Free Republic

It's the morning of Friday, January 20, 2017, and it's Inauguration Day. Donald John Trump Sr. has his hand on a Bible, and America looks on, agape, as he swears to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." How we got to this point isn't important. The question now is, what the [expletive] is about to happen? To come up with even the vaguest answer, we have to look back at history. Because as British TV science guy James Burke once said, "Why should we look to the past in order to prepare for the future? Because...

Good Tuesday morning from Washington. Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio is expected to join the ever-growing field for the Republican nomination, a field that, despite its numbers, has been increasingly overshadowed by Donald J. Trump. Such a development, however, suits at least one other candidate just fine. As Mr. Trump surges in the polls and Republican leaders call for him to drop out of the race after his comments about Senator John McCain’s war record, there is one candidate who hopes Mr. Trump continues to thrive: Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mrs. Clinton has denounced Mr. Trump’s comments about Mexican immigrants,...

The Day John McCain Got Shot Down Did He Show the Right Stuff? By Zalin Grant John McCain received mixed reviews from fellow pilots when he arrived on the USS Oriskany in 1967, a month before he was shot down and captured. Cal Swanson, commander of fighter squadron VF-162, was enthusiastic. Swanson thought McCain proved he had the right stuff by getting himself assigned to the Oriskany, an aircraft carrier sailing off the coast of North Vietnam in the South China Sea. The Oriskany had seen more combat and suffered heavier casualties than any ship in the Vietnam War. McCain’s...

A triumphant and unrepentant Donald Trump launched a barrage of personal attacks and name-calling on his campaign rivals Tuesday, most notably calling South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham an “idiot” handing out Graham’s cell phone number to the whole world He dismissed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush as “weak on immigration,” and mocked Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s glasses and Hillary Clinton’s hand wave. “What a stiff, what a stiff, Lindsey Graham. By the way he has registered zero in the polls,” Trump said, at an appearance in Bluffton, S.C. “A total lightweight. In the private sector, he couldn’t get a job.”...

RUSH: So I'm reading and I start getting e-mails and text messages, saying, "They're talking about you on CNN. You're all over CNN." Of course, nobody tells me. In fact, most of these e-mails say, "I assume you know that you are all over CNN." No, I don't know, because I don't have CNN on at the time. It turns out that Anderson Cooper's show was on. They were talking about me rallying you, the audience of this program, to Donald Trump's defense. And then another e-mail said, "You've probably seen it but the New York Times is all over...

Back in 2008 during a HBO comedy special, Comedian Chris Rock, who had never served in the military but supported then Senator Barack Obama made disrespectful comments about Senator John McCain and the GOP establishment never attacked Chris Rock or called on Obama to denounce Rock for his comments about John McCain but they definitely went after Donald Trump. Liberal voters laughed out their seats! Liberal news websites didn’t even report the comedy as news or call out Rock for his act…it just “went away,” until now: “He a war hero. He a war hero,” Rock said of then-GOP presidential...

In what seemed like a political nanosecond, the Republican National Committee (RNC) released a statement on Saturday condemning Donald Trump’s callous assertion that day that Sen. John McCain is “not a war hero.” Senator McCain is an American hero because he served his country and sacrificed more than most can imagine. Period. There is no place in our party or our country for comments that disparage those who have served honorably. The RNC is 100 percent correct. McCain is a hero. His sacrifice and service to this country when so many like Trump looked for ways to avoid the Vietnam...

Sheriff Joe Arpaio is a hated figure among the illegal alien advocates, but beloved among the rest of us who just want immigration laws enforced. Now he’s announced that he’s sending an armed posse, which is a program he’s been running in Arizona for years, to patrol a U.S. Army Reserve Center. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is responding to a written request by a local U.S. Army official to provide an extra measure of security at a US Army reserve facility in the wake of last week’s shooting rampage in Tennessee. An Army Terrorism Liaison Officer says due to...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush says his opponents for the presidency shouldn’t be missing votes in the Senate or they should “resign, you know.” “No, I’m really kind of saying the system itself is the problem,” Bush told radio host Michael Medved when asked if his speech Monday on changing Washington was aimed at his presidential rivals who are currently in the Senate. Bush, speaking in Florida on Monday, gave a broad speech how he would bring changes to what he termed “Mount Washington” if elected. Bush said he would push for a balanced budget, an “unequivocal six-year ban on...

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the running mate for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)43% ’s (R-AZ) 2008 presidential campaign, weighed in on the dispute between McCain and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, posting a message on her Facebook page calling both men heroes and encouraging them to “resolve the media-driven wedge between them.” As Breitbart News reported, Trump set off a media firestorm on Saturday when he said that McCain was a war hero only “because he was captured.” McCain, a Navy pilot who volunteered for service during the Vietnam War, was brutally tortured during his five-and-a-half years as a POW....

