Free Republic

Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino closed its doors early Tuesday, the fourth Atlantic City casino to go belly-up so far this year. When it opened on May 14, 1984, Donald Trump called it the finest building in Atlantic City, and possibly the nation. But since then, The Donald has left town and cut ties to its casinos. And the Plaza, like many Atlantic City casinos, has seen better days.

She once called Donald Trump "a maggot, a cockroach and a crumb." This week, he remembered her as "an impossible person." The woman who became a folk hero for resisting decades-long efforts by big-name developers like Trump to displace her Atlantic City boardinghouse is now 91 and, at last, ready to sell. But it remains to be seen if anybody still wants to buy. Vera Coking has moved to California to be near her family. And the 29-room property she and her husband bought for $20,000 in 1961 and fought to hold onto is on the auction block Thursday for...

(CBS) – Corey Brooks, the “Rooftop Pastor” from Chicago’s South Side who endorsed Republican Bruce Rauner for governor, now has a paid appointed position with the Rauner administration.Gov. Rauner’s office on Friday announced Brooks, senior pastor at New Beginnings Church, will be a director on the Illinois Tollway Board, the Downers Grove-based authority that controls toll roads.Brooks was among a group of African-American religious leaders in Chicago who backed Rauner, a wealthy businessman, over incumbent Democrat Pat Quinn, saying Democrats had taken black political support for granted.The tollway appointment would seem an odd fit for Brooks, a social crusader who...

After the Washington Post reported that House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) spoke at a 2002 event hosted by a white nationalist group, RedState editor Erick Erickson knocked Scalise's supposed ignorance about the organization. According to the Post's Robert Costa, Scalise appeared at an event for the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, a group founded by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, but didn't know at the time that the organization was a hate group. Erickson was not willing to give Scalise the benefit of the doubt. "How do you not know? How do you not investigate?" Erickson wrote...

Americans have entrusted Republicans with control of both the House and Senate. We are humbled by this opportunity to help struggling middle-class Americans. Looking ahead to the next Congress, we will honor the voters’ trust by focusing, first, on jobs and the economy. Among other things, that means a renewed effort to debate and vote on the many bills that passed the Republican-led House in recent years. It also means renewing our commitment to repeal ObamaCare, which is hurting the job market along with Americans’ health care. Our priorities in the 114th Congress will be your priorities. That means addressing...

The night before the 2008 Nevada Republican convention, the Ron Paul delegates all met at a Reno high school. Although I’d called myself a libertarian for almost my entire adult life, it was my first exposure to the wider movement.

Businessman Matt Bevin is the guy some see moving up in the Kentucky GOP governor's primary. Bevin also challenged now-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in a primary last year. These two things are not distinct from one another. Now that Bevin's chances appear to be on the rise in the May 19 primary (thanks to Agriculture Commissioner James Comer's problems), here comes Team McConnell to knock him down a peg or two. And boy do they. Here is top McConnell aide Josh Holmes on Bevin in a new Lousiville Courier-Journal story: Josh Holmes, McConnell's former chief of staff and...

Most Americans haven’t forgotten the bald-faced lies the Clintons told about Bill’s affairs and molestations along with the sheer savagery of the attacks their surrogates launched against these women. For example, we all remember Bill Clinton perjuring himself by saying, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” Of course, Bill was lying which helped lead to the House voting to impeach him. The Senate attempted to follow suit and although 50 Senators voted for impeachment, they didn’t reach the 67 vote threshold needed to send Clinton home in disgrace. What you may not remember was the...

Revising and extending my remarks: We're receiving lots of complaints lately from freshly banned liberals, trolls and malcontents. Well, Free Republic has not changed and will not change. We are NOT "fair and balanced." Never will be. We are biased toward God, country, Life and Liberty. Marriage, family and traditional values. Constitution, inalienable rights, private property and limited government. Small government, small spending, small taxes. National security, national sovereignty, strong defense and secure borders. Individual rights, individual responsibility and self-government. Privacy, individual and family security, self-defense and right to keep and bear arms. Rights to freely exercise our religion, freedom...

No decision has been made about Bowe Bergdahl's future, military officials said today, as an Army general continues to review the circumstances surrounding his 2009 disappearance that led to five years in Taliban captivity. The Army issued a statement today denying media reports that said Bergdahl would be charged with desertion, possibly as early as next week. Major General Ronald Lewis, the head of Army public affairs, labeled the reports as "patently false." "To be clear, there have been no actions or decisions on the Sergeant Bergdahl investigation," Lewis said. The investigation remains with Milley, "who will determine appropriate action...

