Free Republic

In light of Friday night's fracas in Chicago, Joe Scarborough writes, "America faces a deepening divide that is tearing away at the fabric of this great land." Joe continues in The Washington Post: Friday's freak show was as prepackaged as a rerun of "Celebrity Apprentice." The only difference was that Donald Trump delivered his lines on the phone from a hotel room in the Windy City instead of on the set of his made-for-TV boardroom. It was all a scam. Has anyone noticed that Trump's campaign now regularly stages media events designed to eclipse any negative coverage that predictably follows...

An op-ed penned this month by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and published online appears to be blatantly plagiarized from an article written days earlier under former rival Ben Carson’s name, The Daily Caller has determined. The similar op-eds were written on the topic of America’s territories and commonwealths. Both pieces appear under the by-lines of the candidates. Carson’s piece, published Feb. 26, was published in the Marianas Variety in the Northern Mariana Islands. Trump’s op-ed — published in the Pacific Daily News in Guam, part of the USA Today Network — was published 12 days later on March 9.

Donald Trump Actually Losing To Hillary Clinton In Latest Poll It's Never Quite That Easy. LISA MASCARO Donald Trump closed the debate by promising the GOP would easily win the White House in November if the party united around his candidacy. "The Republican Party has a great chance," Trump said, pointing to the "millions" of people he is drawing to the GOP. "These are people that will win us the election, and win it easily." The problem is, Trump is actually losing to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in the latest matchup polls. Clinton beats him, 51% to 38%, in an...

NumbersUSA has announced to the media that we have downgraded Donald Trump on our Worker-Protection Immigration Grade Cards based on his statements in the last two debates that suggest the country has a labor shortage in a couple of categories that he indicates need foreign workers.Since we began issuing the grades last spring, we have encouraged all of you to use them to push your favorite candidate(s) to improve their immigration positions.For those of you who are Trump supporters, I urge you to use the information provided in this newsletter to push Trump to improve and to stop slipping on...

It would appear Trump fever has broken. It would seem the down, dirty, and ugly attacks by Rubio particularly, but also Romney, Cruz and others have kicked in. I sense that Trump has become a figure of ridicule, and no politician survives that. Plus his latest flip flops, like on torture, have weakened him as a serious person, although that may not have been obvious at the time. I think the teflon has worn off. If true, Chris Christy gets the bad timing of the year award

Amid the sparring and free-flying insults of Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate, Donald J. Trump said he wanted to expand the number of visas available for highly skilled immigrants. His remarks caused shock among some supporters who have seen Mr. Trump as a bulwark against an influx of foreigners taking American jobs. In an immigration blueprint he released in August, in the early days of his surprising charge toward the Republican nomination, Mr. Trump said the visas for highly skilled workers were part of what he called “disastrous” immigration policies that had “destroyed our middle class.” He gave detailed proposals...

Through a verified Twitter account Friday, the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) announced, that at the last minute, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump dropped out of his scheduled Saturday appearance. “Very disappointed @realDonaldTrump has decided at the last minute to drop out of #CPAC,” CPAC tweeted, “his choice sends a clear message to conservatives.” The Trump campaign released a statement: The Donald J. Trump for President Campaign has just announced it will be in Witchita, Kanasas for a major rally on Saturday prior to Caucus. He will also be speaking at the Kansas Caucus and then departing for Orlando, Florida...

CPAC ‏@CPAC Very disappointed @realDonaldTrump has decided at the last minute to drop out of #CPAC -- his choice sends a clear message to conservatives.

Short version: at last night’s debate the topic of H-1B visas* came up.  Last night Megyn Kelly asked Donald Trump at the debate how he felt about temporary work visas now.  Trump said that he loved them to death, and was softening the position found on his website.  Somewhere out in the political wilderness, Senator Jeff Sessions (an H-1B visa restrictionist who is endorsing Trump solely because of Trump’s position on immigration, supposedly) immediately suffered a nosebleed from the psychic shock of this sudden, yet inevitable betrayal**.  The Trump campaign had to go out and send around an email saying, No, really, forget...