Asked about the dispute between Donald Trump and Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona -- the candidate at the top of the ticket when she was 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee -- former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin Monday afternoon called both men heroes. "I have the good fortune of knowing both John McCain and Donald Trump well," Palin told CNN in an email. "Both men have more in common than the today's media hype would have you believe. Both blazed trails in their careers and love our great nation."

We are cursed, as the Chinese say, to live in "interesting times", about which there is much to say - the Iran deal, for example, or the Allaku Akbar guy running amok in Chattanooga. Yet the dead sloth that is the Republican Party has finally roused itself to spend the last 48 hours hammering Donald Trump for impugning the honor of John McCain. As his criminal-immigrant surge demonstrates, Trump's support comes almost entirely from Americans who feel the political class passes its time talking about nothing that matters to them. So feel free to spend the weekend talking about John...

We are cursed, as the Chinese say, to live in "interesting times", about which there is much to say - the Iran deal, for example, or the Allaku Akbar guy running amok in Chattanooga. Yet the dead sloth that is the Republican Party has finally roused itself to spend the last 48 hours hammering Donald Trump for impugning the honor of John McCain. As his criminal-immigrant surge demonstrates, Trump's support comes almost entirely from Americans who feel the political class passes its time talking about nothing that matters to them. So feel free to spend the weekend talking about John...

Arizona Gov. Doug Doucey called for the state health department to investigate and review regulations that will prohibit the illegal sales of fetal tissue. The announcement Monday follows investigations announced by other states and several congressional committees in response to the release of an undercover video made by anti-abortion activists that captured a Planned Parenthood official discussing the sale of fetal parts. In a statement, Planned Parenthood said the video "mischaracterized" their mission and was edited unethically. "The footage released by The Center for Medical Progress regarding the alleged sale and trafficking of aborted fetal tissue and body parts by...

"If you listen the comments in total, he's not critical of John McCain the war hero, he's critical of his Senate record," co-host Steve Doocy said. Responding and agreeing was co-host Geraldo Rivera, who was not as enthusiastic as Doocy, but did say that Trump would need to at least clarify his remarks. Later in the show, co-host Brian Kilmeade interviewed former Ronald Reagan advisor, agreeing that the situation was "blown out of proportion." Kilmeade continued to defend Trump, saying that "he went on to say 4 more times that he was a war hero." This statement was looked into...

The summer Trump polling spurt has nonetheless been instructive in exposing a growing problem on the political right. All too many conservatives, including some magazine editors, have been willing to overlook his hucksterism as he’s risen in the polls. They pretend that he deserves respect because he’s giving voice to some deep disquiet or anger in the American electorate. But America has rarely lacked for demagogues willing to exploit public discontents. William Jennings Bryan won three Democratic presidential nominations running against eastern elites. In 1948 Henry Wallace ran as a Soviet sympathizer while Strom Thurmond won 39 electoral votes running...

Trump literally said McCain "is a war hero" five times, but always with strings attached. Twice, he was interrupted by Luntz before he could finish his sentence. Once, the statement was preceded by "I believe, perhaps." And the last two times, Trump added "because he was captured." He also, of course, started all this by saying McCain is "not a war hero." Experts told us these caveats change the meaning of the sentence entirely. " ‘He’s a war hero because he was captured’ implies that anybody who is captured is called a war hero, but there’s really nothing special about...

Donald Trump finally said something that shook the Republican establishment out of its self-induced stupor over his presidential candidacy. “He’s a war hero because he was captured,” the loudmouth from New York said about Sen. John McCain, Vietnam War veteran and prisoner of war, at a GOP cattle call in Iowa on Saturday. “I like people that weren’t captured.” That’s rich coming from a billionaire who received five deferments from military service during the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, McCain, who refused early release, was held captive and tortured in a North Vietnam prison for five-and-a-half years. Anyone who aspires to be...

Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) said Monday that real-estate developer Donald Trump should apologize for comments he made over the weekend — but not to him. "I think he may owe an apology to the families of those who have sacrificed in conflict and those who have undergone the prison experience in serving our country," McCain said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." McCain was responding to Trump, a GOP presidential candidate who panned his war record over the weekend. Trump ignited a media firestorm by saying McCain was a war hero only because he was captured during the Vietnam War. "He's not...

Sen. Ted Cruz insists he won’t wage “violence” on Republicans–which is part of the reason why he won’t condemn Donald Trump’s comments about immigrants and prisoners of war. The Wall Street Journal isn’t holding back, though. The paper’s conservative editorial board slammed Cruz and praised former Gov. Rick Perry for their starkly different responses to Trump’s claim that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., “is only a war hero because he got captured. I like people who weren’t captured better.” Perry, an Air Force veteran, had one of the quickest and most forceful condemnations of Trump, insisting the real estate mogul wasn’t...