Free Republic

Bill Still gives a nice summary of the FOX/Trump situation.

Since the holiday break, Cruz campaign donation solicitations have been ubiquitous. Today I received a phone solicitation. The caller was very polite and in that respect represented the Cruz campaign well.The spiel was that if I donate any amount, no matter how little, it would be tripled by some other donor. I asked who that other donor is, and that I was concerned if that person gave three times as much as I did, they'd have three times the impact. The caller said he'd check with an advisor and get back to me.He did so. The answer was that for...

Over the past 7 years, we as well as others (if not those who believe in magic money trees, or managing other people's money while blogging) have repeatedly said that when it comes to "market" returns, look no further than the size of the Fed's balance sheet - the single best indictor of where the S&P500 is headed to next. That is precisely what DB's Jim Reid did overnight. This is what he says: Today we update a chart and table we used a fair amount in 2013/4 looking at the Fed balance sheet and equity and credit performance.

Today the editors of Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal slammed GOP frontrunner Donald Trump for his opposition to the publication’s long-standing support for open border trade and immigration policies. The Wall Street Journal, like Murdoch, is decidedly open borders. In 1984, the WSJ editorial board wrote, “If Washington still wants to ‘do something’ about immigration, we propose a five-word constitutional amendment: There shall be open borders.” Breitbart News has previously exposed how Murdoch is the co-chair of what is arguably one of the most powerful open borders immigration lobbying firms in the country, the Partnership For A New American Economy....

CHICAGO - Forty-two people have been killed and 210 wounded so far in January, almost doubling last year's numbers. It was the most violent January in years, according to DNAinfo Chicago data: In all, there were 199 shootings Jan. 1-25, while there were just 100 shootings over the same period last year. The data doesn't include the victims of violence from Tuesday into Wednesday, when three people were killed and another wounded. Through early Tuesday, 42 people had been shot dead and 210 wounded, while last January saw 22 people dead and 98 wounded in shootings. On Monday alone, five...

Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum will attend Donald Trump's pro-veterans event on Thursday at the same time as Fox News's prime-time presidential debate. Spokesmen for both candidates confirmed to The Hill that the Republican presidential will still participate in Thursday's undercard GOP debate, but will head to the Trump event after. The undercard debate begins at 7 p.m. Eastern, two hours before Trump's event is slated to start three miles away. That gives candidates who failed to reach the main stage the freedom to participate, while anyone slated for the main stage would have to skip the debate altogether to...

If you're an American conservative Fox News is NOT your friend. All of the following is sourced and linked. Muslim Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal is the second largest voting shareholder in 21st Century Fox. Alwaleed told an audience in Dubai that it took just one phone call to Rupert Murdoch - to get the Fox News crawl reporting "Muslim riots" in France changed to "civil riots."" Fox had a Muslim activist and Bernie Sanders supporter who has compared Trump to Hitler set up to sandbag him at the debate. Fox had an illegal immigrant set up to sandbag Trump....

Fox News chairman Roger Ailes chose Megyn Kelly over Donald Trump.

Ever noticed how every UPS or Fed-Ex delivery vehicle you see on the road is exactly the same? No matter what they carry or how far they go to deliver, they're all the same size, shape and appearance? Of course not. No real company that has to defend a real bottom line to real investors would do anything of the sort. A real company would stay as flexible as possible when it comes to delivery vehicles. It would allow for the rapidly changing needs of shippers. It would rely on relatively quick turnover to incorporate new vehicle technology and improved...

Two Communist Party MPs have prepared a draft law that reintroduces property confiscation as punishment for crimes. They propose it for many cases, including instigation of hatred, organization of mass unrest and drug trafficking. One of the bill's sponsors, Yury Sinelshikov, told business daily Kommersant that despite the fact that the law currently allows to confiscate property acquired by criminal means, in reality such measure is applied very rarely. The main reason being that once property is purchased it is very difficult to tell which funds were used for the acquisition. The MPs suggested a return to the Soviet-era practice...

