponsored the bill that halted the National Security Agency's bulk collection of phone metadata, said Rubio was wrong to say the bill made America less safe. "Look, Marco Rubio has been attacking Ted Cruz on the USA Freedom Act, for his vote in favor of the USA Freedom Act, and he's been doing so by suggesting...

Katy Perry's father isn't sold on his daughter's pop star status. Preacher Keith Perry considers his daughter's come hither wardrobe and sexually charged song book an affront to the Lord. And he wants people to pray for his "devil child." Keith and wife Mary are currently touring American churches as star speakers. The pair show a video making Katy out to be a “devil child” who needs “healing.” Speaking in Santa Fe Springs, California, Keith ranted: “They ask how can I preach if I produce a girl who sang about kissing another girl? “I was at a concert of Katy’s...

Sam Thielman The Senate, ignorant on cybersecurity, just passed a bill about it anyway. The US Senate overwhelmingly passed a controversial cybersecurity bill critics say will allow the government to collect sensitive personal data unchecked, over the objections of civil liberties groups and many of the biggest names in the tech sector. The vote on Tuesday was 74 to 21 in support of the legislation. (snip) None of the Republican presidential candidates (except Lindsey Graham, who voted in favor) were present to cast a vote, including Rand Paul, who has made privacy from surveillance a major plank of his campaign...

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Tom Coburn, the former Republican senator from Oklahoma says that Rand Paul scares him to death, Ted Cruz and Scott Walker are not ready for primetime, Rick Perry is not capable enough, and America will not elect another Bush to be president. Of all the candidates, he said Marco Rubio is his favorite. Former Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn spoke candidly about the current crop of Republicans running for president on Sirius XM radio Thursday, sharing some critical thoughts about Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz and Governors Scott Walker and Rick Perry, while heaping praise on Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina,...

E.W. Jackson, a minister and attorney from Chesapeake, pulled off a stunning upset last night, topping six rivals for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor. Jackson fended off a late charge by Pete Snyder, a Northern Virginia technology entrepreneur, capping an epic four-ballot battle at the Richmond Coliseum that lasted nearly 10 hours.

RICHMOND — After Virginia Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II formally accepted his party’s nomination for governor and Virginia GOP scion Mark Obenshain secured the same for attorney general, it was a political neophyte who stole the show Saturday with multiple helpings of 11th-hour drama. Chesapeake Bishop E.W. Jackson, who mounted an unsuccessful run for U.S. Senate last year, emerged the wire-to-wire winner in the race for the GOP nomination for Virginia’s lieutenant governor at the state GOP’s nominating convention Saturday. It took four ballots and about 10 hours of voting for Mr. Jackson to emerge from a field of...

Paul’s book, Our Presidents & Their Prayers, a 36,000-word account about the faith of U.S. presidents, had only sold 80 copies in the first six days, according to the BookScan numbers. Today the number of sales for Paul’s book stands at 440 through Sunday, according to sources with access to the numbers.

Sen. Rand Paul was supposed to be a more politically savvy version of his father, former Texas congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul. The senior Paul energized a subset of the Republican Party, but the younger Paul was supposed to be a more mainstream advocate for limited government and a non-interventionist foreign policy. The Kentucky senator has even been touted as one of the leading candidates for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Yet time and again, he has shown why he shouldn't be taken seriously. The latest controversy surrounding Paul, which has been detailed in a series of stories at...

“The difference is purely in implementation. If you had a philosophical discussion on what the world should look like, there would be no difference.”(AUDIO-AT-LINK) Rand Paul’s brother says that when it comes to ideology, there’s “no difference” between his brother, the Kentucky senator and Republican presidential candidate, and his father, the former congressman and three-time presidential candidate. Ronnie Paul, the eldest son of the former congressman and sometimes-surrogate for his brother, was speaking with libertarian podcaster Israel Anderson. He said that both his brother and father held the same beliefs, there’s just a difference in the implementation of how to...

