Free Republic

When is it outrageous to amend the Constitution? Donald Trump, the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination, wants to overturn the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship. Whether out of panic or sincerity, a number of other Republican candidates have joined the bandwagon. This is probably good politics for the GOP nomination and almost certainly bad politics for the general election. I am inclined against the idea as a matter of public policy, because the costs would outweigh the benefits. But I am far from convinced it is something to be outraged about. It's funny: On countless public policy...

Video number eight from the Center for Medical Progress has been released, containing segments of material from its previous seven videos, depicting Planned Parenthood's gruesome commerce in infant body parts. This includes commerce in intact cadavers. One segment shows an executive of one of its client firms laughing about it. This latest video has provoked a new round of demonstrations by thousands across the nation to continue to raise awareness about the sickening, inhumane, and yes, uncivilized behavior that is tolerated in our nation. And even more unbelievably, that taxpayer funds (more than $500 million dollars annually) are funneled...

The fascination of the news media with Donald Trump is ironic, to say the least. For people who have long lamented the domination of Big Money in politics, these reporters are presenting Mr. Big Money himself with a ticker tape parade of free media. It could be considered hypocritical, too. Big Money is a bad thing -- unless they're the ones making it. Fox's 24 million viewers for their debate proved Trump's market value; ever since that debate, it's been all media, all the time for him. One might have assumed that other candidates would have gotten more attention after...

Last night I posted some of this on the thread about Trump's IA speech. I got so many requests to make this its own thread, that I enhanced and developed it a little, but I've said about the same thing for months. If you look at the latest New Hampshire poll, for example, you find that Trump is leading big---but is leading in almost every single category and subgroup: women, men, younger, older, conservative, liberal, moderate. That is truly Amazing. He's preferred by almost 40% of HISPANICS in the latest Nevada poll. In national polls, he's up 3:1 over his...

Here's my taxi question. If a person is law-abiding, has a driver's license, has a car or van that has passed safety inspection, and has adequate liability insurance, is there any consumer-oriented reason he should not be able to become a taxicab owner/operator? Put another way: If you wish to hire the services of such a person, what right does a third party have to prevent that exchange? Many cities have granted monopoly power to taxi companies -- the right to prevent entry by others. Sometimes this monopoly takes the form of exclusive government-granted rights to particular individuals to provide...

I was in Pittsburgh last week to speak and was bunked down at the historic Duquesne Club downtown. Thursday morning I awoke for a morning run and headed to the riverfront trail. I headed past the home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, who the evening prior had defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks, then past Heinz Field, home of the Steelers. I went on down along the Ohio River and decided to turn around at Peggy’s Harbor. On the way back as I passed Heinz Field again I was hit with a blinding flash of the obvious. Earlier last week we learned of...

The most transparent administration in American history is at it again -- dodging sunlight and evading public disclosure. Joining former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her secret servers, former IRS witch hunt queen Lois Lerner and her secret email accounts, former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and her Internet alter egos, and former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and his non-public email account is White House science czar John Holdren. President Obama's top climate change adviser is defending his hide-and-seek game in federal court. Earlier this month, the Washington, D.C.-based Competitive Enterprise Institute appealed a D.C. district court ruling protecting Holdren's...

THE ANTIABORTION movement seems to have gained new momentum. Thousands of protesters rallied outside Planned Parenthood clinics over the weekend. Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail are demanding a crackdown on the organization. Several Republican governors have moved to cut off funds, including Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, a state with just two Planned Parenthood clinics that don’t even perform abortions. Energizing the fight, which threatens to complicate this fall’s federal budget negotiations and could lead to a government shutdown, are notorious sting videos from the so-called Center for Medical Progress targeting Planned Parenthood officials. [Snip] The...

Colorful former Trump adviser Roger Stone thinks 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney is thinking about getting back in the presidential race. Stone tweeted his suspicion, and told CNN he had heard that Romney was considering a run from his sources. The move could indicate Romney sees an opportunity to better confront and challenge front-runner Donald Trump. Some see current establishment standard bearer former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush as flailing. Trump has mocked Bush for being "just flat" on the campaign trail and Sunday called him a "low energy" candidate. Romney publicly considered a third run as recently as January, but...

I am a proud American who believes that America has held – and still holds – a very sensitive and special place in the affairs of mankind on Planet Earth. I believe that America has been divinely blessed and protected in our two centuries plus of existence. I believe that America has been a counter balance that has cancelled out a lot of tyranny, evil and conquest, and admittedly, we have made a lot of mistakes. But on balance we have exerted a certain Pax Americana in the international affairs of mankind. It took a lot of old fashioned guts...

