Free Republic

I never thought Donald Trump would run for president. If he did run, I didn’t think he would gain any support, and if he did gain any support, I didn’t think it would last. I thought all polls would show him being crushed by Hillary Clinton. Fall is upon us, and Trump is leading in Iowa, leading in New Hampshire, leading all Republicans nationally. He has roughly double the combined support of Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. In a general election match up against Hillary Clinton, he’s only 2.8 points behind, according to a RealClearPolitics polling average late last week,...

Donald Trump recently showed up at a gathering of Iowa conservative Christian voters with a copy of the Bible in hand. "See, I'm better than you thought," he said. Then came a black-and-white photograph from his confirmation to further prove his Christian cred. "Nobody believes this," he said to laughs. "What went wrong?" As the Republican presidential front-runner and billionaire businessman tries to maintain his lead in early polls with rivals gaining, Trump is increasingly courting a wing of the Republican Party that might seem antithetical to his brand: evangelical Christians....

CNN Chief International Correspondent and host Christiane Amanpour said, “The top Republican candidates, have decided to make a war on Muslims” during CNN’s coverage of the pope’s visit to the US.

WASHINGTON, D.C. –  U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today issued the following statement on Pope Francis’ speech to Congress: “It was an honor to have Pope Francis address Congress. It was a powerful call for all of us to set aside pettiness and partisan divides and come together with shared values to solve the very real challenges facing this country, and I hope that is a message that is heard on both sides of the aisle. Pope Francis is a powerful voice for life. He is powerful voice for marriage. He is a powerful voice for religious liberty. Pope Francis is...

Like I said yesterday, for all the left’s self-congratulatory scolding over Carson’s comments on Muslims, they’re awfully quick to declare devoutly Christian Republicans unfit for office as budding theocrats. In fact, we’ve reached the point with abortion on the left where a pro-life Democrat would probably be DOA in a presidential primary even if he/she promised to follow the law and protect Roe v. Wade. Imagine how a Catholic Dem who promised to subvert the law once elected would do. Like Jonathan Last, I’m not sure why the thought of being governed by an observant, socially conservative Christian upsets...

Ben Carson in CAIR’s Crosshairs Hamas-linked CAIR wants a Muslim President, and wants Carson to drop out for not wanting one. September 21, 2015 Robert Spencer    If Ibrahim Hooper of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has any say in the matter, whoever the next President is, it won’t be Ben Carson. “He is not qualified to be president of the United States,” fumed Hooper, no doubt an unimpeachable authority on who is and is not qualified to be President, on Sunday. “You cannot hold these kinds of views and at the same time say you will represent all Americans, of...

Europe’s collapse under the weight of millions of Muslim invaders will fire up Donald Trump’s campaign as no other issue can. After ignoring the Muslim invasion of Europe for almost a year, our largely anti-American media has been forced to start reporting on. Footage of waves of unwashed Muslim invaders can’t be ignored anymore. Until Europe came to its senses last week and stopped welcoming them with food clothing and new mosques, the invaders have had their way. That is finally changing. Reality will do that. The inescapable fact that the vast number of people sneaking into Europe are young...

The surging popularity of Sen. Bernie Sanders has done little to alleviate the chief concern that Democrats have about his presidential bid: Namely, that he's simply unelectable on a national stage. The Vermont Independent has quickly closed the gap on frontrunner Hillary Clinton in national polls, while overtaking the former State secretary in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Supporters say his rising momentum and populist message will carry him to the White House. But Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, has spent a career operating largely from the left-most fringes of the Democratic Party with which he...

Carly Fiorina, a Republican candidate president and the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, presents herself on the campaign trail as a hawk on Iran. She’s promising to take a hardline on the regime in Tehran. However, during her time as the chief executive of HP, she “sold hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of products to Iran through a foreign subsidiary, despite strict U.S. export sanctions,” Bloomberg reports. While running the show at HP, Fiorina thwarted sanctions by dealing with Iran through European and Middle Eastern companies, allowing for the tech company to dominate the market in Tehran. By 2007, HP-made...

Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump picked a World War II-era battleship in San Pedro as a backdrop to share his views Tuesday about national security. Trump’s appearance, organized by Veterans for a Strong America, is expected to draw more than 1,000 attendees to the top deck of the USS Iowa, which has been docked in Los Angeles as a nonprofit tourist attraction, community gathering space and educational museum since 2012. The Iowa was launched in 1942 and recommissioned in 1984 during the military build up at the end of the Cold War. In April 1989, an explosion of undetermined origin...

