Free Republic

It was not much more than a week ago that Republican insiders were having animated public discussions about how Donald Trump could be deprived the GOP nomination. The consensus was straightforward. Unlike the consensus a few weeks earlier--that Kasich and Cruz needed to drop out of the race to clear the field for a Trump-Rubio death match--the new consensus was that that they should all stay in the race. This time, the goal was not finding someone who could beat Trump to the 1,237 delegates needed for a first ballot victory in Cleveland in July, but instead simply to deny...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) -- Ted Cruz will find out if his campaign stop in Wyoming last summer paid off when Republicans gather for their county caucuses Saturday to select the state's first 12 presidential delegates. The Texas senator is the only active GOP candidate to campaign in Wyoming, which will bring a total of 29 delegates to the national convention, more than any state of similar size because of its strong Republican leanings. Saturday's county conventions are being held ahead of primaries in Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio that could shape the rest of the race. If Wyoming's...

And then there were two -- the two whom most Republican Party elected officials, donors and political consultants have identified for months as the least appealing options to be their presidential nominee: Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Yes, there are still two other men left in the race, but if Sen. Marco Rubio loses in his home state of Florida in next Tuesday's primary, as looks likely, and if Gov. John Kasich fails to win his home state of Ohio the same night, as is quite possible, both will almost certainly drop out of contention. Only Cruz will be left...

Penny Young Nance, CEO and president of Concerned Women for America, a recognized national authority on cultural, children's and women's issues, announced from Washington, D.C., on Friday that she is endorsing U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for president. "You know, American woman have carried every presidential election since 1964," she said. "I've thought long and hard about who should be our next president. So many issues hang in the balance, the issue of life, marriage, we have between one and maybe four Supreme Court justices that are going to be appointed by the next president." Nance spoke in front of...

Thursday night's GOP debate at the University of Miami marked a major turning point for candidates as they look to gain not just the attention of nationwide voters but viewers in the Sunshine State. With the Florida GOP Primary less than a week away, the event was a proving ground of sorts as candidates seek to emerge victorious in an important winner take all state that boasts the most delegates to be awarded that day. It was at this debate that Ted Cruz firmly emerged as the Republicans' last hope for an establishment candidate to legitimately challenge frontrunner Donald Trump....

There are rumors afoot. Rumors, people. Rumors. I'm reminding you this is just a rumor. Did I mention it is just a rumor and an unconfirmed rumor at that. So I've been saying that Rubio needed to get on out and barnstorm the state of Florida with Cruz to get his voters to go to Cruz. The problem is not Florida, which Rubio is otherwise going to lose, but the other states at play on Tuesday. Like in Maine, Texas, and Idaho, Rubio on the ballot could hold Cruz down where he'd otherwise win the majority or all of the...

There's one huge takeaway from Tuesday's primaries results: Ted Cruz overperformed in a state where conventional wisdom says he shouldn't have had a chance, namely Michigan. His overperformance - edging out John Kasich for second place, in a state where Kasich should naturally be stronger - is way more significant looking forward than his once-again second place finish in Mississippi, which is another of those southern states that Cruz's campaign based their dubious "evangelicals who don't vote because no one is conservative enough" strategy upon. Of the "not Trumps" still standing, Senator Cruz is closer to what I'd like to...

Bernie Sanders' upset in the Michigan primary Tuesday can be attributed, in part, to a strong showing in Dearborn, Michigan, which has the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the nation. Sanders won almost 60 percent of the vote there, besting rival Hillary Clinton. Apparently, something about Sanders resonated with residents. "Believing in something unpopular and fighting for those things is true courage and bravery. I feel personally connected to his message of humanism and peace," Mason Hinawi, a high school student and first-time Dearborn Heights voter, told The Intercept about his support for Sanders. "I know a lot of...

Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Hillary, Sanders, Obama and Ted Cruz all want more of these people in the country. They are all "one world" folks who believe in no borders and no border security. They lie about their positions when these sort of events happen, but one need only follow the money, all of which leads straight back to places like Goldman Sachs that provided a nice, cushy loan for Cruz (which he failed to disclose as required during his senate campaign) and his wife has a direct connection there through employment. Serrano-Vitorino is accused of murdering four men late...

Clinton, 68, said she is "building a broad, diverse coalition" across the country, which will help her defeat 69-year-old Trump.....

