Free Republic

Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk will not support Donald Trump because the real estate mogul is “too bigoted and racist" for the people of his state, the Republican lawmaker said Thursday.

Donald Trump on Tuesday alleged that Ted Cruz’s father was with John F. Kennedy’s assassin shortly before he murdered the president, parroting a National Enquirer story claiming that Rafael Cruz was pictured with Lee Harvey Oswald handing out pro-Fidel Castro pamphlets in New Orleans in 1963. A Cruz campaign spokesperson told the Miami Herald, which pointed out numerous flaws in the Enquirer story, that it was “another garbage story in a tabloid full of garbage.” “His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald's being — you know, shot. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous,” Trump said Tuesday...

When the world awoke to news of terrorist attacks in Brussels, the only two remaining Republican presidential candidates with any chance of winning the nomination outright responded by stoking public fear and calling for action against Muslims. Donald Trump didn’t wait to consult with the foreign-policy advisors he announced less than 24 hours earlier, instead dialing into the morning shows to condemn the attacks that, he said, serve as further rationale for some of his most controversial ideas, from closing America’s borders to allowing the greater use torture in the war on terrorists. [snip]Not to be outdone, Ted Cruz, called...

Mike Murphy, who helmed the Right to Rise super PAC backing Jeb Bush's presidential run, will lead seminars on the race for the White House as a University of Chicago Institute of Politics fellow, the school announced Monday. . . . Murphy, who is based in Los Angeles, spent more than $100 million through Right to Rise in his attempt to boost Bush's White House run

Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are riding a wave of momentum after strong finishes in Iowa. Donald Trump maintains a double-digit lead over his Republican rivals, but Rubio has experienced the largest surge, according to an NBC News/SurveyMonkey tracking poll released Tuesday. The billionaire businessman has 35 percent support nationally among Republicans and Republican-leaning voters. Ted Cruz, who won the Iowa caucuses last week, has 20 percent support, followed by Rubio in third with 17 percent support. Ben Carson is at 7 percent, and the rest of the field is at 3 percent or less. While Trump still leads by...

A House panel on Wednesday announced it is opening an investigation into U.S. intelligence collection that may have swept up members of Congress. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence's announcement of the probe comes after a Wall Street Journal report that the U.S. collected information on private exchanges between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of Congress during ongoing negotiations for nuclear deal with Iran.

U.S. spying programs scooped up communications between members of Congress and Israeli leaders, giving the White House insight into Israel’s lobbying of U.S. lawmakers against the Iran nuclear deal, current and former U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal. The article, published Tuesday afternoon, reports that the U.S. continued to spy on select leaders of allied nations despite President Barack Obama’s pledge to curb such surveillance two years ago, and that it was a top priority to maintain spying on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government. As part of that continued surveillance, the National Security Agency also swept...