With the campaigns focusing on their fall strategy and increasing their television presence, politicians are being forced to react to the controversy surrounding Democratic Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis. Bob Babbage, the former Democratic secretary of state and managing partner of Lexington-based lobbying firm Babbage Cofounder, described the Davis situation as “significant” in the political realm not just in 2015, but likely for politicians in years to come. No public poll has been taken since Davis’s incarceration and release for contempt of court, but Babbage said the conventional wisdom is that she helps GOP candidate Matt Bevin in the short-term....

RUSH: Bobby Jindal. I want to give you a little tidbit with the sound bite. We have one audio excerpt of Bobby Jindal at the press club today, but I got to share with you the entire open to put this in context. Because he launches at Trump, both barrels, and it's clear to me I think what Jindal's objective is here. And I'll say this before I play the sound bite and read to you the transcript of at least the opening of his speech. I think what Jindal's doing... I could be wrong, of course. It's rare, but...

RUSH: Now the news today. And it's... Well, it's what it is. The big news today is Trump. Trump seems to be the big news every day. Trump went out and did an interview with Rolling Stone. I don't know why. I don't know what the purpose was. I don't know what anybody thought was the upside there, but it's not for me to question. There was a time on this program maybe a month ago where some similar things were going on. And I very graciously, and with just overwhelming humility, came to the Golden EIB Microphone with just...

43% of Republicans could imagine supporting a military coup in the United States. A law professor at West Point was forced to hastily resign after it emerged that he had authored a number of controversial articles. In one he suggested that legal scholars defending the rights of suspected terrorists could be considered legitimate military targets, while in another he examined a potential military coup in the United States, arguing that officers may have a duty to sieze control of the federal government if the federal government acted against the interest of the country. The United States military has long...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has reversed his position on Ted Cruz’s eligibility to run for president, now saying his Canadian birthplace shouldn’t disqualify him. “I hear it was checked out by every attorney and every which way and I understand Ted is in fine shape,” Trump told ABC News just before speaking at a Capitol Hill rally blasting the Iran nuclear deal. That stands in stark contrast to what Trump said about Cruz in December, when he told ABC News that Cruz’s Canadian birth could prevent him from running

GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina told the Hugh Hewitt show on Tuesday that it was “inappropriate” for a Kentucky clerk to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. “Given the role that she’s playing, given the fact that the government is paying her salary, I think that is not appropriate. Now that’s my personal opinion,” said Fiorina. Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, an elected official, vowed not to resign Tuesday under threat of fines and jail time after deciding not to issue marriage licenses to any couples - straight or gay - rather than be forced to comply with...

Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Jake Tapper, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders told the host that “unarmed black people” getting ”dragged out of cars” or getting shot “is happening too often.” Sanders said this after Tapper showed him video of Ron Hickman, the sheriff of Harris County, Texas, responding to the murder of a deputy sheriff at a gas station, declaring, “This rhetoric has gotten out of control.  We have heard black lives matter, all lives matter.  Well, cops’ lives matter, too.  So why don’t we just drop the qualifier and just say lives matter and take that to...

Lindsay Graham, as part of the taunt-war he’s having with Donald Trump, says that if Trump wins the GOP nomination, it will mean the end of the Republican Party. He’s right, but Trump means the end of the Republican Party even if he doesn’t get the nomination. I wrote a few weeks ago that Trump represents the Jump the Shark moment of the party. The GOP has been a rickety, unsustainable contraption of policy prescriptions that don’t add up, don’t really represent the coalition’s actual members, and is based on a backward-looking set of views appealing to an ever-shrinking demographic....

The Dow Jones opened down over 1,000 points Monday to the consternation of most investors — but to the likely political benefit of one Donald J. Trump. Those once again predicting we’ve reached “peak Trump” may need to reevaluate that position if the market continues to slide. Trump is the type of candidate who will only benefit in a period of economic uncertainty, or even calamity. Trump’s whole campaign pitch is that he is the billionaire businessman who will save America from the rapacious special interests, greedy investors and “cunning” foreign actors that have combined to sell America’s middle class...

Over 2,500 Iowans Rally for Religious LibertyHOUSTON, Texas — Last night, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, hosted a Rally for Religious Liberty in Des Moines, IA, calling attention to the religious persecution of Christian business owners and employees who have been sanctioned by their government because of their religious beliefs. Joining Sen. Cruz at the rally were: Dick and Betty Odgaard, Barronelle Stutzman, Aaron and Melissa Klein, Blaine Adamson, Senior Master Sergeant (Retired) Phillip Monk, Former Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran, and Naghmeh Abedini. Video of the rally is available here. A roundup of press coverage of the rally appears...