Free Republic

Remember when the 2016 field of Republican presidential candidates was supposed to be so deep and talented? Then why is a reality TV clown beating all of them? The hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts has begun to notice that Donald Trump isn’t going away anytime soon in the polls. Which poses a bit of a writing quandary. There is no denying that Trump stump commentary generates a lot of traffic — I mean, just tremendous, quality clicks. But this incoherent gasbag has been blathering on for more than two months now, and there’s only so much one man can...

Republicans, and observers of the Republican Party, have concluded that Donald Trump’s gonzo commandeering of their presidential primary has defied their attempts to suppress it because he is crazy. This is broadly true, but not quite in the way Trump’s befuddled critics mean it. What they say is that Trump is winning because he attracts voters with nonsensical ideas. Lindsey Graham calls Trump “a huckster billionaire whose political ideas are gibberish.” Former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson tells Evan Osnos, in Osnos’s paraphrasing, “anyone who runs for office discovers that some portion of the electorate is available to be enraged...

Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul said Tuesday that government workers who were outed by hackers as members of AshleyMadison.com - a website created to facilitate extramarital affairs - should not face punishment. Before he could register that opinion, though, he had to figure out what the heck "Ashley Madison" is. "I keep seeing that headline, but I'm terrible - I don't know what it is," he confessed to a Washington Post reporter when he was asked about the hack of the risqué website, which exposed the contact information of millions of its users. The senator asked, "So, she has done...

No one ever assumed the Republican presidential nomination was going to be smooth sailing, with 17 announced candidates ranging from all walks of public and private life vying for the prize. But the candidacy, and we use that term loosely, of Donald Trump has changed the landscape in a way few could have imagined. Trump’s presence thus far has muted the inevitability of establishment star Jeb Bush — a good thing, in our estimation, despite the insistence of some Trump supporters that our criticism of The Donald automatically means we favor the heir to the Bush Dynasty. Unfortunately, it has...

Florida might have its share of Republican presidential candidates but one former presidential candidate who ran twice in the Sunshine State is behind U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Former U.S. Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., who ran twice for the U.S. Senate in Florida, was named as a co-chair of Cruz’s veterans outreach team on Wednesday. Smith joins U.S. Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., and Texas state Sen. Brian Birdwell as co-chairs of “Vets for Ted” while Bill Connor will be national director. Cruz has also named Smith, a Navy veteran, as part of his team in New Hampshire, home of the...

The big, existential question for Republicans right now is: who are Donald Trump’s supporters? It matters because this will determine the future, and the future prospects, of the party. I heartily agree with Ben Domenech, whose article on this just made it harder for me to fulfill my obligations to his publication, by pre-empting most of what I was planning to write about Trump for The Federalist. Ben argues that Trumpism would turn the Republicans from a “classically liberal right” to a European-style nationalist party that is “xenophobic, anti-capitalist, vaguely militarist, pro-state, and consistently anti-Semitic. If you criticize Donald Trump,...

A new study by the University of Birmingham revealed that obese adults who 'pre-loaded- with 500ml of plain tap water lost an average of 9.5lbs in 12 weeks.The key to losing weight could be as simple as drinking a pint of water before mealtimes , researchers have said. A study in which obese adults consumed 500ml of water half an hour before eating main meals saw them report an average loss of 4.3kg (9.48lbs) over a 12-week period. Researchers at the University of Birmingham said the simple trick could be hugely beneficial, and easily promoted by healthcare professionals and through...

Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz announced additions to his New Hampshire leadership team, which he says now numbers 107. The U.S. senator from Texas previously named former U.S. Sen. Bob Smith, Executive Councilor David Wheeler, R-Milford, and former New Hampshire House Speaker William L. O'Brien, R-Mont Vernon, as his state co-chairmen. The latest roll-out of 66 conservatives comes as Cruz plans a busy weekend of campaigning in New Hampshire. The list features several prominent conservatives, activists, faith leaders and state and local lawmakers. It includes former state Sen. Fenton Groen and Rep. Warren Groen of Rochester, Rep. Rick Christie of...

Ben Turner: Yes In the Republican Party’s "autopsy" of why they lost the 2012 presidential election, they noted a need for the party to reach out to minorities and younger voters, two groups they had limited support from. Little did they know, they would have not one but two young Hispanic candidates competing for their party’s nomination in 2016. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are not only the same age and Hispanic — their entire biographies are remarkably similar. Both Cruz and Rubio claim Cuban ancestry, both have law degrees and both served in state politics before running for and...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) WATCH ABOVE: At 21, Austin Lewis of Toronto lives his life in a wheelchair. Now, as Sean O’Shea reports he’s also dealing with another obstacle when it comes to getting a subsidized apartment: he has the wrong religion. TORONTO — A disabled Toronto man had his name removed from the waiting list of a subsidized city apartment because he does not meet the main criteria for living there: being Muslim. “It doesn’t make any sense; I lived in Texas, that doesn’t make sense even there,” said Austin Lewis, 21, who is paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. Lewis is...