January 28, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Two years ago, I was asked to speak at our state capitol on behalf of the Marriage Amendment. The hearing was in a center room surrounded by a hallway. Those preparing to speak were kept in the hall until their time to address the amendment.  As I waited in the hallway, I was approached by a man who supported redefining marriage to include unions between members of the same sex. He was quite nice and reasonable in the beginning. "I imagine you're going to be speaking for the amendment on marriage?" he began. "Yes," I...

The head of an Iraq and Afghanistan veterans group says they will decline donations from the fundraising event Donald Trump plans to hold Thursday night as he sits out the Republican primary debate. Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America founder Paul Rieckhoff said on Twitter Wednesday that his group had not heard from the Trump campaign and did not know which organizations would be involved in the veterans event. Rieckhoff’s criticism wasn’t reserved only for Trump. He had a similar message for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz after a super PAC supporting the presidential candidate offered to donate $1.5 million to...

The Saudis are waging a fierce campaign through the social networking sites against the preacher Ali Al-Maliki after he described women as "shame". There is anger on social networking sites as a result of the spread of a video clip by preacher Ali Al-Maliki, who recently appeared on one of the TV shows describing women as a disgrace. Al-Maliki said whoever marries your daughter or your sister will take this disgrace off your shoulder. Let us watch. It is for you and not for him.

Good grief. @glennbeck said he lost support for @RandPaul because rand cut deal with McConnell. Cruz cut the same deal at the same time.

Today the editors of Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal slammed GOP frontrunner Donald Trump for his opposition to the publication’s long-standing support for open border trade and immigration policies. The Wall Street Journal, like Murdoch, is decidedly open borders. In 1984, the WSJ editorial board wrote, “If Washington still wants to ‘do something’ about immigration, we propose a five-word constitutional amendment: There shall be open borders The WSJ editors suggest that they would much prefer Trump work with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)56% and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)44% than Jeff Sessions. The editors write that if Trump were to “work closely...

On Wednesday's Hugh Hewitt radio show, "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough, the former congressman for Florida's first congressional district, said he would be open to being Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump running mate, should Trump be the eventual GOP nominee. Scarborough initially dismissed Hewitt's query, but said if asked and if that meant prevent eight more years similar to the previous eight years under an Obama presidency, then Scarborough would accept such an invitation.

The Clinton investigation has been the elephant in the room during the Democratic presidential primary process, with audiences wondering if the former first lady could be charged with misconduct. Despite a declaration from Clinton's closest rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders - in a nationally televised debate - that Americans are 'sick and tired of reading about your damn emails' - the cloud of prosecution has hung over Clinton's campaign since early last year. 'It does give pause to Democrats who are concerned that there may be another shoe to drop down the road,' Andrew Smith, a political scientist at the University...

A new poll of likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters once again puts New York businessman Donald Trump in the lead, but it also shows a quickly shifting and intense fight for second place. Notably, former Florida governor Jeb Bush has moved into a four-way statistical tie for second place in the survey, along with Ohio Governor John Kasich, US Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, and US Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. Trump had 27 percent, while Cruz and Kasich had 12 percent, Bush had 11 percent, and Rubio had 10 percent in the survey. Another 12 percent of likely...

Russia said on Thursday that OPEC's largest producer Saudi Arabia, had proposed oil production cuts of up to 5 percent in what would be the first global deal in over a decade to help clear a glut of crude and prop up sinking prices. Benchmark Brent futures jumped as much as 8 percent on Thursday to nearly $36 a barrel on news of the potential deal, which if implemented would immediately reduce surplus global output exceeding demand by 1 million barrels per day (bpd). Brent was trading at $34 a barrel at 1540 GMT. A turnaround in oil's fortunes would...

It's time to stop treating the election of the next president of the United States like a game show without serious consequences. After more than a year of constant fundraising, meaningless opinion polls and reckless rhetoric from so many candidates, voters finally will make their voices heard starting Monday in the Iowa caucuses and eight days later in the New Hampshire primary. For Republicans fighting for both the soul of their party and the White House, the best choice is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. The Florida primary is not until March 15, and voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and...