Free Republic

Ramadan Saeed Shakir is the mayor of Islamville, an all-Muslim town of about 300 people located in the northern woodland of South Carolina.."It's very sad that one of our national presidential candidates is speaking so much ill will about Islam and Muslims."

"You know how they say there's all this anger and all this -- I don't find it out there," Kasich said.

big donations from Wall Street to Bush's super PAC Right to Rise dropped by 85 percent in the second half of 2015. Funding would've plummeted to 95 percent if not for the $10 million gift from former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg. . . Wall Street donors now appear to be backing Sen. Marco Rubio and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Right to Rise, the "super PAC" supporting Jeb Bush that has dominated the ad-spending battle so far, has canceled up to a third of its ad reservations in March 1 primary states, according to media buying sources.

So, you are a veteran, you served well and honorably, you love your country, and you believe in protecting her. You want America to stay strong, get stronger, be worthy of all those who have gone before - and what they have given. The whole political cycle, this time around, is gut-wrenching. Who do you vote for? Let's assume, like me, you are not a one issue voter. You are a person of faith too, with a healthy respect for history. You respect leadership qualities, including decisiveness, a commitment made and kept, humility and honor, decency, strength and smarts -...

John McAfee, better known in recent years for his brushes with the law in Belize and Guatemala than for his anti-virus software, filed to run for United States president as a Libertarian candidate. McAfee told USA Today he plans to run on a platform of pardoning all marijuana users in prison and and to "stop the U.S. from being the world's policeman." Doug Craig, a national board member of the Libertarian Party, said,"He fits right in with our political philosophy.: Earlier this year, McAfee vowed to run as a member of the Cyber Party to "disrupt the political status quo"...

Mitch's moderates need to go! Note, Vitter, Rubio and Coats are already leaving.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Do you know that Bernie Sanders is the first Jewish candidate to win a major presidential primary? You hadn't heard that? Here's the point: Hillary Clinton tried to stop the first African-American from being elected president. Now she's trying to stop the first Jewish-American from being elected president. What a bigot! Doesn't Mrs. Clinton realize she should get out of the way and let these minorities finally have their shot at things? She tried to stop the first black president; he won. Now she's trying to stop the first Jewish president, and he just mopped the floor...

Gaffe or no gaffe, it makes a lot of sense when you think about it. What was Marco Rubio thinking Saturday night in Manchester, New Hampshire? Why would he repeat the same canned talking point four times, even after Chris Christie accused him of constantly repeating his canned talking points? And if he had to repeat a canned talking point during a Republican debate, why on earth would he choose one about how Barack Obama knows what he's doing? The knows-what-he's-doing debacle felt like Rubio's political Fredericksburg, a futile repetitive charge into overwhelming enemy fire. Christie's brutal mockery of Rubio's...

This week's much anticipated Iowa Caucus marked the start of the presidential nomination process for both the Democratic and Republican parties. It was quite an event. The turnout on the Republican side was 50 percent higher than usual, and the Democrats turned out 50 percent more than in 2012, but 30 percent less than their record breaking year in 2008. Hillary Clinton narrowly beat Bernie Sanders. She received 700.59 state delegate equivalents, while Bernie Sanders received 696.82, according to the Iowa Democratic Party website. (The Iowa Democratic Party does not release votes, just delegate equivalents). Both Clinton and Sanders declared...

First, kill the Iowa caucuses. Please note: I didn't say, "Kill the Iowans." I like Iowans and I like Iowa. But we need to get Iowa's boot off our neck. That may be misunderstood, as well. You see, we're not under the heel of all Iowans. If we were, that'd actually be better because that would mean lots of Iowans turned out to vote. But most don't. As Jeff Greenfield recently noted in Politico, rumors of Iowa's commitment to democratic engagement are wildly overstated. In 2008, a record-shattering 350,000 caucus-goers caucus-went. All the buzz was about the precedent-shattering turnout for...

Watching all the negativity flying around the stage at the Democratic Town Hall Forum the other night, something struck me. Why, after watching Hillary and Bernie go after each other's left-liberal throats, would anyone ever want to vote for either one of them? They had nothing but rotten things to say about the other. Hillary's too cozy with Wall Street. Bernie's too soft on the NRA and naive about negotiating with Iran. Hillary's insufficiently progressive and takes obscene speaking fees from Goldman Sachs. Bernie's expensive progressive ideas will never make it in the real world. Etc. Etc. The Democrat debate...

...What does everyone think of...

It is not uncommon for presidential candidates to pose as hard-core liberals or conservatives to appease their party’s activist base and then temper their views in the general election to win over moderates and undecided votes. But Donald Trump seems to be doing that before a single vote has been cast in the GOP primaries.

With the Iowa caucuses a week away, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, who leads in all the polls, is Donald Trump. The consensus candidate of the Democratic Party elite, Hillary Clinton, has been thrown onto the defensive by a Socialist from Vermont who seems to want to burn down Wall Street. Not so long ago, Clinton was pulling down $225,000 a speech from Goldman Sachs. Today, she sounds like William Jennings Bryan. Taken together, the candidacies of Trump, Sanders, Ben Carson and Ted Cruz represent a rejection of the establishment. And, imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, other...

My Letter Responding to Speaker Paul Ryan's email to me I recently received an email from Speaker Paul Ryan on behalf of the RNCC, which I have contributed to and supported in the past. When it became apparent that John Boehner would not keep faith with the Republican Platform or with the millions of Americans who gave him a majority in the house...I stopped contributing. Now, they want me back. The following is my letter in response to Speaker Paul Ryan: Speaker Paul Ryan, January 14, 2016 Re: Response to your letter to me on behalf of the NRCC CC:...

Three weeks out from the Iowa caucuses, and clarity emerges. Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, is in trouble. Polls show her slightly ahead of Socialist Bernie Sanders in Iowa, but narrowly behind in New Hampshire. And the weekend brought new revelations about yet more classified and secret documents sent over her private email server when she was secretary of state. Between now and November, she will be traversing a minefield, with detonations to be decided upon by FBI investigators who may not cherish Clinton, and might like to appear in the history books. Clinton's charge about Donald Trump's alleged...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Friday warned Republican voters to steer clear of nominating Tea Party candidates who can't win in next year's general election. "The way you have a good election year is to nominate people who can win," he told reporters during his final Capitol Hill press conference of 2015. He urged Republican primary voters to avoid the mistakes of the past, mentioning several Tea Party candidates who went down in flames in recent Senate elections. "What we did in 2014 was we didn't have more Christine O'Donnell's, Sharron Angles, Richard Mourdocks or Todd Akins. The...

Read these two quotes carefully: The first: “Cruz cannot win because the Washington elites despise him.” The second goes: “[T]here are a lot of good candidates – I like nearly all of them… …except Cruz.” Which one of the similar quotes is from a pro-Cruz Super PAC and which is from a former Republican nominee for president?  The first quote is from an ad from Keep the Promise I, a Cruz Super PAC.  The second is from Bob Dole, the 1996 Republican nominee and war hero, who got trounced by Bill Clinton. Both purport to highlight a negative of Senator...

I know a televangelist candidate when I see one. To hear the pundits and experts in Washington tell it, the problem with Ted Cruz is that he doesn't play well with others in the Senate, he's too hardheaded and doesn't compromise. In other words, he's exactly what the Republican primary voters want. On this score, I side with the Republican primary voters. If Cruz's problem is that he is a conservative who has no regard for senatorial decorum and fights too hard for the right things, I'm all in. But there is a far bigger problem with Cruz: Donald Trump...