Late last week rumors started swirling about an undercover investigation of Hillary Clinton's campaign being conducted by James O'Keefe's Project Veritas, an organization responsible for holding a number of government officials accountable for bad behavior. The Clinton camp was put on high alert, told to look for suspicious behavior and to be aware they may be under video surveillance. We now know the rumors are true. O'Keefe has confirmed Project Veritas journalists have in fact conducted an undercover video investigation into Clinton's campaign and have plenty of footage to share. The first video shows a paid campaign staffer telling a...

I'm shocked that he's shocked, and I do not mean that as a joke. He is a professional. He is a focus-grouper and high consultant. I imagine he reads a lot of polls too, and probably runs some. And yet he didn't know the anger brewing at the Establishment.I am truly shocked. No matter how low my estimations of our political class, they keep failing to meet my expectations. I complained on Friday that the vaunted consultant class does not know the most elemental things about the "constituency" they're paid to advise clients about. I put "constituency" in quotes because...

GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP — The reverend and congregation of a church that unveiled a “Black Lives Matter” banner on Pomona Road say they are fearful after a receiving a hostile response to the sign on social media. Rev. Cynthia Cain said comments on the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the South Jersey Shore’s Facebook page could be described as threats. Many of the comments on the page also state: “All Lives Matter.” “When we say ‘Black Lives Matter,’ they mistranslate it to ‘ONLY Black Lives Matter.’ Why? Are they afraid that people might start empathizing with people of color?” Cain asked. Police...

We thought the feud was over. We thought wrong. “Fox News host Megyn Kelly is no stranger to Trump’s bullish tactics,” notes the Fusion press release touting Ramos’s guest hit tonight. Indeed. She’s tweaking Trump here, obviously, by giving his immigration nemesis a platform to call Trump a child-deporting fascist and grieve over how his right to grandstand on Trump’s dime was brutally suppressed for five minutes or whatever. Here’s your open thread to gripe, grumble, and groan about the great Fox News/amnesty/anti-Trump alliance. Easy prediction, though: Kelly will go out of her way to challenge Ramos on whether he...

Republican Presidential Candidate and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush told a group at a Florida rally about his Texas border trip and explained why a border wall wouldn’t be practical or conservative. Bush returned to the friendly turf of the Sunshine State on Wednesday, with a town hall style meeting in Pensacola. Pensacola is a solidly conservative town in the Florida panhandle. He spoke of his experience as the state’s former governor, but only answered a single question about the Border Crisis. “I went to McAllen, Texas, in Hildago County, last week and met with the Mayors, the County Judge,...

In his latest showdown, Donald Trump ordered Univision anchor Jorge Ramos out of a news conference Tuesday, telling him to “go back to Univision.” Ramos, who like Trump is known for his confrontational style, didn’t back down until he was escorted out of the room by security. Eventually, Ramos was invited back, where he sparred with Trump over the Republican candidate’s immigration proposals. Trump has had some high-profile tiffs with media figures recently, battling publicly with Fox News Channel anchor Megyn Kelly, and on Tuesday with the network’s chairman, Roger Ailes. But prodding Ramos, who has been called the Spanish-language...

Earlier this month, I outlined Donald Trump’s “Six Stages of Doom” — the hurdles he’ll have to clear to win the Republican nomination. The first obstacle: Could Trump keep his polling numbers up when another storyline emerged that prevented him from monopolizing the news cycle? “For a variety of reasons, Trump isn’t affected much by negative media coverage — it may even help him,” I wrote. “But a lack of media coverage might be a different story.” It’s too soon to say whether Trump has passed this first test. Partly because it’s August — almost half a year before Iowa...

Is Marco Rubio sure about that? The 2016 cycle appears ready to boil down to the question of whether the US electorate is an angry one. Rubio’s betting on no — and strategizing on it as well: In his stump speech to fewer than 100 people in the northern part of the second presidential nominating contest, Rubio gently poked at the real estate tycoon who is towering over the Republican field in the polls, portraying Trump’s message as one of anger as opposed to the senator’s message of hope and opportunity. “There’s another gentleman running for president whose slogan is...

When Donald Trump's campaign collapses, as it almost certainly still will, Cruz is well positioned to fill the void.While Donald Trump continues to inspire what he calls “the silent majority” (and everyone else calls the racist rump of the GOP) and the other assumed front-runners Walker, Rubio and Bush flounder and flop around, another candidate is quietly gathering support from a discrete, but powerful, GOP constituency. As Peter Montgomery of Right Wing watch pointed out earlier this week, Ted Cruz is making a huge play for the religious right. And they like what they’re seeing. Montgomery notes that influential conservative...

Republicans, led by Donald Trump have made undocumented immigrants the central issue of their primary campaign. In reality, Trump’s rhetoric and policy proposals target one specific, ethnic group – Mexicans. David Duke and people who express their “passion” for America by chanting “white Power” are embracing these policies. They’re lapping up everything from his claims that Mexico sends the “bad” immigrants to Mexico will pay for a Trump Wall. No doubt, these are people share Trump’s view that making America “great again” entails preserving white dominance and with it, a future for the Republican Party. He wants to build a...