Free Republic

State bars across the country have become havens for the left in recent years, increasingly used to target conservative attorneys. With deep pockets — due to the exorbitant amount of dues they charge attorneys in order to practice law — it is impossible to fight back once targeted. More than half of state bars are mandatory, which means they are unavoidable if you want to practice law. This is very disturbing, considering many of these states have right-to-work laws. Why are attorneys required to join a union? Arizona has one of the most corrupt state bars in the country. Many...

"Why do people hate Hillary Clinton so much?" a reporter from the Canadian Broadcasting Company asked me this week. I responded that the pitiless rancor of American politics today is out of all proportion to our real challenges -- but it's worth recalling how Hillary Clinton earned her miserable reputation. It was the flagrant and prodigious lies. She has arguably abused power, enriched herself and her family with blatant influence selling and betrayed an arrogant disregard for the normal rules. In the past few weeks, since she defeated Bernie Sanders, Clinton has been impersonating a centrist. Her foreign policy speech...

As both parties rapidly approach their respective nominating conventions, it’s clear that both parties are not unified. The Republican Party still has a choice in Cleveland. Will the party choose established Republican principles or their “presumptive” candidate who has the necessary delegates but wants to do this campaign his way? In response to House Speaker Paul Ryan’s continued call for Trump to support conservative principles in the party plank, Donald Trump suggests that the GOP leaders “have to get a lot tougher and be quiet. Just please be quiet, don’t talk…. We have to have our Republicans either stick together...

If you’re a regular reader, you have likely intuited that my top choices for president were Sen. Rand Paul and Sen. Ted Cruz. But I refuse to join the “Never Trump” crowd and feel drawn to explain why—so that you too may decide. Trump has many issues, which I’ve shared in previous columns. But most are in the open. And, he has notable positives. Hillary, on the other hand, kept her emails on a private server in an obscure Colorado bathroom and conveniently deleted some 30,000 emails—claiming they were “personal.” To date, the most notable third party candidate—Libertarian Gary Johnson—is...

Trump never promised me anything. Indeed, he refused to promise not to run third party. Yet those who proposed political marriage—or unity—to Trump are now filing for divorce, even though it means losing our country to Hillary. If you’re a regular reader, you have likely intuited that my top choices for president were Sen. Rand Paul and Sen. Ted Cruz. But I refuse to join the “Never Trump” crowd and feel drawn to explain why—so that you too may decide.“I don’t throw anything away. I’m like two steps short of a hoarder.” –Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2015...

China produces more than 820 million tons of steel per year, of which about 100 million tons are exported and sold at a discount overseas. Only about 3 percent of those exports go to the United States, but American steel producers bristle at the competition. So in keeping with the time-honored practice of the US steel industry — "the backbone of American manufacturing," as it proudly calls itself — domestic producers are rising to the challenge.Are they doing so by making their operations more efficient? By improving the quality of the steel they sell? By cutting their prices to maintain market...

America's biggest -- and scariest -- problem: Most Americans no longer know what America stands for. For them, America has become just another country, a place located between Canada and Mexico. ... The left, unlike most Americans, has always understood that either the left is right, or America is right. America stands for small government, a free economy (and therefore, capitalism), liberty (which therefore allows for its inevitable consequence: inequality), the melting pot ideal and a God-centered population rooted in Judeo-Christian values (so that a moral society is created by citizens exercising self-control rather than relying on the state to...

Trump on Greta right now in Indiandapolis, being interviewed. Audience pumped up.

Conservative columnist and provocateur Richard Littlejohn poked fun at President Obama Monday after he hosted a town hall in London that was a bit heavy on the "diversity" and political correctness for his taste. The audience for the event, which was held on Saturday, was reportedly chosen by the American Embassy and "appeared heavily weighted to appease the ‘diversity’ brigade," according to Littlejohn. "Take another look at the audience at Barack Obama’s ‘town hall’ meeting in London," Littlejohn invited Daily Mail readers. "Is this a portrait of Britain you recognise?" I know we are ordered to celebrate ‘diversity’ at all...

Last month, I wrote about some important legislation in Florida that would modernize that stateÂ’s harsh alimony and child custody laws. Florida is lagging behind many states which have updated these laws to reflect the fact that most women now work outside of the home and that children need both parents to thrive, regardless of whether their parents are living together or apart. Sadly, Florida Governor Rick Scott (R) capitulated to intense lobbying by liberal special interest groups and vetoed the bill. The bill had immense support, passing both houses of the Florida legislature by super-majority margins. The governorÂ’s office...

