Free Republic

After my last two columns on Donald Trump, several people have written to ask what I think about some of the other Republican presidential candidates. So I thought I’d address that question this week. Hey, I’m nothing if not responsive to my readers. Please excuse me if I don’t mention everyone. I’ve only got 500 words. Ben Carson. No question, Dr. Carson is manifestly the smartest person in the race, on either side. His slogan should be, “It’s just politics, folks. Not brain surgery.” I don’t necessarily agree with him on every issue, but I believe he’s a man of...

Of nearly 460 people who voted, about 38 percent cast a peanut for Trump. Ben Carson, a pediatric neurosurgeon, came in second with about 24 percent of the peanuts. Nearly all candidates - even Joe Biden, who has not announced whether he’ll run - found fans at the fair. Lincoln Chafee, the former U.S. senator and governor of Rhode Island, was “still looking for his first vote,” noted guest announcer Gary Black, the state’s agriculture commissioner. For that matter, so were Republicans Georgia Pataki and Jim Gilmore. For Democrats, Hillary Clinton ended the day with 64 legumes stacked up in...

The union called the move "unacceptable and discouraging." A Rhode Island police union is outraged over what a Dunkin' Donuts employee wrote on an officer's coffee cup. According to Go Local Prov, a Providence police officer purchased a coffee Friday night from a local Dunkin' Donuts. A Facebook post (which does not appear to be public) from fellow police officer William O'Donnell claims that the employee was "immediately rude, and didn't appear to want to serve" his co-worker who was in uniform. Upon leaving, the unnamed police officer noticed that his coffee had "#blacklivesmatter" scrawled across it in marker. (IMAGE-AT-LINK)...

PPP's newest North Carolina poll finds that Donald Trump is holding his ground- at least compared to where he was in the state six weeks ago. Trump leads with 26% to 21% for Ben Carson, 12% for Carly Fiorina, 10% for Marco Rubio, 9% for Ted Cruz, 6% for Mike Huckabee, 5% for Jeb Bush, 4% for John Kasich, and 2% for Chris Christie. Rounding out the field are Rick Santorum and Bobby Jindal at 1%, and Jim Gilmore, Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, and Rand Paul all at less than 1%. Trump's 26% is almost identical to his 24% standing...

Mayors from eighteen U.S. cities signed a letter to President Obama saying they are willing to take even more refugees than what has been proposed by the administration. “We will welcome the Syrian families to make homes and new lives in our cities,” wrote the mayors, all of whom are part of the Cities United for Immigration Action coalition. “Indeed, we are writing to say that we stand ready to work with your Administration to do much more and to urge you to increase still further the number of Syrian refugees the United States will accept for resettlement.” “This is...

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

The Pentagon has responded to a globally-released ‘Kill List’, asking law enforcement to give extra protection for military personnel whose personal information was released,News Channel 10 reports. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports the Pentagon spent the weekend notifying the soldiers who appeared on the list, and urged city police departments and military police to increase patrol in the neighborhoods where the targeted live. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) published the list days ago, a report that contained names, photos, and home addresses of U.S. Armed Forces personnel, causing alarm in cities potentially at high-risk....

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Officials with the Pawtucket Red Sox say the baseball club will end its pursuit for a proposed stadium on waterfront land in downtown Providence. PawSox Chairman Larry Lucchino said in a statement Saturday that the group tried hard to make the deal work, but Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo determined the land was not suitable for a new ballpark. A spokesman for House speaker Nicholas Mattiello said Friday that negotiations between the state and the Triple-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox had stopped. “It is disappointing that negotiations have ended at the I-195 property. I thought...

While the press has been completely obsessed by el Trumpo so that they can damage and dismantle the Republican party, they have tried their best to ignore the growing mutiny in the Democrat party. But it burst into their faces Saturday morning when the Democrat National Committee chair, Debbsters Whats-her-face Schultz was HECKLED by an entire crowd demanding more debates among the leftist presidential candidates

Two Labor Day Polls Portend ‘Splodey Heads For The Anti-Trump Advocates…. Earlier today Gallup released a poll showing that Trump is the most heavily favored candidate (63% Approval Rating) amid Republicans. A devastating defeat for the establishment GOP (GOPe) who are seeking to push their preferred candidate Jeb Bush. Such substantive favorable opinion of candidate Trump puts the RNC/GOPe in a difficult position as they plot to begin their collective assault against the unpalatable frontrunner. But tonight the news for the Vichy Republican crowd is infinite degrees worse. As they plot the best course of Trump’s annihilation – national polls...

In a challenging field of competitors, Fox News Channel’s Andrew Napolitano has a strong entry for the most laughable legal analysis of the Indiana religious-freedom law. In an April Fool’s Day op-ed that he evidently means to be taken seriously, Napolitano argues that state Religious Freedom Restoration Act laws are unconstitutional. Napolitano’s core claim is that the Supreme Court, in its 1997 ruling in Boerne v. Flores, ruled that the 1993 federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act is unconstitutional. In Boerne the Court ruled that Congress lacked the constitutional power to apply the federal RFRA against the states. Napolitano accurately summarizes...

