Free Republic

Ambassadorships to major countries and trouble spots were typically given out to professional diplomats. You might send a donor with no diplomatic experience off to play ambassador to Gambia or Cyprus, but not to France or China. Obama changed that as he changed so many things, dispatching a ridiculously incompetent donor to serve as ambassador to the UK and after failing to make Caroline Kennedy the senator from New York (after some Schumer sabotage and a New Yorker backlash), Princess Caroline had to settle for being the US ambassador to Japan where she's hard at work demonstrating the diplomatic...

In the aftermath of the Democratic National Convention, the party's nominee, Michael S. Dukakis, has expanded his lead among registered voters over Vice President Bush, the probable Republican nominee, according to a Gallup Poll... Fifty-five percent of the 948 registered voters interviewed in the poll said they preferred to see Mr. Dukakis win the 1988 Presidential election, while 38 percent said they preferred to see Mr. Bush win. The poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points... This represented a shift in Mr. Dukakis's lead from the 47 percent to 41 percent advantage he...

Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has warned the US of the “gravest consequences” if Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev or any other Muslim prisoner is executed. Tsarnaev, named in Zawahiri’s online video message, was sentenced to death by lethal injection last year for the 2013 bomb attack that killed three people and injured more than 260 others. Tsarnaev committed the bombing with his older brother, Tamerlan, who was killed in a shootout with police in the manhunt that followed it. “If the US administration kills our brother the hero Dzhokhar Tsarnaev or any Muslim,” Zawahri said in an online video, “[it]...

Wishful thinking, or a legitimate perspective on demonstrations of buyer’s remorse in the UK? It’s no secret, after all, that the Obama administration opposed the “Brexit” referendum that passed last week, which makes John Kerry’s skepticism about its actual implementation a bit self-serving. That doesn’t necessarily make him incorrect, however: The US secretary of state has raised doubts about whether Brexit will ever happen, suggesting most leave campaigners do not truly believe in Britain’s divorce from the EU and do not know how to achieve it. Claiming there were a number of ways in which Thursday’s vote could be “walked...

Mitt Romney still can’t see himself voting for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. However, he can’t bring himself to vote for the Democratic counterpart, Hillary Clinton, either. But the 2012 GOP nominee has a solution: putting his own wife’s name on the ballot. “It’s a matter of personal conscience,” Romney told CBS News’ John Dickerson Wednesday at the Aspen Ideas Festival. “I can’t vote for either of those two people.” Romney explained that he simply cannot get behind Trump’s divisive character. “Our nominee is saying, ‘Hey look it’s these people here. It’s these Mexicans coming across the border... it’s...

In an apparent rejection of the basic principles of the U.S. economy, a new poll shows that most young people do not support capitalism. The Harvard University survey, which polled young adults between ages 18 and 29, found that 51 percent of respondents do not support capitalism. Just 42 percent said they support it. It isn't clear that the young people in the poll would prefer some alternative system, though. Just 33 percent said they supported socialism. The survey had a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points. The results of the survey are difficult to interpret, pollsters noted. Capitalism...

Enthusiasm for Warren is artificially amplified by a sympathetic media echo chamber. This phenomenon is not unlike Huntsman ’12… (SNIP) I know what you’re thinking: Warren beat Brown. Scott Brown out-campaigned Warren in MA Senate ’12– and would have won, were it not for 3 factors out of his control… (SNIP) Despite Obama’s landslide victory (61-38), Warren won by a narrow margin: 53-47, meaning a significant number of Obama voters defected to Brown. (SNIP) That cycle, many Democrat Senate candidates– running in much less favorable territory– won by greater margins: √ Tom Carper 66.4% √ Sheldon Whitehouse 64.8% √ Joe...

WASHINGTON - As Hillary Clinton campaigned with Elizabeth Warren for the first time Monday, the joint appearance raised the question: Is America ready for two women on a presidential ticket? Clinton is, of course, the first woman ever to clinch a major-party nomination for president. And she’s considering adding a second woman to the ticket, with Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, as a running mate. “There is a wow factor to having two women on the ticket,” said Jim Hodges, a former governor of South Carolina and a Clinton ally who urged the campaign to select a woman. “It’s...

Michael Levin’s photogenic, mixed-race family appears straight from central casting for the modern American middle-class family, seemingly the perfect choice to be featured in Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s video for MoveOn attacking presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Just one problem: Levin is not anti-Trump. In fact, he voted for the billionaire businessman in the Massachusetts primary. “On Monday I got a text from a friend who said, ‘Hey, I just saw you in the new Warren video attacking Trump.’ And I thought, ‘You've got to be kidding me,’” Levin told "Fox and Friends" on Sunday. “I watched the video,...

The rise of Yiannopoulos can help to explain the rise of Donald Trump. Both have attracted followers that feel silenced, ignored, and invalidated by the left. Both will continue to receive sympathy and exposure if their opponents continue to aggressively and instinctually dismiss their views. And perhaps both can be defeated—or at least weakened—through respectful and empathic discourse. More broadly, the story of Yiannopoulos is useful to understand today’s political climate. There is an ever-growing number of Americans—liberals and conservatives—who feel like their voices are not being heard. Americans are increasingly identifying with their party, race, gender, or sexuality—and are...

