Free Republic

The Villages, Florida March 13, 2016

It's easy for me to understand why people were so favorably disposed toward Trump at first because initially, I liked him, too. I'd read and liked Trump's books, I found him to be gracious in person and I had friends who went to work for him. I also loved his charisma, his stance on the wall, his refreshing lack of political correctness, his scrappiness and his ability to just shrug off what would be career-ending mistakes for other Republican politicians. Unfortunately today, Trump looks to be completely unelectable. There are massive numbers of Republicans pledging not to vote for him...

In a super-blue state like Massachusetts, Super Tuesday was the Election Day that mattered. The outcome in November is a foregone conclusion: The Democratic presidential nominee will win the state by a landslide. So Tuesday's primary election was the only chance Bay State voters had to cast a ballot that might have an impact. I cast mine for Bernie Sanders. As a free-market, strong-defense, Reaganite conservative, I have voted Republican much more often than not. But heading into Super Tuesday, every indication was that Massachusetts Republicans, like GOP primary voters in most other states, were poised to give Donald Trump...

The title of a recently released film caught my attention: The Gods of Egypt. This column is not about the film, but rather it addresses God’s judgment on the gods of Egypt by way of the ten plagues. The ten plagues were the systematic judgments of God against Pharaoh and the Egyptians for enslaving the Hebrews for 400 years and refusing to let them go. “Let My people go,” said God through his servants, Moses and his brother Aaron. But Pharaoh refused. So under God’s instruction, Moses unleashed ten plagues against Egypt. In each of these judgments, God spared His...

There was a lot of whining inside the beltway last March about whether then-House Speaker John Boehner broke diplomatic protocol by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress without informing the White House. This was during the critical period a few months before the Senate weighed in on President Obama’s Iran nuclear agreement. The results are in: the Prime Minister’s speech will stand the test of time, while partisan hand-wringing will have nothing to do with the outcome of Iran’s nuclear development. Let’s review the record though to see how the political people in charge behave when something...

PARIS -- Remember the Occupy Wall Street movement? The 2011-2012 protests sought to bring Arab Spring-type "revolutions" to the United States through a combination of urban camping and complaining loudly about the state of the world. The Occupy movement fizzled out because it failed to translate the whining into political action. Hey, Occupiers, it only took a few years, but your ride is finally here. You can't miss it -- it's a Boeing 757 with "TRUMP" in gold letters. Here's why Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is the guy you've been waiting for. -- Trump is denouncing Wall Street from...

As Super Tuesday draws near and Americans from 12 different states choose their candidate, I want to make one final plea to my friends, fellow tea partiers, patriots, conservatives, and Christians, who will be voting on Super Tuesday. I know you're tired of losing. I am too. I know it feels good to have someone voicing our frustrations and be heard for a change. I know it feels like voting for Trump will send the establishment, the media, and everyone who has ignored us for the past eight years a powerful message. I know it feels good to finally feel...

I hear it all the time, and as quickly as I hear it, I reject it.It is a paralyzing, destructive mentality, and it is unbiblical, plain and simple.I'm talking about the mindset that says, "Jesus told us everything will get worse, so why bother trying to bring about change?"Can you imagine what Church history would like if Paul and Peter felt that way in the first century or if Wesley and Wilberforce felt that way in the 18th and 19th centuries?Why fight against infanticide in the early Church? Jesus said things will only get worse.Why fight against slavery in Great...

There's still time to turn it around, of course. But now that many conservatives are moving from the bargaining phase to the depression phase of the Kubler-Ross model, we can begin to grapple with the prospective reality of a Trump-vs-Hillary general election. Whether you're an ideological conservative, a proponent of limited government or someone who believes that the president has too much power already, you shouldn't think of this matchup as a contest between horrifying candidates. Rather, you should ask yourself which scenario would be more damaging? I'm pretty sure you'd find that Donald Trump is the form of the...

This week, the Obama administration did something uncharacteristically sensible: It declined to urge Americans to eat less meat. Despite the recommendation of a top nutrition advisory panel to use federal agencies to set new dietary guidelines involving fewer cheeseburgers, barbecued ribs and filet mignon -- all in an effort to merely save the planet -- administration officials quietly announced that such new guidelines are not "the appropriate vehicle for this important policy conversation about sustainability." Liberal supporters of kudzu climate change legislation were furious that the president wouldn't take the advice of Scientists-with-a-capital-S -- who are to the left the...