During Wednesday night's presidential debate, Newt Gingrich could barely restrain his amusement as co-moderator Maria Bartiromo defended the liberal media's reporting of the economy. Bartiromo took umbrage after Gingrich's asserted, "What is amazing to me is the inability of much of our academic world and much of our news media and most of the people on Occupy Wall Street to have a clue about history." The CNBC journalist responded by huffing, "I'm sorry, but what is the media reporting inaccurately about the economy?" An incredulous Gingrich mocked, "I love humor disguised as a question. That's terrific." [ See video below....

My daughter asked me my opinion on an article she read in Vanity Fair attempting to debunk the presidential record of Ronald Reagan. I happily responded. The writer of the piece is veteran liberal commentator Michael Kinsley, who used to be a regular on William F. Buckley Jr.'s "Firing Line" and CNN's "Crossfire." It's not as though he appeared out of nowhere, studied the evidence anew and shared a novel theory. He's been dissing Reaganomics for decades along with other Democrats and liberals, whose only recourse is to distort the Gipper's phenomenal record. Why is this even relevant, you ask?...

Congress: With polls showing most GOP voters in opposition to the Speaker's budget deal and saying they would "probably" or "definitely" prefer a new leader, a Tea Party favorite fires a shot heard around the political world. In 2010, House Speaker John Boehner loved the Tea Party. The grass-roots movement, which arose in opposition to manifestations of big government such as ObamaCare and unlimited taxation and regulation, put the GOP back in control of the House of Representatives and made Boehner Speaker. But by December 2013, Boehner loved the Tea Party and other conservative groups not so much. They had...

John Boehner could lose the support of as many as 20 Republicans on his way to a near-certain reelection as House speaker, his allies concede — a political embarrassment for a GOP leader who narrowly survived a conservative rebellion two years ago. --snip-- Among other issues, the dissenters are angry at the speaker for crafting a yearlong, $1.1 trillion spending bill that didn’t directly target Obama’s use of executive action to loosen immigration enforcement. Boehner has argued that he’s fought to defang Obamacare, and he has promised a 2015 fight on immigration — but with Obama in the White House,...

Former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Monday that a GOP focus on highly politicized issues like ObamaCare and immigration in 2015 would be a “disservice to the American people.” He urged Republicans to act quickly on bipartisan policy initiatives like expanding charter schools, signing new trade deals or creating a permanent research and development tax credit. If they don’t, he warned the next race for the White House could be at stake. He added that the deep divide between Obama and the GOP on issues like healthcare, immigration, climate change and tax reform is “well known” and unlikely...

It neither “exonerates” nor “debunks.” It specifically states that it is not the final word on Benghazi. Yet national press outlets claimed all of the above about the House Intelligence Committee report on Benghazi released on Nov. 21. (Snip) The [news media] articles advance limited and sometimes inaccurate representations of the committee report. They fail to acknowledge the countless documented instances in which the Obama administration provided false or conflicting information about Benghazi, and hid information entirely from public view.

It’s happening again … and there doesn’t appear to be anything anyone can do to stop it. We’re referring, of course, to the quadrennial election of an American president – which has followed an eerily predictable pattern in 2008 and 2012. It’s gone like this: An “electable” status quo candidate with support from the left-leaning media and the “Republican” establishment gets swept to the GOP nomination – via Borg-like assimilation. At that point, the media shifts its narrative on a dime and begins perpetuating marginal distinctions between two eerily similar ideologues – hoping to portray the big government “Republican” nominee...

Two top aides to President Obama hailed his “year of action” as a success Monday, saying the president took more than 80 executive actions without Congress to help the middle class. National Economic Council Director Jeffrey Zients and Domestic Policy Council Director Cecilia Munoz said in a blog post that Mr. Obama will try to work the the new Republican Congress next year, but will also “continue to use every authority available to make progress through executive actions” in 2015.

HISTORIANS rate presidents by every conceivable quality. What about least lame duck? President Obama is making a run for the title. Since the midterm elections, in his first month and a half as a lame duck, Mr. Obama has taken dramatic action on immigration, climate change and now, normalizing relations with Cuba. In our new political marketplace, the decline of powerful party organizations and the rise of hyperpartisan politics mean that presidents have much less political capital even at the height of their terms. At the same time, they have unprecedented capacity for unilateral executive authority. The great constraints on...

Barack and Michelle Obama, speaking to People Magazine, of all disappointments, shared the disheartening news that they have experienced what they called racism. Barack, for example, apparently has had trouble, before he was president, hailing a cab in Chicago, to which an immediate thought might occur to anyone who has been to Chicago: Who hasn't? Also, Barack, at a black-tie event, when he, too, was in festive livery, apparently was asked by another guest if he would get them a cup of coffee. For her recollection, Michelle came up with a visit to a Target store as first lady. She...