Free Republic

There was a lot of whining inside the beltway last March about whether then-House Speaker John Boehner broke diplomatic protocol by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress without informing the White House. This was during the critical period a few months before the Senate weighed in on President Obama’s Iran nuclear agreement. The results are in: the Prime Minister’s speech will stand the test of time, while partisan hand-wringing will have nothing to do with the outcome of Iran’s nuclear development. Let’s review the record though to see how the political people in charge behave when something...

When you lose an election you get frustrated. When you’re sitting in a subpar 2 percent economy, and are faced with tax hikes rather than marginal rate reductions, you get even more frustrated. And when you’re staring at $47 trillion in spending over the next ten years, and $8.6 trillion in deficits, your frustration levels climb even higher. These are among the frustrations that led a number of House Republicans to pull back from Speaker John Boehner’s so-called Plan B. Nobody looked good on the Republican side when Thursday night’s vote fell through. But you have to understand their frustrations....

Butler County Auditor Roger Reynolds' abrupt withdrawal last week from the 16-way contest to fill the vacancy created by Speaker John A. Boehner's retirement is another sign of how little conservatives think of the former speaker. Reynolds was seen as a favorite among the 14 Republicans in the race and was believed to have Boehner's backing. But that didn’t work in Reynolds' favor among some conservatives. "It is pretty clear that Boehner is behind Roger Reynolds," Lori Viars, a board member of the Conservative Republican Leadership Committee, told Cincinnati.com in October. And that, she hinted, might not be such a...

A super PAC supporting former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will place an ad buy in Ohio today. Right to Rise, the super PAC supporting Bush, won't release specific figures on the buy, but it's the latest case of GOP presidential contenders paying attention to a state that isn't one of the initial primary contests. A source familiar with current TV ad buys says the buy is or $315,402 - with the bulk of that going to cable and just $4,395 going to a Fox affiliate. The total buy in Columbus is $109,349, on stations including TNT, HGTV and USA. Billionaire...

In Tuesday’s elections, voters rejected recreational marijuana, transgender rights, and illegal-immigrant sanctuaries; they reacted equivocally to gun-control arguments; and they handed a surprise victory to a Republican gubernatorial candidate who emphasized his opposition to gay marriage. Democrats have become increasingly assertive in taking liberal social positions in recent years, believing that they enjoy majority support and even seeking to turn abortion and gay rights into electoral wedges against Republicans. But Tuesday’s results—and the broader trend of recent elections that have been generally disastrous for Democrats not named Barack Obama—call that view into question. Indeed, they suggest that the left has...

The headlines recently have been full of suggestions that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is solidifying his lead while the other real outsider in the race, Ben Carson, is firmly in second place — and that the political class’s favorites, including Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Marco Rubio, can’t gain traction. I don’t buy it. Republicans should not overcommit to the notion that Trump, much less Carson, are serious candidates for the Republican nomination for 2016. I’ll admit to being a little perplexed by the polls right now. When Trump entered the race, I said he would max out somewhere...

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) acknowledged on Breitbart News Sunday that since no candidate has a clear pathway to becoming the next Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) could remain Speaker through January 2017.

It really is stunning how open the republican leadership in both the House and Senate are with their disdain for the base of their own party. Reports now surfacing that the GOPe has entered negotiations with Nancy Pelosi to support Paul Ryan. According to Roll Call the Democrats are willing to elect Ryan if the GOPe promise to give them comprehensive immigration reform and amnesty legislation. Representative Steve King warns of the political bloodbath which would follow such a deal. As Rep. Paul Ryan’s history of working for open borders has come under increasing scrutiny, conservative lawmakers have begun to...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Speaker John Boehner is signaling that he'll move must-do legislation to increase the government's borrowing cap before he leaves Capitol Hill.</p> <p>The statutory cap on the government's so-called debt limit needs to be raised by early November, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday, confirming a recent warning from the administration.</p>

If you needed any more reason not to support Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House, check out the Fox News hacks this past Sunday. Karl Rove and George Will are basically in love with Paul Ryan, claiming he would be a perfect selection to replace the weeping drunk Boehner. George Will must have some sort of connection to Republican RINOs from the state of Wisconsin. His wife worked on Scott Walker’s failed campaign, and now he wants Paul Ryan to be the next speaker. When you add Karl Rove to the mix, it basically tells you what type of...