Last week, on February 13th precisely, Justice Antonin Scalia passed away at the age of 79, as was widely noted in the American and the international media. The fallout has been predictable and highly charged with many conservatives notably down-at-the-mouth, and many liberals struggling to contain their glee. The sudden nature of the Judge's passing and his undeniable position as the conservative champion on the US Supreme Court guaranteed that this would become a most contentious vacancy. Most of the mainstream media commentary concerning the upcoming battle stuck largely to the facts of a liberal President likely nominating an equally...

Mitt Romney showed once again that he is truly a class act. In his announcement that he will not be running for president in 2016, he stated, "I believe that one of our next generation of Republican leaders, one who may not be as well known as I am today, one who has not yet taken their message across the country, one who is just getting started, may well emerge as being better able to defeat the Democrat nominee." This was unusual political humility. But let me highlight this specific phrase: "one who has not yet taken their message across...

Trump appears on MSNBC for a town hall hosted by “Morning Joe.”

In yet another aggressive move that will thrill Trump supporters, late Tuesday morning, Jesse Rodriguez, Senior Producer of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, announced a town hall event with Republican frontrunner Donald Trump that will take place Wednesday night at 8 p.m. The night will be hosted by Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. The MSNBC town hall will compete directly with CNN’s long-schedule town hall with Trump’s two closest competitors, Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio.

"The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both." -- Milton Friedman 'If there is ever a fascist takeover in America, it will come not in the form of storm troopers kicking down doors but with lawyers and social workers saying, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" - Jonah GoldbergIn a time where consumers have almost unlimited choices of music, movies, websites and every product you can imagine in the supermarket, socialism is an outdated economic system that...

That headline is technically accurate: Last night's Trump-free Fox News forum pulled in roughly 12-13 million viewers, better than the 11 million or so who watched the Fox Business debate earlier this month, at which The Donald stood center stage.  Trump out, ratings up!  Well, sort of.  The Des Moines debate was still the second-least watched GOP debate of the cycle (maybe third-least, including online live streams), and many Trump fans -- suddenly highly interested in nuance in context -- are pointing out that the lowest-rated one aired on FBN, which has a smaller footprint than Fox News or CNN nationwide.  True enough, although FBN's November debate...

"I can see why THEY gave you this question," says the kid. The version on CNN now cuts out the flub. Scripted questions shared with the candidates ahead of time. So much for the 'town hall'!

Lewandowski’s bluffing, just as Trump bluffed before the September debate in implying that he might not participate unless CNN devoted the proceeds to veterans groups. Stirring a little extra controversy is all part of Trump’s regular debate pre-game. And there’s not a ghost of a chance that Roger Ailes will meet his demand: Not only would he look weak in caving, he would humiliate the network’s new biggest star in doing so. If Fox wants to keep Kelly away from network news, agreeing with Trump that she’s tainted by bias and needs to be kicked off the panel would be...

That Donald Trump is no conservative is a proposition of which this conservative needs no convincing. On this score, the self-styled "conservative" contributors to the recent National Review symposium against Trump are correct.  It is their conservative bona fides that I challenge. For example, Glenn Beck suggests that Trump is no conservative because along with Barack Obama, Trump supported "the stimulus, the auto bailouts, and the bank bailouts." Yet Trump had neither authority nor power to make these ideas materialize.  That distinction is enjoyed by just those politicians who Beck supported. For years, Beck ran cover for George W. Bush, the 43rd president who,...

My reaction to the "Against Trump" issue of National Review: It's about damn time. It's not like contributors and editors of the conservative journal had been ambiguous on their feelings toward the billionaire and current GOP frontrunner. They've clearly had problems with him from the jump. But they'd done so individually. Now, they've spoken collectively in a way few conservative organizations would dare. To them, I quote John McClane form Die Hard in saying, "Welcome to the party, Pal." The appeal of a Donald Trump is obvious: 1) He has his own money, which means he's beholden to no one....