Free Republic

Yes, Trump Can Win By Sean Trende May 31, 2016 Throughout this primary season, I’ve had an ongoing fight with a co-worker about whether Donald Trump could win the general election. I was pretty firmly in the “if the economy collapses, maybe, but he is much more likely to drag the entire Republican field down with him” camp. To resolve this, my co-worker invited me to set up some benchmarks: what we would have to see in order to believe that Trump really could win the election – not just that he had some sort of outside shot in a...

All in attendance for a dinner meeting with president Obama before he took office. The post-meeting/dinner report in The New Yorker Magazine holds the following quotes told by the glowing participants of their time with President Obama: Richard Lowry:“the only presidential candidate from either party about whom there is a palpable excitement”. Charles Krauthammer: “Obama would be a president with the political intelligence of a Bill Clinton harnessed to the steely self-discipline of a Vladimir Putin”, who would “bestride the political stage as largely as did Reagan.” Bill Kristol:“I look forward to Obama’s inauguration with a surprising degree of hope...

I've got a lot of #NeverTrump friends. Heck, I bet most of my friends are #NeverTrump. Hell, my wife is #NeverTrump. I like #NeverTrump people, even though I think they're wrong. We share the same goals. We just have really crappy choices and are making different ones. I assume they all think I'm wrong too, and I'm not going to argue with them. For one thing, they're my friends. I don't want to argue with my friends. I want to mock stupid libs with my friends while consuming red meat and redder wine. The second reason is that I'm not...

Bill Clinton dismissed repeated attacks by Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders during a rally in North Dakota on Friday. The former president defended his wife Hillary, saying the GOP will do anything to "delegitimize" its opponents. "I know the Republicans have been mean to her and they say terrible things. You gotta respect 'em - they're good at this. They delegitimize the people they don't like. They aren't in the habit of attacking people they're not scared of," Clinton told the crowd at the Fargo, N.D., rally at Rheault Farm.

The peaceful, tolerant Left was out in force in San Diego this weekend. We've chronicled their crime and mayhem that started Friday. This time the mob turned their malice on a black Trump supporter. They surrounded him and spewed vile racial insults at him. In their world, if you're black you're not allowed to think for yourself. And if you try, the mob will turn on you and make you into an unperson - a sub-human not worthy of respect or the most basic dignity. It's despicable. And it's been on display at anti-Trump protests for months. This is just...

Former Texas Republican Congressman and three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul confirmed in an interview with the Fox Business Network that he will not be supporting Donald Trump for United States president. He said in jest that he’s waiting for Trump to become a libertarian. When asked if there’s anything that Trump could say that would help change his mind, Paul replied that he wouldn’t know what to believe since “he’s all over the map.” The entire four-minute interview is embedded below: (VIDEO-AT-LINK) This is different from his son, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who said he will support the GOP nominee,...

Orlando, Florida (CNN)Libertarians on Sunday selected a presidential ticket headed by former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, who lit into presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump on immigration and a range of other issues. At the party convention in Orlando, Florida, Johnson got his preferred running mate, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, in a weekend gathering that drew sharp contrasts with the major party candidates -- Trump and Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee. Johnson described the real estate mogul's immigration policies as "just racist," particularly the Republican's call to deport 11 million undocumented people currently in the country. Libertarian activists...

The liberal publication Huffington Post removed an article on its website Sunday claiming that the FBI plans to pursue an indictment against Hillary Clinton on Federal Racketeering charges

..About 70 of the 285 final round competitors in this year's bee had South Asian names. Apart from winning the last nine spelling bees in the US, Indian-American children have also won the last five National Geographic Bees ,which tests the geographic knowledge of millions of American children. From 2005, the winning rate of Indian-origin children in these two competitions has been well over 80%. But what explains this extraordinary success by a group that makes up less than one percent of America's school-age population?...In academic competitions, especially those focused on math or science, Indian-American youngsters do very well -...

Hillary Clinton repeatedly used unsecured phones to contact four of her lesbian lovers — sparking a bombshell scandal that could doom her bid for the White House, The National ENQUIRER has learned in a blockbuster world exclusive! “It is my understanding that Hillary was careless — very careless,” spilled one top Beltway insider. “What she wants to do in her own bedroom is her own business. But she didn’t take the necessary steps to keep her romps with other women secret, and now it’s going to explode in front of every American voter!”

