Free Republic

Just as a high stakes gambler in the wrong place at the wrong time might get "rolled" from time to time, Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson appears ripe to get "Roved" yet again based upon reports he's "donated $10 million to a Karl Rove-backed outfit boosting Republican Senate candidates and promised a similar amount to an allied group focused on House races."

On Friday, every political campaign had to file its 2013 year end report with the FEC. The reports delivered two big surprises. The Democrats are dominating the Republicans in fundraising. More surprising, perhaps, though, is that Tea Party and conservative SuperPACs raised around three times as much as GOP establishment SuperPACs. The DC GOP may have started the war against the Tea Party, but it won't finish it. Not long after their stunning losses in 2012, Karl Rove and other establishment Republicans announced a new effort to engage in primaries to ensure the "right" candidates got the party's nomination. Rove...

If GOP consultant Karl Rove is trying to figure out why he’s struggling to rally support for his causes, maybe he should remember an old truth: that the Republican Party’s true strength is its conservative base. Donations to Rove’s three political groups have dropped an astounding 98 percent since he waged his war on the tea party. Much of that decrease may be because 2013 was not an election year. But the plunge can also be attributed to donors’ realization that Republican candidates generally win elections only when they act Republican and not “Republican light.” In 2012, Rove-founded groups took...

On Election Night 2012, Democrats had more than the reelection of President Obama to celebrate. Karl Rove, the mastermind Republican strategist hated and feared by Democrats, had a meltdown live on Fox News. A new documentary, "Mitt," Greg Whiteley's film of Mitt Romney and his family during his 2008 and 2012 presidential bids, released on Netflix on Friday, sheds more light on that bizarre incident. Rove's famous hissy-fit took place when the network called the state of Ohio for Obama, putting the president over the 270 electoral votes needed to win reelection. Rove argued that Fox's analysts had acted prematurely.

Billionaire Harold Simmons died Saturday night at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas, says wife Annette. He was 82. Annette Simmons tells our Alan Peppard that the East Texas native, who currently sits at No. 40 on Forbes’ list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, has been “very sick for the last two weeks,” and in Baylor’s intensive care unit for the last eight days. She did not reveal the specific cause of death. “He’s had a hard time,” said Annette of her husband, namesake of the foundation that has dispensed hundreds of millions to local organizations.

<p>It's time to see how well I did with my predictions for 2013 and to offer a set of 2014 forecasts.</p> <p>I got 10 predictions for this year right. President Obama's job approval rating did drop—from 53% at year's start to 40% this week. There was a new administration scandal, the most significant being the IRS targeting of conservative groups. And ObamaCare's implementation was indeed "ragged and ugly" and "a continuing political advantage to Republicans" as forecast.</p>

Yes, the Republican National Committee WASHINGTON – Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus and RNC Co-Chairman Sharon Day released the following statement commemorating Kwanzaa: “I want to extend my best wishes to all who are celebrating Kwanzaa,” said Chairman Priebus. “For families coming together to mark the occasion, I hope it is a joyous time of celebration with loved ones–and a time of meaningful reflection ahead of the New Year.” “From December 26 through January 1, many families will take time to celebrate African culture and history. Kwanzaa is a wonderful opportunity for all of us to honor the...

Karl Rove and more than one hundred Republican donors sent a letter to Republican members of Congress on Tuesday, urging them to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill that would include, among other provisions, granting "legal status" to illegal aliens who meet certain criteria. Anticipating that lawmakers will face resistance to the bill when they go home for the August recess, the letter marks the escalation of a campaign in which Republican leaders and donors are pressuring House Republicans to act on an immigration reform bill. The letter begins: “We write to urge you to take action to fix our...

A decade ago, Karl Rove was President George W. Bush's right-hand man and one of the most powerful political figures in America. And even after his fortunes briefly dipped at the end of the Bush era, Rove roared to life again, tapping into and fueling the Tea Party movement through his massive super PAC, American Crossroads. But today, with a GOP civil war raging between establishment types and upstart conservatives in the mold of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R), Rove's once-strong influence has begun to wane. An embodiment of the Bush-era Republicans who have fallen out of favor of late,...

Gov. Chris Christie today signed landmark legislation granting thousands of students who grew up in New Jersey but are in the country illegally the benefit of in-state tuition rates at all public colleges and universities. Christie's signature marks the end of a public tug-of-war over the measure, deemed the "Dream Act", which was pared down in its final days in order for Democrats to gain the governor's approval. Both sides hailed the compromise as a historic achievement. A spokesman for Christie, Colin Reed, said in a statement "the governor signed the legislation privately earlier today, and there will be a...