Republican front-runner Donald Trump said Thursday he is softening his stance on visas for highly-skilled workers. “I’m changing. We need highly-skilled people in this country,” Trump said during the Fox News Republican debate in Detroit. “If we can’t do it, we will get them in.” Trump’s stance toward awarding H1-B visas is different from the one he takes on his campaign website, which argues that more visas for highly-skilled foreigners would “decimate American workers.” “One of the biggest problems we have is people go to the best colleges … as soon as they’re finished, they get shoved out. They want...

In theory, Ted Cruz's best states are behind him. But at the Detroit debate, Cruz was clearly the class of the field and it's clear that no one should count him out as the delegate race moves into its next phase. The delegate math is complicated, but the basic gist goes something like this: Donald Trump has a commanding lead at the moment, but it is not a given that he will reach the 1,237 threshold he needs to clinch a majority. Simply put, Trump has failed to break through the ceiling of support he's held since New Hampshire even...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump inexplicably changed his position on the H-1B visa program in Thursday’s Fox News debate, saying Silicon Valley actually does need to import tech workers for jobs instead of hiring Americans. “We need highly skilled people in this country,” Trump told Megyn Kelly in the debate, when she questioned him about statements he’s made that contradict the policy of reducing access to the visas outlined on his website. “I changed my mind,” he added. The reversal comes on the heels of a huge endorsement from Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions  80% of Alabama, who is leading...

Donald Trump has claimed  he has the "world's greatest memory," but when it came time this winter to give testimony in fraud cases filed against him and a real estate training program known as "Trump University," he displayed a repeated inability to recall names and faces of instructors he had claimed to have hired personally. "I can't remember that," he said on Dec. 10, when asked by trial lawyers in one of the class-action cases whether he had met one of the instructors in a program that provided training in building wealth through real estate. "The name sounds familiar but...

In his remarks today at a rally in Fort Worth, Tex., Donald Trump knew he’d make news. “I’ve never said this before,” he declared. We’ll await the word of the Washington Post Fact Checker on the integrity of the statement, but Trump did appear to be veering into a new talking point. A media-law talking point, that is: One of the things I’m going to do, and this is going to make it tougher for me…but one of the things I’m going to do if I win…is I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely...

Shortly after he claimed to be a “unifier” during his Super Tuesday press conference, Donald Trump was at it again, lambasting “so-called conservatives” who don’t share his liberal position on Planned Parenthood, continuing to insist he applauds the group because it allegedly “does a lot of good of good things” for women’s health. Similar logic applies to his position on ObamaCare. He loves the coercive freedom- and job-killing individual mandate, which is the heart of ObamaCare, because he doesn’t want to see bodies in the street, a classic liberal rhetorical scare tactic. Planned Parenthood may do the occasional mammogram referral,...

Those Republicans who don’t want Donald Trump need a better alternative candidate than either member of the Cuban junior varsity. Neither Senator Ted Cruz nor Senator Marco Rubio can win in November.

Why I Changed My Mind and Joined the #NeverTrump Movement DAVID FRENCH March 2, 2016 Let me begin by saying that I was wrong. Weeks ago I said on a number of radio interviews that while I opposed Trump in the primary, I’d back him if he won the GOP nomination. I hadn’t yet seen — or had been unwilling to believe — the full extent of his contempt for the truth, his fondness for far-left conspiracy theories, and his sheer malice. When I saw Trump in full, my decision was easy: Never Trump. I have spent my entire adult...

Marco Rubio supporter and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley not only went after Donald Trump on ABC’s This Week but took a shot at Chris Christie over his endorsement of The Donald. She told George Stephanopoulos, “Donald Trump is everything we hear and teach our kids not to do in kindergarten.”

David Duke, a white nationalist and former Klu Klux Klan grand wizard, told his audience Wednesday that voting for anyone besides Donald Trump “is really treason to your heritage.” “Voting for these people, voting against Donald Trump at this point, is really treason to your heritage,” Duke said on the David Duke Radio Program. BuzzFeed News first reported the comments. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/david-duke-trump-219777#ixzz41bXJPthx

On “The Apprentice,” Donald Trump is the guy who fires people. In real life, it’s a different story. For 16 years, Anthony “Tony” P. Senecal was Trump’s personal butler at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s home and club in Palm Beach, Fla. Few people know Trump as well as Senecal. During the first interview Senecal has given since retiring last year, he told Newsmax what it was like to work for him.