Free Republic

... Once Congress finishes this week, it will go on a seven-week recess to give both parties a chance to hold presidential nominating conventions, ahead of a five-week August break. ...

Republican delegates unanimously adopted an amendment to their draft platform Monday morning that called pornography “a public health crisis” and a “public menace” that is destroying lives. The language went further in its condemnation of porn than the 2012 GOP platform, which condemned child pornography and encouraged the enforcement of obscenity and pornography laws.

Donald Trump reacts to the police shootings in Dallas in a speech on veterans issues in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin will offer a 10-minute address at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland next week, becoming the newest high-profile name added to the roster of speakers often at odds with the party's presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump. "I want to talk about our ideas, our solutions and how our party should unite…Our agenda, our solutions and how we ought to unite around our common principles and how we apply those principles to problems," Ryan told Politico. Ryan tacitly acknowledged the division between Trump and the mainstream of the Republican party — or at least the...

My wife related a disturbing story to me about a ride with an Uber driver late last week. The gentleman behind the wheel was black,and a Navy veteran,so he and my wife had at least two things in common.

Retired General Michael Flynn, a possible vice presidential candidate for Donald Trump, appeared on ABC's This Week on Sunday to discuss why he supports the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Transcript, via ABC News: -snip- RADDATZ: You've been a registered Democrat, correct? FLYNN: I grew up as a -- in a -- in a -- I grew up as a Democrat in a very strong Democratic family. But I will tell you that the Democratic Party that exists in this country is not the Democratic Party that I grew up around in my -- in my upbringing, not a

Donald Trump has promised to liven up this year's Republican National Convention. But some of America's biggest corporations are bailing on the party. Apple recently became the latest company to give the GOP's presumptive nominee the cold shoulder; it won't contribute money or products to the Republicans' big shindig in Cleveland this month. HP Inc. is also withholding support, while Microsoft is giving products only, not cash. Beyond the tech industry, Ford, JPMorgan Chase and United Parcel Service have opted to withhold support.

Resigned to the strong possibility that the House will need to fund the government through a continuing resolution after this fiscal year, conservatives are warning party leaders of what it would take for them to support such a stopgap measure. With the much-hyped regular order appropriations process looking stalled—if not finished—before it really started, conservatives say that a funding bill that extends current government spending, as a continuing resolution does, should stretch until next year. Government funding expires Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. The length of the continuing resolution is important to conservatives because they don’t want...

Senate Republicans who met with Donald Trump Thursday described a mostly positive exchange with the presumptive GOP presidential nominee that was punctuated briefly by "frank exchanges" and some "tough" talk from Trump, who is rankled by some in the GOP conference who refuse to endorse him. Trump met with GOP senators for 50 minutes, focusing his address on mostly policy issues, including poverty and taxes, and some discussion about polling. But he made it clear to the GOP lawmakers that he believes they should be supporting him and told them: "It's down to two, and if you can't support me...

Donald Trump met with Sen. Ted Cruz on Capitol Hill Thursday -- the first meeting between the two former bitter campaign rivals since Cruz suspended his presidential campaign. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus was also in the meeting, according to sources. This was Trump's second trip to Capitol Hill in two months. With less than two weeks before the Republican National Convention commences in Cleveland, Trump is looking to shore up support with the GOP's rank-and-file even as he faces backlash from members of his party. Some Republicans who are facing a tough re-election battle have chosen to skip...

Donald Trump's campaign keeps coming up with excuses for his controversial Star of David tweet — but even House Speaker Paul Ryan thinks it was anti-Semitic. "Look, anti-Semitic images, they’ve got no place in a presidential campaign," Ryan told WTMJ's Charlie Skyes Tuesday about Trump's anti-Hillary Clinton meme — which showed a Star of David over a pile of money. "Candidates should know that."

You'd resent Donald Trump too if you were Republican U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan. After all, after assuming the speaker's job and painstakingly putting together a Republican agenda for the future, along comes a guy from Queens -- a political outsider, no less -- who blows it all up. No wonder Ryan is bent out of shape. The indignity of it all is enough to make Mitt Romney say spit. Now the story is not about Ryan, the great hope of the Washington political elite -- both Republican and Democrat. No, now the story is about Trump and his campaign...

(CNN)Huddled around a corner table during happy hour at the swanky St. Regis Hotel bar in downtown Washington, five young Republicans busily brainstormed how they could help Hillary Clinton become the next president of the United States. The group included an unlikely gang of pro-Clinton foot soldiers, including a Mississippi-born Southern Baptist who got her start in GOP politics as an intern in the second Bush White House, a conservative health care policy analyst who has volunteered for anti-abortion causes and a former president of the Cornell University College Republicans. Over glasses of wine and champagne Monday night, they kicked...

The knives are out to sabotage Donald Trump’s nomination, defying the wishes of the record number of Republican primary voters who chose him. Pols who backed losing candidate Ted Cruz are mounting a sour-grapes campaign to rig the Republican National Convention rules. Their goal is to deny Trump the nomination. Meanwhile, in Virginia, a state where Trump came in first in the primary, a lawsuit filed Friday by an anti-Trump pol claims he and fellow delegates should be free to ignore the voters and follow their own “conscience” when they choose a nominee at the Convention. Be prepared for more...

CLEVELAND – The relaxation of rules on protest marches during the upcoming Republican National Convention and the shrinking of a designated event zone downtown is an "important victory" for free speech rights, a civil rights group said Wednesday. A federal judge said last week that the city's regulations for the four-day convention, which starts July 18, were unconstitutional and ordered city attorneys to negotiate new rules with the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio. The ACLU of Ohio had sued the city on behalf of two groups planning protests and rallies the first day of the convention and a homeless...

Mitt Romney? With his money, he should open a new retirement home and just look the window and count the birds flying by. He has nothing to offer but his memoirs on how he ruined many businesses. The real character of those we thought were men of honor and integrity has been revealed. How easily they make promises when convenient and then break their pledge when they find the giving inconvenient. Such is the establishment. From The Hill: Mitt Romney said on Wednesday that his family wanted him to get in the presidential race early on — and that at...

Donald Trump took a decades-long Republican consensus in favor of free trade and discarded it like the garbage that formed the backdrop of his economic address Tuesday.

George Will has left the GOP in a huff while claiming that his departure is on account of his conservatism. But Will’s conservatism has a history of being tethered to very liberal policies. Especially when it comes to immigration.

Rules previously put in place by the city of Cleveland would have left pro and anti-Trump groups sharing protest space, but a likely settlement to be reached will allow groups to have their own space to protest. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against Cleveland due to grievances over a restrictive 3.3 square mile security zone and a parade route that was potentially out of the sight and sound of delegates it would be meant to protest. The group Citizens for Trump, who was involved in the lawusit with the ACLU, was particularly worried about their safety...

I am not even going to attempt to excerpt this. It is too long, the points are too nuanced and after reading it for half an hour I am only about halfway through it. I can't say that I agree with every observation so far but I will say that this is a very serious and sober read, and much of it has the ring of truth. I would like to hear what others think of this. But please take some time and read it through first.