Free Republic

Carly Fiorina on Sunday defended her assertion that an undercover sting video shows Planned Parenthood officials keeping a “fully formed fetus” alive “to harvest its brain.” At the second Republican presidential debate earlier this month, one of Fiorina’s strongest moments came when she described a gruesome scene from one of the controversial undercover videos. "A fully-formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says, 'We have to keep it alive to harvest its brain’,” Fiorina said at the time. Fiorina’s description of the scene, and her supporting super-PAC’s subsequent use of it in an campaign...

Pope Francis made a thinly-veiled swipe at Donald Trump as the Pontiff defended Latino immigrants who came to America at 'great personal cost' during a moving speech to 40,000 followers in Philadelphia. Francis called on migrants from Mexico and the rest of the world to 'not feel discouraged by all the challenges and hardships' they face, saying they should never feel ashamed of their own traditions. The Pope's words come in direct contrast to Trump's calls for a wall to be built along the Mexican border and for stricter controls on who can enter the US. Speaking from the lectern...

On Friday, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, gave a rousing speech at the Values Voter Summit covering a wide array of topics, from education and Common Core to religious freedom and economics. Cruz had the crowd on its feet through much of the 20-minute speech, which began with a heavy dose of humor leveled at the current administration. Predictably, liberals and the media took some of his comments out of context while completely ignoring the bulk of his speech. “If you vote for Hillary [Clinton] you are voting for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons,” Cruz said, referring to President Obama's nuclear...

Jeb Bush on Friday gave sharp criticism of the nuclear deal with Iran, but said he wouldn't immediately kill the agreement on his first day in office if he becomes the next president. The former Florida governor told an audience at a campaign event in Carson City, Nevada, that he'd take a more pragmatic approach by consulting with his Cabinet and allies before scratching the nuclear agreement altogether. "One thing I won't do is just say as a candidate: 'I'm just going to tear up the agreement on the first day.' That sounds great, but maybe you ought to check...

Jeb Bush took a tough but nuanced foreign policy stance during an appearance here Friday morning, calling for reversing the ban on concealed weapons at military installations and calling out his Republican rivals for hollow promises to repeal the Iran nuclear agreement on their first day in office. Bush, looking to position himself as an electable conservative in a sprawling primary field thrown into turmoil by the unexpected rise of Donald Trump, reiterated his opposition to the Iran agreement, which will ease economic sanctions on the country in exchange for a decade of limitations to its nuclear program. But he...

The surging candidate’s remarks on Planned Parenthood drew Steinem’s ire. Feminist icon Gloria Steinem blasted Carly Fiorina in a post on her Facebook page, saying the presidential hopeful’s commentary on Planned Parenthood at the Republican debate last week “was a 100 percent lie.” “I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes,” Fiorina railed during the debate. “Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.” Fiorina was referring to a series of “sting” videos produced by the Center for Medical...

Today's Donald Trump news: As a thick crowd gathered Thursday afternoon on New York's Fifth Avenue to get a glimpse of Pope Francis, the faithful caught sight of someone else – Donald Trump. The presidential candidate stepped out of his company headquarters at about 4:30 p.m. and waved. But the crowd quickly reminded Trump that – despite countless appearances on talk shows, rallies and over-populated debates – they weren't there to see him. Trump heard some cheers, but was mostly showered with boos, a reaction that might not have pleased the pope, who had just finished preaching about the Golden...

TRUMP FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT? NOT! By Aaron Goldstein on 9.25.15 In his latest on Donald Trump, my AmSpec colleague Jeff Lord praises The Donald as a fighter. Jeff writes, “What was Donald Trump doing just yesterday? He was fighting. Fighting with Fox. And before that? With Jorge Ramos. With Univision. With Megyn Kelly. With CNN. With Rosie O’Donnell.” O.K., so we know who Donald Trump is fighting. But what exactly is Donald Trump fighting for? The Donald makes for good TV. But so does the WWE. By this standards perhaps we should elect Vince McMahon or John Cena to...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Thursday’s “Morning Joe” Twitter is “amazing,” and that “it’s like owning The New York Times without the losses.” Trump claimed that he likes using Twitter so much because he is able to “fight back” when “a dope like a Rich Lowry goes on, or people like Megyn Kelly says things that are wrong, I’m able to tweet.”

