Free Republic

Sen. Marco Rubio is sticking by his former attack line that Donald Trump can't be trusted with the nuclear codes, despite having previously come around to support Trump as the nominee. In an interview with The Weekly Standard, Rubio reaffirmed his statement from February — when he was still in the throes of a nasty primary battle — that America can't give "the nuclear codes of the United States to an erratic individual." "I stand by everything I said during the campaign," Rubio said on Thursday. Rubio's wobbly support of Trump comes after the presumptive Republican nominee's comments about Judge...

Donald Trump may be a runaway train. He has blasted through his 50 percent “ceiling,” outperforming his polls and winning a clear majority in the last six states to cast ballots. All that success occurred in the Northeast, however, so here’s the question: Is Trump wrapping up this nomination, or is he just really strong in the Northeast? We’ll get some answers in Indiana on Tuesday. It’s a culturally conservative state where many political observers (including yours truly) thought Ted Cruz had a good shot at coalescing the anti-Trump vote. Indiana is also, in terms of demographics, slightly below average...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://chronicle.com/article/When-Everyone-Goes-to-College-/236313?key=Km5VaSwSOs9-HKfuI3FnkvBnLNgCDGedRc3dh4ndFUdfaEt3dWVzN2RDVG50MnowVjFjazJiaHBNN3JUd3FnR3o3UzhkSEF1WUZF

Since Trump’s entirely predictable sweep of the liberal Republicans in the Eastern primaries, the conservative as well as liberal media under the banner of “Trump the Inevitable” have been endlessly repeating their wishful thinking that Cruz is officially DOA. Which brings to mind the truly hilarious spoof Cruz himself does on YouTube of the epic scene in “The Princess Bride” in which Billy Crystal as Miracle Max declares the Dread Pirate Roberts only “mostly dead.” But the Dread Pirate didn’t have the unpledged Republican Convention delegates, and Cruz just might. If the media clairvoyants who tally up delegate “projections” would...

Vending machines and food might conjure up some negative images: -Shaking the machine when your potato chips get stuck. -Not the best options for dining. CBS 2’s Vince Gerasole reports that’s all changing. He paid a visit to a vending machine trade show in Chicago. How’s this for a treat? A TCBY yogurt with Oreo crumbs. It starts with a touch screen where you choose sizes, flavors and toppings. No, an army of oompa loompas isn’t inside the big box. It’s a robotic assembly line. Meanwhile, Matty Castellano is selling fresh pizza from a vending machine....

The group could be pivotal Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has a clear early lead in the Republican race for unbound delegates who can vote their personal preference on the first ballot at the Cleveland convention, according to a TIME survey, presenting an obstacle for frontrunner Donald Trump if he falls just short of the 1,237 bound delegates needed to clinch the nomination. Of the 63 unbound delegates who have already been named, 26 have told TIME or other news outlets that they are either committed to support Cruz, lean towards supporting Cruz or refuse to support Trump on the first...

When I was a lad, I very much enjoyed the comedy of Cheech & Chong. Tonight, at the Novo by Microsoft theatre in downtown Los Angeles, I got to see them live. Their humor comes from a gentler, and now rather distant, time in our nation’s history, but only one of the many bits actually felt dated. Amid the drug-related and social-observation material came a genuine political surprise. An anti-Trump joke in the opening act fell a little flat, and a few minutes later, when the main act got under way, Cheech asked the audience, “Are there any Donald Trump...

You'd be excused if you tuned out in previous years when the actual nominating part of a political convention occurred. Usually it's a pro forma exercise with little suspense, as each state ticks off its vote for the eventual nominee. And that nominee has been known well in advance — at least for the last 40 years, anyway. But this year a contested convention actually seems possible, if not probable, on the Republican side. It's the stuff of journalists' dreams and political consultants' nightmares. Donald Trump got a big win in New York Tuesday, and he leads in the delegate...

“Cruz was the earliest to organize here and unquestionably had the deepest connections on the ground. His top local organizer, Bette Grande, has been supporting him for months, dating back to when Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, came to her house last September during a North Dakota campaign swing.” How do you not love this? Literally eight months ago, he was already having his father campaign in North Dakota. And not just doing events, but going to the house of top local organizers in, again, not Iowa, not New Hampshire, not South Carolina, but North Dakota. And it’s not like Ted...

Donald Trump's final push for the GOP nomination starts Tuesday in New York, where the front-runner is heavily favored over rivals Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. The burning question is not whether Trump wins New York — if he doesn't, it will be among the biggest polling surprises ever — but whether Cruz and Kasich can pick up enough delegates to derail his nomination before July's convention in Cleveland. Since Trump's last victory in Arizona's March 22 primary, Cruz has won a competitive race in Wisconsin, as well as a series of sweeping victories in North Dakota,...

Donald Trump’s national field director quit late last night as the billionaire businessman made changes to his campaign apparatus on the eve of an important primary vote in New York. Stuart Jolly is a retired Army Lieutenant who came to the Trump campaign as a close ally of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski . They both worked at Americans For Prosperity and joined the Trump campaign during it’s infancy. The New York Times interprets the shake-up as a bad sign for Lewandowski: But the resignation was seen as a sign of distress among those loyal to Mr. Lewandowski about recent changes...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/readers/2016/04/16/indiana-voters-should-back-hillary-clinton-ted-cruz/83099646/

Businessman Donald Trump’s seemingly unstoppable presidential campaign might be losing its momentum. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s recent sweep in Colorado put up another speed bump in Trump’s path to the Republican nomination. While Trump claimed the Colorado outcome was “rigged” and “totally unfair,” his campaign is simply no longer winning all aspects of the race. Prediction markets are reacting to this latest hiccup for the Trump campaign. As the possibility of a contested convention in July looks more and more likely, Trump’s numbers have dipped. Prediction markets are where people bet on the possibilities of certain outcomes in politics, sports...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Donald Trump's presidential campaign has all but thrown in the towel in Wyoming ahead of Saturday's Republican convention. The billionaire businessman's campaign made a conscious decision not to commit resources to Wyoming, according to Alan Cobb, a senior Trump adviser. Trump picked only up a single delegate in last month's Wyoming county conventions while Cruz scored nine. There are 14 more delegates at stake at this weekend's state convention. In a telephone interview with The Associated Press from the convention site in Casper, Wyoming, Cobb said Friday that he expects Trump's rival Ted Cruz to sweep...

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...

Pot? Meet kettle. When GOP presidential candidate, Ted Cruz stated, “We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized,” I chuckled. I mean it’s no laughing matter to stigmatize and ostracize an entire community based on their religious affiliation — but I find it funny. The Muslim community has already been monitored for years. It’s something we joke about inside the mosque. We joke that those watching us will decide to convert to Islam or that they are simply bored watching us. But not only that — it’s the hypocrisy. If Muslim Americans...