Free Republic

Donald Trump famously won the combined 56 electoral votes of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan by a total of 77,744 in the popular vote. Had those quarter-percentage-point squeakers gone the other way in the three states, Hillary Clinton would have won the Electoral College in addition to the popular vote, by a score of 283 to 248. It's no wonder that the president's re-election campaign is focused foremost on, well, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

Are there any groups you won't go after?We haven't tackled Scientology because Showtime doesn't want us to. Maybe they have deals with individual Scientologists—I'm not sure. And we haven't tackled Islam because we have families. Meaning, you won’t attack Islam because you’re afraid it’ll attack back ...Right, and I think the worst thing you can say about a group in a free society is that you’re afraid to talk about it—I can’t think of anything more horrific. [...]

In my post yesterday about the #NROrevolt Twitter rebellion by restrictionist Donald Trump fans against the pro-restrictionism National Review, I mentioned that there was a rich stream of apoplectically anti-Donald Trump commentary emanating from within the conservative media. I thought it might be useful to catalogue some of the vituperative and often entertaining arguments thus far into one place. (For a previous post on Trump's conservative-media supporters, click here.) The following list, encompassing neoconservatives, social cons, and libertarian-leaners, includes Bret Stephens, George Will, Glenn Beck, Michael Gerson, Charles C.W. Cooke, Karl Rove, Jonah Goldberg, John Podhoretz, Kevin D. Williamson, Mona...

".....The reform-minded Trump of decades past is a far more attractive figure than his current incarnation, at least in the eyes of the pro-legalization advocates of today. “Well, I certainly think he had it right in 1990, and what he said then actually seemed to understand the situation,” David Boaz, executive vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute, told The Daily Beast. “My sense is that looking for consistent philosophy or even policies in Donald Trump’s statements is a pretty fruitless exercise.” Boaz also pointed out that Trump recently voiced his support for medical marijuana, and that when asked about...

"The bubbles are pretty much everywhere," says investment guru and radio host Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital. "They are in the stock market, they are in the bond market, they are in the real estate market, they are in the U.S. dollar." Schiff sat down with Reason's Matt Welch while at FreedomFest 2015 to discuss the dollar, his support of Rand Paul, and his argument that we are already living in another stock bubble. Video 12:52

Why not all 'outsiders' are built the same, and how that might benefit Ted Cruz.Today the neurosurgeon Ben Carson is coming under political fire, including from conservatives, for giving this answer to a CNN question about whether being gay is a choice: Absolutely. Because a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight -- and when they come out, they're gay. So, did something happen while they were in there? Ask yourself that question[.] Uh, let's not and say we did? First of all, I think the correct answer to that question, from any presidential candidate, is...

On Wednesday night a broad chunk of the American left, and an overlapping circle of media commentators, got what they'd been aching for since the beginning of August: A presidential bitch-slap of the lying liars who've been, in the words of stereotypical L.A. Times columnist Tim Rutten, "crowding out nearly all substantive and realistic discussion of the critical issues surrounding healthcare reform." "But know this," President Barack Obama said in one of several such satisfying passages in his health care speech last night. "I will not stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things...

Last fall, as the United States rumbled toward war against Saddam Hussein, literary reviews and higher-brow magazines wrestled with an intriguing if unlikely hypothetical: What would George Orwell say if he were here today? Christopher Hitchens, the fire-breathing British journalist who kick-started the discussion with his book Why Orwell Matters, suggested that a contemporary Eric Blair "would have seen straight through the characters who chant ‘No War On Iraq’" and helped the rest of us to "develop the fiber to call Al-Qaeda what it actually is." Washington Post book reviewer George Scialabba stated confidently that "Orwell would associate himself with...

The Chronicle’s Dishonest Non-Apology: This was the headline on the letters page of the March 14 San Francisco Chronicle: Pentagon challenges Chronicle editorial What might you expect under such a headline? Perhaps the Pentagon is arguing against one of the editorial board’s recent policy prescriptions involving the war on terrorism. Maybe Donald Rumsfeld is “challenging” the opinion editor to some kind of contest, like a footrace through the Khyber Pass, or to see who can be the first to name the leader of Yemen without consulting Google. Whatever the challenge, the headline does not give any indication as to which...