Free Republic

Reason interviewed the first biographer of Donald Trump who has a warning for taxpayers: "[Trump] doesn't do a deal unless other people are putting up the money. He's very good at losing other people's money and preserving his own," explains author Jerome Tuccille. (see video)

I don't see any other logical reason for him speaking the way he did.

Ground-breaking research by political science experts (actually me, Googling) reveals that a new breed of American politician has been discovered, the first ever "libertarian socialist." And it has a name: Bernie Sanders. Oxymoronic, you say? Call me crazy, but the senator from the Peoples' Republic of Vermont is at least two-thirds of the way there on the road to free minds and free markets. There are three issue frames in politics. Foreign. Social. Economic. Sanders is as non-interventionist as Ron Paul on foreign policy. He is as pro-choice and pro-gay rights as Yahweh on social issues (Yahweh has come a...

MACKINAC ISLAND, MI — Rand Paul won the presidential preference straw poll this weekend at the Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference, a biennial gather of more than 2,000 Michigan Republicans. With 785 attendees voting, the U.S. Senator from Kentucky received 22 percent of the vote in the MIRS/Detroit News straw poll. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina finished second at 15 percent. Each of the top five vote-getters spoke at the island event, including Ohio Gov. John Kasich (13.7 percent), Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas (13 percent) and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (9.7 percent). John Yob, national political director and Michigan...

Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) 93% said, “America is about done with” his opponent GOP front-runner Donald Trump because he is a “buffoon who insults women and calls them ugly,” and that has “become pitiful.” Paul said, “I think America is about done with him. I think we are ready to move on. I sensed that in the debate. There was up a silliness and lack of seriousness on his part that I think America will be done with him. The debate I think will reshuffle the pack. And I think...

Sure, she’s had a rough few months, but she’s still the massive favorite to win the Democratic nomination. But more than that, it’s clearer than ever that these people are jokers. Well, that was all kind of...interminable. For a time there in the middle, I thought Ben Carson had strolled out to perform some elective surgery. I guess we kind of agree that Carly Fiorina won, since she did manage to convey some real or at least manufactured-real passion on about three or four occasions. But you wanna know who really won that debate? Hillary Clinton. Go ahead, go ahead,...

Wednesday on CNN’s “Wolf,” Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said if his rival Donald Trump was to become the GOP nominee for president, the Republican Party would lose as bad as it did in 1964 when the Democratic candidate President Lyndon B. Johnson won 61 percent of the popular vote against the Republican candidate, then-Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ).

SIMI VALLEY, California — Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is aiming his guns at GOP frontrunner billionaire Donald Trump ahead of the second presidential debate. While shooting a rifle, shotgun and pistol at Taran Tactical Innovations here, down the street from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Paul told reporters he’s gunning for Trump. Paul fired at targets including a big stack of paper file boxes labeled the “IRS Tax Code” and at a bulletproof vest.

Syrian Christian refugees living in Sweden say they were forced out of their asylum house by Muslim refugees who demanded they hide their crosses and banned them from using communal areas in the home they shared. “They dared not stay. The atmosphere became too intimidating. And they got no help,” said a Swedish government migration agency rep responsible for the center they were staying in to Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. “They chose themselves to organize [a] new address and moved away without our participation because they felt a discomfort.” The Christians, comprised of two families, were seeking asylum after fleeing...

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's poll numbers went down after he attacked presidential frontrunner Donald Trump in the first GOP debate, but Paul says he'll hit Trump even harder at Wednesday's second debate.

"Paul later told me he thinks he has found an approach that will separate Trump from the rest of the GOP field: eminent domain. “A hallmark of Republicans is that they respect private property. But Trump runs roughshod over it,” he said. “He is a serious abuser of taking property for his private benefit.”

I caught up with Rand Paul at Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum convention in St. Louis over the weekend, and he was in a feisty mood. While he was there to introduce his 80-year-old mother before she accepted an award from Eagle Forum, he was primed to discuss this week’s upcoming GOP debate and Donald Trump. “Someone has to bring him down,” he told reporters in the lounge of the St. Louis Marriott. “I’m not going to sit quietly by and let the disaster that is Donald Trump become the nominee. Do you want someone who appears to still be in...

GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump poked at rival Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Twitter on Saturday, calling him a “lightweight” who shouldn’t be allowed in Wednesday’s CNN presidential debate. Trump needled Paul in a series of tweets: (see below) Trump’s shots came hours after Paul joked about the GOP frontrunner in an interview with Politico. “I think I was a little too easy on Donald Trump last time,” Paul said in the interview, referencing a heated exchange the two had in an August Fox News presidential debate. “That’s given in jest," he added. Later in the interview, Paul unfavorably compared...

Retired pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson has pulled to within 4 points of GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump, a new poll shows. In the New York Times/CBS News survey released Tuesday, Trump maintains the lead of the presidential pack, with 27 percent support. But Carson is within striking distance, at 23 percent, which is within the margin of error, making it a statistical dead heat.Carson's rise compared with his polling at 6 percent support in the pre-Aug. 6 debate Times/CBS News survey; Trump was at 24 percent in that earlier poll, showing Carson's gains the most significant in that time frame,...

The United States is a nation of laws, we have federal laws, state laws, and local laws. One would think all of them are to be followed, yet it depends on the political climate at the time which ones are followed and ignored. Apparently, it also depends on what Federal judge at the time decides what can and cannot be done lawfully. Case and point, we have Rowan County Kentucky clerk Kim Davis recently released from jail after refusing to issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples. Davis spent 5 nights behind bars because she allegedly broke the law, according...

Faced with a potential mutiny on a procedural vote to bring up a disapproval resolution on the Iran nuclear agreement, House GOP leadership is considering delaying the anti-deal vote and taking up different legislation stating that the president has not held up his side of the bargain. GOP leaders emerged from the Republican Conference’s weekly meeting Wednesday morning expressing some uncertainty about whether they should proceed with the anti-deal resolution. “We had a very healthy conversation with our members this morning,” Speaker John A. Boehner told reporters. “Certainly some interest amongst the ideas offered by [Rep. Mike] Pompeo and [Rep....

It's like a fresh season of a fall television sitcom: Sen. Lindsey Graham says another attempt to shut down the government is coming and Sen. Ted Cruz will play the starring role again. "Absolutely. Just as sure as the sun rises and sets," the GOP senator and 2016 presidential candidate told U.S. News in an hour-long interview Tuesday. "At the end of the day, I think Ted Cruz is going to do this. He's going to be the purest of the pure and it will fail and he'll blame me and everybody else and the band goes on." Congress needs...

Breaking ranks with nearly all of his fellow 2016 Republican contenders, Donald Trump says he supports President Barack Obama's decision to reengage diplomatically with Cuba. "50 years is enough," Trump said in an interview with the Daily Caller published Tuesday, referring to Obama's decision to re-establish U.S. ties with Cuba. "I think it's fine. I think it's fine, but we should have made a better deal," Trump added. "The concept of opening with Cuba is fine." Trump joins libertarian-leaning Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky as the only Republican running for president to express his support for normalizing relations with Cuba....

Libertarian icon Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) embarrassed himself on Friday when he took to Twitter to respond to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) who recently insisted that the junior senator from Kentucky “has no idea what he’s talking about” with regards to his support for lifting restrictions on bilateral relations with the Cuban government. By attempting to defend himself, Paul ably proved the Florida senator correct. Paul began… Hey @marcorubio if the embargo doesn't hurt Cuba, why do you want to keep it?— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) December 19, 2014 And this one got the libertarian supporters cheering in the...

Sen. Rand Paul prefers exhausting diplomatic efforts in dealing with overseas conflicts, and on Sunday he highlighted the difference between his softer approach to foreign policy and that of two other senators who are likely 2016 presidential candidates -- Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. The Kentucky Republican joined fellow first-term senators Cruz of Texas and Rubio of Florida on stage Sunday evening in California for a summit organized by Freedom Partners. That group is the central hub of the powerful network of organizations backed by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch....