Free Republic

It’s not that last night’s contests in Idaho, Hawaii, Michigan and Mississsippi doomed Marco Rubio’s campaign; it’s that the four bad performances atop Rubio’s previous disappointments — New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, and just about everywhere else not called Minnesota and Puerto Rico – have now created what feels like an insurmountable perception of defeat. Three Rubio-friendly conservative writers — Jen Rubin of the Washington Post, Dan McLaughlin of Red State, and Guy Benson of Townhall.com — contend it’s time for Rubio to quit the race and endorse Ted Cruz. Jen and Dan urge Rubio to strike the deal now...

The University of Washington used federal grant funding to buy thousands of dollars worth of custom embroidered Snuggies. Taxpayer-funded National Science Foundation grants were used to purchase Snuggies, pottery, and a trip to Hawaii. The agency’s inspector general audited the University of Washington and found millions in unallowable salary costs, and numerous examples of “unreasonable transactions” from funds intended for scientific research. The audit, released last month, identified $8,821 charged to five separate grants on unallowable promotional items and gifts, including personalized Snuggie blankets. The wasteful expenditures included $3,920 on canvas bags, mini optical computer mice, and custom Snuggies, as...

As Donald Trump is presenting himself as the presumptive nominee, he has described himself as “flexible” on immigration. This now has Ted Cruz  positioned as the Republican candidate with the most hardline position on immigration. NumbersUSA, a prominent immigration restriction group, keeps an ongoing scorecard on 2016 presidential candidates and since updated on March 4, Ted Cruz has an “A” and Trump a “B+”. Roy Beck, founder and executive director of NumbersUSA, spoke to The Daily Caller Tuesday about the differences between the two candidates and how he feels both will return America to policies that benefit the citizen...

[SNIP]The diminution of the Big Idea isn’t easy to accept,even for those willing to concede that there are major problems in their field.An ego depletion optimist might acknowledge that psychology studies tend to be too small to demonstrate a real effect,or that scientists like to futz around with their statistics until the answers come out right.(None of this implies deliberate fraud;just that sloppy standards prevail.)Still,the optimist would say,it seems unlikely that such mistakes would propagate so thoroughly throughout a single literature,and that so many noisy,spurious results could line up quite so perfectly.If all these successes came about by random chance,then...

Police in Idaho said they were looking for a gunman who shot and wounded a pastor outside his church Sunday afternoon, one day after he led a prayer at a rally for Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz. Tim Remington was found with multiple gunshot wounds outside the Alter Church in Coeur d'Alene at around 2 p.m. local time Sunday. Remington's nephew Matthew and other church members told KREM that Remington was shot four times in the back as he walked to his car. KREM reported that Remington was expected to make a full recovery. On Saturday, Remington led a prayer...

Sen. Ted Cruz's two big wins on Saturday bolstered his case that he is the strongest candidate to stop Donald Trump's march toward the Republican nomination, as Sen. Marco Rubio's support faded. Cruz crushed Trump in Kansas, upset the businessman in Maine, and provided Trump with a tougher than expected challenges in Kentucky and Louisiana. The results come as an anti-Trump movement began to galvanize conservative activists as well as party elites. Trump came under fire in a Thursday debate, was the subject of blistering attack speech from 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, has been at the receiving end of...

GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz established himself on Saturday night as the challenger with the best chance to take down Donald Trump, as the Texas senator posted two impressive victories and nearly caught the front-runner in two other states. Cruz won the caucuses in Kansas and Maine in a runaway. Trump edged him at the caucuses in Kentucky and the primary in Louisiana. “To see strong wins across the board is very encouraging,” Cruz said. “And I think what it represents is Republicans coalescing, saying it would be a disaster for Donald Trump to be our nominee and we’re going...

Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign is moving hard into Florida, where the senator from Texas hopes to knock out rival Sen. Marco Rubio and position himself as the only last alternative to front-runner Donald Trump. Cruz’s campaign announced Friday that it is opening 10 field offices in Florida, which holds a Republican primary March 15. Trump has a big lead in the polls there, but Cruz’s campaign thinks it can increase its support in the state by appealing to conservatives and positioning the candidate as an alternative to Trump. “We recognize that it’s an uphill battle for us, but it becomes...

Marco Rubio backers had been hoping after two debates in which Rubio and Ted Cruz tag-teamed Donald Trump and played rather nice together that Cruz would take a pass on campaigning in Florida in order to give Rubio a better chance of winning his first primary election. The polls, for what they are worth seem to make this feasible: [interactive polling graphic] Florida is a closed primary state which means that many of the independents and disaffected blue-collar Democrats who have helped out Trump will not be allowed to vote. And, as we saw on Super Tuesday, the polling, generally,...