When it comes to the causes of homicide among black people, thereÂ’s something a lot of black people are saying among themselves: ItÂ’s not all due to institutional racism. Few dare say it publicly, lest some animus-filled, right-wing conservatives hail you as their kind of black.But the subject must be broached, especially now that homicides are spiking like mad in urban areas throughout the nation. If racist cops are part of an institutional threat to black people, there are also black men and women dying at the hands of people who look like them. It is the enemy within. Call...

Today, music is the main hypnotic vehicle used by Satan to brainwash the masses and to get them to a state that is anti authority and anti God. Wherever one ventures you cannot help but see, hear and witness the music industry dominating our American society and culture. The advancement of the Hard Rock and Heavy Metal (1969-1991) movement was purposely designed to further erode and break down the moral walls and fiber of our American Judeo/Christian society and culture at a more rapid rate. In Satan’s plan, America must be eradicated before he can establish his 666 world government...

Rick Wilson is a national Republican media consultant and campaign adviser. I’ve come to realize that the Obama Cult and the Trump Cult are two sides of the same personality-cult coin. The cognitive dissonance between what the Trump faction hated about Obama and what they love about Donald is so far beyond ironic it would take a team of trained linguists and semioticians decades to decode.But I’ll try.You hated Barack Obama’s cult-like followers, with their mindless stares of adoration, their impervious barrier between emotion and reason, and their instant fury when confronted with the facts about his record, his history,...

... Watching Donald Trump bluster and bluff his way through a presidential campaign, I wonder if we underestimate the ways in which Internet vitriol has broadened the parameters of political debate. We are "shocked, shocked" by Trump's language, but all of it is exactly the sort of thing anyone can encounter in the normal course of reading about politics online. John McCain isn't a war hero? I'll bet he finds worse insults than that on his Facebook page, and so does everybody who writes about him. All Mexicans are rapists? I open my Twitter account every morning to find similar...

This is what happens when you try to trump the Donald. Scott Walker has for two decades won primary elections by refusing to allow any Republican to outmaneuver him on the right. So when Donald Trump, father of the Central Park ice rink, began skating circles around the Republican presidential field with his perfect execution of hard-line conservative positions, the Wisconsin governor tried to keep up by attempting more daring ideological leaps. But in recent days, Walker has spun himself into a triple axel — and landed on his face. First, asked by NBC’s Kasie Hunt whether he supported ending...

Commentators and political consultants are working overtime to divine why Donald Trump's candidacy is explosively successful despite his breaking all the established rules. They're outthinking themselves. They say he is a flash in the pan, the darling of disaffected independents, the tea party's dream, a Clinton plant or the right wing's narcissistic alternative to Barack Obama.Folks, it's not that difficult. For many Americans -- who knows what percentage? -- the Republican Party is not an antidote to President Obama's seven-year wrecking ball.They look at the GOP and occasionally see strong rhetoric but mostly observe a lack of inspiration, energy and...

Last month I bought a house in Potomac, Md., a trade-up on my current home, and was shocked to learn in the ensuing weeks that I couldn't get a mortgage loan. First, I went to PNC bank. Then Wells Fargo. Then another. Denied. Denied. Denied. No, I don't feel entitled to a loan, and the banks have every right not to lend me money. But my tale of woe tells a broader tale of what is going on in the lending industry these days. All the bankers told me the same thing: "Steve, if you'd walked in our bank eight...

If a senior US senator can so quickly become the target of a widespread campaign of anti-Semitism from both the Right and the Left, we should all increase our vigilance. The social media site Twitter offers an extraordinary form of communication. But perhaps because of its scope and anonymity, it is also a hotbed of racism, bigotry and anti-Semitism. This has never been clearer than in the wake of Senator Chuck Schumer’s announcement that he will oppose President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. In doing so, Schumer became guilty of heresy in the eyes of many on the progressive...

Kasich’s decision to expand Medicaid under Obamacare—a move that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled was optional and up to state discretion—is a sore subject for fiscal conservatives and led to him being, not just left out of an event held in his backyard, but attacked by several of the event’s speakers, including former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and AFP President Tim Phillips. Obamacare critics do not like how the law allows Medicaid, originally enacted as a safety net to provide health coverage for poor mothers and children, to be expanded to cover able-bodied, working-age adults. Federal funds cover the costs...

Did Hitler “hijack” Nazism? Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Originally published by PJ Media. If Islamic doctrines are inherently violent, why isn’t every single Muslim in the world—that is, approximately 1.5 billion people—violent? This question represents one of Islam’s most popular apologias: because not all Muslims are violent, intolerant, or sponsor terrorism—a true statement—Islam itself must be innocent. Let’s briefly consider this logic. First, there are, in fact, many people who identify themselves as Muslims but who do not necessarily adhere to or support Islam’s more supremacist and intolerant doctrines. If you have...