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said his opposition research shop is targeting Hillary Clinton ahead of the 2016 election. Priebus said the RNC is trying to focus on the midterm elections, but added there should be a greater emphasis on the potential presidential candidate. “Well, we have — so our research shop, along with America Rising, has been focusing in on Hillary Clinton,” Priebus said on The Hugh Hewitt Show on Thursday. “But I agree with you that there needs to be a more of a focus.” American Rising is a GOP research firm started by Mitt Romney's former...

In response to the news that Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS is funding Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) to the tune of $26 million in 2012, Tea Party Patriots National Coordinator Jenny Beth Martin told Breitbart News that Rove cannot buy his way into the conservative movement. “The old adage 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer' is more relevant in today’s political arena than ever before,” Martin said. “It is not surprising that there are groups we thought were in this fight with us have been shown to have ulterior motives."

On its 2012 tax return, GOP strategist Karl Rove’s dark money behemoth Crossroads GPS justified its status as a tax-exempt social welfare group in part by citing its grants of $35 million to other similarly aligned nonprofits. (Here’s the tax return itself, which we detailed last week.) The return, signed under penalty of perjury, specified that the grants would be used for social welfare purposes, “and not for political expenditures, consistent with the organization’s tax-exempt mission.” But that’s not what happened. New tax documents, made public last Tuesday, indicate that at least $11.2 million of the grant money given to...

Trumpeting the ever-increasing weight of outside political organizations, Karl Rove's campaign groups out-fundraised the Democratic National Committee during the 2012 election cycle, according to a draft tax return obtained Friday by the Wall Street Journal. American Crossroads and its nonprofit arm, Crossroads GPS, together raked in more than $325 million during the 2012 campaign. The DNC, by contrast, raised $316 million, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. -snip- Expenditures for Crossroads GPS included donations to other conservative groups like Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, and a $538,000 salary for its president, Steven Law.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on a conference call organized by Karl Rove’s Crossroads organization for large donors and their advisers on Oct. 30 that the Tea Party movement, in his view, is a “nothing but a bunch of bullies” that he plans to “punch … in the nose.” On the call, according to a donor who was on it, McConnell personally named Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) as Tea Party conservatives he views as problematic for him. “The bulk of it was an attack on the Tea Party in general, Cruz in particular,” the source,...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on a conference call organized by Karl Rove’s Crossroads organization for large donors and their advisers on Oct. 30 that the Tea Party movement, in his view, is a “nothing but a bunch of bullies” that he plans to “punch … in the nose.” On the call, according to a donor who was on it, McConnell personally named Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) as Tea Party conservatives he views as problematic for him. “The bulk of it was an attack on the Tea Party in general, Cruz in particular,” the source,...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) used the "nuclear option" yesterday to eliminate the free and open debate of judicial nominations. Harry Reid did this because he knows Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will let him get away with it. The only way to deter a nuclear attack is to make it clear that the response will be equally devastating. Unfortunately, weakness is the only message Mitch McConnell has sent the Democrats on this issue. He's been so ineffective that even his allies in the mainstream media are mocking him with political cartoons like the one shown here from Politico....

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Friday there still is a possibility of immigration reform this year. “I think that, in fact, the idea that either a comprehensive approach or a multi-tiered approach is not going to happen by the end of the year, I don’t think that that’s necessarily true,” Priebus told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt. “I think it can happen and I think people like Paul Ryan and others still want something like that to happen,” Priebus said. -snip- Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., who helped craft the Senate’s immigration bill, said Thursday the window for passing immigration reform...

Republican operatives want to help establishment candidates fend off tea party challenges with a new weapon: unlimited cash. Consultants and attorneys — including the co-founder of the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC — are laying the groundwork or have already filed paperwork for dozens of super PACs organized to support individual candidates running next year. -spies- Single-candidate super PACs also is a sign party leaders believe donors are unhappy with the results of big money groups in recent years — and are willing to take their checkbooks elsewhere. Rove’s Crossroads groups budgeted more than $300 million on a plan to defeat...

Don’t count Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus among those who believe comprehensive immigration reform is dead this Congress. Despite exasperation among reform advocates that the House has refused to vote on any major immigration bill — particularly the Senate-passed legislation — Priebus said that his “gut” feeling is that the House will indeed pass an immigration overhaul in the next 14 months. “Something significant is going to happen because obviously mass deportation is not an option. I don’t think doing nothing is an option. And I believe most people would agree that something significant needs to take place. Now...