Free Republic

-snip- Money does not equal success The former Florida governor's spending pattern illustrates the limits of campaign donations: Even in an era when candidates can receive unlimited sums from wealthy donors, money doesn't guarantee success. "They are burning money," said a second major donor, who, like all the other high-dollar donors interviewed, asked not be named for fear of displeasing the Bush family. "Look, this is not the election cycle to be spending like a silver-spoon establishment candidate," a third donor said. "It just doesn't look right," the donor said, referring to the way income inequality has emerged as a...

The Trump rationalizations emanating from the wise old hands are something to behold. We've seen Republican consultants go from trying to organize Stop Trump efforts to declaring Trump inevitable and the best alternative in the space of a couple of weeks. Bob Dole is supposed to be an elder statesman of the party. He issued the other day in The New York Times a statement about Ted Cruz that reflected the heights of Dole's political wisdom, refined by decades of experience and commitment to his party's cause: "Nobody likes him." It's as if Dole thinks Cruz is rushing a fraternity....

Is Donald Trump the sharia of American politics? I'm having trouble finding much daylight between Islamic law's repressive blasphemy standards and the mogul's thin-skinned sense of privilege. None of us wants to be insulted or smeared. But sharia forbids not only ridicule or slander against Islam; it bans any examination that casts Islam in an unflattering light. Worse, truth is not a defense: Even if one's questions are based on undeniable past actions or verbatim quotes from scripture, tough questioning is considered blasphemous. Retribution, moreover, is often completely out of proportion to the scale of the perceived "offense." How is...

My journey dealing with controversial research may have begun with my older brother's dissertation in mechanical engineering. When I was 15, he told me that probably one-third of what scientists had thought they knew about the research topic had been incorrect.Later researchers, of course, have shown that this is quite wrong. According to some, the true figure is closer to two-thirds.Even well-known historical events can be deconstructed statistically to show that things did not occur as we have been led to believe. In the RMS Titanic disaster, the lowest survival rates for men and the highest survival rates for children...

Dr. Victoria Coates: Well I mean, I don’t know who can channel Jeane Kirkpatrick best. It is interesting to me that many Establishment institutions in foreign policy — just as they have in every other branch of policy — have been deeply disturbed by Senator Cruz, and the kinds of approaches that he proposes because he has very little time for quote unquote “conventional wisdom.” And you have a lot of people whose sort of “bread and butter” depends on their position on editorial boards, their positions in think tanks, their appearances on television, and all of that is based on a certain way...

A while back according to Marlin magazine reports of a marlin capsizing a fishing boat off the coast of Panama while it was being reeled aboard. Marlin Magazine, which obtained the epic pics and uploaded them to Facebook, the fish didn't actually play a role in sinking the boat, though the boat did eventually end up on the bottom of the ocean. Instead, the captain had been "backing down" on the fish, a practice where the boat is put in reverse to help reel in line. A large wave overtook the stern, upsetting the captain's balance, which caused him to...

The deadline for presidential candidates and their super PACs to file quarterly spending reports is Sunday, but it's already pretty clear that Jeb Bush and his super PAC, Right to Rise, which has spent at least $82 million this election cycle, will little to show for it polling-wise, Reuters reports. Bush and his team spent $1.2 million on private planes between June and September 2015 (versus $700,000 spent by Hillary Clinton, for example, and $158,000 by Sen. Ted Cruz) and a higher percentage on luxury or "upper upscale" luxury hotels - 70 percent, or $125,000 - than his rivals, according...

"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty." - Thomas Jefferson

The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is raising questions about the involvement of Microsoft in the Iowa Caucuses, now just five days away, and has built a independent system to check the official results. For the first time this year, Microsoft partnered with the Iowa Democratic and Republican Parties to provide a technology platform with which the parties will run their caucuses. The software giant created separate mobile apps for each party, which officials at hundreds of caucuses across the state will use to report out results from individual precincts to party headquarters for tabulation. The arrangement has...

A Tea Party-affiliated congressman has become the latest lawmaker to endorse Sen. Ted Cruz for the Republican nomination. North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows announced Wednesday night on Fox News that he would throw his support behind Cruz's campaign and join the Texas senator's team in Iowa later this week."We are approaching a historic election that has the potential to fundamentally change our nation as we know it. Ted Cruz is the principled, conservative leader we need in the White House," Rep. Meadows told Greta Van Susteren. "On issue after issue, Cruz has told the truth and done what he said...

