Free Republic

The Electoral College on Monday voted for Donald J. Trump to win the presidency. Seven electors, the most ever, voted for someone other than their party’s nominee. In Washington, a state where Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont had strong support in the Democratic primary against Hillary Clinton, three of the state’s 12 electoral votes went to Colin L. Powell, the Republican former secretary of state. One more elector voted for Faith Spotted Eagle, a Native American leader. Another Democratic elector in Hawaii voted for Mr. Sanders. Two Texas electors voted for different Republican politicians: Gov. John Kasich of Ohio and...

PASCO — Donald Trump has all but sewn up the GOP presidential nomination. But as thousands of Washington Republicans converged on a rodeo arena for their state convention over the weekend, the gathering didn’t look like a political party yet united behind a Trump-led ticket. Red Ted Cruz T-shirts outnumbered Trump ball caps on the convention floor at the TRAC Center, and supporters of the Texas senator won 40 of the 41 elected delegate slots for the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this summer — even though Cruz has dropped out of the race. ...snip... Amid talk of Republican unity,...

Less than a month after a still unexplained suicide took place inside a conference room at Apple headquarters, there seems to be more trouble in Silicon Paradise. According to CBS, an incendiary device ignited a fire late Thursday night at the offices of digital giant Google, damaging a Google Earth demo car and leaving a large singe mark on one of the buildings, authorities said. Mountain View firefighters were called to the massive complex on Salado Drive at about 10:52 p.m. Arriving firefighters were met by Google security personnel and guided to an area where the car, used in Google’s...

(FOX19) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is back on track after winning the Maine caucuses. What the headlines haven't told you is that what happened in Maine is the messiest caucus Republicans have had so far, and it may not be over yet. Maine, is not a major state during national primaries. Only 24 delegates come out of Maine to the national convention. But what happened there over the weekend does more than raise eyebrows. It is enough to make you question, was the caucus fixed? Saturday night, February 11, the head of the Maine GOP, Charlie Webster, announced...

Although GOP frontrunner Donald Trump inched out Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)97% in the Missouri GOP primary last week, the election results have yet to be certified. ... Breitbart News learned the results should be certified “roughly around tax day,” which is about three weeks away on April 15th. ... According to CBS News, Missouri allocated 37 delegates to Trump and 15 delegates to Cruz based on the unofficial election results.

I need to add one level to the BOTTOM of the persuasion stack. That level involves arguing about the definition of a word. Persuasion Stack Identity (best) Analogy (okay, not great) Reason (useless) Definition (capitulation) You'll see a lot of debate on whether Trump is a true conservative or not. That is argument by definition. It is the linguistic equivalent of throwing your gun at a monster because the clip is empty. National Review's cover story, in which the big question comes down to whether Trump is a true conservative or not, is your tell for capitulation on the right....

GEORGE Lucas may have been the brains behind Star Wars, but it was his ex-wife Marcia Lucas who gave the film its heart. Today, she has largely been erased from the history books. Marcia, who won the 1977 Academy Award for Film Editing along with Richard Chew and Paul Hirsch for her work on Star Wars, was instrumental in shaping the film's iconic moments that would propel it to the status of cultural phenomenon. In his 2008 book,The Secret History of Star Wars, journalist Michael Kaminski dedicates an entire chapter to Marcia Lucas, nee Griffin, who was once described by...

Psychologists have long said that men tend to be better than women at spatial tasks, like mentally picturing and manipulating shapes. Hundreds of studies spanning several decades have shown that on average, men score higher on tests asking them to rotate objects in their heads. This is one of the few persistent and significant differences scientists have discovered between the brains of men and women. The pattern also aligns, perhaps suspiciously, with stereotypes about men being better at reading maps or parking -- or putting together flat-pack furniture. That last cliche might actually be true. Researchers at the University of...

In this anti-establishment time, Jeb Bush is branding himself as a “disrupter.” He has been increasingly using that word in the context of his Tallahassee record and how he would shake up Washington. “People know that we need principle-centered leadership, a disrupter to go to Washington, D.C. The one guy that had some special interests that I know of that tried to get me to change my views on something -- that was generous and gave me money -- was Donald Trump. He wanted casino gambling in Florida …” Bush again pressed the word during an interview Thursday with Sean...

In an effort to inject a little levity into what is going to be a very long Republican presidential nominating contest, I invented something I call "the Ben Carson Line." It's from what is known as "the Mendoza Line" in baseball, which is the lowest batting average an infielder can have and still stay in the big leagues. In this case the barometer is set to Ben Carson, the African-American surgeon who usually ends up at around 10 percent in the polls even though he has little realistic chance of winning. Until recently, Jeb Bush was well ahead of that...

Innocuous phrases Alison Parker used every day to describe her job may have led to her death, simply because Vester Lee Flanagan thought they were racist. The 24-year-old TV reporter who was shot and killed by the disgruntled ex-employee on Wednesday somehow angered him by using terms like 'swinging' by an address or going out into the 'field' while she was an intern at WDBJ. It sheds further light on the murderer's erratic behavior, details of which have emerged since he callously gunned down Parker and cameraman Adam Ward live on breakfast TV. Flanagan, 41, clashed repeatedly with photojournalists, belittling...

MOBILE, Ala. — It was immigration, not segregation, that brought some 20,000 southerners — far fewer than predicted — out for Donald Trump on Friday night, but the ghost of George Wallace loomed large. Wallace, an avowed segregationist, was the last presidential candidate to win electoral votes as a third-party candidate. The threat of Trump doing so, propelled by a hardline immigration stance that many have condemned as racist, looms over the Republican Party now as it did over the Democratic Party then, even as the enthusiasm of his following, for once, fell far short of expectations. Wallace carried five...

OVERTON, TX (KTRK) -- Police in Texas shut down a lemonade stand run by two little girls. They said it was illegal. Andria and Zoey Green told ABC affiliate KLTV they were trying to raise about $100 for a Father's Day present. They wanted to take him to Splash Kingdom. They had been selling lemonade and kettle corn for an hour - and made about $25 - when officers showed up and told them they need a $150 permit to sell their lemonade. Texas House Bill 970, or the Texas Baker's Bill, does not allow the sale of food that...