Former Romney Adviser on Trump Alternative: ‘Until Donald Trump Has the Nomination…All Things Are Possible’ By NOAH FITZGEREL Jun 24, 2016, 5:01 AM ET There remain deep rumblings inside the establishment of the Republican Party about presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. This week’s episode of ABC’s "Powerhouse Politics" podcast paints a picture in which the Republican National Committee may focus its efforts on down-ticket races to hedge the risk of losing the White House in November to presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, leaving a Trump operation with little infrastructure of its own scrambling to catch up. Noting the frustration...

Brad Thor dropped a major bomb-shell on Glenn’s radio program Thursday, saying he’s committed to running for president of the United States. Glenn introduced his friend by reminding listeners about the author’s courage in the face of controversy. “I believe Brad is one of the most courageous people out there. Because — he is in business. You’re selling a book. And what you said — I shouldn’t say what you said — because what you said was not controversial,” Glenn said. Some may recall the flak Glenn received following Thor’s fiery remarks about Donald Trump in his previous interview on...

A former top Clinton administration diplomat who used his political sway to garner support for the Iran nuclear deal apparently was being bankrolled the entire time by Boeing -- which is set to make billions off a jet deal with Tehran now that sanctions have been lifted. ADVERTISEMENT Thomas Pickering, who also served as co-chairman of the board examining the Benghazi attack response, publicly pushed for the nuclear deal before its approval last year. He did so by penning op-eds, writing to high-level officials and even testifying before Congress. With the deal in place, Boeing has since moved forward on...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-05) released the following statement in response to reports that Boeing has reached a multibillion-dollar deal to sell commercial passenger planes to Iran. Boeing is one of the largest beneficiaries of the Export-Import (Ex-Im) bank which perpetuates corporate welfare to mega corporations by handing out taxpayer-backed loans. "This agreement between Boeing and the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism is extremely troubling and shows that crony capitalism remains alive and well in Washington. Not only has Boeing lobbied for years to keep the taxpayer-backed Export Import bank alive, it now has also used its...

It could never happen here, right? Boston – National Guard units seeking to confiscate a cache of recently banned assault weapons were ambushed by elements of a Para-military extremist faction. Military and law enforcement sources estimate that 72 were killed and more than 200 injured before government forces were compelled to withdraw. Speaking after the clash, the Massachusetts Governor declared that the extremist faction, which was made up of local citizens, has links to the radical right-wing tax protest movement. The Governor blamed the extremists for recent incidents of vandalism directed against internal revenue offices. The governor, who described the...

The consequences of climate change on Boston are expected to be far more calamitous than previous studies have suggested, a new report commissioned by the city says. In the worst-case scenario, sea levels could rise more than 10 feet by the end of the century — nearly twice what was previously predicted — plunging about 30 percent of Boston under water. Temperatures in 2070 could exceed 90 degrees for 90 days a year, compared with an average of 11 days now. And changes in precipitation could mean a 50 percent decline in annual snowfall, punctuated by more frequent heavy storms...

Russia is not the country you think it is. Its economy is smaller than South Korea’s. Its people are poorer than Kazakhstan’s. It trails Finland in technology. And it has a smaller military budget than Saudi Arabia... ...Russia hosted the Olympics, punched Georgia in the nose, took back the Crimea, invaded Ukraine, flew bombers through NATO airspace, built military bases in the Arctic, and generally flexed and posed like an oiled, aged, but still buff, body builder. And we’ve been paying increasingly rapt attention, not noticing the geriatric walker hidden just off stage. A closer look is almost shocking. According...

On a cool spring day at the Capitol, Toni Atkins delivered a series of blows unlike anything the tobacco industry had ever felt in California. Then speaker of the Assembly, the San Diego Democrat had been a lame duck for the last six months since the house elected Anthony Rendon to replace her. It was a Thursday morning in March and her final session as speaker, a tenure that lasted just shy of a year and 10 months. In a series of quick votes, the Assembly passed six smoking bills, the most significant of which raised the age to buy...

Utah is certainly not turning out to be friendly territory for Donald Trump. A new UtahPolicy.com survey gives the presumptive GOP nominee a 9-point lead over Democratic foe Hillary Clinton. The survey, conducted by Dan Jones & Associates, finds Trump with 36% of the vote in Utah. Clinton would get 27%. Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson has 10%, while Green Party nominee Jill Stein pulls in 2%. 18% said they would prefer another candidate while 2% were undecided. Trump's share of the vote is virtually unchanged from a recent Salt Lake Tribune poll that showed Trump and Clinton tied at...

Democrat Hillary Clinton leads Republican Donald Trump 47 percent to 42 percent in a new CNN/ORC poll released Tuesday. When voters are given a choice of a four-way race, Clinton's advantage over Trump narrows to 42 percent to 38 percent, with Libertarian Gary Johnson receiving 9 percent and Green Party candidate Jill Stein 7 percent.