Free Republic

With the end of their convention, the Republican Party and Donald Trump have reached what in military theory is called the “culminating point.” “The culminating point of victory,” according to the Modern War Institute at West Point, “is the threshold when military advantages peak and then rapidly turn into disadvantages.” As an infantryman, I was taught that the culminating point is a paradox; it’s a moment of maximum vulnerability at a time when you believe you are at maximum strength. Let’s say your platoon has just taken a hill. Exhausted and jubilant, you’ve achieved your objective. Your troops have sent...

During a portion of an interview with NBC News released on Monday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she’s confident that “inflation will come down over the next year or two,” but while there are “good indications” that inflation will decline, she isn’t certain that inflation has peaked and doesn’t want to predict inflation numbers on a month-by-month basis. Yellen stated, “I have confidence that inflation will come down over the next year or two, so I believe that what [the Federal Reserve is] doing will work.”

The Northern Marianas are a collection of 15 islands in the Pacific Ocean, located at about the focal point of the Pacific Rim. It's a United States territory, 179 square miles of land -- an area smaller than New York City -- that happens to jut out above the surface of the water. And on Tuesday morning, before you even woke up, it made Donald Trump the first man to qualify for the Republican presidential nomination.

Cruz's Poll Decline Underway? If So Last Barrier To Trump Removed The graph tells the tale. One by one the anti-Trump candidates rise, helped in no small part by a desperate media and establishment, and one by one they fall. The Fiorina, Carson, Walker, Kasich, Bush, Rubio "surges" are noticeable, but like shooting stars are very brief. The exception being Ben Carson who, alone after Trump took the lead on July 20th, actually put his nose in front for three days. But in some sort of cosmic schadenfreude Carson's decline has been spectacular. After Trump rose Bush declined. In...

Everybody’s stressing and speculating on whether Donald Trump has peaked.  Jonah Goldberg expresses hope that he has, writing “It’s obviously too soon to tell for sure, but I think we’ve reached Peak Trump.”  Neil Stevens agrees with the “too soon to tell” but isn’t so sure there won’t be more up in Trump, citing one RCP poll showing a decline as insufficient data. But the point is: who cares if The Donald has peaked? I usually don’t rely on Nate Silver’s analysis for much other than bashing Republicans, but on Trump, FiveThirtyEight might be right. Media: Trump's doing great! Nerds: No. Those polls don't mean what you...

(Memphis) An elderly man in South Memphis woke up to a burglar in his home.Police say he didn’t cower in fear, he shot the man hitting the burglar twice!The alleged criminal is OK but he might have learned a lesson!Mr. John Lewis says he was sleeping in his bedroom when he heard a noise out in his living room.He peaked out his bedroom and found himself face-to-face with a burglar, “He told me about three times ‘close your door or I will shoot you. I got a gun.”Lewis says he obeyed the burglar and went back in his bedroom, but...

Although federal health officials decline to use the word “peaked,” the current wave of swine flu appears to have done so in the United States. Flu activity is coming down in all regions of the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday, though it is still rising in Hawaii, Maine and some isolated areas. The World Health Organization said Friday that there were “early signs of a peak” in much of the United States. On Wednesday, the American College Health Association, which surveys over 250 colleges with more than three million students, said new cases of flu...

Diehard Hillary Clinton backers stepped up a campaign Wednesday to get their heroine onto the nominating ballot alongside White House hopeful Barack Obama at this month's Democratic convention.

U.S. ambassador: Taliban has peaked KABUL, Afghanistan, March 13 (UPI) -- U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald Neumann, in a news conference marking his departure from the country, said he believes the Taliban has peaked. "I don't see where the Taliban are going to increase," he told reporters in Kabul. Neumann said that the Taliban has no foothold in major cities as insurgents do in Fallujah and Ramadi in Iraq, The New York Times reported. "This does not tell me this is a 10-foot-tall movement," he said. "It's tough. It's resilient. It's dangerous. I just don't see it as being that...