Free Republic

In a recent episode of “Modern Family,” two children, a boy and a girl, play a round of broom hockey in a living room. In those 12 seconds, the first openly transgender child appeared as a transgender character in a mainstream sitcom. The performance of Jackson Millarker, 8, is part of a new era in television, signified by a small but growing number of transgender characters. It is inspiring talent agents, writers, producers and parents to gingerly explore a frontier within a frontier as they bring young actors into the fold. Jackson’s character, Tom, is not the only one to...

Oh my, the breathless NYT reports, after aiding and abetting breaking the law by releasing part of a NY state tax return that was stolen (if it's a true copy) from Trump. The return showed a roughly $900 million net loss one year. This, the Times reports, means that Trump may not have paid any federal (or state) taxes for many years. To which I say: So what?

Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years, records obtained by The New York Times show. The 1995 tax records, never before disclosed, reveal the extraordinary tax benefits that Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, derived from the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his ill-fated foray into the airline business and his ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan....

RUSH: Now Hillary has pulled out of Ohio, and the New York Times dutifully says, "That's okay! Ohio doesn't matter anymore." I've got it right here. "Ohio, Long a Bellwether, Is Fading on the Electoral Map." You know why? 'Cause it's too white. Ohio is no longer the great predictor. Ohio is no longer the great indicator. It used to be that you couldn't win the presidency without winning Ohio, because Ohio had collectively a microcosm of the country's population. But now? Now Ohio doesn't matter, since Hillary is not doing well there -- and they say (paraphrased), "It's just...

If “Trump the Candidate” is often an outsize caricature of Donald J. Trump, the New York businessman, then “Trump the Debater” was the opposite of outsize: a subdued, scowling titan, stuffed into a black suit, straining at the seams as the debate at Hofstra University wore on. The answer to the core questions — could Mr. Trump comport himself as disciplined “Teleprompter Trump” without the aid of actual teleprompters, and could he appear plausibly presidential opposite Hillary Clinton — came early in the debate. And the answer, at least for the first portion of the debate, was yes. By the...

It started with a mystifying missed opportunity on race. It ended with a piercing attack on gender. Hillary Clinton's performance in the first presidential debate on Monday veered from uncertain and tentative to firm and, ultimately, scorching. No amount of practice, it seemed, could fully prepare her - or perhaps anyone - for Donald J. Trump's hurricane of factual distortion, taunting interruptions and blustery generalities. Mrs. Clinton seemed to slowly but steadily learn how to confront and subdue Mr. Trump on the fly, as tens of millions of Americans watched. [Snip] Mrs. Clinton eventually found her footing in the second...

Hillary Clinton for President Our endorsement is rooted in respect for her intellect, experience and courage. In any normal election year, we’d compare the two presidential candidates side by side on the issues. But this is not a normal election year. A comparison like that would be an empty exercise in a race where one candidate — our choice, Hillary Clinton — has a record of service and a raft of pragmatic ideas, and the other, Donald Trump, discloses nothing concrete about himself or his plans while promising the moon and offering the stars on layaway. (We will explain in...