Free Republic

Trump's racism is bad for Republicans now, but the eventual wild-eyed nominee will only look moderate in comparison.Since the Donald Trump campaign kicked off with demagoguery about Mexican immigration, political watchers have been on quiet but alert fascism watch, carefully monitoring Trump to see if he steps over the line. You can feel in your bones that Trump and his supporters long for to give into the sweet oblivion of balls-out racism, rather than dealing with the tedious process of carefully measuring the lines so you can toe them without stepping so far over that liberal journalists are freed up...

Lately, pundits and punters seem bullish on Donald Trump, whose chances of winning the Republican presidential nomination recently inched above 20 percent for the first time at the betting market Betfair. Perhaps the conventional wisdom assumes that the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Paris will play into Trump’s hands, or that Republicans really might be in disarray. If so, I can see where the case for Trump is coming from, although I’d still say a 20 percent chance is substantially too high. Quite often, however, the Trump’s-really-got-a-chance! case is rooted almost entirely in polls. If nothing Trump has said...

Nearly a dozen big Republican donors backing different presidential candidates are coming together to help fund an advertising campaign attacking front-runner Donald Trump, who faced sharp criticism from rivals this week for his inflammatory comments about Muslims. Matt David, spokesman for the group planning the attack, a Super PAC called New Day for America, which is supporting Ohio Governor John Kasich's presidential bid, said 10 new donors had pledged money in the two days since Politico reported Thursday evening the group's plans to attack Trump in New Hampshire....

More and more Republicans view the rivalry between the two senators as one that could determine the outcome of the Feb. 1 caucuses. DES MOINES — Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz weren't the only candidates in Iowa this weekend, but they might as well have been. Beginning with their Friday night appearances here at the Family Leader Forum -- an audition of sorts before the influential Christian conservative group and its leader, Bob Vander Plaats -- the outline of their looming showdown began to take shape. And Iowa Republicans, including the 2,000 people in attendance at the event, began taking...

After several tough weeks on the campaign trail, Carson faces a ballroom full of voters in Des Moines who are looking for a reason to stick with him. “They want so badly to think he would be a great president.” DES MOINES, Iowa — About halfway through Friday night’s Presidential Family Forum — a Republican candidate roundtable that featured seven 2016 contenders — the moderator lobbed a softball question toward Ben Carson. “Is President Obama an armchair quarterback?” Frank Luntz asked, referring to what conservatives widely view as the administration’s overly passive foreign policy. “Are you asking me?” a momentarily...

If you had to vote in your state primary/caucus today, knowing what you know now about the various declared and probable candidates, who would you vote for? Why? Who would you like to see as the running mate for your preferred candidate? If you could help staff your candidates cabinet and other top appointments, who would you choose? If you could recommend different congressional leaders than we have now, who would they be? And who would you like to see on the Supreme Court and why? And finally, feel free to donate to Free Republic.

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh made a rare television appearance Sunday morning, joining "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace to discuss ISIS and the Syrian refugee crisis. After criticizing President Obama for seeming more angry at Republicans than the terrorists who attacked Paris, Limbaugh moved on to comment about the Republican presidential nominees, offering a glowing review of Donald Trump. “Donald Trump is, I think, doing a great service,” Limbaugh said. “He is showing that you do not have to fear attacks from media. He's showing you do not have to fear being politically correct or violating political correctness.”(continued)

These Iowa voters buy into Fox News war on Christmas, and love Ted Cruz's patriotic, end-times rhetoric. Look out.One of the more endearing customs of many of our small town Iowa churches on Sunday morning is story time. The pastor welcomes elementary and pre-school aged kids up front, where he or she sits with the children, and shares a parable. Often the pastor sits down on the steps leading up to the altar, and the children will sit, cross legged at the pastor’s feet. Always the pastor picks a good story, something about the importance of friendship, kindness, sharing, telling...

For all of the candidates, all of the debates and all of the unpredictability, the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 has taken a clear shape over the past month or so. There is a four-candidate top tier that has separated itself from the rest of the pack. There is then a trio of “if/then” candidates who would need a major mistake or collapse from one of the top four to have a realistic chance at winning. Everyone else running has a puncher’s chance — at best — at being relevant in the nomination fight. Below are my...