“… I think to every African-American in the country it’s a symbolism of slavery to them and now it’s a symbol of murder for this young man and so I think it’s times to put it in a museum.” Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul says he believes the Confederate battle flag is “inescapably a symbol of human bondage and slavery” and needs to go. “No, I agree, I think the flag is inescapably a symbol of human bondage and slavery, and particularly when people use it obviously for murder and to justify hated so vicious that you would kill somebody I...

“They are really against war because they want all of that money to go to food stamps for people here.” (AUDIO-AT-LINK)Former Republican Rep. Ron Paul, the father of potential presidential candidate Rand Paul and a former presidential candidate himself, said the Congressional Black Caucus does not support war because they want that money for food stamps. “I was always annoyed with it in Congress because we had an anti-war unofficial group, a few libertarian Republicans and generally the Black Caucus and others did not—they are really against war because they want all of that money to go to food stamps...

Former Republican presidential candidate and congressman Ron Paul says bad foreign policy is to blame for the Paris terrorist attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo that left at least 12 dead and 11 wounded. “Well, you know, partially what the Secretary of State said is true — this is pretty obscene, when it comes to violence, and libertarians are pretty annoyed by anybody who initiates violence,” said Paul on NewsMaxTV’s Steve Malzberg Show Wednesday. “This is pretty bad.” Paul said the context for the attack, however, was France’s involvement in the Middle East. “But in the context of things,...

Former Republican presidential candidate and congressman Ron Paul says secession is happening and it’s “good news.” Paul later predicted the states would stop listening to federal laws. “I would like to start off by talking about the subject and the subject is secession and, uh, nullification, the breaking up of government, and the good news is it’s gonna happen. It’s happening,” Paul, the father of potential Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul, told a gathering at the libertarian Mises Institute in late January. The event Paul was speaking at was titled “Breaking Away: The Case for Secession.” Paul said secession would...

“The U.S. Empire received a big boost from the 9/11 attack.” Former Rep. Ron Paul, the father of presidential candidate Rand Paul and past two-time candidate for the Republican nomination himself, writes in his new book that he believes “Zionism has played a role in our post-9/11 march toward empire.” Paul’s book, Swords into Plowshares: A Life in Wartime and a Future of Peace and Prosperity, was released last Friday. “Zionism has played a role in our post-9/11 march toward empire, and its influence has encouraged extreme interference in the Middle East,” Paul writes in a chapter entitled “Making America...

Rand Paul told GOP activists Saturday that the GOP can’t nominate another “Chamber of Commerce Republican” and expect to win the presidency in 2016. It’s time, he said, for a “libertarian moment.” “Chamber of Commerce is fine, I was a member of the Chamber of Commerce, but a Chamber of Commerce Republican is not going to win a national election,” Paul (R-Ky.), the libertarian-leaning senator and likely presidential contender, said. “I’m not saying we give up on what we believe in, but we have to expand what we believe in.” His comments came during an address to the Republican Liberty...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referred Wednesday to Russian President Vladimir Putin as “a tough guy with a thin skin.” Clinton was speaking at UCLA where she added she supported the Obama administration’s efforts to reach a diplomatic solution in Ukraine. Clinton reiterated comments she made at a fundraiser in California on Tuesday afternoon, where she compared Russia’s decision to issue passports in the Crimean region to the “population transfers” carried out by Nazi Germany before World War II. “The claims by President Putin and other Russians that they had to go into Crimea and maybe further into Eastern...

Hussein Onyango, Barack's grandfather, wasn't really imprisoned and tortured by the British. The father of his Indonesian stepfather, Soewarno Martodihardjo, wasn't killed by Dutch soldiers in the fight for independence. Regina, a friend at Occidental who Obama writes about as a symbol of the authentic African-American experience turns out to be based on Carolina Boss, who is white. Regina was the name of her Swiss grandmother. Obama projected a racial incident onto his New York girlfriend that he later told Maraniss had happened in Chicago. Obama wrote that he broke up with his New York girlfriend in part because...