Free Republic

Shortened title. Full title: BREAKING: Staunch Hillary Supporter is the Same Source Behind the Bogus Trump-Russia Bank Connections and Bogus Elements in Steele Dossier! A review of the data pertaining to the accusations in the phony Steele dossier about a Trump-Russia Bank connection discovered the sources used is most likely the same source the FBI used to obtain a FISA warrant to investigate the Trump-Alfa Bank connection. This person also just happens to be a radical Hillary Clinton supporter! It’s been more than two years since the 2016 election and Americans still don’t really know the sources for the phony...

A slew of bad economic headlines last week made it official: The Obama economy has failed. As noted in the Wall Street Journal, “Even seven years after the recession ended . . . in terms of average annual growth, the pace of this expansion has been by far the weakest of any since 1949.” --SNIP-- Some voters will care about plans, policies, experience and character, and among those voters, Trump will likely get blown away. But if the state of the economy controls the outcome of the election, Clinton could have a big problem on her hands.

I thought I would avoid having anything to say about Hillary Clinton’s latest book. I thought the book, “What Happened,” was meant to be some sort of cathartic Hillary Clinton 3.0 end of the story. I thought it would be accompanied by a graceful farewell tour. I forgot: The Clintons don’t do graceful, and they certainly don’t do farewells. Instead, Clinton is thrashing around in front of the faithful, having pity parties and making news that has caught the attention of Republicans everywhere. Incredibly, Clinton herself declares that she is anything but done. She isn’t on a farewell tour or...

Donald Trump won tonight’s debate. He didn’t implode, he didn’t blither, he didn’t continually interrupt Hillary Clinton and he didn’t even sniff much. And, frankly, he had the best retorts and one-liners. Clinton was on her heels much of the night, and several times, she had to reset by resorting to tired, hollow platitudes — which only drove home the point that she lacks authenticity and appears to be a typical politician who is therefore dishonest. That said, Clinton was an able, informed politician, but Trump — for the first time — appeared to be a worthy opponent. The fact...

With all the noise and bluster coming from the Republican campaign, suggesting dysfunction among the Republican candidates, the fact is, Hillary Clinton is the most miscast character in the 2016 race. This is shaping up to be a change election, and nothing about a Clinton candidacy offers change. Period. While Republicans are engaged in a noisy, boisterous process that is at the very least compelling to watch, the Democrats appear to be letting Clinton sleepwalk them into the doldrums of a campaign that will not be able to channel the emotions of the electorate. Her campaign will only feed the...

The headlines recently have been full of suggestions that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is solidifying his lead while the other real outsider in the race, Ben Carson, is firmly in second place — and that the political class’s favorites, including Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Marco Rubio, can’t gain traction. I don’t buy it. Republicans should not overcommit to the notion that Trump, much less Carson, are serious candidates for the Republican nomination for 2016. I’ll admit to being a little perplexed by the polls right now. When Trump entered the race, I said he would max out somewhere...

Ramadi falls. The Iraqi army flees. The great 60-nation anti–Islamic State coalition so grandly proclaimed by the Obama administration is nowhere to be seen. Instead, it’s the defense minister of Iran who flies into Baghdad, an unsubtle demonstration of who’s in charge — while the U.S. air campaign proves futile and America’s alleged strategy for combating the Islamic State is in free fall. It gets worse. The Gulf States’ top leaders, betrayed and bitter, ostentatiously boycott President Obama’s failed Camp David summit. “We were America’s best friend in the Arab world for 50 years,” laments Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief....

As reported by Robert Costa in The Washington Post, Republicans are blaming the president not only for allowing the Islamic State to develop as a terrorist organization in the first place, but also for failing to effectively combat the group as it has grown. Yet there appears to be some objection to Republicans calling President Obama out on his lack of a foreign policy strategy. Well, yeah. The Islamic State is 100 percent a creation of Obama’s policies. Plain and simple.

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), chairman of the Republican Senatorial Committee, is sure he has the best political strategy for winning the six seats the GOP needs to capture control of the Senate in November — attack Democrats for the Affordable Care Act. The Republican National Committee’s first major advertising buy of this midterm election season will come in the shape of attack ads in 12 states against incumbent Democrats who voted for ObamaCare. Conservative activists are following the same strategy. The New York Times reported last week that the billionaire Koch brothers have already helped to air $20 million in...

Bob Shrum has made an addition to the ever-growing list of things you can't utter about Obama, because it's racist: don't you dare say Obama's never done anything hard. The veteran Dem strategist issued his diktat while debating Ed Rogers, former aide to Pres. Bush 41, on today's Hardball. Shrum seized on and distorted Rogers' statement, manifestly made in the politcal sense, that Obama had "never done one hard thing," to play the race card. View video here.

President Barbour? Just a few months ago, the notion of Mississippi's governor running for president would have seemed absurd. Haley Barbour, a Reagan White House aide turned lobbyist, was too much of a Washington insider to be a credible candidate, the reasoning went. With his rich accent -- described in various places as "honeyed" and "syrupy" -- and beefy features, he was also too Southern, too much of a good ol' boy. And given his troubles in Mississippi with cutting Medicaid and funding education, it wasn't assured he'd win re-election in 2007, much less be presidential material. Then Hurricane Katrina...

When President Bush heads to Mississippi tomorrow(today) to tout his Social Security initiative, some Republicans hope voters see two men of presidential caliber: Mr. Bush and the state's governor, Haley Barbour. A small but influential group of GOP insiders are urging the former national party chairman to seek the Republican nomination for president in 2008. "I would handicap the Haley thing seriously," a GOP lobbyist in Washington, Mark Isakowitz, said. "Republicans around the country like him. They just like him. He's been the face of our party for a long time. He's built up a lot of goodwill. Now that's...

The surprise victory of a "dark horse" in an early presidential test is a reminder that the 2008 election is under way, already producing surprises. Yet, there's a logic to the latest surprise. According to the March 28 issue of U.S. News , the current "hottie" among Republican presidential hopefuls the Iowa caucuses, after all, are just 33 months away is Haley Barbour, the governor of Mississippi. And that was before Barbour won the "March Madness" online playoffs. Those playoffs, free to anyone with an e-mail account, were conducted by a Missouri-based research firm. A total of 64 names everyone...

WASHINGTON - People here remember Haley Barbour as a slightly raffish Mississippi good ol’ boy with a low center of gravity and a syrupy drawl who became chairman of the Republican Party, made a bundle as a tobacco lobbyist and then went home to – of all things – become governor: A shrewd inside player, but not someone who automatically springs to mind as presidential material. It speaks volumes about the condition of the GOP that at least a few people around town are talking up Barbour as a Republican presidential contender in 2008 – and that at least a...