Free Republic

President Donald J. Trump will walk into the Oval Office and be stunned. First, it will be a shock to work in an office decorated with images of men other than himself. Second, he is bound to be suffused with awe as he looks around at the Remington bronze bronco, the Rockwell “Statue of Liberty,” the portraits of Washington and Lincoln, the Swedish ivy on the mantel that has eavesdropped — and leavesdropped — on so much history. The new president will suddenly realize that Joe Biden is right. He needs to grow up. Chuck Schumer is right. He has...

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH damn that Catherine Zeta Jones

GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump referred to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (d-ma) as "Pocahontas" in an interview with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, she wrote in a piece published Saturday. Trump told Dowd that he had not been asked by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) in his meeting with him last week to tone down his rhetoric directed at women. Dowd also asked him if he had been criticized by Republicans for his Twitter feud with Warren. "You mean Pocahontas?” Trump shot back. Trump and Warren have engaged in a long battle on Twitter, trading barbs over his rhetoric toward...

Donald Trump has gotten a lot of criticism from both sides of the abortion debate for his five different positions on abortion in three days. Those criticisms are legitimate because it shows Trump either doesn’t know what he’s talking about, is faking his position on abortion to appease his supporters, or has no real position at all. But that’s not stopped Maureen Dowd with The New York Times from asking one of craziest questions of the political cycle. Given his draconian comment, sending women back to back alleys, I had to ask: When he was a swinging bachelor in Manhattan,...

(NBC) - Donald Trump says he regrets retweeting an unflattering photo of the wife of rival Ted Cruz, a rare move for the Republican front-runner more known for his boasts than backtracking. "Yeah, it was a mistake," Trump told New York Times. "If I had to do it again, I wouldn't have sent it." The retweet set off a war of words between the two candidates, and gave fresh fuel to Democratic candidates and other critics who marveled at a Republican presidential race that had descended into a fight over the candidates' wives. Trump retweeted the photo compilation showing an...

Donald Trump admitted to The New York Times on Saturday that retweeting an unflattering photo of Heidi Cruz was a mistake and that he would not do it again if given the opportunity. "Yeah, it was a mistake," he told columnist Maureen Dowd. "If I had to do it again, I wouldn't have sent it." Dowd was asking about an incident last month in which Trump retweeted a picture of Cruz, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's wife, during a spat involving a nude photo of Trump's wife, Melania, that was circulated by an anti-Trump super PAC.

WASHINGTON — THE Clinton campaign is shellshocked over the wholesale rejection of Hillary by young women, younger versions of herself who do not relate to her. Hillary’s coronation was predicated on a conviction that has just gone up in smoke. The Clintons felt that Barack Obama had presumptuously snatched what was rightfully hers in 2008, gliding past her with his pretty words to make history before she could. So this time, the Clintons assumed, the women who had deserted Hillary for Barack, in Congress and in the country, owed her. Democrats would want to knock down that second barrier. ...

The novelty of flying cars never materialized. But flying novels are right around the corner. If you aren’t nervous enough reading about 3-D printers spitting out handguns or Google robots with Android phones, imagine the skies thick with crisscrossing tiny drones.

When I walked into the office Monday, people were clustering around a computer to watch what they thought they would never see: Hillary Clinton with the unmistakable look of tears in her eyes. A woman gazing at the screen was grimacing, saying it was bad. Three guys watched it over and over, drawn to the “humanized” Hillary. One reporter who covers security issues cringed. “We are at war,” he said. “Is this how she’ll talk to Kim Jong-il?” Another reporter joked: “That crying really seemed genuine. I’ll bet she spent hours thinking about it beforehand.” He added dryly: “Crying doesn’t...

In 2005, a year after Ellie Grossman, a doctor, met Ray Fisman, a professor, on a blind date, she was talking to her grandmother about her guy. “Never let a man think you’re smarter,” her grandmother advised. “Men don’t like that.” Ray and Ellie “had a good laugh, thinking times had changed,” he recalled. The pair went on to marry — after she proposed. But now, he says, “it seems like the students at Columbia University should pay heed to Grandma Lil’s advice.” Mr. Fisman is a 36-year-old Columbia economics professor who conducted a two-year study, published last year, on...

Appearing as a guest on Saturday's CNN Newsroom with Poppy Harlow, CNN political commentator Carl Bernstein declared that, after spending time talking to the White House about Hillary Clinton's paid speeches to Goldman-Sachs, that they are "horrified" that Clinton is "blowing up her own campaign," and invoked President Richard Nixon's tapes as possibly comparable to the transcripts of her speeches. As he described apparent panic at the White House, Bernstein used words and phrases like "terrified," "dumbfounded," "tied up in knots," and "beside themselves" to describe reaction to Clinton's "unfathomable" behavior that "has endangered President Obama's legacy." Bernstein: Obama White...