“I want to get to the elephant in the room, and I’m not talking about the Republican Party,” Sean Hannity told a slightly rowdy, tipsy crowd at the CPAC pre-debate party on Thursday night.The Fox News host had warmed up the audience with his usual mixture of throwing foam footballs into the crowd...And now it was time to get to what truly was the “elephant in the room” on the first day of the Conservative Political Action Conference: the extraordinary race for the Republican presidential primary.The word Trump was uttered maybe two or three times throughout the opening day of...

Tonight was the night when I could clearly see Ted Cruz as President of the United States. He made the right moral judgment — dealing with Donald Trump was far more important than jockeying for position with Marco Rubio or John Kasich. He made the case against Trump in the right way — he was civil even as he eviscerated Trump again and again. And he connected with the audience not just with his command of the facts, but also by making his case in an effective, human way. When he asked the audience how many had been waiters or...

A day after his public attack on Republican front-runner Donald Trump, former presidential candidate Mitt Romney hinted that he might soon endorse one of Trump's rivals. "There's no question I'm going to do everything within the normal political bounds to make sure we don't nominate Donald Trump," the former Massachusetts governor said on NBC's "Today" show Friday morning. "After March 15, I think you'll see it narrow down." "I wouldn't be surprised if I endorse one of those guys," he added. CNN reported Thursday that Romney has asked his team to explore how he might block Trump from being nominated...

How big ARE New York's rats? Researcher catches one-and-a-half pound rodent three times the size of a normal beast "...'I've caught rats all over the city, and I've seen the ones that I didn't catch. I think it's among the biggest that live in New York City,' said Matt Combs of Fordham University. [snip] One of the largest rats ever reported in New York City was a huge beast dubbed Master Splinter by the Twitter user that first posted a picture of it. The enormous rat was found in a Footlocker store in the Bronx in 2012, according to Twitter...

[snip] "......At the rally [Sen. Ted Cruz] spoke for forty-five minutes without notes, let alone a teleprompter. His speech was a mix of time tested tropes and new riffs pulled from the headlines. He did not stutter, stammer, or search for a word. There was an ideological coherence to his presentation that I have not seen from a presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan. Nor was this just all talk. In his three-plus years in the Senate, Cruz has deviated from his stated principles far less than any of his colleagues and has the stab wounds in his back to prove...

Delegate rundown chart and a good Interactive Map.

At the February 25 debate in Houston, Marco Rubio revisited an issue that had first come up at the previous debate. On February 13, Ted Cruz said that Marco Rubio told Spanish television he would not rescind President Obama's illegal executive amnesty on his first day in office, and Rubio responded that Cruz was lying. The transcript is unambiguous: Cruz had spoken accurately. And so it was disconcerting when on February 25 Rubio insisted that "I said very clearly on Spanish television... I said it will end in my first day in office as president."[SNIP]On February 13, Rubio's memory could...

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.) on Monday said that white nationalist David Duke’s support of Donald Trump does not make the GOP presidential front-runner racist... Mike Huckabee's remarks follow his daughter Sarah Huckabee Sanders becoming a senior adviser for the Trump campaign last week. Trump dodged questions about Duke’s support during an uncomfortable interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper last Sunday. The outspoken billionaire has repeatedly denied he appreciates Duke’s support in the GOP presidential primary. Duke urged listeners on his radio show to back Trump last week, adding that supporting Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) instead constitutes...

Confession time: I’m rooting for Donald Trump to win the Republican nomination. And not in a casual, that-would-be-amusing way. When he won South Carolina, there was celebrating at my house. When he won Nevada, I did a happy dance. When pundits on TV say in shocked, repulsed tones that his nomination is starting to look inevitable, I say, “Damn skippy.” Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I like Trump — I hate him with the passion of a thousand burning suns — or that I want him to be president. But yes, I think he should win the Republican...

The stakes in 2016 are huge and the party is fractured. The rhetoric reflects a Trump Derangement Syndrome in which Trump is either a monster or a savior, instead of a politician. On the left, Bush Derangement Syndrome expressed itself in the conviction that he was unalterably and uniquely worse than every other president and would get around to declaring martial law and ruling forever. The danger of exaggeration is that previously unacceptable views suddenly become acceptable. Bush Derangement Syndrome made it acceptable for Democrats to descend into open treason by making common cause with Saddam Hussein, the Sunni terrorist...

To my friends supporting Donald Trump: The Trump coalition is broad and complicated, but I believe many Trump fans are well-meaning. I have spoken at length with many of you, both inside and outside Nebraska. You are rightly worried about our national direction. You ache about a crony-capitalist leadership class that is not urgent about tackling our crises. You are right to be angry. I'm as frustrated and saddened as you are about what's happening to our country. But I cannot support Donald Trump. Please understand: I'm not an establishment Republican, and I will never support Hillary Clinton. I'm a...