Free Republic

Nothing unites our political class like the threat of ending our never-ending war So we’re withdrawing troops from the Middle East. GOOD! What’s the War on Terror death count by now, a half-million? How much have we spent, $5 trillion? Five-and-a-half? Unless Donald Trump decides to reverse his decision to begin withdrawals from Syria and Afghanistan, cable news for the next few weeks is going to be one long Scanners marathon of exploding heads. “Today’s decision would cheer Moscow, ISIS, and Iran!” yelped Nicole Wallace, former George W. Bush communications director. “Maybe Trump will bring Republicans and Democrats together,” said...

Most of my fellow members of the mainstream media are of the opinion that last week was a bad one for President Donald Trump. I beg to differ. Last week it was announced that the Weekly Standard was going out of business. It seems there’s no market for a “conservative” publication dedicated to opposing Trump. That’s good news. It’s further proof that - if there’s one thing Trump has done since assuming office - it is solidifying his support among conservatives. As for the “conservatives” who worked in the offices of the Standard until last week, only inside the Beltway...

“Kristol was trying to remake the Republican Party,” Carlson says. A significant part of Kristol’s GOP makeover project was portraying antiwar conservatives as heretics. Carlson recounts, “Years later, writer Philip Weiss described a conversation he had with Kristol in which this [remaking the GOP] became explicit. There are Republicans, Kristol told Weiss, ‘of whom I disapprove so much that I won’t appear with them. That I’ve encouraged that they be expelled or not welcomed into the Republican Party.’” “’I’d be happy if Ron Paul left and ran as a third party candidate. I was very happy when Pat Buchanan was...

Trumpism (if not Trump himself) has given oxygen to some of the ugliest impulses among us. Near the end of his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump laid out his theory of a vast globalist conspiracy. “Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends and her donors,” Trump said. “It’s a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a...

I’ve only been around Phil Anschutz a few times. My impressions on those occasions was that he was a run-of-the-mill arrogant billionaire. He was used to people courting him and he addressed them condescendingly from the lofty height of his own wealth. I’ve never met Ryan McKibben, who runs part of Anschutz’s media group. But stories about him have circulated around Washington over the years. The stories suggest that he is an ordinary corporate bureaucrat — with all the petty vanities and the lack of interest in ideas that go with the type. This week, Anschutz and McKibben murdered The...

When it was announced on Friday that The Weekly Standard would print its last issue after nearly a quarter of a century, I was astonished. Who would ever have guessed that The American Conservative, the upstart anti-war magazine founded by Pat Buchanan and Scott McConnell in 2002, would outlast Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes' neoconservative colossus? If you had asked me five years ago, I would have said it was about as likely as the star of Celebrity Apprentice winning the White House on a reactionary populist platform. It's worth saying at the outset that I and millions of other...

The Weekly Standard will be no more. There is no real reason we are witnessing the magazine’s demise other than deep pettiness and a personal desire for bureaucratic revenge on the part of a penny-ante Machiavellian who works for its parent company. There would at least be a larger meaning to the Standard’s end if it were being killed because it was hostile to Donald Trump. But I do not believe that is the case. Rather, I believe the fissures in the conservative movement and the Republican party that have opened up since Trump’s rise provided the company man with...

Donald J. Trump on Twitter: "The pathetic and dishonest Weekly Standard, run by failed prognosticator Bill Kristol (who, like many others, never had a clue), is flat broke and out of business. Too bad. May it rest in peace!"

Going all in on attacking President Trump isn’t proving to be a particularly effective business strategy for media outlets.The Weekly Standard, a 28-year old neoconservative institution, is reportedly headed towards dissolution after its founder, Bill Kristol, devoted almost three years of work to attacking the President and his supporters.It’s not just Kristol. The entire world of clickbait Trump-hate seems to be in jeopardy, including sites that cater to the liberal base.The same week that The Weekly Standard’s troubles broke, Vanity Fair dropped a bombshell report about the struggles faced by those hip, millennial-targeted left-wing rags with the cool names...

New York (CNN Business)The Weekly Standard, the magazine that espouses traditional conservatism and which has remained deeply critical of President Donald Trump, will shutter after 23 years, its owner Clarity Media Group announced Friday morning. The magazine will publish its final issue on December 17. * * * Employees were told at an all staff meeting, which CNN obtained an audio recording of, that they would be paid through the end of the year, and that afterward they would receive severance which would range in scale depending on factors like seniority. To receive severance, however, employees would need to sign...

Bill Kristol’s Never Trump magazine — The Weekly Standard — is facing its imminent demise. Perhaps hate didn’t sell too well with Conservatives and Republicans. The owners of the publication, Media DC, say they are going to concentrate on their other outlet instead, The Washington Examiner, Vox reports. A source told Vox reporter Joan Coaston, “This is not about dwindling subscribers. This is about strip-mining TWS for its assets” — namely, the magazine’s subscriber lists. That’s not likely 100 percent truthful. Founded in 1995 by Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Weekly Standard is best known as a publication aimed...

