Free Republic

Over the course of the Democratic presidential primary, Hillary Clinton’s principal argument against Bernie Sanders has been that his agenda — universal health care, free college tuition, et al. — is impractical, too utopian, too “pie in the sky.” This is especially true, she says, given the structural obstacles in the way. Sanders is promising to do the impossible; she, on the other hand, is the candidate who can Get Things Done. In other news, the Clinton campaign is planning to spend a lot of money in an effort to finally “correct” the internet. OK, then! As The Daily Beast’s...

Senator Chuck Grassley says the worst development during his 40-year career in congress has been “more partisanship,” but Grassley says that’s also one of the best things — because it is better defining “who’s a Republican and who’s a Democrat.” “I think it’s clearer to the American people what the Republican Party stands for and the Democratic Party stands for,” Grassley says. The presence of “moderate” Republicans and Democrats in congress “blurred” things for voters, according to Grassley. “And that makes it more fuzzy for the people at the grassroots,” Grassley says. But Grassley says the higher level of partisanship...

Today the Cruz campaign announced the endorsements of former Chairmen of the California Republican Party John S. Herrington and Tirso del Junco. They join former CRP Chairmen Ron Nehring and Michael Schroeder on the Cruz team From the campaign statement: “As a member of President Reagan’s cabinet, I’ve seen first-hand how a great leader can change the course of our nation. Ted Cruz is the proven conservative leader our country needs to lead us to prosperity once again,” said Herrington. John S. Herrington served as President Reagan’s Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1981-83, Deputy Assistant for Presidential Personnel from...

When I was a lad, I very much enjoyed the comedy of Cheech & Chong. Tonight, at the Novo by Microsoft theatre in downtown Los Angeles, I got to see them live. Their humor comes from a gentler, and now rather distant, time in our nation’s history, but only one of the many bits actually felt dated. Amid the drug-related and social-observation material came a genuine political surprise. An anti-Trump joke in the opening act fell a little flat, and a few minutes later, when the main act got under way, Cheech asked the audience, “Are there any Donald Trump...

A U.S. Army captain working in Iraq helped foil a terrorist plot to blow up a school in Denmark, according to a U.S. defense official. Capt. Bradley Grimm provided "actionable intelligence" gleaned from captured documents in Iraq about foreign fighters from Denmark that included information on threats against a Danish school using homemade explosives, according to Col. Steve Warren, a spokesman for the coalition fighting ISIS....

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Friday that he will impose mandates on the commercial real estate sector to achieve dramatic greenhouse gas emissions among the city's building stock — by far the city's biggest contributor to global warming. In an announcement tied to Earth Day, the mayor's office said the requirements, along with city programs and incentives, would help kickstart the mayor's goal of cutting building emissions dramatically over the next 35 years. The mandates are a significant development for the city's real estate world. When de Blasio announced a plan two years ago to cut building emissions, he threatened...

If you donÂ’t know by now why Indiana is important, you must have missed this post and a good 8,000 similar explainers elsewhere in political media. Long story short, IndianaÂ’s one of the few states left on the map where either Cruz or Trump might plausibly do well. With 57 delegates at stake, a win or loss for Trump there could be the difference between him reaching 1,237 delegates on the first ballot and falling a few dozen short. ItÂ’s essentially a must-win for Cruz to force a contested convention. But heÂ’s not winning, at least according to three private...

The math is certain, it's time to move on to fighting Hillary. The current real numbers are just fine, Trump was expected to win New York, optimistic news I had received not with standing. Yes Trump got 90 delegates. Yes he did well. Yes Kasich got 5 delegates, his first in how long? Yes yes and yes. And No I am not even bothered. Real Numbers: Cruz 696 Delegates to Trumps 815 Delegates. Whats left now? California 172 Indiana 57 New Jersey 51 Washington 44 Maryland 38 Nebraska 36 West Virginia 34 South Dakota 29 Connecticut 28 Oregon 28 Montana...

BURLINGTON, Mass. -- Northeastern University will create a consortium of private companies and universities to develop smart sensors and other nanomaterials, or extremely small components that are built by “nanoscale” printing processes. Northeastern President Joseph Aoun announced the plan Tuesday at the university’s Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security on its Burlington campus. The consortium will be housed there, as well as at Tufts University and University of Massachusetts Boston. Nanomaterials are crucial to the so-called “Internet of Things,” the emerging network of objects that can collect and share data. Possible commercial applications could include highly precise monitoring of premature...

