Free Republic

Welcome to The Campaign Moment, where the last major non-Trump and non-Biden candidate is now out. The big moment Today the key moment is Nikki Haley dropping out of the presidential race the morning after Super Tuesday and effectively bringing the Republican primary contest to an end. Haley announced her exit Wednesday after winning the Washington, D.C., primary on Sunday and Vermont on Super Tuesday, but losing more than 20 other contests to Donald Trump. “I said I wanted Americans to have their voices heard,” Haley said. “I have done that. I have no regrets.” Haley declined to endorse Trump...

A fascinating element to the controversy over teaching sex topics to very young children in public schools is the knee-jerk reaction by leftists in the media, not to dispute that kids are being taught sex stuff, but to defend that they are!In an “analysis” piece both hilarious and infuriating, the Washington Post’s Senior Political Reporter Aaron Blake this week attempted to explain away official guidelines in New Jersey for the state’s school teachers in educating children on sexual and gender identity and expression.“Conservative media oversell New Jersey’s guidelines for teaching gender,” read the headline.True, in recent days Republicans and conservatives...

John Eastman, it seems, is the victim of one big misunderstanding. The conservative Claremont Institute, which employs the lawyer who provided a road map for President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election, decided to issue a statement Monday defending Eastman. "Contrary to almost universally false news accounts, which have done great damage, John did not ask the Vice President, who was presiding over the Joint Session of Congress where electoral votes were to be counted on January 6, to ‘overturn’ the election or to decide the validity of electoral votes,” its statement says. It...

Republican lawmakers across the country are moving to restrict teaching about systemic racism in our education system, targeting critical race theory. But in the course of doing so, some are attempting to rewrite a very pertinent part of that history.Twice in recent weeks, Republican state lawmakers have defended the infamous “Three-Fifths Compromise” — the constitutional agreement by which enslaved people would count as three-fifths of a person for representation purposes — by arguing that it was actually somehow anti-slavery.

Joe Biden is now the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, after Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign Wednesday morning. The next big question in the race - beyond when and how Biden will be formally nominated amid a pandemic, of course - is who is going to fill out the ticket as Biden’s vice presidential running mate. The pick carries unusual importance, especially given Biden, who will turn 78 shortly after Election Day, would be the oldest president ever elected by far. We already know one thing about that pick: It will be a woman, as Biden pledged in a recent...

Another potential scandal has cast a pall over Trump’s presidency, and as has become a learned behavior in the Republican Party, the vast majority of GOP officials are declining to speak out against him. But their non-responses also speak volumes. After a whistleblower complaint released Thursday alleged President Trump’s misdeeds with regard to Ukraine, reporters set about getting reaction from Republican elected officials. They ran into a stone wall. As CNN’s Ted Barrett summarizes, many Republican senators claimed they hadn’t even read the relatively brief document, despite it having consumed the political world. But even those who said they had...

Former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, at long last, testified before Congress about his investigation into Russian interference and President Trump’s conduct related to it. Mueller appeared before the House Judiciary Committee in the morning and the House Intelligence Committee in the afternoon. Here’s what we learned from both sessions. 1. Mueller struggled If Democrats hoped this would be a seminal moment, they will apparently leave sorely disappointed — in large part because their star witness was no star. Mueller spoke haltingly, seemed not to remember key details and tripped over himself even when members weren’t trying to trip...

On Friday, the former general counsel of the FBI, Jim Baker, decided to speak out. Frustrated by the burgeoning Republican narrative about how the Russia investigation might have been launched under false pretenses and with nefarious motives, the previously quiet top FBI aide stepped onto the public stage. “There was no attempted ‘coup,’” Baker said at the Brookings Institution. “There was no way in hell that I was going to allow some coup or coup attempt to take place on my watch.” He added that he stepped forward because he “just became sick of all the B.S. that is said...

President Trump's fixation on “no collusion” has long belied this reality of the Russia investigation: The obstruction of justice half of the probe appears significantly more troublesome for him personally. It's also likely to be much bigger than we realized. That's the big, reinforcing takeaway from the New York Times's scoop Tuesday night that Trump asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to un-recuse himself in the Russia probe. It's merely the latest clear example of Trump trying to control or otherwise sway the people who could be in charge of his own fate. And it underlines the fact that he had...

