Free Republic

I think this analysis by Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster, who did survey work for former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, hits the nail on the head: Some think Trump’s latest attack on highly regarded Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly spells the end. Most likely it does not. Trump’s supporters don’t want his run to end. His loud, angry voice amplifies feelings they have, but don’t feel are heard. That is NOT to say they are in complete agreement with what he says. He is the middle finger. He is the fist on the table. And that is what his supporters...

A White House staffer has been charged with domestic violence after police say she threatened her boyfriend, a U.S. Capitol Police officer, with his own weapon during an argument. According to charging documents, Barvetta Singletary sent her boyfriend a text on Friday, asking him to come to her Upper Marlboro home for sex. After they had sex, Singletary confronted her boyfriend about other woman he was dating.

When Jeb Bush is “on” — as he was at Liberty University, his kickoff speech and at the RedState Gathering on Saturday — he stands head and shoulders above the field. His command of policy, record of accomplishment in a purple state, inclusive message and refusal to pander make other contenders seem small and shallow. Bush’s biggest problem, however, is that he is not always “on.” Bush’s debate performance was solid on substance but lacked Sen. Marco Rubio’s eloquence and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s pugnaciousness. He made no errors and ably defended himself on immigration reform and Common Core...

I don't need liberal Howard Kurtz, formerly of the Washington Post, telling me or you why we criticize his network's handling of the Republican debate. He's on their payroll. I am not. His comments are self-serving. I've explained in plain English my assessment on my own radio show and elsewhere. And I am not a Trump supporter as I've not declared for anyone. But I have been a Fox supporter. Nor is this about what Democrats or liberal news outlets would say or do. Argument by innuendo and distraction is a typical but flawed tactic. Kurtz doesn't know me or...

Wow — what a week! I’m writing from in between stops on the #CruzCountry Bus Tour as we continue our #CruzToVictory through southern states that will play a huge part in making Ted our Republican nominee for President of the United States.As you likely know, the Republican candidates met in Cleveland, Ohio, for the first debate of the 2016 season on Thursday. And it was a great night for Ted — but don’t just take it from me:Frank Luntz declared the debate “great news for Ted Cruz.”Charles Krauthammer named Ted Cruz a “winner of the night.”The Press Enterprise wrote “Cruz...

Tyler S. Drumheller, a high-level CIA officer who publicly battled agency leaders over one of the most outlandish claims in the U.S. case for war with Iraq, died Aug. 2 at a hospital in Fairfax County. He was 63. The cause was complications from pancreatic cancer, said his wife, Linda Drumheller. Mr. Drumheller held posts in Africa and Europe over a 26-year career during which the CIA’s focus shifted from the Cold War to terrorist threats. He rose to prominent positions at CIA headquarters, serving as chief of the European division at a time when the agency was abducting al-Qaeda...

Why the next seven weeks? Because fiscal year 2015 ends on September 30th and the settlers in the US State Department and in their contracting agencies want to hit the Obama target of 70,000 for the year and they have (as of July 31), 18,470 more to go! Actually that 70,000 figure that Obama announced in his Presidential Determination Letter to Congress last September is meant to be a ceiling, not a goal that they necessarily have to hit. However, since the contractors are paid by the head and they have salaries and office overhead to pay, they always try...

In a letter sent to the U.S. State Department and just filed today with U.S. federal Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, the counsel for Cheryl Mills wrote: “Ms. Mills does not believe that she has paper copies of potential records in her possession. Following our production on August 10, 2015 [of the defense counsel’s version of the electronic records], we have instructed her to delete any and all electronic records in her possession.”

D.C. RALLY UPDATE: The permit for the Lincoln Memorial has been APPROVED!! We're all systems GO for ‪#‎StandByTheFlag‬ ‪#‎WashingtonDC‬ ‪#‎September5‬ PLEASE SHARE THIS EVENT FLIER EVERYWHERE!!!

Washington Post reporter Jessica Contrera has only been out of college a year. So is that the level of experience you choose for someone to try and pry some information out of the Clinton Machine about daughter Chelsea? Instead, we get the usual worshipful sentences, like this one: “Polished, practiced and private, Chelsea Clinton is the closest thing America has to a princess.” The headline on the front of Wednesday’s Style section is “A very private public figure: Chelsea Clinton always avoided the spotlight. But now she welcomes it – on her own terms.” In other words, “Chelsea Clinton dictates...

