Free Republic

(CNN)One year ago the question hovering over Park City, Utah, was which presidential candidate could capture the hearts of Mitt Romney's friends. Less than a week later, Donald Trump said he was running for president and made them his enemy. And he beat them. Now, with Trump as the GOP nominee, those same Republican fundraisers, business titans and longtime friends of Romney are back to huddle far from Trump Tower. Attendees caution that Romney's annual summit -- The Experts and Enthusiasts, or E2, retreat -- is not an exclusive conclave for the #NeverTrump movement. Yet it is the closest thing...

A former Republican senator is endorsing Hillary Clinton for president after the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla., citing her support for gun control. Former Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.) called for universal background checks on all gun sales and an assault weapons ban Monday in the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. “I can’t believe I’m endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, but I am,” said Pressler, who spoke with The Hill on Monday after endorsing Clinton in a statement issued over the weekend. “This morning, I woke up and told my wife, ‘Did I really do that?’” he...

Mitt Romney laid into the large and rambunctious group of 2016 Republican candidates here on Saturday, arguing that they deserved a share of blame for the rise of Donald Trump. During a question-and-answer session with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer before around 250 Republican donors gathered here for the Romney-hosted Experts and Enthusiasts summit, the former Massachusetts governor said this year’s group of primary candidates misplayed their hand. By spending months attacking each other and ignoring Trump, he argued, they made a severe tactical error that allowed Trump — who Romney has criticized as a "con man" and a "fraud" —...

The panty-wadding on the part of anti-Trump Republicans is reaching comic proportions. The latest example involves a fantasy based on a third-hand report. It all began when sportscaster Robert Costa gave a friend-of-a-friend third hand account in a tweet of something Donald Trump supposedly had said, off the record

Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney can't bring himself to bear with the choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump saying Saturday that the choices are breaking his heart. "Either choice is destructive," Romney said ... [Snip] The former Massachusetts governor has come out strongly against Trump. In an interview Friday, Romney said: "I don't want to see a president of the United States saying things which change the character of the generations of Americans that are following. Presidents have an impact on the nature of our nation, and trickle-down racism, trickle-down bigotry, trickle-down misogyny, all these things are extraordinarily...

Cry me a river. Failed 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney was reportedly in tears when he told attendees of his Summit, which has been described as a “safe space” for the “Never Trump” smart set, that seeing Trump as the Republican nomination was breaking his heart. One wonders if Romney is really sad that Trump’s candidacy has resonated with working Americans more than his inflexible and robotic campaign ever did. Romney also reportedly ripped Ted Cruz and John Kasich for not taking on Trump harsh enough from the outset. But where was “tough guy” Romney when Trump was rising...

Donald Trump can be an effective president, and he’s going to win with you or without you, Republican Chairman Reince Priebus told several hundred of the party’s top donors and strategists Saturday. Trump is setting a dangerous example for Americans by promoting “trickle-down racism,” and the party must look beyond this presidential election to find its future, the 2012 nominee Mitt Romney told the same group later that morning. Delivered within moments of each other at Romney’s annual business and politics summit at a five-star ski resort, those opposite messages were enough to cause whiplash. That’s a hazard of being...

On Friday afternoon, at an exclusive Republican donor retreat here hosted by Mitt Romney, frustration boiled over. During an off-the-record question-and-answer session with House Speaker Paul Ryan, Meg Whitman, the billionaire Hewlett Packard chief executive officer, confronted the speaker over his endorsement of Trump. Whitman, a major GOP giver who ran for California governor in 2010, compared Trump to historical demagogues like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and wanted to know how the speaker could get behind him. At another discussion session during the day, which featured top Romney alumni Stuart Stevens and Matt Rhoades, Ana Navarro, a Republican contributor...

Freshman Rep. Mia Love (R-Utah) is trailing Democratic candidate and attorney Doug Owens by 6 points in a rematch for her targeted House seat, a new poll finds. Owens received support from 51 percent of likely voters compared to 45 percent for Love, according to the Salt Lake Tribune/Hinckley Institute poll conducted by SurveyUSA found. Four percent said they were undecided or supporting a third-party candidate. Love’s campaign questioned the poll’s unexpected results. "I don't believe the numbers to be honest with you," strategist Dave Hansen told The Salt Lake Tribune. "The numbers just do not make sense." Owens embraced...

Park City, Utah (CNN) — Mitt Romney suggested Friday that Donald Trump's election could legitimize racism and misogyny, ushering in a change in the moral fabric of American society. The 2012 Republican nominee, who has openly opposed Trump's candidacy, went further than he has before in outlining to CNN's Wolf Blitzer how the country's character would suffer in a Trump White House. Trump's rhetoric has caused even some other Republicans to label him a racist, and Romney said he would not be able to paper over his incendiary remarks. "I don't want to see trickle-down racism" Romney said in an...

