Free Republic

If you’d told me last year that complete Republican control of Congress and the White House would lead to nothing getting done, I would have laughed at you. Of course, last year I would have laughed at the idea of complete Republican control of government, so the idea of no legislative accomplishments would have been a joke not worth telling. Turns out all the jokes, at least so far, have been on us. That Obamacare repeal fell apart – or, more correctly, never really got off the ground – was a surprise only because Republicans had promised it for years...

Never underestimate the stupidity of the average Democrat voter in overlooking pure evil and utter corruption in their candidates. Never underestimate the stupidity of the Republican establishment and their natural talent in losing elections when they should have been sure-winners. The proof is in the pudding: Bill Clinton's reelection in 1996 over the GOP establishment's loser, Bob Dole. . Obama's election in 2008 over the GOP establishment's loser, John McCain. . Obama's reelection in 2012 over the GOP establishment's loser, Mitt Romney. And now after we the people rejected the GOP establishment's sure-loser (Jeb Bush) and voted in our own...

You would think that after the complete repudiation of the mainstream GOP establishment by its own voters that it might do some soul-searching. You would think that it might ask itself what it did wrong to facilitate the rise of Donald Trump. And you might also believe in unicorns. No, instead of learning the lessons from 2016 that might help it avoid pain in the future, the establishment has chosen to learn different lessons, lessons that – shockingly – reinforce the same pre-existing notions that got us into this mess in the first place. Who in the Republican establishment has...

Donald Trump may be the only Republican presidential candidate who can realistically hit the magic 1,237 number for the majority of delegates, but according to a senior Republican National Committee official that does not mean he will become the GOP presidential nominee. "Even if Trump reaches the magic number of 1,237 the media and RNC are touting, that does not mean Trump is automatically the nominee," Haugland said. "The votes earned during the primary process are only estimates and are not legal convention votes. The only official votes to nominate a candidate are those that are cast from the convention...

It’s easy to get wrapped up in men and moments. In the current election season, for instance, we may see a candidate appearing to embody all our hopes and dreams (or at least many) and come to assign him country-savior status. Even the great Thomas Sowell — a man for whom I have tremendous respect — has called the November choice “the last chance for America.” Yet even if we do choose the “right” president, it will only amount to a stay of execution. Many people lament that “Obama has destroyed America these last eight years” or, alluding to same,...

Complete Headline: The Gloves Are Off: Trump Accuses Hillary Of Being "Involved In Corruption For Most Of Her Professional Life" It's popcorn time. Barely 24 hours after Trump launched his first Hillary attack ad in which he showed a laughing Putin respond to a barking Hillary, and shortly after Hillary's SuperPAC responded in kind with an ad of its own in which it used a Trump quote to mock him, the gloves are officially off, and now that both presidential candidates - both convinced they will face off against each other - are beyond the foreplay stage, the gloves have...

Breitbart) – Veteran pollster Pat Caddell warns that Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s vote for the North American Free Trade Agreement during his tenure in Congress could cost him both his approval rating as governor and the critical state primary. “I believe — I haven’t gone back and looked — but I think he was in Congress in ’93 and if so, I’d bet you he voted for NAFTA. How much do you want to bet? Somebody ought to look that one up. That’s the real point this morning that could change the election in Ohio,” he told Breitbart News executive...

Presidential candidate Marco Rubio on Thursday night insisted he is not dropping out of the GOP primary, despite reports that he was considering doing so just days before his home state's primary. Asked by Fox News's Megyn Kelly if he was preparing to drop out, the junior senator from Florida said, "No. I am not dropping out, I am fighting all the way through. We’re going to win Florida." He added that reports of him dropping out before Tuesday's winner-take-all primary in Florida, which will award 99 delegates, are "100 percent, categorically false." "We win Florida on Tuesday and this...

The worst political blunder of all time, according to scientist Freeman Dyson, was the decision of the emperor of China in 1433 to cut off his country from the outside world. In the wake of that decision, China lost its position in the forefront of human achievements and fell behind, over the centuries, to become a Third World country. Before the end of this month, the United States of America may break that record for the worst political blunder of all time. Professor Dyson attributed the Chinese emperor's blunder to "powerful people pursuing partisan squabbles and neglecting the long-range interests...

It was only a matter of time before we had a populist backlash to 30 years of flawed globalization policies that both parties embraced. There were, in retrospect, clear signs of what was to come--signs that if Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders did not appear on the scene, someone else like them would have. We've had decades of forewarnings as the top income earners --the "one percent"--began taking bigger shares of our economy starting in the 1980s: The anti-globalization protests of the late 1990s. The rise of Ross "NAFTA-will-suck-our-jobs-away" Perot and Pat "Pitchforks" Buchanan against the GOP establishment. The brief...