A lot of very smart political people predict that Donald Trump will arrive at the Republican convention in Cleveland shy of the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination on the first ballot. Here’s why I don’t think that’s the way it will play out. To begin with, you’ve got to understand Trump’s mentality—and I believe I understand him better than most people outside his immediate family. I’ve known Trump for 35 years, met with him on numerous occasions, talked to him on the phone countless times, traveled with him, and written two lengthy magazine cover stories about him. One...

Last month, two men were caught on video climbing over the border wall with Mexico and into the United States, carrying with them two large back packs apparently loaded with illegal drugs. The climbers, who were also caught on government surveillance approaching the wall in Mexico before even setting foot on it, easily scaled down into the U.S. within a few yards of not one, but three U.S. Border Patrol vehicles. The Border Patrol officers, although clearly aware of the illegal fence climbers, did nothing. The men re-scaled the wall back into Mexico only after realizing a media crew was...

Cooper Confronts Trump Over Colorado: Rules Are Rules, 'Didn't You Just Get Outplayed?' Anderson Cooper started tonight’s Trump family town hall by going one-on-one with Donald Trump himself and grilling him over his complaints about the “rigged” system in Colorado.

Just a heads up, Trump and his family (including Melandia) is being interviewed by Anderson Cooper right now on a CNN Townhall.

As Donald Trump attempts to distract from his campaign's myriad failures in Colorado by cynically stirring the "rigged corrupt game" pot, one of the public faces of this phony outrage is a gentleman who earned himself prime Drudge real estate when he dramatically burned his voter registration card on camera -- claiming that he was wrongfully turned away from the state party convention because he's a Trump fan. It's a disenfranchisement conspiracy cooked up by the elites, he argued, torching his Republican documentation in protest.  The Federalist's Mollie Hemingway was skeptical of the man's version of events and dug into the back story....

The Associated Press is out with new polling pitting Democrat Hillary Clinton against Republican Donald Trump. Clinton beats Trump in every category among the general electorate, including on the questions of who is best to create jobs, who is better on international trade and who can "Make America Great Again," which of course is Trump's campaign slogan. First, the criteria:

After spending two columns excoriating Donald Trump without ever speaking about his behavior, but rather focusing on policy issues, I feel compelled to defend him on two matters. That is despite it becoming ever more so challenging to defend Mr. Trump for anything based on positions he has taken on various policies. The first is the issue of violence at his rallies and the second is his being “Nazified” by some elements. Not to be namby-pamby or perceived as a member of the chorus, but some of the things that come out of Trump’s mouth about the protesters is just...

I constantly hear that only Donald Trump supporters can understand the Trump phenomenon, as if it were inaccessible to nonbelievers, like the secret knowledge of ancient Gnostics. But I don't believe it's a matter of comprehension. Trump supporters are so tired of the ruling class and are so adamant about a handful of issues that they seem willing to overlook even monumental flaws in their candidate, so long as he will carry the torch against Washington -- at least on those major issues. They aren't just willing to ignore flaws; they don't care about them, because things are so bad...

Despite Hillary Clinton's holding what her campaign advertised as a "town hall" in Brooklyn, NY on Tuesday afternoon, the media had trouble referring to it as such because she fielded zero questions from the audience. Perhaps Clinton had no time to talk to attendees because she was too busy criticizing and insulting her Republican opponents. She accused Trump of "peddling prejudice and paranoia" and called Ted Cruz's plan to surveil Muslim neighborhoods "shameful," "offensive" and "dangerous." She saved her praise for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's effort to "keep crime down" and beamed about the state's new...

telling insight into yesterday's speculation-igniting, closed-door meeting between Donald Trump and top officials at the Republican National Committee -- via the New York Times: (GRAPHIC-AT-LINK) It's almost as if surrounding yourself with unsuccessful people actually isn't a wise way to run a presidential campaign, a realization that may belatedly be dawning on Trump. Turning to a new Politico report, is the Republican frontrunner aware of these realities? The math is difficult as it is -- particularly if he loses Wisconsin and especially if his South Carolina delegate haul is actually in some danger. And as we've discussed previously, Team Trump...