House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) will not run for the House Speakership unless conservatives surrender “unconditionally” to him, Politico reports citing sources close to Ryan. “The conservatives who drove out Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) would need to get behind him unconditionally for speaker,” Politico’s Jake Sherman writes of the donor-class-backed Ryan. Ryan does not want to run for Speaker, he and his spokesman Brendan Buck have made “abundantly clear,” Sherman writes—before noting what exactly it would take for Ryan to get in the race. “But there’s one remote scenario, people close to him say, in...

"Open borders seeps out of every pore of his being."

In an interview with NBC's Kristen Welker, South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy offered his honest — and correct — assessment of his party in Congress. Here's the key bit: I think the House is bordering on ungovernable right now. ... Being Speaker is a very difficult job. We need to have a family conversation and sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before that conversation starts. We're getting close ... Now, Gowdy was explaining to Welker why he wouldn't be interested in the soon-to-be vacant job as speaker of the House. But his reasoning is almost certainly why Paul Ryan...

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Reps. Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) and Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA) battled over the divide between the moderates and Freedom Caucus conservatives in Congress deciding who will be the next Speaker of the House.

Newt Gingrich issued a warning to Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) Sunday morning, saying that he “should be very cautious” when considering running for speaker of the House.Asked by Fox’s Chris Wallace if he thinks Ryan should take the job, Gingrich was hesitant to push the Wisconsin congressman towards what many describe as a “thankless” position. (RELATED: Freedom Caucus Would ‘Look Favorably’ On Paul Ryan As Speaker)“I think Paul should be very cautious,” Gingrich told Wallace. “He is the most prestigious member of the House on the Republican side. He has the best future, he’s still very young.”“It’s easy to get 218 on the first...

Los Angeles (AFP) - President Barack Obama said the Republican Party has "gone off the deep end" with its messy failure to elect a new speaker of the House of Representatives. The Republican-controlled House was left in shock and disarray this week when Kevin McCarthy, the frontrunner to replace John Boehner, who has announced his resignation, suddenly withdrew from the race because of a revolt by conservatives. The challenge now is to find a consensus candidate who can soothe wounds and unite a fractious caucus. Obama addressed the drama at an expensive fundraiser at a private home in Los Angeles....

John Boehner is out (eventually). Kevin McCarthy is out. Conservatives in the House of Representatives are on a roll. But where is the roll going? I applaud the ouster of these insiders. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the career ambitions of politicians. But what comes next, what follows bold action, is just as important, if not more. On that front, it seems conservatives were wholly unprepared. Nothing against Daniel Webster or Jason Chaffetz, but are they really people who leap to mind when you think “leader?” Or even “articulate and quick-witted conservative”? Have...

The surprise withdrawal of Rep. Kevin McCarthy from the race for Speaker of the House gave the New York Times an excuse to issue a series of front-page stories larded up with hostile "hard-line" and "hard-right" labels mocking the apparent chaos surrounding congressional Republicans, being held "hostage" by the party's conservative wing. - See more at: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/clay-waters/2015/10/10/nyt-bashes-white-rural-clutch-unyielding-hard-line-conservatives#sthash.8A8MH9Mf.dpuf

GOP frontrunner Donald Trump thinks Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is “a very nice guy,” but “far from [his] first choice” to be the next Speaker of the House. Trump weighed in on the race for House Speaker on Twitter Saturday morning: “Paul Ryan is far from my first choice, but a very nice guy. The Republicans should go for tough and (very) smart this time – no games!” His tweet comes after CBS News reported that Trump said he would be “okay” with Ryan as Speaker in an interview set to air Sunday on Face the Nation. Trump said of...

The news alert about Kevin McCarthy’s abandonment of his pursuit to become John Boehner’s successor hit my phone just as I was about to go for a run. Rather than read the whole story, I just smiled and hit the pavement. Within the first few steps I wondered how long it would take before the hyperbole-laden garment rending would begin in the left media about conservatives being the death of the Republican Party, congressional compromise, and the frolicsome joy we so love to see in puppies and kittens. It was a short run, but they were on it by the...