Free Republic

In an interview with the Today show, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he “absolutely” wants to change the Republican party’s current pro-life platform to promote abortions in cases of rape or incest. The comment is the latest in a long line of comments from Trump upsetting pro-life voters — including multiple remarks praising the Planned Parenthood abortion business, saying abortion laws should not be changed and saying women should be punished for having abortions and flip-flopping hours later. ….. Below is the full text of the current pro-life platform in the Republican Party: THE SANCTITY AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN...

Wednesday while campaigning in Hershey PA, Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)said his rival Donald Trump was “afraid of a debate” with him because he lacked “substantive solutions” on policy. Cruz said, “What I agree is that the Democratic process works, and Donald whines and complains when the voters reject him. The voters are going to decide. We’ve won five states in a row. Donald won his home state, which surprised nobody. And it’s the people — we are seeing Republicans uniting behind our campaign. Because if Donald is the nominee, Hillary wins and she wins by double digits....

On April 13, ABC’s World News Tonight correspondent Tom Llamas devoted most of that night’s report to chilling death threats against the Colorado state Republican party chairman, angered at how Donald Trump failed to win any delegates at the weekend party convention. Besides that one report, and two minor mentions (one on ABC’s Good Morning America and on Thursday’s CBS Evening News), that’s all the broadcast news attention given to reports of actual death threats in this increasingly nasty presidential race: 110 seconds in total, not a moment of which was on NBC. But since the Colorado convention through Thursday...

Republican Donald Trump’s top staffer in Iowa accused rival Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) campaign Tuesday of blatantly bribing delegates but backpedaled on the accusations when pressed for specifics. Asked on CNN whether the Cruz campaign has proved better at “gathering” delegates so far in the race, Tana Goertz, Iowa co-chair for the Trump campaign, responded they haven’t been ethically collecting delegates at all. “Oh, no, no, no, not gathering delegates, stealing, lying, and bribing people to become delegates. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear,” Goertz, a former contest on “The Apprentice,” responded with a smile. But when CNN hosts John...

CASPER, Wyo. — On Saturday morning, while his two rivals for the Republican nomination stay back east, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, will fly to this city to address the state GOP convention. The potential prize: Fourteen delegates to the national convention in Cleveland. The competition: Hard to find. On Friday, with no explanation to either party officials or media, Donald Trump's campaign announced that Sarah Palin would cancel her scheduled speech here. Additionally, while Republicans gathered for a barbecue and fried chicken dinner, the campaign of Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio, was invisible, and the Trump campaign was clearly outmatched. The...

The conventional wisdom is that Donald Trump will win the New York primary with well over 50 percent and win nearly all of the Empire State’s 95 delegates this upcoming Tuesday. While this is certainly a possibility, there is also a chance, and not a far-fetched one that Trump will finish with under 50 percent of the vote. If that happens, it will signal a seismic shift in the race for the Republican nomination. A look at recent polling makes it seem almost certain that Trump will finish with over 50 percent of the vote. The current New York Real...

Via Red State, not a huge deal but worth flagging in case there’s another poll this weekend showing his numbers dipping a bit in New York on the eve of the primary. That would suggest a trend, and that would be a big deal given what’s at stake. To be clear: Trump’s going to romp in NY on Tuesday night, winning by 25 points or better, and will pick up something like 75 delegates even in a worst-case scenario. But since his path to 1,237 is so difficult, it matters a lot whether he ends up with 75 in New...

He won a big victory in Wisconsin. He pierced the Donald Trump mystique. He even got some of the Capitol Hill lawmakers who regard him as a revolutionary and renegade to slink cautiously into his corner. By all logic, this should be a Ted Cruz moment — if only the next primary weren’t in New York. But on Tuesday, New Yorkers go to their polling places, and though Cruz has been the beneficiary of the calendar before — his performance on Super Tuesday helped force out of the race Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a demographically identical and philosophically similar...

Shortly after he claimed to be a “unifier” during his Super Tuesday press conference, Donald Trump was at it again, lambasting “so-called conservatives” who don’t share his liberal position on Planned Parenthood, continuing to insist he applauds the group because it allegedly “does a lot of good of good things” for women’s health. Similar logic applies to his position on ObamaCare. He loves the coercive freedom- and job-killing individual mandate, which is the heart of ObamaCare, because he doesn’t want to see bodies in the street, a classic liberal rhetorical scare tactic. Planned Parenthood may do the occasional mammogram referral,...

As Ted Cruz-mania skyrockets exciting millions http://bit.ly/1SHWzWW, I still get emails from professed Christians ripping me to shreds for choosing Cruz over Trump. These anti-Cruz Christians dig deep, coming up with reasons so weak not to choose Cruz that they equal saying Ted Cruz took another kid’s candy when he was seven. Then, they fall back on rehashing Cruz’s eligibility. http://bit.ly/22nhGD6 Frankly, anti-Cruz Christians have me scratching my head. Clearly, these Christians are willing to overlook all of Mr Trump’s shortcomings, anti-Christian political positions http://bit.ly/23mAGaI and liberal leanings. http://bit.ly/1LUzCxd Meanwhile, they “passionately” leave no stone unturned, relentless in their attempts...