Though the Fox News promos state it is a debate of Republican candidates, most of the network’s on-air personalities have admitted publicly it has turned into the Donald Trump show as the top GOP contender has become the single most referenced topic on the minds of everyone following the 2016 Race for the White House. That reality is not sitting well with GOP power brokers who are said to have made it clear to operatives linked to a variety of candidate camps that Donald Trump cannot be allowed to appear to win tomorrow night’s debate. Some are said to have...

The Republican National Committee’s resolutions committee quietly rejected a pair of resolutions critical of homosexuality Wednesday. The controversial resolutions dealing with sex education and same-sex marriage threatened to cast a shadow on the first GOP presidential debate Thursday in Cleveland, as the party looks toward expanding its base in the key swing state. According to a member of the committee, both failed to gain support to be recommended to the full 168-member party governing body on Friday.

There has been a well-documented uptick in crime in D.C. and big cities throughout the country this summer. An increase in crime during the summer months isn’t unusual, but in D.C. at least, crime involving guns is up more than normal. District, Measured — the blog from the District’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer — looked through the data to see how this summer stacks up against other recent summers and where exactly this crime spike is occurring. In June and July this year, there were 428 crimes involving guns. (That accounts for a good chunk of the 1,183...

<p>A vandal who apparently fired paint balls at a painting of 11 U.S. presidents in Adams Morgan appears to have taken particular aim.</p> <p>All of the painted presidents were hit right around the groin.</p> <p>Amir Abu-El-Hawa said he was shocked on Wednesday morning to see the vandalism to the 60-by-24-foot painting on the side of his family’s Middle Eastern restaurant, Mama Ayesha’s, on the 1900 block of Calvert Street NW in Adams Morgan.</p>

In a move that surprised no one, Donald Trump followed up his lawsuit against chef José Andrés with legal action against Geoffrey Zakarian, the second chef to pull out of Trump’s planned Washington D.C. hotel in the past month. Trump Old Post Office LLC on Monday filed a $10 million lawsuit alleging breach of contract against two companies affiliated with Zakarian. The complaint was filed in D.C. Superior Court. Zakarian had leased about 9,344 square feet for a “first-class restaurant,” according to the suit. The Trump complaint against Zakarian is largely similar to the Andrés lawsuit, noting that Zakarian’s offense...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel's signature wellness initiative may be just a 90-pound weakling, Chicago Inspector General Joe Ferguson is suggesting. In a report issued today,E the city's watchdog said there are "serious questions" about whether the much-promoted program, which aims to get city workers to shape up or pay more, actually has accomplished much except to spend money. ... despite a 19 percent decrease in its workforce between 2004 and 2013 (41,550 to 33,554 full-time equivalents), the city incurred a 43 percent increase in health care costs." The city's current $24 million contract with American Healthways Services,E a Tennessee firm that...

Donald Trump is many things, but a deep thinker with a nuanced grasp of the complexities of public policy is not one of them. Yet he stands firmly at the front of the GOP presidential pack largely because of one issue: immigration. And before you dismiss his thoughts on the subject as the rantings of a simple-minded xenophobe, understand that more than any other candidate, he's offering Republican primary voters some actual concrete ideas for how to address this challenge. That isn't to say that those ideas aren't insane and impractical, because they most certainly are. Trump wants to build...

President Obama took sharp aim at critics of the Iran nuclear deal on Wednesday, saying many of those who backed the U.S. invasion of Iraq now want to reject the accord and put the Middle East on the likely path toward another war. Obama also sketched out further setbacks he claimed would be set in motion by a snub from Congress: undercutting America’s standing in global diplomacy, leaving Washington isolated and putting ally Israel in greater peril. “Now more than ever we need clear thinking in our foreign policy,” Obama told an audience at American University — the same venue...

Taxpayers should not have to pay for private political events such as the one attended by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Tuesday outside Aspen, the sheriffs of Pitkin and Garfield counties said. “It’s uncalled for,” said Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario. “It’s abuse. It’s that political class attitude that thinks they’re entitled to consume public resources. It’s been a part of their life for so long.” Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo agreed, saying that he’d be happy to provide security to public events. But private fundraisers, such as the one Clinton attended Tuesday that cost $2,700 a head to...

One might think that any story about a current presidential candidate’s alleged exaggeration or dishonesty of battle-like experience would warrant at least a mention of perhaps the oddest and most blatant case of all: that of Hillary Clinton, the Democrats’ frontrunner. While running for office in 2008, Clinton incorrectly and repeatedly claimed she faced “sniper fire” on a trip to Bosnia in 1996. She stuck by the false story even after we aired CBS News video showing that no such thing had happened.However, the Post did not deem the Clinton case relevant to its dissection of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham’s...