Free Republic

Donald Trump has a wide lead over his Republican presidential campaign rivals in Alabama, with the businessman and "The Apprentice" star picking up the support of 30 percent of GOP primary voters in the state, according to a poll released Thursday. Trump's closest opponent, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, had 15 percent of support in the poll conducted by Strategy Research on behalf of WKRG.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Reince Priebus, according to an RNC spokeswoman, will stand behind Salem Communications’ Hugh Hewitt — at least for now — as a co-moderator of the next GOP debate despite Hewitt’s public criticisms of frontrunner Donald Trump’s candidacy. On Meet The Press this Sunday, Hewitt opined that he believes Trump does not have the “temperament” to be president of the United States. He doubled down on that on Morning Joe on MSNBC on Monday morning.

Raleigh, N.C. – PPP's newest Iowa poll finds Donald Trump leading the Republican field in the state even after a weekend of controversy. He's at 19% to 12% for Ben Carson and Scott Walker, 11% for Jeb Bush, 10% for Carly Fiorina, 9% for Ted Cruz, and 6% for Mike Huckabee and Marco Rubio. The other 9 candidates are all clustered between 3% and having no support at all (George Pataki)- John Kasich and Rand Paul are at 3%, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum at 2%, Chris Christie at 1%, and Jim Gilmore, Lindsey Graham, and Pataki all...

CNN gets the first in a series of six Democratic debates. CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS and Univision get the others. NBC’s will likely be simulcast on MSNBC.

Much is being made of Trump's refusal last night to pledge to support the eventual GOP nominee if it is not him. But it seems to me that he did not provide the most valid reasons for his refusal, at least not the details. Many news stories and past discussion threads here concerned an attempt a couple of weeks by "Big Donors'" to concoct a scheme to force Trump out of the first debate. Then this week, other stories about how more "Big Donor" were demanding that Trump be "taken out" in the first debate. Trump probably won that exchange...

Pollster Matt Towery released the exclusive Newsmax-Southern Political Report Survey conducted by Opinion Savvy late Tuesday. The poll, which has a margin of error of just 1.3 percent, showed Trump dominating the rest of the GOP field in the South with 28 percent of the vote, compared to his national standing of 23 percent of the GOP vote, as reflected in the latest RealClearPolitics poll average.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is denying press credentials to an Iowa newspaper that called on Trump to drop out of the 2016 race.

Donald Trump’s planned tour of the Laredo Sector of the Texas -Mexico border has been canceled by the national AFL-CIO-controlled union that represents U.S. Border Patrol agents, the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC).

For almost 24 hours now, the airways have been swamped with coverage of Trump's comments concerning McCain and his time as a POW. I think every GOP primary candidate by now has been asked what they think of Trump's remarks. Of course, most are piling on Trump. But, McCain, I think made even more offensive remarks when he called the 9,000 or so attendees at Trump's Phoenix rally "Crazies", or Trump was "Firing up the crazies". So, has anyone heard any news folks as the GOP primary candidates if they agree with McCain that Trump supporters in Phoenix are "Crazies"?...

Boehner’s speech happened just before an illegal alien killed an American woman in San Francisco, shocking the nation. “The speaker of the US House of Representatives Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)35% has told a Dublin audience of his determination to overcome Republican resistance to immigration reform,” Arthur Beesley wrote from Dublin, Ireland, for the Irish Times:

While President Obama described the embassy as “not merely symbolic” and a move representing the liberation of the American people from “the past” in a speech this morning, the Cuban government issued a statement refusing to reestablish full diplomatic relations with the United States until America gifted the territory of Guantánamo Bay to Cuba and ceased broadcasting radio and television news reports into the island, which constitute the only way many Cubans have of receiving trustworthy international news.

Rep. Ken Buck will remain president of the GOP freshman class despite a move by a leadership-endorsed member to oust him.

A childhood friend has offered a very different view of the young man accused of murdering nine people in a South Carolina church. Caleb Brown was good friends with Dylann Roof from grade school until high school, and the boy he knew is nothing like the man described by Roof's more recent acquaintances.

"The World Trade Organization (WTO) has rejected the United States' appeal of the international body's October ruling against meat labeling that Canada and Mexico say is too costly for their livestock producers."

Trump discusses opposition to Fast TRack for TPP in one minute radio ad.

According to the last two ABC News/Washington Post polls, conducted by Langer Research Associates, the former Florida governor trails Clinton with registered Hispanic voters 71-26, a margin of 3-1 -- nearly the same margin by which Hispanics supported President Obama over Mitt Romney in 2012.

A warning to herbal supplement users: Those store-brand ginkgo biloba tablets you bought may contain mustard, wheat, radish and other substances decidedly non-herbal in nature, but they’re not likely to contain any actual ginkgo biloba.

"Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee today urged the Senate to move forward on the consideration of a Resolution of Disapproval that would overturn a new health care regulation that breaks the President’s promise “If you like what you have you can keep it.”

"But what if Romney had been able to reach a mind-blowing 70 percent of the Hispanic vote? Surely that would have meant victory, right? No, it wouldn't. Romney still would have lost, although by the narrowest of electoral margins, 270 to 268. (Under that scenario, Romney would have won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College; he could have racked up huge numbers of Hispanic votes in California, New York and Texas, for example, and not changed the results in those states."

FBI abruptly canceled tonights press conference per Fox TV scroll.