BUSH: changed Rating from No Action to VERY HARMFULCARSON: from No Action to VERY GOODCHRISTIE: from No Action to GOODCRUZ: from No Action to VERY GOODFIORINA: from Unhelpful to VERY HARMFULJINDAL: from No Action to VERY GOODPERRY: from No Action to UNHELPFULRUBIO: from No Action to VERY HARMFULTRUMP: from No Action to EXCELLENTIn addition, the following candidates stuck with the positions (and Ratings) that they had previously staked out. (Santorum and Paul deserve special recognition for taking strong stands long before Trump stirred the media's interest this past week.)EXCELLENT: SantorumVERY GOOD: Paul1st STEPS: GrahamNO POSITION: Chaffee, WalkerUNHELPFUL: Biden, Clinton, Sanders,...

The summer has not been kind to Hillary Clinton. The drip-drip-drip of revelations about her possible misuse and mishandling of classified information threatens to become a deluge in the fall. They have taken a serious toll on her reputation — and even more notably, her treatment by liberal media figures who surely would rather she be elected even if the Risen Christ were to be the Republican nominee. Democrats are worried — so worried five donors who raised millions for President Obama as well as Obama’s chief Florida strategist have both sworn off Hillary and joined an effort to draft...

Dear Democrats: It’s too late to start over. As in, there’s no replacing Hillary Rodham Clinton as your party’s front-runner for the presidential nomination. Not with Vice President Biden — even if he runs. Not with former vice president Al Gore. (I mean, come on.) Not with your ideal rich-person-with-no-record-and-a-fresh-faced-appeal. This may come as a shock to some of you. After all, you argue, it’s only August! The Iowa caucuses won’t be until February! That’s, like, four political lifetimes. Sure. But modern presidential politics isn’t as simple as announcing that you’ve decided to run and watching yourself soar to the...

There is a haunting familiarity to the arguments defending Planned Parenthood’s sale of body parts from aborted babies for medical research: an echo of another era of medical innovation amid moral ambiguity. Then, as now, the response of cultural leaders — especially religious leaders — is a story about the corruption, and potential renewal, of Western civilization. Today we’re told there is no other way to achieve the research results we desire, because fetal tissue is a “uniquely rich source” of stem cells, which provide invaluable clues to human development. Second, we’re led to believe that research on aborted babies...

Forget the Twitter blog for emoji responses to how millennials feel about student debt. As the New York Daily News’ Alejandro Alba notes, the condescending approach didn’t generate much respect from Hillary Clinton’s target audience. The beleagured Democrat tried to shift attention to policy from the e-mail scandal, focusing on her $350 billion proposal to overhaul higher-education finances, which is in a shambles largely due to federal government intervention in the first place.Mission not accomplished: While some users thought the question was “relatable,” others believed the question was offensive and condescending.Many users began to reply to the tweet with...

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley is keeping pressure on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to increase the number of Democratic presidential debates. "We're making a big mistake, as Democrats, if we try to limit debate and have an undemocratic process," O'Malley said Monday on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports." "Shame on us as a party if the DNC tries to limit debate and prevents us from being able to put forward a better path for our people that will make the economy work for all of us again," he said. O'Malley — who trails front-runner Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders...

The Green Beret killed Friday in Afghanistan was a Rhode Island native who was being remembered Sunday as a “true patriot.” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) offered condolences to the family and friends of Master Sgt. Peter Andrew McKenna who died when the Taliban attacked the U.S. military’s Special Forces base near Kabul International Airport. Two other American soldiers were wounded. “I join all Rhode Islanders in mourning the loss of Sgt. McKenna, a truly great citizen, soldier, person and patriot,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said on Twitter late Saturday.

Imagine if the Koch brothers had financed a group that was regularly disrupting and shutting down events of candidates that they opposed. Does anybody doubt that the Koch connection would come up in the first paragraph, if not the first sentence, of most news stories about such disruptions? Yet somehow, complete silence from the MSM on the connection of George Soros to #BlackLivesMatter even though he is the providing most of the finances to that organization. Also mysterious is how the MSM also fails to note that Hillary Clinton, whom Soros supports, has not had her events disrupted by #SorosMoneyMatters (also...

Yesterday afternoon at Netroots Nation in Providence, RI, I attempted to ask the embattled Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) about his campaign, specifically his record as the deciding vote for Obamacare. Ohio voters passted an amendment to their constitution outlawing the Democrats' health care law by a wide margin in 2011: Ohioans overwhelmingly rejected the healthcare mandate provisions of Obamacare. They did this by handily passing an amendment to the state’s constitution that reads, in part, as follows: No federal, state, or local law or rule shall compel, directly or indirectly, any person, employer, or health care provider to participate in...