Free Republic

Anyone who a year ago picked Donald Trump and Ted Cruz to be the two leading Republican candidates heading into the Iowa Caucuses either (i) is a liar, or (ii) should invest heavily in the lottery because they are beyond lucky. Certainly, the powers that be in the Republican Party were not expecting it. Here's what a Fox News poll looked like in January 2015: ***snip*** The pollster didn't even bother to ask about Trump. And Cruz was in low single digits. Now Trump is on top in the national polls and Cruz is in second place. In Iowa, three...

Like plenty of other cable news talk-show hosts, Greta Van Susteren anchored a segment on her top-rated Fox News show Tuesday assessing, among other things, the future of Herman Cain’s presidential candidacy in the wake of the allegation that Cain had a 13-year affair with a woman from Atlanta. But unlike plenty of other cable news talk-show hosts, Van Susteren had an important relationship to the story, and to the Cain campaign. Her husband–prominent Washington lawyer John Coale–is now acting as an adviser to Cain. Van Susteren did not disclose her husband’s relationship to Cain on the air, opting instead...

The Miracle of Life Msgr. Charles Pope • January 21, 2016 • We March today with cold weather and possible snow bearing down on the area. The coldest march I ever endured was back in the mid 1980s when the temperature was 4 degrees, and there were 15 inches of snow. It was so cold that year that Regan's Second Inaugural outside was cancelled the day before and moved inside. The next day when it was even colder we marched!But the Sacrifice is worth it, for he magnificence of life is really too wonderful too describe. I found this...

Google hasn't worked...so the next best source is learned FReepers. I understand that there are considerable changes this year (from prior cycles) in how the Iowa GOP caucus actually works, and I'm trying to understand them and what they might mean to the outcome.

...In the eyes of Ted Cruz, here's another "New York value" embodied by Donald Trump: seizing private people's property to build skyscrapers with his name on it.As the rivalry blooms between the Republican field's top presidential contenders, Cruz and his allies are eyeing a major opportunity in this rural state to cast Trump as an overly zealous land-grabber, profit-driven elitist and big-government liberal, prioritizing commercial interests like his own over conservative values. "Trump, with his casinos, he can take the land because it's in his best interest," former Sen. Bob Smith, a Cruz co-chairman, said here. "It's a big deal...

New Delhi: If the disturbing news of two selfie deaths - one each in Mumbai and Jammu and Kashmir this weekend - shattered your Sunday morning, it is time to pause and see if your young ones are not trying a dangerous pose for a selfie to impress their peers. A college girl who fell into the swirling Arabian Sea while clicking a selfie off a rocky part of the Mumbai beach and a youth who plunged into the water to save her on Saturday were both swept away, police said. And in Jammu and Kashmir's Reasi district, an attempt...

I saw someone here kinda mention this: Compare Trump ' s ascendancy to that of the Governator several years ago. Since his governorship didn't turn out too well, could we be seeing the same thing happen again on a national scale? What say you?

While today was long scheduled to bring the traditional release of the Pope's message for World Communications Day, as he ever tends to do, Francis suddenly gave the news something of a Turbo Boost: a week after granting the first private audience in memory to a leading corporate executive – the Google chief Eric Schmidt – the noontime Holy See briefing announced that the pontiff met this morning with the Apple CEO Tim Cook (above). Unless Vatican diplomacy's amazingly been called upon for mediation between the oft-warring Silicon Valley titans, the dots look to be lining up for something very...

Consider these quotes from the New York Times: "[Trump's] got the right personality and he's kind of a deal-maker," said Bob Dole, the former Republican senator and 1996 presidential candidate. Bob Dole opposed Ronald Reagan in 1980, calling him a fringe candidate who'd destroy the GOP. That's what he is saying about Ted Cruz now. "We can live with Trump," said Richard F. Hohlt, a veteran lobbyist, reflecting his colleagues' sentiment at a Republican National Committee meeting last week in Charleston, S.C. "Do they all love Trump? No. But there's a feeling that he is not going to layer over...

FULL TITLE: Young teenager pleads with pro-lifers outside clinic for help, is dragged away from them and forced into abortion clinic In 2011, sidewalk counselors outside an abortion clinic in Wisconsin witnessed the scene where a very young teenager (probably 11 – 14 years old) was being forced into an abortion by her parents and clinic escorts. Life site news told the story: “Tobey Neuberger, a sidewalk counselor from Cedarburgh,[Near Milwaukee] said the incident occurred just before 10 a.m. outside Affiliated Medical Services, where she and two other female pro-life counselors gave a “very young” African-American girl literature as she...