After running as a man last time around, Hillary Clinton is now running as a woman. Matthew Dowd, the former W. strategist who became an independent, says Hillary got it backward: She should have run as a woman in 2008, when she was beating back a feminized antiwar candidate. And she should have run as a man this time, when Americans feel beleaguered and scared and yearn for something "big and masculine and strong," as Dowd put it. Despite the deafening dearth of excitement among younger women, Hillary has cast herself as Groundbreaking Granny.

So he's wielding his knife on her most sensitive pressure point: her hypocrisy in running as a feminist icon when she was part of political operations that smeared women who told the truth about Bill's transgressions. Hillary told friends that Monica was a "troubled young person" getting ministered to by Bill and a "narcissistic loony toon." Hillary's henchman Sidney Blumenthal spread around the story that Monica was a stalker and Charlie Rangel publicly slandered the intern as a fantasist who wasn't playing with "a full deck." Trump may be a politically incorrect Frank Sinatra ring-a-ding type with cascading marriages to...

It is no coincidence that with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) recent rise in the polls come attempts to downplay or diminish him as a viable GOP candidate.Two recent columns, one each from the Washington Post and NY Times, attempt to do just that. A column on November 24th by obscure Washington Post columnist Paul Waldman titled “Sen. Ted Cruz could actually be the Republican nominee for President” is especially derogatory in nature. Although conceding Cruz’s rise in the polls and the momentum he currently has, Waldman makes the following statement: “But from one angle - probably yours if you're a...

The New York Times' Maureen Dowd captured the moment last weekend when she referred to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as "the midwife to chaos" in Libya. Dowd apparently came to that conclusion after watching Clinton bobbing and weaving and admitting and denying as she was confronted with the partial record of her failures and obfuscations as secretary of state, particularly with respect to Libya. The public record is fairly well-known. In March 2011, President Barack Obama declared war on Libya. He did this at the urging of Clinton, who wanted to overthrow Libyan strongman Col. Moammar Gadhafi so...

No, not that personal tragedy. His other personal tragedy. Despite 35 years in the Senate and seven more as VP, this is the very first thing his biggest fans want low-information voters to know about him. I wonder if Biden quietly signed off on this just like he quietly leaked that “do it for Beau” anecdote to Maureen Dowd.But … it’s a good ad, no? However crass you may find this “He’s suffered enough so let’s make him president” campaign pitch, it’s a superb contrast with the RoboClinton. This is exactly the sort of thing the public likes about...

Joe Biden has been making his 2016 deliberations all about his late son since August. Aug. 1, to be exact — the day renowned Hillary Clinton-critic Maureen Dowd published a column that marked a turning point in the presidential speculation.

Joe Biden has been making his 2016 deliberations all about his late son since August. Aug. 1, to be exact — the day renowned Hillary Clinton-critic Maureen Dowd published a column that marked a turning point in the presidential speculation. According to multiple sources, it was Biden himself who talked to her, painting a tragic portrait of a dying son, Beau’s face partially paralyzed, sitting his father down and trying to make him promise to run for president because "the White House should not revert to the Clintons and that the country would be better off with Biden values.” It...

IS Hollywood really ready to give a 67-year-old woman a leading role in a big-budget production? Hillary Clinton’s campaign has echoes of various classic movies: “Single White Female,” with Hillary creepily co-opting the identity of the more trendy Elizabeth Warren; “My Fair Lady,” with Hillary sitting meekly and being schooled on how to behave by tyrannical Pygmalions (Iowa voters); “The Usual Suspects,” with Hillary’s hoodlums, Sidney Blumenthal and David Brock, vying to be Keyser Söze; and, of course, “How to Steal a Million,” a caper about a heist plotted by a couple that doesn’t need the money. From a narrative...

Jonathan Chait has joined the liberal choir experiencing buyers remorse for Hillary Rodham Clinton.  Maureen Dowd of the New York Times previously fired two bullets (here and here) at Hillary, first comparing her to Nixon (leading to the affectionate nickname “Grandma Nixon”), then encouraging her to run like a Tumblr Chick (I doubt Hillary has ever visited the site), or as Tina Fey’s “Bitch is the new black.” Chait, ever the liberal shill, blames Hillary’s Fukushima factor on Ol’ Bill. (I almost stopped reading his piece in New York Magazine after the second sentence: [TRIGGER WARNING]  “Jimmy Carter was an ineffective president who became...