Free Republic

There is nothing remotely normal or conventional about this presidential election. Alice in Wonderland would feel right at home bouncing about between the fantastical issues plaguing the Biden and Trump campaigns. For the current president, voters worry about Biden’s age, perceived cognitive issues, his son Hunter’s legal and perception problems, growing policy failures, and a country and world going more sideways by the day. For the previous president, it’s hard for some voters to unsee the FBI raid on Trump’s home in Florida, his mug shot, multiple indictments by Democratic prosecutors and district attorneys, trial dates and the greater “lawfare”...

Sylvester Stallone recently announced that he and his wife Jennifer Flavin had decided to permanently move from California to Palm Beach, Florida. As he addressed his three daughters in a scene on the reality show “The Family Stallone,” the iconic actor said: “After long, hard consideration, your mother and I have decided, time to move on and leave the state of California permanently, and we’re going to go to Florida.” The likely reasons involve three main factors: a change of scenery, a less crime-infested environment and a lowering of their state tax burden. Whatever the real motivations, what was of...

The United States government estimates that approximately 500,000 soldiers in the Ukrainian and Russian militaries have been killed or wounded on the battlefield to date. Shockingly, the real numbers are surely dramatically higher as both nations are known to deliberately undercount their casualties. Sorrowfully, those numbers don’t include the thousands of Ukrainian civilians killed or the millions who have fled the country.

At a certain point, all decisions and election chances in politics come down to basic math. No matter how some consultants, pollsters or campaign managers may attempt to complicate the process to justify their fees or salaries paid by a candidate or company, it still comes down to this: Does the math finish on the “plus side” for him or her to run, and does it finish on the plus side for the candidate to win? My mother used to say, “If you can read, you can cook.” In the arena of political elections, if you can do basic addition...

In the 14 months since joining DeSantis's staff, [Christina Pushaw] has transformed the typically button-down role of gubernatorial press secretary into something like a running public brawl — with Twitter as her blunt-force weapon.

A new plan is being reported that would allow Democrats to install California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) as president without an election. The Hill published a possible plan that could propel Newsom directly to the presidency, without giving the American people a say in the matter. The plan was outlined by former Pentagon and White House official Douglas MacKinnon. MacKinnon, who worked under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush in the eighties and early nineties, revealed that Newsom could pass by Vice President Kamala Harris. However, the plan earned an enthusiastic thumbs down from FiveThirtyEight statistician Nate Silver....

Tuesday delivered some clarity, confusion and mystery — better news for the Democrats than basically everyone expected. That said, the results came despite both President Biden and Vice President Harris being unpopular with a large segment of the electorate, including a number of Democratic pundits and voters.

Over the past few years, I have lost count as to how many Republicans, conservatives, independents and libertarians have told me that they have learned the art of self-censorship when it comes to discussing or even hinting at their political or faith-based views. They went into self-censorship mode as a self-preservation response to the woke/cancel culture vigilantism many believe has swept into the corners of academia, corporate America and the mainstream media. As many now believe that identity politics and the search for any micro-aggression or misappropriation rule the day in these powerful, left-leaning institutions, they have decided that discretion...

Can you win by losing or conceding an election? Yes. At the moment, a growing number of people in politics — including many from the left — believe that both the Biden/Harris White House and the Democratic Party are damaged brands. Granted, in politics the negative can often be flipped back to the positive in a matter of weeks or months.

During the 1992 election, Texas billionaire Ross Perot managed to get on the ballot as an independent presidential candidate in all 50 states and garnered 19 percent of the vote. It was a remarkable feat that — in the eyes of some Republicans, including President George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush — tipped the election to Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. Keep in mind, that percentage of voters chose the third-party candidate even after it was reported that Perot, who loved conspiracies, claimed he saw five men with rifles on his front lawn and, later, that the Bush...

Who might be in consideration to become the new nominee — and who would be selected as the vice presidential running mate? Several likely combinations come to mind, starting in many minds with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, but one particular, truly out-of-the-box combination stops the discussion in its tracks: Hillary Clinton as the nominee and Barack Obama as her running mate.Now, before everyone rolls their eyes, let that sink in for a moment and do some fairly simple calculations about voters and swing states in your heads. No matter how you add it, subtract it or divide it, that math would spell trouble for...

snip "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once," the 22nd Amendment says. "The operative word here might be 'elected,'" MacKinnon wrote. "If Obama were selected as Clinton’s running mate, and she had to leave office for any reason, then Obama would succeed her. At least one constitutional expert is on record saying...

Desperate times do indeed call for desperate measures. For the Democrats, a truly desperate time could come if Joe Biden is forced to withdraw from the presidential race. While the former vice president is the presumptive Democratic nominee to face off against President Trump in November, his nomination is still far from official.Some Democrats tell me they fear that Biden’s political survival is getting more problematic with each passing day. They cite three main issues. The first is their concern that an allegation of sexual assault leveled against Biden by former staffer Tara Reade won’t go away anytime soon. If anything,...

Is a trap being set for Trump in the Senate trial?

Pete Buttigieg’s recent popularity surge in Iowa and New Hampshire has many speculating that President Trump could face a Democratic ticket in 2020 that he doesn’t want and fears the most — the South Bend, Ind., mayor and another candidate recently in the spotlight, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. Despite what the “experts” might say, it’s certainly possible. Like weather forecasters and economists, political pundits often are proven embarrassingly wrong. Voters from both parties have a tendency to recalibrate rather quickly, and quite unexpectedly, toward candidates they believe actually might have a chance of winning. In 2004, for example, Democratic...

Former Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon told FNC's Maria Bartiromo in an interview on "Sunday Morning Futures" that he doesn't think any of the declared Democratic candidates have the ability to beat President Trump in the 2020 election. Bannon suggests that Democrats may have to recruit Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, or Michael Bloomberg to stop Trump from being re-elected. STEVE BANNON: I said this last week, Maria, I don't see anybody on that stage right now that can take President Trump one on one. I pride myself, he's called me his star pupil, his top pupil, I've been studying this...

Just about three weeks ago, I did a piece headlined: “Will You Survive the Coming Blackout?” On the heels of this weekend’s mini-blackout in New York City, this is not about “See, I told you so!” but is about reminding people that a large and sustained blackout could and would cripple much of society as we know it – and it could and would have a devastating impact upon our very lives, and survival. Such a blackout is coming. It is only a matter of time. Again, leaving aside the growing threats of cyber and terrorist attacks upon our power...

I must confess that I no longer have a clear understanding as to how many of our major newspapers operate. It had been my assumption -- and you know what they say about assuming things -- that a large percentage of the employees at these papers were actual reporters who, in an ethical, professional, and totally unbiased manner, aggressively investigated stories, looked at all sides, followed the facts to their natural and honest conclusions and then wrote about their findings for their loyal readers. That is what I thought. But now when I review The New York Times, The Washington...

Just because you can, does not mean you should. Look, as conservatives or Republicans, we truly do get the point that much of Hollywood despises us or the ideology they have convinced themselves we blindly follow. For the last two decades or so, they have channeled much of that anger into films that have bashed Richard Nixon or George W. Bush. And now, purely because he can, director Ron Howard and his team are giving us "Frost/Nixon." A feel-good film for liberals that once again, in case you missed the plethora of earlier offerings, trumpets the evils of President Richard...