The online admissions application for Auburn University appears simple, until you get to this question on Page 7: "Have you ever been charged with or convicted of or pled guilty or nolo contendere to a crime other than a minor traffic offense, or are there any criminal charges now pending against you?" Those who check "yes," even though they have never been convicted of any crime, face extra scrutiny -- a follow-up call from the admissions office asking for additional information, the university says. Auburn, in Auburn, Ala., is one of 17 universities in the South that include broad questions...

MADISON, Wisconsin, January 27, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- The University of Wisconsin (UW) medical school and a top pro-life legal group are at odds over whether university officials lied about using a state-based abortion clinic to gather fetal tissue and parts. In a report issued last week, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) accused several university spokespersons of misleading state legislators, media outlets, and the public about UW's use of aborted babies inside the state. “Both Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and UW-Madison publicly denied they had any arrangement to supply baby parts from women undergoing abortion to researchers conducting gruesome experiments, but...

Roughly a year ago, Fr. Bob Betz, pastor of Divine Mercy Parish, South Milwaukee, believed the property of the old St. Adalbert Parish would never be sold. It had been largely empty for about six years and various proposals to sell the 2.5-acre site near 16th and Minnesota avenues fell through. On Monday, Dec. 23, however, Divine Mercy Parish closed a deal and sold the St. Adalbert property for $600,000 to Masjid Al-Huda, a Muslim congregation. The selling of St. Adalbert began with the merger of four South Milwaukee parishes 12 years prior. "They were all viable parishes at one...

The Tea Party movement began as a response to federal bailouts of Wall Street and auto makers in 2008 and 2009. These unprecedented government interventions in the economy padded the wallets of special interests by privatizing profits and socializing losses. Where was Donald Trump on this? As it happens, he appeared on television more than once to discuss what was happening. And when he did, he came in favor of the bailouts that soured conservative voters, especially Tea Partiers, on both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Of the auto companies, which were failing because of years of union intransigence...

This column isn't about politics, so if you're looking for something about Donald Trump, you've just read his only mention. This column is about life and, more specifically, death. And even more specifically how we, as a species, wait too long to let people know how much they matter to us. Eulogies are, almost without exception, touching and funny. They're where those closest to someone we've just lost tells stories and expresses feelings more than likely ignored while the subject was alive. They're great for the healing process, but they're a day late and a dollar short when it comes...

What happens when America stops expecting its immigrants to assimilate to our culture and instead assimilates to theirs? Well, you begin by installing footbaths at universities so Muslims will stop washing their feet in the bathroom sinks and you take it from there. Eventually the rights and rituals of the minority Muslims take presedence over the rights and rituals of the country’s majority Christians.For a closer look at how the world’s most advanced civilization submits to the will of the world’s most retrograde civilization we need only look to Europe. In the past week two stories exemplify the death spiral the...

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll in Iowa finds Donald Trump has pulled ahead of Ted Cruz with a seven point lead among likely Iowa GOP caucus-goers, 32% to 25%. Key finding: "The poll also shows Trump in a close race with Cruz among likely voters who are white Evangelical Christians, 31% to 28%. The two candidates have been battling over the influential bloc of voters in the state, with each touting endorsements from Evangelical heavyweights in recent days." In the Democratic race, Hillary Clinton remains just three points in front of Bernie Sanders, 48% to 45%.

Donald Trump's current wife, former model Melania, has been hitting the campaign trail supporting her husband’s presidential run. Melania is the billionaire’s third wife, whom he married in 2005. His was married to his first wife, Ivana, from 1977 to 1992 and they had three children together - Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric. In 1993 he married Marla Maples, and their union lasted six years. She made front-page news after she was quoted telling a friend that sex with The Donald was "the best sex I’ve ever had” when the two had an affair in 1990. While Ivana reportedly got...

Almost a year ago now, in early 2015, before anyone was officially in the GOP race for the White House, there was an organic frontrunner chosen by a half-million Drudge readers, the most conservative database in America today. That natural frontrunner was Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who enjoyed a 47% position in the national Drudge poll of almost 500,000 of the most conservative voters in the country, with his closest competitor Sen. Ted Cruz, running a distant second at 11%... What a difference a year can make... Today, Walker is no longer in the race at all, Sen. Ted Cruz...

When presidential candidates turn to data crunchers at Rocket Fuel in Silicon Valley for help finding voters who want tougher immigration enforcement, the firm comes up with a surprisingly specific answer: Chevy truck drivers who like Starbucks. The data modeling from Rocket Fuel shows that this group leans against a path to citizenship for workers in the U.S. illegally. And these particular voters have become surprisingly easy – some argue creepily so – for campaigns to find and approach. So have consumers of frozen vegetables, who are more likely to oppose abortion. As have people curious about diabetes, a group...