The betting markets on the American primary elections show an 87% probability that Hillary Clinton will head the Democratic ticket and a 76% probability that Donald Trump will lead the Republicans. Between the two, Trump is the pro-Israel candidate. First, his daughter Ivanka is an observant Orthodox Jew after her conversion and marriage to Jared Kushner, the scion of a prominent family of Jewish philanthropists. Second, and most decisive, Trump feels no obligation to win favor among Muslims, proposing a temporary ban against any Muslim entering the United States. Hillary Clinton, by contrast, surrounded herself with advisers openly hostile to...

(snip) -- So-called “conservative” commentator Bill Kristol reportedly has his never-ending campaign to take down President Donald Trump receive funding from a left-wing billionaire. Kristol, the editor-at-large of The Weekly Standard, seems to have taken his never-Trump activities to another level, actively opposing Republican candidates and conservative causes through the group he founded, “Republicans for the Rule of Law.” But despite its name, the group seems to have no Republican donors according to a report by Julie Kelly of American Greatness, though there is one prominent benefactor: progressive billionaire Pierre Omidyar, the co-founder of eBay. One of Omidyar’s nonprofits, the...

Conservative commentator and outspoken “Never Trump” critic Bill Kristol mocked first lady Melania Trump for claiming she is one of the most bullied people in the world. “Cry me a river,” Kristol tweeted Thursday morning in response to Melania Trump's claim. (TWEET-AT-LINK) Melania Trump made the comment in an interview with ABC News during her first solo trip in Africa. "I could say that I'm the most bullied person in the world," she said. “One of them -- if you really see what people are saying about me." She continued by saying her experience with bullying is in part what...

A leader of the "Never Trump" movement has no plans to let President Trump run for re-election without first facing a primary opponent. Bill Kristol told CNBC in an interview published Friday that his nonprofit Defending Democracy Together is seeking a Republican to challenge Trump in 2020. "People aren't going to say they will run against Trump unless they have the infrastructure, but I've been trying to persuade people that it may not be that difficult,” he said.

Conservative commentator and outspoken "Never Trump" critic Bill Kristol says he is building a "war machine" within the Republican party to challenge President Trump's 2020 reelection campaign, according to CNBC. Kristol told the network that he's preparing "for a primary run against Trump," adding that Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) is on his shortlist of possible candidates. Kasich was unsuccessful in his 2016 bid for the Republican presidential nomination, only managing to beat Trump in his home state. Kristol also said Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) and outgoing Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) are also being considered. “We are thinking of and...

Mark Levin 1 hr · Bill Kristol is a clown. Manafort’s and Flynn’s legal issues have nothing to do with Trump. And Cohen’s plea bargain results from Cohen’s tax evasion. The campaign violations are baloney and Were not adjudicated. Kristol’s pomposity and hate for Trump are boundless.------------ Bill Kristol on Twitter “Just spitballing here, but if Flynn is guilty, and Manafort’s guilty, and Cohen’s guilty...maybe Trump’s guilty?” TWITTER.COM

In his online appeal for money after being fired this week, disgraced former FBI agent Peter Strzok credited an unlikely source to vouch for his victim status: The Weekly Standard. At one time a leading conservative magazine, the Standard declared last month that Strzok’s plight was merely an “overwrought tale of bias” and the case against him is “just sound and fury.” The article brushed off Strzok’s actions as “several bad judgment calls” and blasted Congressional Republicans for continuing a criminal investigation into the now-unemployed G-man. Strzok is following only 32 people on his newly-verified Twitter account. Bill Kristol, the...

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Bill Kristol, from the Weekly Standard, went from a leading conservative voice and Obama critic to a Trump hater who worked with Obama to derail the Trump Campaign. Kristol fell so far that he started pushing the Trump – Russia dossier at the same time as John Brennan and the Obama team. Kristol went from leading conservative voice to being the leader of the anti-Trump “conservative” movement in a matter of a few years. Kristol and The Weekly Standard published articles smearing The Gateway Pundit for supporting the Republican Presidential candidate.

The recent utterly unsurprising utter capitulation by the Fredocons to the SJW/tech/media campaign to deplatform and silence any right-wing voice who is not trying to sell you a cruise cabin is a symptom of a bigger problem. It’s not a symptom of Trump Derangement Syndrome, though Trump has utterly deranged these pointy-headed geeks. It is a symptom of Conservative, Inc.’s contempt for you.The dethroned conservagimps are angry with you. Donald Trump is not really the issue. He’s just a convenient target for those these establishment sissies. They truly despise you.You.They hate you because you refuse to honor and respect them, to...