Donald Trump is taking heat on social media for a Sunday afternoon tweet of statistics purporting to show that the vast majority of murdered black people in the U.S. are killed by other black people. The tweet was apparently Trump’s response to a Twitter thread about support from white supremacists for the GOP front-runner. It also comes the day after a Black Lives Matter protester said he was physically and verbally assaulted at a Trump rally. The image Trump posted includes a list of “USA Crime Statistics ~ 2015.” The two that are highlighted are “Blacks Killed by Police ~~...

Donald Trump now has a commanding lead in Iowa by nine points Ben Carson, who was in first place in the state in several polls last month, has dropped to third in the new CBS/YouGov poll Cruz gets higher marks on presidential readiness than the other top Republicans in the state Ben Carson is losing ground and Ted Cruz is moving up the ranks to the No. 2 spot, in a new poll out today that shows the preferences of Iowa voters. In the new CBS/YouGov poll, Cruz has pushed past Carson to take 21 percent of the vote, to...

It was never this bad, not even after 9/11. That's what many Muslims and Arab-Americans are saying about the tenor of comments made by presidential candidates on down to local officials about how to treat members of their community in the wake of ISIS' rampage in Paris last Friday. Over the past week, GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump said he would consider compelling Muslims to register in "databases" and that some mosques might be shut; fellow Republican candidate Ben Carson compared some Syrian refugees to "rabid dogs," and Democrat David Bowers, mayor of Roanoke, Virginia, evoked the internment of Japanese...

Six days after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, then-President George W. Bush gave brief remarks at the Islamic Center of Washington, just a short drive from the White House. “These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith,” Bush said. “The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war.”(continued)

Performers Maná and Los Tigres del Norte end musical numbers with a political message.Two big-name musical acts urged audience members at this year’s Latin Grammys to vote against “racist” politicians, in an apparent shot across the bow at Donald Trump and other presidential candidates who have made disparaging remarks about Hispanic immigrants. The band Los Tigres del Norte finished a performance during the awards show, which aired Thursday night, by displaying a banner with the words, “Latinos unidos, no voten por los racistas,” which translates to “Latinos united, don’t vote for racists.” The band Maná, which took home the award...

Link only: http://toprightnews.com/black-lives-matter-woman-calls-for-donald-trumps-assassination-immediately-pays-the-price/

For Republicans fearful of Donald Trump becoming their party’s presidential nominee, a new Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll of likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters offers a three-word solution: Willard Mitt Romney. If the former Massachusetts governor were added to the mix of the 14 other Republican candidates running in the Feb. 9 first-in-the-nation presidential primary, New Hampshire voters would, if the election were held now, give him a 2-to-1 win over Trump, the leader of the field. Romney, who said as recently as last week that he is not interested in running, did not file for the New Hampshire primary...

The Paris attacks and several recent foreign-policy fumbles are leading conservatives in Iowa to abandon Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson for rival Ted Cruz. "He’s a great guy, he’s fun to listen to, but I didn’t hear anything substantive," Alan Hilgerson, a physician in Des Moines, told Politico. He said that national security was an "extremely high" priority for him as he pores over the candidates. "I don’t know that I’d want him as my president," Hilgerson said. Marilu Erdahl said that she was leaning more toward Cruz because of his strong positions on national security. "He has experience, he’s...

#TeamJeb won't let The Donald walk this one back Jeb Bush is not joining his fellow Republican, Donald Trump, in arms in the age-old tradition of conservative combat against biased media reporting, and instead, Jeb and his campaign team are piling on The Donald’s latest absurd suggestion that there should be a database to track and monitor Muslims in the U.S. A bit of a mini-media controversy erupted Thursday afternoon when headlines blasted news of Trump suggesting the mandatory registration of Muslim Americans: “Trump won’t rule out database, special ID for Muslims in US.” But, Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum quickly...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Saturday called for Republicans to abandon the corrupting influence of the Koch brothers and other wealthy energy magnates...

A vast and historically valuable trove of Holocaust-era documents, long thought destroyed during the second world war, has been found hidden in a wall cavity by a couple renovating their Budapest apartment. The haul of 6,300 documents are from a 1944 census that was a precursor to the intended liquidation of the Hungarian capital’s 200,000 Jews in Nazi death camps. Brigitte Berdefy, co-owner of the apartment overlooking Hungary’s parliament, said in August a worker detected paper after jamming a screwdriver through a crack in the wall....