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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)

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...

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)

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...

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) says refugees fleeing war-torn Syria are trying to come to the U.S. for a “paid vacation” in the form of generous welfare programs. “I’m one of these folks that think we need to stop paying these folks to come here, and we’re paying them about $15,000 a year in free health care, free food, free shelter, free clothing, free transportation,” Brooks said on the Dale Jackson Show on Friday, as first reported by the liberal media outlet ThinkProgress. ADVERTISEMENT “You know, just go down the litany of wealth-transfer programs that these people are entitled to, and...

His felony conviction barred him from the Ohio House but not the U.S. House, so Steve Kraus has announced he will seek the Republican nod to challenge U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur next year. The 9th District stretches along Lake Erie shoreline from Toledo to East Cleveland. Miss Kaptur, who has been in Congress since 1983, was re-elected in 2014 with 68 percent of the vote. Kraus said his campaign will focus on the same things he did during his short tenure in the House, energy independence, job creation, and clean water. But given his recent experience with the justice system,...

CHARLESTON, S.C. — As Republican presidential candidates continued to sound the alarm Friday about Syrian immigrants, Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders took a step in the opposite direction, launching a petition drive to preserve the program that facilities their arrival in the United States. “In this moment, it is particularly important that we not allow ourselves to be divided by the anti-immigrant hysteria that Republican presidential candidates are ginning up,” Sanders, who was arriving here for a three-day campaign swing, said in an e-mail to supporters. “When hundreds of thousands of people have lost everything and have nothing left but the...

A new ad from the Democratic National Committee attacks Republican presidential candidates for using the term “radical Islam.” Entitled “Inciting fear isn’t presidential,” the ad argues that the use of the term is offensive to Muslims.(video at link)I’ve seen my share of nasty, bizarre, and over-the-top political ads. But this may be the first that I can honestly say is just plain stupid.To begin with, the ad is horribly tone-deaf. I don’t doubt that the decision-makers in the Democratic Party are horrified by the phrase “radical Islam.” But a new poll released today on the issue found that a supermajority of Americans agree that the...

Cruz for President today announced that longtime Iowa political activist, and well-respected Republican leader, Loras Schulte, has formally resigned from the Iowa GOP State Central Committee to publicly endorse and support Ted Cruz for President. “I’ve been actively involved in Republican politics for more than thirty years, serving in nearly every capacity one can be involved in; from local committee-man to County Chairman, to serving on the State Central Committee,” Schulte said. He also served as the State Director for Pat Buchanan’s Presidential Campaign in 1996 and for Gary Bauer in 2000. Leading up to this current election cycle, each...

BEDFORD, N.H. — "When you get to the serious part of this," Jeb Bush says, standing in the home of a supporter, surrounded by Republican voters, "I think you're looking at the guy who's gonna be the nominee." It's understated, but that's Bush's proposed path to victory in a nutshell. Jeb's line Wednesday night echoed the argument his supporters made to me around the state: Republican voters tend to nominate the establishment guy — the boring, staid, responsible grown-up. This explains George H. W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney. Jeb Bush seems to fit...

It has become damn close to religion in Washington to assume that Donald Trump will, at some point not too far from now, flame out of the presidential race -- that he will start losing altitude in polls, get sick of the whole thing and return to the safe sinecure of Trump Inc. The problem with that conceit is this: It's wrong. Matt Dowd, a top adviser to the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004, nailed that fact in a tweet this morning...

Faye Stewart, a county commissioner in Oregon, announced Thursday that he will seek the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. The Lane County commissioner will try to win the May primary and oust Democratic incumbent Ron Wyden, who is heavily favored to win the general election. Republicans have not won a statewide race in Oregon since 2002. Stewart said he is running because "our citizens are broken, and they need help." He said the federal government has neglected the needs of Oregon counties while running up debt and mishandling natural resources. "We need all of Oregon strong and prosperous, not just...

In her memoir published this summer, Claire McCaskill recounts for readers how she confounded political observers who assumed she would lose reelection to the U.S. Senate in right-of-center-leaning Missouri. In order to do that, she poured nearly $2 million of her campaign war chest into an ad blitz designed to elevate the most extreme, right wing candidate among the Republicans seeking to challenge her in the general election. "I helped Todd Akin win -- so I could beat him later," she recalled. He had little money to compete with his better-financed opponents in the Republican primary so McCaskill's effort would...