Free Republic

Gov. John Kasich’s campaign is plotting to snatch the Republican nomination at a contested convention in Cleveland in August. Kasich campaign chief strategist John Weaver blasted out a strategy memo during Kasich’s Ohio victory speech that made clear that Kasich will seek to win the nomination at a contested convention. “No candidate will win 1237 delegates,” Weaver said in the memo. Ohio governor Kasich defeated Donald Trump in the Ohio primary Tuesday night, with Kasich grabbing 43.4 percent of the vote to Trump’s 36.5 percent, with 28 percent of the precincts reporting. “This is all I got,” Kasich said in...

Lynda Gledhill, a longtime Sacramento bureau reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle is leaving the newspaper to join the communications staff of state Senate President Don Perata. Last year, Perata also hired Andrew LeMar, a capitol bureau reporter for the Contra Costa Times and the San Jose Mercury News. Gledhill will be working alongside LeMar, who is now Perata’s director of communications. Gledhill said her main function will be “writing op-ed pieces and speeches” for the state’s second most powerful politician. “I’ve been at the Chronicle for eight years,” she said. “This will be an interesting opportunity.” Neither LeMar nor...

18,000 Troop Push Aims to Convince Taliban to Accempt Amnesty About 18,000 American troops have started a winter long operation against the Taliban rebels in Afghanistan, vowing to eliminate insurgents who could threaten parliamentary elections in the spring.The US Military said Saturday that the new push, dubbed Operation Lightening Freedom, would convince insurgents to accept amnesty pushed by President Hamid Karzai and allow foreign troops to pull back.The operation was initated after Karzia's inaguaration Tuesday as the country's first democratically elected president. Maj Gen. Mark McCann gave no details of any significant moves against militant targets. 'It is basically designed...