President Trump has stepped up his attacks on special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation in recent days, and his lawyer even suggested that the inquiry should be shut down. And just in case the direction in which this whole thing is headed wasn't clear, Trump has now hired a lawyer who argues the president is being framed. Trump's legal team on Monday announced the hiring of Joseph E. diGenova, a former U.S. attorney who served as an independent counsel and a special counsel in the 1990s and was later hired by the New York Senate to investigate Gov. Eliot...

Before departing for his Thanksgiving vacation last week, President Trump teased a possible campaign visit for Roy Moore in Alabama. “I'll be letting you know next week,” he said. Trump's comments were noncommittal, but they were a marked shift from previous White House assurances that Trump wasn't going. And Trump seemed to be hinting he'd actually have something newsworthy to say. Alas, it wasn't to be. Trump is extremely self-conscious about being perceived as a loser. He talks and tweets regularly about how well Republicans have done in special congressional elections this year. He tempered his support for Strange even...

Sen. Lindsey Graham will soon raise money for Ted Cruz's presidential campaign, as CNN's Dana Bash just reported. Which is an amazing turn of events, given the things Graham previously said about Cruz. He has said on multiple occasions that Cruz is would be the death of the Republican Party and is no better than Donald Trump. He has even joked about killing Cruz. To wit (in reverse chronological order): Feb. 26: “I was asked the hardest question in my political life: Do you agree with Donald Trump that Ted Cruz is the biggest liar in politics?” he said. “Too...

Larry David was back on "Saturday Night Live" this weekend to reprise his all-too-perfect Bernie Sanders character. And despite Sanders's win in Michigan last week, the big joke was how limited his base of support remains -- and its propensity for shenanigans on social media. "I want to thank everyone who voted for me, and apologize to everyone else for making your Facebook feeds so, so annoying," he said. "I mean, I love my supporters, but they're too much, right? I'm great, but I'm not five-posts-a-day great. With all due respect to my supporters, get a life." David-as-Sanders then poked...

Questions about Cruz's eligibility have everything to do with interpretation of the law; the questions about Obama's eligibility had everything to do with a dispute over the underlying facts - more specifically, conspiracy theories about whether the president was born in the United States, as he claimed, and whether he somehow forged a birth certificate that said he was born in Hawaii. In Cruz's case, nobody is disputing the underlying facts of the case - that Cruz was born in Canada to a Cuban father and a mother who was a U.S. citizen. As we wrote in March 2013, that...

The Iowa Republican Party will announce the official winner of its Jan. 3 caucuses on Thursday morning, and Rick Santorum is holding out hope that he’s eight-vote loss will suddenly become a win. But does it even matter? In a word, yes. But there’s also little reason to believe it would recast the Republican presidential race in any major way. With the official announcement set for 9:15 p.m. Eastern time Thursday, news that Santorum actually won the first-in-the-nation contest would surely be seized upon by the former Pennsylvania senator’s campaign as proof of its momentum and to call into question...

~~snip~~ Voting against Boehner (10) Gohmert* Yoho* Rep. Steve King (Iowa) Rep. Jim Bridenstine (Okla.)* Rep. Dave Brat (Va.) (freshman) Rep. Walter Jones (N.C.)* Rep. Gary Palmer (Ala.) (freshman) Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.)* Rep. Paul Gosar (Ariz.) Rep. Marlin Stutzman (Ind.) Said prior to 2014 election that they would vote against Boehner (2) Rep. Jody Hice (Ga.) (freshman) Rep. John Ratfliffe (Tex.) (freshman) Voted against Boehner in 2013/haven't weighed in (2) Rep. Steve Pearce (N.M.) (spokesman says he's "undecided") Rep. Justin Amash (Mich.) Voted against Boehner in 2013/will support him (3) Rep. Mick Mulvaney (S.C.) Rep. Raul Labrador (Idaho) Rep....

.Allen West's new ad: The most brutal clip of 2012? The video: The campaign season has seen its share of vicious attack ads, but freshman Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) has just released what might be the most brutal campaign commercial of the year. (Take a look at the 30-second video below.) The spot begins with a montage spotlighting the controversial, blunt-spoken Tea Party favorite's military career, saying that on Feb. 16, 2003, West, then an Army colonel, was at Fort Hood, Texas, where he had just received deployment orders, and was preparing his men to go to war. Then it...