Free Republic

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is trying to inject life into his campaign for president by hitting two birds with one tweet. The Republican, who is languishing near the bottom of the pack in polling, stepped up his attacks on front-runner Donald Trump on Friday -- and this time, he included Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in his line of fire. @TedCruz why won't you stand up to @RealDonaldTrump on single payer healthcare? That's not conservative leadership," Jindal tweeted, with a link to a post on his website. In the post, Jindal accuses Trump of supporting government-run health care for all, seizing...

Carly Fiorina scares the stuffing out of me. She lost me at the word “fetus.’’ On the campaign trail and on the debate stage, the lone female candidate among the 16 contenders for the Republican presidential nomination exudes a level of superhuman control posing as gravitas. Every hair is locked in place. No skirt crease is offline. Every word emanating from Fiorina’s sculpted lips is delivered in practiced, soothing tones, her head tilted to an ­unthreatening 10-degree angle.

BEN CARSON WINS ! BEN CARSON WINS ! BEN CARSON WINS !… ADVERTISEMENT It was last month, amid the failing direct GOPe attacks against Donald Trump, when we predicted Wall Street/Team Jeb’s approach would shift to promoting Ben Carson instead. We even shared their targeted date to peak Carson would be the CNN debate. All media (Madison Ave., Hollywood, Park Row) would be called in for the assist. Iowa poll okay for Trump, if right, but terrific for Ben Carson, also topping favorability by very big margin. — Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) August 31, 2015 Well?….. After two weeks of continual...

The Club for Growth, a conservative group that has routinely criticized Donald Trump, plans to unveil a "major television ad campaign in an early presidential primary state" on Tuesday on the heels of asking top Republican donors to give the organization money to fund a multimillion-dollar campaign against the Republican front-runner. A public relations representative for the anti-tax group sent out a news release Monday morning announcing its super PAC arm, Club for Growth Action, would debut the ad on Tuesday morning at the National Press Club in Washington. Asked what the ad is about, Club for Growth spokesman Doug...

Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson responded to fellow GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s accusations regarding his faith and positions on abortion in an interview broadcast on Friday’s edition of CNN’s “Situation Room.” Carson said, “it’s very easy for anybody to go back and investigate my past. And it’s very easy for them to see that, you know, my faith is not something that I come by lightly, and it has been an important part of my life. You know, fortunately I’ve written books, you know, ‘Gifted Hands’ came out in 1990. Read through that, you’ll see that faith has...

BREAKING: AP sources: Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to drop out of 2016 Republican presidential race.

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson knocked rival Donald Trump's immigration plan on Tuesday, saying that deporting the country's undocumented immigrants "sounds really cool" but would be far too costly and complicated. "It sounds really cool, you know, 'Let's just round them all up and send them back,'" Carson said. "People who say that have no idea what that would entail in terms of our legal system, the costs - forget about it. Plus, where you gonna send them? It's just a double whammy." Carson has been gaining on Trump, the GOP frontrunner, in recent polls. An NBC/Marist poll released Sunday...

The American College of Physicians has a message for Donald Trump and any other presidential contender advocating for mass deportation of illegal immigrants: Any plan to kick out those 12 million people from the country could have severe public health consequences. ... “Numerous studies show that deportation itself, as well as the fear of being deported, causes emotional distress, depression, trauma associated with imposed family separations, and distrust"

Is Marco Rubio sure about that? The 2016 cycle appears ready to boil down to the question of whether the US electorate is an angry one. Rubio’s betting on no — and strategizing on it as well: In his stump speech to fewer than 100 people in the northern part of the second presidential nominating contest, Rubio gently poked at the real estate tycoon who is towering over the Republican field in the polls, portraying Trump’s message as one of anger as opposed to the senator’s message of hope and opportunity. “There’s another gentleman running for president whose slogan is...

