CNBC Moderators’ Low Performance Should Be A Lesson To The RNC

By StacyOnTheRight

The CNBC debate is memorable for many reasons, with the complete lack of preparedness of the moderators standing out as unfortunate circumstance number one. At numerous points during the evening, candidates called out the moderators for the low quality of their questions. Becky Quick was obviously biased against the candidates and repeatedly steered the discussion to “Pay Inequality” only to be viciously rebuffed. At one point, Quick couldn’t remember where she’d heard that Donald Trump was critical of Mark Zuckerberg’s immigration stance.… Continue Reading

What GOP Candidates Said About Supreme Court’s Gay Marriage Ruling

Santorum, Huckabee, Cruz, Jindal make the A Team

Written by Maggie Gallagher
On June 26, a narrow majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices struck down the traditional definition of marriage, ruling all 50 states must recognize same-sex unions as marriages.

The four dissenters included the usually mild-mannered Chief Justice John Roberts, who called the majority opinion “dangerous to the rule of law”: “The majority’s decision is an act of will, not legal judgment. The right it announces has no basis in the Constitution or this Court’s precedent.”… Continue Reading

Score Card from the Big Debates

Written by Michael Medved

All Republicans should feel relieved, if not jubilant. Lots of winners who helped themselves, and no disastrous losers.

Major gains for Marco Rubio who was lucid, passionate, self-assured, Kennedyesque – cementing his status as everyone’s second choice, which may win him the nomination, ultimately. John Kasich also moved his campaign forward: starting in tenth place (according to the polls) he looked and sounded like a folksy, credible, mainstream contender. Jeb Bush, who had to overcome a recent reputation for bumbling and gaffes, seemed strong, capable, sympathetic, and accessible.… Continue Reading

Cruz Vows Vote on Defunding Planned Parenthood

By Sarah Ferris

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wants to force the Senate to vote on defunding Planned Parenthood this week, as a second undercover video unleashes a new storm of scrutiny of the organization.

Cruz’s office said Tuesday that he plans to file an amendment on the highway bill that would eliminate all federal funding for Planned Parenthood, in addition to an amendment that would fully repeal ObamaCare.

Cruz is the second senator — and the second GOP presidential candidate — who is eying the highway bill as an attempt to defund Planned Parenthood.… Continue Reading

How 5 Republicans Let Congress Keep Its Fraudulent Obamacare Subsidies

  Health-care experts call it D.C. insiderism at its worst. 

Written by Brendan Bordelon

The rumors began trickling in about a week before the scheduled vote on April 23: Republican leadership was quietly pushing senators to pull support for subpoenaing Congress’s fraudulent application to the District of Columbia’s health exchange — the document that facilitated Congress’s “exemption” from Obamacare by allowing lawmakers and staffers to keep their employer subsidies.

The application said Congress employed just 45 people.… Continue Reading

Quinnipiac: Walker Leading in Iowa

Jeb drops to 5% in latest Iowa poll.

Written by Michael Warren

A new Quinnipiac poll of likely Iowa Republican presidential caucusgoers finds Wisconsin’s Scott Walker in front of the GOP pack with 21 percent support and a 9-point advantage over his closest primary opponents. That’s down from 25 percent and a 12-point lead in Quinnipiac’s February poll, but Walker remains ahead of his Republican rivals, with senators Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, all huddled together behind the Wisconsin governor.… Continue Reading

The 2016 Presidential Race, Explained in 4 Charts

Religious Liberty Crisis Report Card

Written by Maggie Gallagher

Rod Dreher is right: the rage of the powerful against Indiana for daring to pass a state RFRA without the consent of the LGBT community marks a dramatic cultural and political inflection point,as I have pointed out in National Review. For the first time, a vanilla religious liberty bill similar to those passed in 19 other states was deemed “antigay” per se, and powerful corporations rushed in to punish the people of Indiana economically for their moral views on liberty.… Continue Reading

5 Things You Didn’t Know About Rand Paul’s Faith

Written by Michael F. Haverluck

Unlike other prospective Republican presidential candidates — like former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, whose faith life is an open book — Sen. Rand Paul’s spiritual walk has remained a bit cloudy, at best … that is, until now.

Not your conventional Christian candidate growing up in the same church all his life, Paul, who officially announced his candidacy for the 2016 presidential GOP ticket , has been somewhat of a denominational transient over the years.… Continue Reading

Poll: Foreign Policy Is Rand Paul’s Biggest Vulnerability in S.C., Iowa

Written by Alana Goodman

U.S. Senator Rand Paul’s (R-KY) greatest vulnerabilities in the early GOP primaries are his positions on Iran and Israel, according to a private poll commissioned by a group called the Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America.

The Republican PAC, which launched a $1 million ad campaign highlighting Paul’s foreign policy positions this week, conducted the polls of likely Iowa and South Carolina GOP primary voters in February.

While respondents were surveyed on a number of Paul’s potential weaknesses, including his association with conspiracy-minded radio host Alex Jones and opposition to mandatory minimum prison sentences, the polls indicate that Paul’s comments on Iranian nuclear weapons and aid to Israel are his biggest liability with Republicans.… Continue Reading