Trump: We Should Take Libya's Oil 4/19/2011 6:23PM In an interview with WSJ reporter Kelly Evans, potential presidential candidate Donald Trump claims he only supports Libyan intervention provided the U.S. can "take the oil." He also warns of Iran controlling Iraq's oil if the U.S. doesn't secure it first.

Fresh off back-to-back victories in the Republican presidential race, Donald Trump is moving to expand his tight-knit campaign by building a political kitchen cabinet that includes former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. Giuliani, who has not made an endorsement in the 2016 contest, said in an interview Sunday that he has conferred at length with Trump at least three times in the past month, both in person and by phone, and has counseled the real estate mogul "as a close personal friend" about campaign issues. "We've been talking. Donald and me, Donald and a few other friends who know...

Senator Schumer appeared Sunday on ABC's This Week and responded to suggestions that the Senate might not confirm the lame-duck President's nomination to replace the late Justice Scalia: "show me the clause [in the Constitution] that says [the] president's only president for three years." True, Presidents serve four-year terms. But here's a question for Senator Schumer: Can you show me the clause that says the Senate must vote on, let alone confirm, a President's nominee? I'll save him the effort: There is no such clause in the Constitution

It’s not every day that anti-war groups find themselves cheering on leading Republican presidential candidates. But, then again, this hasn’t been a presidential campaign that’s stuck to the script. The morning after he called the Iraq War a huge misstep and argued that President George W. Bush lied to get the country into it, Donald Trump has earned praise from, of all places, Code Pink, the group best known for protesting the Iraq War and subsequent military interventions. “I watched the debate last night and LOVED IT,� Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin said in an email.

A truism has developed during the 2016 election campaign that Donald Trump can say the most outrageous things and not have it affect his poll numbers. That principle may be put to a severe test as a result of Trump not only claiming that President George W. Bush lied about Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction to justify the Iraq War but also blaming him for 9/11. These claims certainly livened up the debate in South Carolina where George W. Bush is regarded with some reverence

There's nothing irrational about Donald Trump's appeal to the white working class, writes Charles Murray: they have every reason to be angry If you are dismayed by Trumpism, don't kid yourself that it will fade away if Donald Trump fails to win the Republican nomination. Trumpism is an expression of the legitimate anger that many Americans feel about the course that the country has taken, and its appearance was predictable. It is the endgame of a process that has been going on for a half-century: America's divestment of its historic national identity. For the eminent political scientist Samuel Huntington, writing...

Donald Trump on Friday threatened to sue Ted Cruz for "not being a natural born citizen" if the Texas senator "doesn't clean up his act" and stop running negative ads against him. "If @TedCruz doesn't clean up his act, stop cheating, & doing negative ads, I have standing to sue him for not being a natural born citizen," he tweeted. If @TedCruz doesn't clean up his act, stop cheating, & doing negative ads, I have standing to sue him for not being a natural born citizen. -- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2016 Trump has previously argued that if...

Donald Trump announced Friday he raised $6 million for veterans at his fundraiser in Iowa the night before. Iowa was amazing last night. The event could not have worked out better. We raised $6,000,000 for our great vets. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) > But this would appear a significant increase from what he's given to the cause before, according to some reports which questioned whether the billionaire businessman has been a consistent donor to vet groups. Showbiz 411 reports that the Donald J. Trump Foundation gave a total of $2.6 million in charitable donations in the last three years,...

GOP frontrunner Donald Trump took to Twitter to “thank the evangelical Christians for the warm embrace [he’s] received on the campaign trail.� In his appeal to the evangelical vote just two days before the Iowa caucus, Trump posted a video on Facebook where he holds his mother’s Bible and also thanks the evangelical voting block for keeping him high in the polls. “I really appreciate the support given to me by the evangelicals — they’ve been incredible,� Trump said in the video. “Every poll says how well I’m doing with them.� He adds, “My mother gave me this Bible —...

The most politically active members of the Republican Party have warmed to Donald Trump’s bid for the party’s presidential nomination since last summer, according to a new YouGov poll, which finds 68 percent now think he could win the general election. While most surveys attempt to reflect the entire electorate, this one is the latest in a trio of polls focusing solely on Republican activists: well-informed party stalwarts who've run for or held office, served as party officials, worked on campaigns or volunteered their time before elections. They provide some insight into the role of GOP political leaders in an...