Free Republic

You can see the exact moment last week that Donald Trump made up his mind on whether women would face criminal punishment once he signed new restrictions into law. He is at a town hall with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, and, after Matthews badgers him for a while, he finally answers the question. “The answer is ... that,” Trump says, eyes looking to the side in thought, “there has to be some form of punishment.” He punctuates “has” with a hand gesture. Done. Final. But as it turns out — and as it has turned out repeatedly over the course of...

One of the many defeats American culture has suffered at the hands of the destructive influence of political correctness. It is always fine for a Black “comedian” to make crude jokes about White people, especially Southerners. But making fun of Blacks is simply never allowed. Not that we care to use the N word, but Whites are never permitted to use it even when they are condemning its use! So-called “ethnic jokes” may never, ever be uttered and the list goes on. Democrats can talk about how they want to appeal to Blacks and be praised in the media. But...

Normally, with an issue as complex as immigration, it’s hard to pinpoint any one thing that’s driving a notable shift in opinion. Unless there’s a sudden surge at the border, as there was in the summer of 2014 with children from Central America being sent north via Mexico, there’s no obvious reason for public opinion to change dramatically within a narrow six-month window, as it has here. In fact, if you’d asked me to guess whether support for the wall was up or down lately, I’d guess up for the simple reason that Americans are more worried about terrorism...

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In a purely practical way, the present deportation debate is simply the essence of demagoguery. In 2006, when I first began researching deportations, George W. Bush was president and quietly building a deportation machine in the Department of Homeland Security. Outside of small activist circles, few Americans knew that deportations had been rising since 1996 due to legislation signed by President Bill Clinton. Nor could anyone then have imagined that the next president would be a Democrat, the son of a Kenyan immigrant, and would make Bush look like a piker when it came to record-high deportations. Nor, for that...

Most Republicans and their presidential candidates (when they're not bashing each other like four-year-olds) are focused on Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee, living in fear that the Department of Justice will give a pass to the former secretary of state on her email and foundation malfeasances, even if the FBI recommends indictments.And where is the FBI anyway? What's taking them so long?But this has not been a good few days for Mrs. Clinton. First she lost in three states by stunning margins to Bernie Sanders, who garnered 71% of the vote in Hawaii, 73% in Washington, and and a...

As Chemi Shalev described in his Haaretz article: On Monday night, Donald Trump showed how and why he might be elected president of the United States. Invited to participate in a candidate’s forum at AIPAC’s annual conference, he came, he spoke, he conquered. In future history, the 2016 AIPAC Policy Conference might yet be viewed as a watershed event on way to the Trump Era. Trump entered the Verizon Center in Washington D.C. as a prime suspect but emerged clean as a whistle. In less than half an hour, he took a skeptical and apprehensive audience and turned them into...

As the Republican Party collapses on itself, conservative leaders struggling to explain Mr. Trump’s appeal have largely seized on his unique qualities as a candidate: his larger-than-life persona, his ability to dominate the airwaves, his tough-sounding if unrealistic policy proposals. Others ascribe Mr. Trump’s rise to the xenophobia and racism of Americans angry over their declining power. But the story is also one of a party elite that abandoned its most faithful voters, blue-collar white Americans, who faced economic pain and uncertainty over the past decade as the party’s donors, lawmakers and lobbyists prospered. From mobile home parks in Florida...

America’s military is dangerously weak and unprepared today, and it’s not getting better. At least that’s what top military leaders told Congress recently. Unfortunately, the testimony of these top generals and admirals did not get the attention it deserved. For the last 15 years, the United States military has not prepared for conflict with a near peer competitor like Russia or China. General Mark Milley, chief of staff of the Army, shared his worries with Congress, explaining that the Army would be able to handle a serious conflict but “not at a level that is appropriate for what the American...

Cites ‘Privacy’ and ‘Scintilla’ of Public Interest in Material about Potential Clinton Crimes Draft Indictment Bears on ‘Mrs. Clinton’s honesty, credibility, and trustworthiness … for the position she currently seeks.’ (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it is asking a federal court to order the National Archives and Records Administration to release draft criminal indictments of Hillary Clinton. In its motion for summary judgment, the National Archives claimed that “the drafts involve a significant [Clinton] privacy interest that is not outweighed by any public interest….” In its March 11 opposition brief, Judicial Watch counters that allegedly “making false...