A decades-long battle between federal environmental officials and a small Colorado town is about to end in the government’s favor, thanks to the agency-caused Gold King Mine spill disaster ... Residents surrendered to federal demands only after an EPA work-crew turned the nearby Animas River bright yellow for nearly a week by releasing a three-million-gallon flood of acidic mine waste under extremely questionable circumstances in August 2015. Suspended in the flood was 880,000 pounds of toxic metals, including lead and arsenic, that poured into the river that supplies drinking water for people living in three states and the Navajo Nation....

Even with Cliven Bundy and many of his militia supporters in jail, anger toward the federal government is still running high in some parts of the West. Clashes between ranchers and federal land managers over grazing rights are continuing. In southern Utah, things have gotten so bad lately that some local sheriffs have threatened to arrest federal rangers who try to close forest roads and cut off access to ranchers and other users. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether Garfield County Sheriff James "Danny" Perkins is serious or pulling your leg.

A forestry company filed a civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) lawsuit against Greenpeace Tuesday for misrepresenting the company’s environmental record to raise funds and promote its agenda. Greenpeace knowingly and deliberately made false claims about the company while fundraising, and fabricated evidence of Resolute’s alleged environmental malfeasance, according to the forestry and paper company Resolute Forest Products. RICO is an anti-mafia law designed to combat organized crime. Greenpeace’ is a global fraud,” states the 124-page legal complaint. “For years, this international network of environmental groups collectively calling themselves ‘Greenpeace’ has fraudulently induced people throughout the United States and...

Whenever there is a new record set, whether rain, hurricane, drought, etc., those in the climate change alarmist camp seem to be quick to point to global warming as the cause and make more dire predictions regarding the future—even when there are other documented reasons and even when hard data (not models) disputes the claim. Such is the case with Lake Mead. On May 20, the federal Bureau of Reclamation announced that the nation’s largest reservoir reached an all-time low. The current level slipped below the previous record set in June 2015. Despite reports of the mismanagement of the important...

Technically Incorrect: The owners of a Salt Lake City apartment building change the tenancy agreement and give tenants five days to like the building on Facebook. Or else. There's something forced about Facebook relationships. If someone "friends" you, you feel duty-bound to reciprocate. Even if that person is, well, entirely unknown to you. That forced feeling can go too far. As KSL-TV reports, residents of an apartment building in Salt Lake City, Utah, say they found a curious piece of paper stuck to their doors. Headlined "Facebook Addendum," it had fascinating stipulations. It insisted that tenants had five days to...

Whatever else is going on at the Secret Service, they've got the Obama Administration scandal playbook down pat, which is really depressing. 1. Lie about what happened - They not only misled the public about how far Omar Gonzalez penetrated the White House, they apparently were less than forthcoming with Congress. According to CBS News, "a congressional official told the Associated Press that Senate Judiciary Committee staffers who were briefed a week after the incident by the Administration were never told how far Gonzalez made it into the building." At today's hearings, House Oversight chair Darrell Issa (R-CA) referred to...

The Secret Service leaked sensitive personal information to the press about Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz as the Utah Republican was investigating the beleaguered agency, an inspector general's report said Wednesday. The Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General issued a report on Wednesday that accused Secret Service Assistant Director Edward Lowery and other agency officials of plotting to leak information about Chaffetz, including his unsuccessful attempt to join the organization. The leaks were a highly unusual breach of decorum. Lawmakers often battle with agencies, but the fights mostly stay above board and focus on...

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) investigation into the U.S. Secret Service’s disclosure of the personnel files of Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) has resulted in discipline for 41 agents. The leaker has also resigned, according to a statement by DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson. The conduct of 57 Secret Service personnel was reviewed, including 11 in the Senior Executive Service level, the highest levels of government. Of those, 41 are receiving some level of discipline....

They’re coming for your home. Right now. I suggest you save it. I can guide you, but you must do exactly as I say. Except, this isn’t The Matrix. You’re no actor, like Keanu Reeves, playing a distraught programmer-hacker named “Neo.” Nor am I an actor, like Laurence Fishburne, playing your guide “Morpheus.” This is real life, baby. Your home or apartment—and the neighborhood in which you live—is under siege. “Agents”—sans black glasses and black business suits—who work for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have written a new regulation called “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” (AFFH) that...

Before he died May 4 from complications stemming from pancreatic cancer and a stroke, former GOP Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah asked his wife, Joyce, and son, Jim, if there were any Muslims in his hospital. If so, he wanted to "go up to every single one of them to thank them for being in this country, and apologize to them on behalf of the Republican Party for Donald Trump." Joyce and Jim Bennett shared this story with The Daily Beast, as well as other tales involving his disgust with "Donald Trump's xenophobia" and proposal to ban Muslims from...