Free Republic

… Lewandowski has talked with American Exceptionalism PAC, an outside group that has been set up to bolster the candidacy of Ramaswamy, according to three people familiar with the discussions. The longtime GOP operative, who for a time led Trump’s 2016 campaign and has remained an ally of the ex-president, approached Trump within the last several weeks to tell him about the prospect of him joining the organization. Trump did not raise any objections, according to those people familiar with the talks. Lewandowski was previously at the head of a pro-Trump Super PAC until allegations of sexual misconduct toward a...

Once again, Donald Trump has proposed dismantling the United States Constitution. “Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION?” Trump asked on TruthSocial Saturday. “A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” The answer to Trump’s question is “neither.” The response to his declaration is, “No, it does not.” The conclusion one must draw is that the 45th president of the United States has lost whatever was left of his...

Election defeats naturally create circular firing squads, but the last few days have seen a more directed effort to put Minority Leader Mitch McConnell against a wall and shoot him at dawn. The MAGA forces in the party, eager to deflect blame from Donald Trump for the failure to take the Senate, are pointing fingers at McConnell. Trump himself wrote on his Truth Social network, “It’s Mitch McConnell’s fault.” Meanwhile, there is agitation in the caucus to delay this week’s scheduled leadership vote in the hopes that some viable alternative to McConnell will emerge. There are legitimate criticisms of McConnell,...

In attempting to describe Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over the last four years, the press has reached for a whole host of inapt comparisons: He’s Donald Trump! He’s Scott Walker! He’s Satan! But none of these seem right. Instead — and hear me out! — he may well be Bill Clinton. No, not morally. Despite Donald Trump’s grotesque insinuation that there is something “unflattering” about DeSantis that only he knows about, there’s no indication that Florida’s governor is anything other than an upstanding husband and father.

On the homepage today, Rich writes that “for the good of the country, Biden shouldn’t run again.” The same is true of Donald Trump. In my view, there are many, many reasons for this — not least that Trump permanently disqualified himself from consideration with his behavior after the 2020 election. But, whether or not you agree with me about that, you can surely grasp that, as a political matter, Donald Trump is a spent force? Yesterday’s New York Times poll sent shockwaves through the political world. It found that President Biden’s approval rating is at 33 percent; that “more...

Taylor Lorenz’s piece on the apparent demise of the Department of Homeland Security’s “disinformation board” prompts me to make a confession. Like many others, I did, indeed, “attack” the Department of Homeland Security, its stupid misinformation board, and its ridiculous nominee, Nina Jankowicz. I mocked it, and her, and I did so without compunction. I suggested that the DHS’s name was a bit “Russian.” I called its proposal a “Ministry of Truth.” And Jankowicz did, as charged, become “a primary target” of my words — which, if I recall correctly, included the claims that she was an “an extremely strange...

It is tough to find a modern presidency that has collapsed as swiftly as Joe Biden’s.

As the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse has progressed, Americans who hope for a successful conviction have begun to focus their attentions on the true villain of the piece: the 75-year-old presiding judge, Bruce Schroeder. Among the many accusations that have been leveled at Schroeder this week are that he is “biased,” that he is “prejudiced,” that he is a secret “conservative,” “right-winger,” or “Trumpist,” that he is a “a gun nut,” that he is a “a racist” or wannabe member of the Klan, that he is the “worst judge in town,” and that he is attempting to parlay this trial...

TUCKER CARLSON: Why did you leave National Review? VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Because there were certain issues that would pop up occasionally, and I could predict what the answer was going to be. The Covington kids. I just sensed that before we knew anything, people would come and condemn them. TUCKER CARLSON: People at NR condemned the Covington kids? VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: I think there were certain people in the Republican movement, or establishment, who felt it is their duty to internally police their own, and that's kind of a virtue signal to the left. We are just part of your...

Two days ago, the New York Times’s Maggie Haberman reported that Donald Trump “has been telling a number of people he’s in contact with that he expects he will get reinstated by August.” In response, many figures on the right inserted their fingers into their ears and started screaming about fake news. Instead, they should have listened — because Haberman’s reporting was correct. I can attest, from speaking to an array of different sources, that Donald Trump does indeed believe quite genuinely that he — along with former senators David Perdue and Martha McSally — will be “reinstated” to office...