Drug-resistant head lice are very likely coming to a school near you, U.S. investigators warn. At least 25 states host lice populations that don't respond to common over-the-counter treatments, a new analysis reveals. Permethrin, part of the pyrethroid class of insecticides, has long been the go-to weapon against head lice, mosquitoes, bedbugs and other insects. But continued exposure to permethrin has caused a huge swath of the dreaded insects to develop genetic mutations that render such drugs useless. "It's a very classic resistance story. ... Head lice, which can't jump or fly, transmit by direct physical contact. They quickly infest...

Marco Rubio’s star may be rising and Tony Abbott’s falling among senior News Corp executives, a Sydney speech on Thursday night by chief executive Robert Thomson suggested. The chief of the media group, whose assets include a range of influential newspapers in the US, Australia and the UK, told an audience at the Lowy Institute that the Florida senator looked an impressive candidate in the race to secure the Republican nomination to run for US president. “Personally I slightly fell in love with Marco Rubio at the last Republican National Convention because I thought he told a great personal narrative...

Apparently Rick Perry's performance at the first GOP debate last week wasn't enough to keep donors writing checks. Perry, who debated in the 5 p.m. Fox News debate after missing the primetime cutoff, has apparently stopped paying campaign staffers in key early states and at campaign headquarters. From the Washington Post:Former Texas governor Rick Perry's presidential campaign is no longer paying its staff because fundraising has dried up, while his cash-flush allied super PAC is preparing to expand its political operation to compensate for the campaign's shortcomings, campaign and super PAC officials and other Republicans familiar with the operation...

Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina said Monday that adult illegal immigrants should not receive a path to citizenship under an immigration fix, but said she is open to giving their children citizenship. Mrs. Fiorina, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination, also said she could support giving those who “have come here illegally and stayed here illegally” legal status. “I think legal status is a possibility for sure,” Mrs. Fiorina said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I think their children maybe can become citizens.”

(Redstate Gathering introduction)

Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul lashed out at Donald Trump during a campaign event Saturday in South Carolina, arguing conservatives can’t trust the New York businessman because he has “been on both sides of every issue.” “My goodness,” Paul said in Goose Creek to the Berkeley County GOP. “He’s been on both sides of every issue. Where is our sense? Where is our common sense?” Added the Kentucky senator: “This is a guy who has been pro-choice before he was pro-life. This is a guy who was liberal before he was conservative. This is a guy who was a Democrat...

President Obama's longtime senior adviser Valerie Jarrett confessed to breaking bread this week with conservative media titan Rupert Murdoch, a new White House frenemy of sorts on immigration reform. The two dined at the posh Blue Duck Tavern on Tuesday night in Washington's Foggy Bottom, and Jarrett described the evening as “very enjoyable.”

Republican presidential contender Jeb Bush called Donald Trump's candidacy a "phenomenon," and said his outspoken rival has "appealed to people's anger" as he has skyrocketed to the top of the polls. "I was surprised that Donald Trump has surged. I think he's captured the deep frustration that people feel," Bush told NBC News' Lester Holt in an exclusive interview on Friday. Trump — who kicked off his campaign with controversial comments accusing Mexico of sending its rapists and murderers to the U.S. — has a large lead over the GOP presidential field, a Quinnipiac poll released Thursday showed. "I get...

In a recent interview, presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called open borders a “right-wing proposal” and vocalized his opposition to an open borders policy. On July 16, Sanders sat down with Vox’s Ezra Klein for an interview. During the interview, Klein asked Sanders about his identification as a socialist and its implications for his policy positions. […] At one point during the conversation, Klein began to ask Sanders, “You said being a democratic socialist means a more international view. I think if you take global poverty that seriously, it leads you to conclusions that in the US are considered...

President Bush's son, Jeb, is looking for a maid who's a legal U.S. resident. A maid who had worked at Bush's Miami home for three years was deported back to her native Honduras last week. Bush was out jogging when immigration agents showed up so his wife, Columba, had to deal with them. "She indicated, `Yes, she works here,' brought the lady out, and the two agents showed her the deportation order,said Richard Smith, director of the INS's Miami office."

Call it failure to launch for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) as, despite a minor bump in the polls a month or so after his April presidential campaign launch, the 44-year-old junior senator from Florida is now officially relegated to the middle of the pack—where he’s been unable to climb out.