In 2008, the trial and conviction of five leaders of an Islamic charity for funding the terrorist group Hamas exposed the vast Muslim Brotherhood network in the U.S. and its stated aim, according to FBI evidence, to “destroy Western Civilization from within.” Along with the convictions, the Department of Justice named 300 unindicted co-conspirators in the plot, which included many of the nation’s most prominent Muslim Brotherhood-related organizations. Among them were the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America and the North American Islamic Trust. Nevertheless, just one year later, Department of Homeland Security officer Philip B....

If you had a decent history teacher in high school, you were taught that European democracies are slightly different from those in the Americas, both north and south. Democracies in this Western Hemisphere tend to be ethnic stews governed, with varying degrees of faithfulness, by constitutions and compacts. European democracies are built around nationalities — tribes of same-language peoples. A President Donald Trump and his “great again” appeals would push us closer toward the European model than we already are, his critics contend. If they’re right, a heightened season of racial tension could be in our Southern future. Some of...

Did you ever wonder why unsuccessful candidates merely “suspend” their campaigns after losing a key primary, instead of terminating them? Surely all those candidates knew that it’s impossible to restart a presidential campaign once it’s been suspended. In the famous words of Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter Alice Longworth, “You can’t make a soufflé rise twice.”

The outcome of dueling versions of the National Defense Authorization Act could determine how much the U.S. lines Russia's pockets before what some lawmakers hope is a speedy transition to a domestically produced rocket engine. The RD-180 engine is built by NPO Energomash, a manufacturer mostly owned by the Russian Federation. It's used in the Atlas V rocket, built by Lockheed Martin and Boeing's United Launch Alliance. The House version of the NDAA approves all of the 18 requested engines. In the Senate, where there has been a lengthy battle over buying from Russia, the NDAA authorizes nine engines. Either...

When former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton neglected to surrender all her official emails upon leaving office, the department’s inspector general acknowledged that she violated federal record-keeping laws. What he didn’t report was that this has been her standard practice for decades, since at least her years in the White House while serving as first lady — and on an even grander scale. During those years Clinton was at the center of numerous scandals, including Whitewater, Travelgate and Filegate, which were also the subject of investigations. When Republican lawmakers and special prosecutor Ken Starr subpoenaed more than one million emails...

In light of the scathing internal audit that found Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton guilty of violating federal procedures during her time as the Secretary of State, several leading media organizations have chastised Clinton for her irresponsible acts, with some going so far as to suggest that she should drop out of the presidential race for the benefit of the Democratic Party. The Washington Post editorial board, taking note of the revelations that Hillary Clinton had never sought permission to conduct official business on her private server, roundly criticized her for what it called an “inexcusable and willful disregard for the...

Libertarians on Sunday selected former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson as their party's presidential nominee, at their party convention in Orlando, Florida. "At a minimum, I think we're in the presidential debates," Johnson said to cheers. Sarwark said the party had established a "back channel" to the Koch brothers, in the hopes the wealthy libertarian-leaning funders donate to the Libertarian Party. Sarwark also said he had been speaking to Matt Kibbe, former president of conservative advocacy group Freedomworks, about supporting the party's nominee. Johnson received almost 1 percent of the general election vote in 2012 A recent national poll had...

A Cairo-bound EgyptAir flight that went down in the Mediterranean Sea with 66 aboard early Thursday hours after departing from Paris zig-zagged sharply before plunging, according to aviation officials, who said terrorism was a likely cause of the crash.

Islamic State militants statement claims bomb downed EgyptAir from Paris Statement by Islamic State militants claims the group was behind the downing of Egyptian passenger plane from French capital Paris that was pounded for Egypt’s Cairo. The jihadist group claims bomb inside plane caused explosion that crashed plane. It’s believed all those on board might have died. French authorities said earlier the plane crashed in southern Mediterranean and later remnants was found near Greek island.

Progressives and others on the radical Left are not very intelligent people. This is something we should be very thankful for, because were they actually competent, they would have completely overwhelmed the spineless, feckless Republican Party and established total control decades ago. As it stands, because progressives in the United States have so little foresight and self-control, they end up damaging their own cause through their own foolish behavior and inability to moderate themselves for the sake of more broadly appealing to the masses. This was shown most recently in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where a crowd of left-wing hooligans –...