Republicans should have expelled Donald Trump from the Republican Party, Lindsey Graham said Monday. The former presidential candidate told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that the New York billionaire's rhetoric toward immigrants has exacerbated the problem the GOP had with Hispanics in 2012. "He took our problems in 2012 with Hispanics and made them far worse by espousing forced deportation," Graham said. "Looking back, we should have basically kicked him out of the party." Asked how that would be done, the South Carolina senator suggested Republicans could have united against him like many are doing now. "The more you know about Donald...

There's a nasty little statistic that Trump predicted, the pundits said were wrong, yet has been true thus far. He wins in places with high unemployment and minority (black, in particular) representation. Think about that for a minute in the context of the General election. These are people who almost-always vote Democrat, but in the contests that are open-primary (or nearly-so, where you can switch on election day) and have these two characteristics...... Trump has won all of them. Black people won't vote for Trump eh? They have been, and are, doing exactly that. This bodes very poorly for the...

It's really quite simple. Trump has put on the table a promise to stop them from stealing from the United States. Yes, stealing. First, in national defense. Europe steals something around $100 billion in national defense spending that they ought to be spending every year, but we end up covering. Trump has made clear he intends to put a stop to that crap whether it's Mexico by stopping their citizens, including their drug dealers, from invading the United States or other nations that enjoy our personnel and weaponry protecting their land and people instead of them expending their own money...

Texas Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro, twin brother of rumored Hillary Clinton vice presidential short-lister Julian Castro, claimed on CNN's "State Of The Union" that Clinton has been "cleared" by the Justice Department for her handling of classified material and her secret, private email server. Castro told the roundtable, "It's been settled by the Congress. The Congress has looked into it. The Justice Department has looked into it, and they've cleared her." Host Dana Bash pointed out Clinton has not been cleared, and that the investigation is ongoing. "The Department of Justice is looking into it," Bash said. Radio host Hugh...

It seems the line from Sunday night's debate causing the biggest amount of buzz on social media came from Bernie Sanders when talking about race in America. After Hillary Clinton said that she, as a white person, has "never had the experience" of so many African-Americans in regard to discrimination, Sanders tried to amplify the point: • "When you are white, you don't know what it's like to be living in a ghetto, you don't know what it's like to be poor, you don't know what it's like to be hassled when you are walking down a street or dragged...

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Sunday night mocked Hillary Clinton's numerous conditions for allowing hydraulic fracturing operations. "My answer is a lot shorter," he said, responding to a debate question about whether the candidates support fracking, a procedure in which pressurized water and chemicals are injected into the ground to release oil and natural gas. "No. I do not support fracking," he said to cheers from the debate crowd in Flint, Mich. Clinton said she opposes individual fracking operations if a series of conditions are met: if local communities oppose it, if the drilling releases methane or contaminates water,...

The Democratic Party may want to reconsider how they're gambling Since 2009, the Democratic Party has lost 69 House seats, 13 Senate seats, over 900 state legislative seats and 12 governorships. Although most presidents' political parties suffer losses in Congress, Republican gains under Barack Obama's administration have been unprecedented. After the 2014 midterm elections, Democrats suffered so dramatically that the Democratic National Committee organized a task force to review how the party connects their core values with voters. While the rise of anti-establishment candidate Bernie Sanders should serve as a wake-up call, the Democratic establishment has not embraced his candidacy...

Hillary Clinton was visibly perturbed during a tense exchange with a young Somali-American voter in Minneapolis on Tuesday when asked about past references to young black men as "super predators" while supporting a federal crime bill that resulted in disparate, harsher sentences for minority communities. Clinton has been under fire for the comments since they were highlighted by Black Lives Matter protesters who crashed a private fundraiser to confront the candidate about them last week. "Well first of all, that comment was made one time," Clinton told the unidentified voter. "I've always been in favor of young people [getting more]...

What is voting in the Puerto Rico primary like? As we reported earlier this week, there are no polls in advance of Puerto Rico's March 6 Republican primary, so it is hard to get a sense of what issues are shaping the race or even how Puerto Rican residents view the primaries. Puerto Ricans on the island can't vote for president in the general elections, but the Republican primary on Sunday, March 6, and the Democratic caucus on June 5 give the territory a chance to put its delegates to use in perhaps addressing some of the island's pressing issues,...

On Friday's broadcast of his HBO show, Bill Maher interviewed anti-Muslim extremism activist and President of the Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow Raheel Raza. When his infamous brawl with Ben Affleck came up at the beginning, Maher joked "Who?" "I've bent over backwards trying to have the other side when what I should be doing is going more voice to people like yourself," Maher said. "You say, 'I don't need celebrities defending me, I need defense against people in my own religion who want to kill me.'" "Absolutely," she said. "And this is going to add to that list, by...