On Twitter last night, Rebekah Jones confirmed ...That she was not, in fact, asked to delete COVID deaths in Florida. In a now-deleted tweet, Jones wrote: “Deleting deaths was never something I was asked to do. I’ve never claimed it was.” But Jones has claimed it....Jones has made the claim that she was instructed to edit the raw data over and over again. In February, she reiterated that “(Florida’s deputy secretary of health, Dr. Shamarial Roberson) asked me to change numbers and delete records to present a rosier picture of Florida’s pandemic than reality.” In April, she repeated her claim...

This is a story about Rebekah Jones, a former dashboard manager at the Florida Department of Health (FDOH), who has single-handedly managed to convince millions of Americans that Gov. Ron DeSantis has been fudging the state’s COVID-19 data. When I write “single-handedly,” I mean it, for Jones is not one of the people who have advanced this conspiracy theory but rather is the person who has advanced this conspiracy theory. It has been repeated by others, sure: by partisans across the internet, by unscrupulous Florida Democrats such as Nikki Fried and Charlie Crist, and on television, by MSNBC in particular....

This is a story about Rebekah Jones, a former dashboard manager at the Florida Department of Health (FDOH), who has single-handedly managed to convince millions of Americans that Governor Ron DeSantis has been fudging the state’s COVID-19 data.When I write “single-handedly,” I mean it, for Jones is not one of the people who have advanced this conspiracy theory but rather is the person who has advanced this conspiracy theory. It has been repeated by others, sure: by partisans across the Internet, by unscrupulous Florida Democrats such as Nikki Fried and Charlie Crist, and on television, by MSNBC in particular. But...

President Trump has commuted the sentence of Roger Stone. The timing, late on Friday, suggests internal embarrassment over the move, and we wish there were more. The commutation is a move fully within the president’s powers and in keeping with the long-established pattern of presidents’ pardoning or commuting the sentences of associates caught up in special-counsel probes, although usually the associates aren’t as sleazy as Stone. We’re a long way from George H. W. Bush’s pardoning Cap Weinberger, the great Reagan-era defense official, who had been indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice in the Lawrence Walsh investigation. [cut] It...

Excellent Twitter thread that goes into various scenarios about votes in Broward and Palm Beach County.

Carol's boyfriend is a mercurial figure -- a potentially nice guy, but unreliable, dangerous, and married to someone else. Exactly who he is can be hard to make out amid his capriciousness, his lying, and his occasional descents into violence... But he can change. What else to expect from someone who reflects the baser passions? It'll be different when Carol fixes him. It'll be different when he leaves his wife. It'll be different when he kicks the habit. It'll be different when he gets back on his feet again. The therapy will change him. And Carol can learn to stop...

I'm writing this post ahead of Super Tuesday, lest, in penning in it in the aftermath, I am accused of post-rationalization. So here goes, a little ahead of time: Super Tuesday is not the end of the Republican primary. Shamefully, Donald Trump will do well tomorrow -- perhaps very well. And when he does, the press will roar. And then, because human beings have a preference for simple narratives and dramatic headlines, the story will almost certainly be that the election is "over"; that Trump is "now the nominee"; and that anybody arguing otherwise is "kidding himself." This is false,...

For the last eight months or so, a significant portion of the Republican party's voters have been in thrall to a bizarre, Occupy-esque conspiracy theory, which holds as its central thesis that sabotage and pusillanimity are the root causes of the Right's recent woes. In this mistaken view, the conservative movement's failure to counter all of the Obama era's excesses is not the product of the crucial democratic and structural factors that prevent any one faction from ushering in substantial change, but of a lack of will or desire. Sure, the advocates of this view will concede, the shutdown of...

onald Trump’s star turn as an unexpected ally of Code Pink was widely panned last Saturday evening. Standing next to Jeb Bush at the Republican party’s fractious South Carolina debate, Trump seemed determined to indulge the most idiosyncratic of the anti-war movement’s critiques. The invasion of Iraq, he proposed, was based upon a “lie.” Its advocates, he submitted, were engaged not in a mistake, but in a conspiracy. And, worst of all, George W. Bush was to blame for 9/11. Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/431346/donald-trump-iraq-war-lies

National Review obtained the following long-form version of a letter from Mr. Trump's physician detailing his health history. To Whom It Will Concern: I have been the personal physician of Mr. Donald J. Trump since 1968. His previous physician was my father, Dr. Edith Bernofsky. I am pleased to report that, at no point since he was unable to fight in Vietnam, has Mr. Trump had any significant medical problems. During a recent comprehensive medical examination, Mr. Trump revealed himself to be quite extraordinarily healthy. While I conducted my array of tests, he singlehandedly held me above his magnificent head...