Attorney Montgomery Blair Sibley... He represented the “D.C. Madam,” whose black book included a sitting senator. Now Sibley claims that some never-before-aired information found in the records of said madam “could be relevant” to the upcoming presidential election. How so? Well, he can’t say. Sibley is bound by restraining orders imposed by the court in the case of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who committed suicide in 2008 soon after she was found guilty of racketeering and money laundering. But her colorful former attorney is now seeking permission to release 815 names of Palfrey’s clients and the records of 40 other escort...

The way the presidential campaign is shaping up, Ventura musician Jon Gindick may do something he's never done before. "I've never voted for a Republican," the registered Democrat told me. "I like Trump." A waiter told me he thought Trump's trade restrictions would create more jobs at higher wages. A couple wearing matching red, white and blue shirts told me their healthcare costs had tripled under Obamacare — a program Trump says he'll shred. To Gindick, Trump's remarks about criminals coming across the border were refreshingly honest, and not at all a condemnation of all immigrants or Latinos in general....

American Muslims are watching in growing horror as Donald J. Trump and Senator Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) battle for the Republican presidential nomination, outdoing each other with provocative proposals that have included Muslim registries, immigration bans and fleets of police patrolling their neighborhoods.

Women think men are transparent and easy to figure out. Everybody knows that. But women are a puzzle to men -- ask any man. When Sigmund Freud posed his famous question, he confessed that even he had no answer. "The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not been able to answer despite my 30 years of research into the feminine soul," he wrote to one of his precocious female students, "is, 'what does a woman want?'" The man who popularized psychoanalysis couldn't come to a conclusion on this matter. It's clear to everybody, though, that...

Once again, Chelsea Clinton is being used by her mother’s campaign to propose outlandishly expensive proposals in health care and attack other Democrats, while providing deniability for Hillary. Yesterday, Obamacare was characterized by Chelsea as imposing “crushing costs,” a clear slam of President Obama’s signature legislative achievement, something that could cost votes if Hillary made such a statement. Chelsea’s proposed remedies include “executive action” (evidently Hillary has a pen and a phone, just like Obama) or Congressional action to extend “tax credits” or other support. Grab your wallets, and prepare for Obamacare to get even more expensive for taxpayers....

Donald Trump’s controversial attacks on Heidi Cruz are spotlighting what could be one of his biggest vulnerabilities in the general election: his poll numbers with women. The GOP front-runner has faced accusations of sexism throughout the presidential race, with members of both parties denouncing remarks he has made about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and former GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina. Surveys suggest the controversies have taken a toll. A new CNN poll released Thursday, taken before the spat with rival Ted Cruz over his wife, found that 73 percent of registered female voters in the United States had an...

Bill Clinton was impeached for two causes -- perjury and obstruction of justice. But the charges concerned a matter of personal conduct and were not deemed serious enough for Clinton to be removed from office, although he was disbarred by the state of Arkansas. Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency before almost certain impeachment over his coverup of the Watergate break-in, a farcically useless burglary of Democratic headquarters in an election that the Republicans were already winning by a landslide. Neither of these misdeeds, bad as they were, even remotely approach the magnitude of crimes for which Hillary Clinton is...

It’s a presidential election year so the quadrennially-maligned U.S. trade deficit is taking its lumps. Donald Trump says the trade deficit means the United States is losing at trade, and it’s losing because U.S. trade negotiators aren’t smart enough. Bernie Sanders believes the trade deficit deprives the economy of production and good jobs. Meanwhile, some of the economics commentariat argue that trade deficits are bad because they represent a burden on future generations – a debt that must be repaid. Trump and Sanders are both wrong... ...the debt argument is being used to wrap trade skepticism in a moral sheen...

This month, about half (47 percent) of Republican female primary voters said they could not imagine themselves voting for Trump. (About 40 percent of male GOP primary voters said the same.) Compare that to their relative willingness to accept Trump's rivals. Only about three in ten female Republican voters say they can't imagine backing Ted Cruz (32 percent) and John Kasich (27 percent). The poll, which was taken before Marco Rubio exited the presidential race, also showed that only 30 percent of GOP women couldn't imagine backing the Florida senator.

When the Ford Motor Co. decided to move jobs south to Mexico so that it could pay its workers less, billionaire businessman Donald Trump was furious. He made trade inequalities and Ford’s betrayal of American workers a central issue of his campaign. And, without his even being in the Oval Office, it worked. In an interview with CNBC, Ford CEO Mark Fields said that the automaker would be “here to stay.” He also said he had outlined his company’s plans in a letter to Trump.