But Ms. Raimondo was able to revamp her state’s pension system, keeping some of the traditional structure while lowering the cost, and surviving lawsuits by workers and retirees who called her moves unconstitutional. Mr. Emanuel’s attempts to rein in pension costs, in contrast, have been thrown out by a judge, leading to his appeal this week for a big tax increase

Donald Trump has two words to describe a recent spate of articles that suggested he may be losing steam in the Republican presidential primary: "dishonest reporting." "Very dishonest and the people understand that," Trump said in a conversation with Business Insider ...by CNN, Politico, and The Washington Post used recent polls from Quinnipiac and CNN/ORC to argue that the surge that propelled Trump to the head of the GOP pack may be ending.... CNN's Eric Bradner came in with a story of his own a few hours later. Bradner said the Quinnipiac poll "reinforce[d] a recent CNN/ORC poll that showed...

A senior editor at the New York Times became embroiled in a testy back-and-forth exchange with a Jewish pro-Israel reader of the publication, who had criticized it for launching a website aimed at tracking how Jewish lawmakers are voting on the Iranian nuclear deal, according to emails obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The Times’ “Jew tracker” was described as anti-Semitic and offensive by pro-Israel officials who slammed the paper for feeding into stereotypes about Jewish power and money. The controversial chart listed all lawmakers who voted against the nuclear deal and highlighted in yellow whether or not that person...

When I started at the White House in March 2013, I was among those who advocated increased assistance, including military assistance, to the Syrian opposition. Secretary of State John Kerry led the diplomatic effort to rally and unify our key partners, who all pledged to support the Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC) as the legitimate representatives of Syrian people and to channel military support to the Supreme Military Council (SMC), then led by General Salim Idriss. It was not long, however, before it was apparent—at least to me—that this approach would not work. The SOC was weak and out of touch...

The stunning decision by House Speaker John Boehner to resign from office in October is a sign of not only his inability to lead a congressional party riven between its establishment and tea party wings, but also the toll fighting that fight has taken on him -- and the GOP more broadly. Almost since the day he became speaker -- following the tea party-led takeover of Congress in the 2010 midterm elections -- Boehner had been caught betwixt and between. His roots were firmly in the establishment end of the party, having spent decades in Congress and moving up the...

Donald Trump earned a rare rebuke from a conservative audience on Friday after criticizing Sen. Marco Rubio, who as emerged as his prime sparring partner in recent days. Speaking to a social conservative crowd at the Values Voters Summit, where Rubio spoke earlier in the day, Trump was met with a wave of boos after calling his Republican rival a “clown” in his speech.

Talking to newly installed MSNBC anchor Brian Williams about the Boehner resignation Friday morning, fellow MSNBC host Chris Matthews said he wishes the outgoing Speaker would try to pass immigration reform before he leaves. "I think it would be great if he said okay, we're a democracy here for a couple hours," Matthews said of Boehner. "We're going to vote on the immigration bill before I leave."

One day after Scott Walker dropped out of the presidential race, the Politico headline read: “Walker’s campaign manager unloads.” The same day, the Washington Post had an article, “Inside the collapse of Scott Walker’s presidential bid,” which also drew heavily from Walker’s campaign manager, GOP consultant Rick Wiley. It’s almost as if Wiley had an agenda.

On the day after Pope Francis spoke to Congress about the dangers of violent extremism in the name of religious fundamentalism, presidential candidate Ted Cruz, appearing at a Values Voter summit, threatened to murder Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Texas senator vowed that, if elected, he would “rip to shreds” the Iranian agreement deal recently passed through Congress, and kill the country’s leader if it didn’t give up its nuclear ambitions. “If the Ayatollah doesn’t understand that, we may have to help introduce him to the 72 virgins,” Cruz said to wild cheers from the audience of conservative Christians. The...

The spectacular rise of Donald Trump as leading presidential candidate should at last force Republicans in Washington to face the chronic ineffectiveness of their party: rank and file Republicans are turning to the Donald because he, unlike the party establishment, seems energetic, articulate, and determined to get something done. They have so long despaired of a party leadership that is inarticulate, somnolent, and inept that they are not deterred by the fact that Trump is dangerously unpredictable. The problem is not an insufficiently conservative party, as some conservatives think; a two-party system will always have a broad spectrum of viewpoints...

WASHINGTON — Speaker John A. Boehner, under intense pressure from conservatives in his party, will resign one of the most powerful positions in government and give up his House seat at the end of October, throwing Congress into chaos it tries to avert a government shutdown. Mr. Boehner made the announcement in an emotional meeting with his fellow Republicans Friday morning.