It’s the fiercest fray since Ali-Frazier. In the gold corner towers Donald Trump, in blue tie and white cap. In the silver corner stands Ted Cruz, in red tie and black cowboy boots. When they’re done bashing each other, the Republicans will have a nominee. My money is on the New Yorker decking the Texan by July’s convention in Cleveland. Another bet: A triumphant Trump tags Cruz as his vice presidential mate — on the way to Trump-Cruz winning it all on Nov. 8. Implausible? As implausible as Kennedy corralling LBJ in 1960 after a bitter summer? Or Reagan picking...

Have we not all learned that this is a terrible year for broad pronouncements? The past months are littered with the failed assertions of oh-so-smart people who just knew they had everything figured out. Trump is a joke. No, wait, he’s inevitable. He’s out of control. No, now he’s more disciplined, He’s got this. No, he’s a loose cannon. Cruz has no chance to be the nominee. No, wait, now he has the inside track. His campaign operation has too many flaws. No, now they are the smart ones with the best delegate roundup skills. It’s the Year of the...

A New Jersey high school teacher was forced to resign this month for showing his class a popular John Oliver clip that urged viewers to “Make Donald Drumpf Again.” The “Last Week Tonight” bit, which lampoons presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s ancestral surname, has been viewed more than 24 million times on YouTube since February. But despite the massive exposure, humorless Middletown South HS brass still pushed out teacher Joe Ventre after getting complaints from a thin-skinned parent who learned about the screening from her child, sources told The Post. “It’s a travesty,” said district parent Kathi Van Zandt, the sister...

A year ago, when the death of Freddie Gray and resulting unrest in Baltimore filled the news, the Rev. Kathy Dwyer felt she had to do something. “Every time I turned on the TV, I just felt like I was getting punched in the gut from watching the issue of racism just escalate in our country,” said the white pastor of a predominantly white United Church of Christ congregation in Arlington, Va. In the wake of the continuing deaths of African-Americans at the hands of police officers, some white church leaders say they can no longer check off their racial-justice...

You'd be excused if you tuned out in previous years when the actual nominating part of a political convention occurred. Usually it's a pro forma exercise with little suspense, as each state ticks off its vote for the eventual nominee. And that nominee has been known well in advance — at least for the last 40 years, anyway. But this year a contested convention actually seems possible, if not probable, on the Republican side. It's the stuff of journalists' dreams and political consultants' nightmares. Donald Trump got a big win in New York Tuesday, and he leads in the delegate...

Republican Donald Trump is calling on his remaining rivals to drop their presidential bids, saying neither Ted Cruz nor John Kasich has a path to the nomination. "They should both drop out of the race so that the Republican Party can unify!" Trump tweeted Thursday evening....

As her campaign chugs merrily along, Hillary Clinton and her people continue to walk the line between paying lip service to civil rights and standing by Clinton-era policies that were disastrous for the African-American community. Clinton has even gone so far as to admit that the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 had “unintended” negative effects in the same breath that she deflected the blame for it onto Bill. (I guess we’re supposed to forget that she stumped for it hard at the time and criticized Barack Obama for being too easy on crime as recently as...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/04/21/confederate-flag-removed-us-capitol-tunnel/83337106/

I like the way he focused on the role of law. North Carolina enacted a law, and now "they're paying a big price, and there's a lot of problems." Law wasn't needed, because: "There have been very few complaints the way it is. People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate, there has been so little trouble." There was already a social adjustment that accommodated people who needed to be accommodated. Asked whether he would let Caitlyn Jenner, a trans woman, use the bathroom of her choice at Trump Tower, he said he would. He added, "There's...

Two Republican presidential candidates and both Democratic candidates are on Time Magazine's list of The 100 Most Influential People of 2016. The magazine placed them and other notable American politicians from both parties among a list of artists, athletes, world leaders, and celebrities. They are on the list because, according to the magazine, "they each embody a breakthrough: they broke the rules, broke a record, broke the silence, broke the boundaries to reveal what they're capable of." "To expect Donald Trump to conform to the 'norms' of business and politics is like expecting a square peg to fit in a...

No, really. This is one of the best political commercials ever made. It won’t be on TV unless it gets recut, because it’s two and a half minutes long, but to recut this would be a shame. It packs in many of the reasons why Cruz is a better nominee than Trump, gets across the key point that if Trump is the nominee the media which has been fawning over him will turn on him the same way they turned on John McCain and Hillary’s opposition research feeding into the media coverage will turn the entire general election race into...