After Ted Cruz won every delegate up for grabs at the Colorado Republican convention, Donald Trump began complaining that the process at such conventions is unfair. His claim is that party insiders should not be making these choices, but rather that the power should be vested with the voters. As a consequence, Cruz is “stealing" delegates from Trump, and in so doing defying the will of the voters. Trump's accusations are specious and disingenuous. The process that has been playing out is perfectly legitimate. Trump's real problem is that he is being outhustled by the Cruz campaign. The Republican nomination...

Senator Ben Sasse announced that he and his wife have voted early in the Nebraska GOP primary for his colleague Senator Ted Cruz. Senator Sasse has been vocally opposed to the current Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. Back in February, he penned an open letter to Trump supporters on Facebook explaining that in his view, Mr. Trump is not committed to defending the United States Constitution and the principles of conservatism.

Why are the Trumpists so angry at Cruz? In fact, doesn’t it seem like they are always angry at something or someone? It’s true. It’s either “lyin’ Ted,” the Washington insiders, the press, which is bit surprising considering how much free air time he is given, or whatever. It almost appears Svengali Trump has figured out that he must continually invent new villains to keep his followers amped up. This reminds me a bit of the leaders of the hard left, who must keep some form of “The Man” in perpetuity, holding down the oppressed democrat faithful, who are then...

When conservatives think about what they most hate about the left, several factors come to mind: their racist appeals, their whining social justice warrior nonsense, their distinct willingness to attack conservative women, their consistent stream of lies, their perversion of buzzwords.

Give Donald Trump credit for planning ahead. He is preparing to be a sore loser. Trump’s complaints that he is being undone by a rigged system crafted by a corrupt Republican Party is the dress rehearsal for his campaign’s closing argument should it come up short in Cleveland. Trump will, in his telling, have been stabbed in the back by insiders and be fully justified in wreaking a terrible revenge on the party that he briefly sought to lead. Facts and logic don’t particularly matter to Trump or his mouthpieces, yet the “rigged” charge is absurd even by the standards...

... Trump’s recent proposal to relax America’s libel laws is an affront on our civil liberties. He wants to make it easier to sue news organizations so that he can use the court system as a personal attack dog on those who dare to speak up against him. Lawsuits like these are often called SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation). According to the Public Participation Project, these suits are intended to “chill free speech and healthy debate by targeting those who communicate with their government or speak out on issues of public interest.” Much to Trump’s delight, SLAPP lawsuits can...

Ted Cruz rejected Donald Trump's claims that the GOP race is rigged, telling Glenn Beck on Tuesday that Trump will continue "to scream that they're stealing the election" as long as they continue to successfully wrangle delegates before a possible contested convention this summer. "Apparently, when anyone votes against him, it's an act of theft," Cruz said on Beck's online radio show. He also told Beck the Trump campaign's "inability to even show up and win elections" makes it appear the front runner "can't run a lemonade stand." "Donald, it ain't stealing when the voters vote against you -- it...

In “Through the Looking Glass,” the Queen tells Alice: “sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” She might have choked on her grits, however, at the thought of Ted Cruz becoming the Republican nominee. Until a few weeks ago he was low in the polls and loathed by the GOP establishment. Sen. Lindsey Graham joked about murdering him. But now, the impossible has happened: Cruz’s unlikely emergence as the favorite to beat Donald Trump. His transformative win in Wisconsin. And even his unthinkable endorsement by Graham. Can Ted believe this is happening? And does he —...

Republican Sen. Cory Gardner says Donald Trump has a “diminishing future” after his loss to Ted Cruz in Wisconsin’s primary last week. The Colorado senator was asked on the Kelley and Kafer show Friday about Trump’s former adviser, Roger Stone, threatening to publicize the hotel rooms of Republican convention delegates who don’t support Trump. “It sounds like to me like a consultant, a political consultant who has a candidate that is kind of wits end because they see a diminishing future, and I think you can see that turning point in Wisconsin as somebody else has caught momentum,” Gardner said....

The state will host what’s likely to be the contest's decisive primary in June, but the campaigns are already marshaling their forces. Ted Cruz lands in California on Monday for two rallies in a state where voters won’t head to the polls for nearly 60 days, but the West Coast swing is anything but a diversion. It’s preparation for the campaign’s endgame. If Cruz is to stop Donald Trump short of 1,237 delegates, the final, decisive stand will almost certainly come in California. And that realization has spurred a behind-the-scenes arms race, with Cruz, Trump, John Kasich and their allies...