Ask anyone why health costs are so high, and one of the answers is likely to be "technology." But why does technology add costs in health care when it lowers costs everywhere else? 'Why isn't there an Uber of health care?" That's the question that Manhattan Institute health care expert Avik Roy asks in the opening of a must-read paper, "Health Care 2.0: Ushering In Medicine's Digital Revolution." "Why can't we deploy, in health care, the same forces that are improving quality and lowering costs in virtually every other sector of the economy?" These are questions that so-called health care...

Lavonne Wilenken worked as a nurse practitioner at a Planned Parenthood clinic. She shares some anecdotes about her time at Planned Parenthood in the book Bad Choices: A Look inside Planned Parenthood by Douglas R Scott. This little-known 1992 book contains information about Planned Parenthood. Although dated, it has some interesting statistics, facts, and testimonies from Planned Parenthood patients and staff. In one anecdote, Wilenken describes what happened when a teenage girl scheduled for an abortion changed her mind at the last minute: Once when I was working in the family planning clinic where also the abortuary [abortion clinic] inhabited...

Mountain biker Damian Hiley was hours into a Saturday ride on a West Sycamore Canyon trail in Scripps Ranch — one he’s been excited to try out for some time — when he and his cycling group came upon a man standing in the middle of the trail, a gun at his hip.

FIND YOUR CAUCUS DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT

The National Review, the very legacy of William F. Buckley, has put out two hard-hitting pieces regarding the candidacy and possible nomination of Donald J. Trump as the Republican choice for president. While neither piece is going to be very persuasive to the crowd of Trump bandwagoners both among the populace and the media, they are nonetheless a line in the sand regarding unprincipled Republicanism and Conservatism. It is a line where many of us on the Right will make our stand, not because we are part of some great Establishment or RINOs, but because we believe in what we...

Prochoice author Alexander Sanger, who is a descendant of Margaret Sanger, concedes in his book: “Legal abortion has led to a situation where there is little community pressure for the man to marry the woman and he often disappears, leaving the woman to make the decision on her own. At this point community pressure can have a decisive influence on her decision. Unmarried childbearing may not be acceptable where she lives, and she is forced to have an abortion, even if it is her last chance to have children.” Alexander Sanger Beyond Choice: Reproductive Freedom in the 21st Century (New...

GLENN BECK As the election of 2008 approached, America was in crisis. And as we would soon learn, that crisis would not go to waste. Years after Bill Clinton disingenuously claimed that the era of big government was over, Obama won his party's nomination by promising its furious revenge. For constitutional conservatives, the Republican contest functioned less like a primary and more like an abandonment. Politically orphaned by their party, conservatives were forced to either stay home or hold their noses and vote for a progressive Republican. There was a silver lining, however. Rising out of the ashes of...

Editor's note: This column was co-authored by Sen. Sasse. The anniversary of Roe v. Wade is a natural time to reflect on the country's view of abortion, a topic on which we are having an ongoing, heartfelt, and still unresolved debate. For thousands of mothers and fathers, grandparents and siblings, abortion has taken a life, broken a family, and left a scar. Because of these losses, many Americans have reevaluated their perspective on this sensitive yet profound issue. As science improves our understanding, we can now clearly acknowledge the small fingers, toes, beating heart, functioning nervous system, and unique DNA...

I was once approached by a member of the Hemlock Society after I had delivered a speech opposing assisted suicide. She asked me, "Mr. Smith, how do you envision your death?" I was a bit taken aback. Her whole approach seemed backwards to me. So, I replied, "Ma'am, I'm still trying to envision my life." We in the West are often accused of having a "death-denying" culture. But I think the opposite is true. As my long-ago encounter with the Hemlock member illustrates, we are actually--and to an increasing degree--becoming a death-obsessed culture. Death obsession is corroding our society's belief...

As actual voters get ready to weigh in on the GOP presidential race, establishment Republicans are laying down a marker: Sen. Ted Cruz must be stopped at all costs, even if it means nominating Donald Trump. It appears that these Republicans are so blinded by their personal hatred of Cruz that they've convinced themselves that the party would be better off choosing somebody who represents everything they claim to abhor. In making this calculation, they are exhibiting the same shortsightedness and lack of pragmatism that they claim to hate about Cruz. Though there's been plenty of talk about the national...