Free Republic

Since Donald Trump said that if Vladimir Putin praises him, he would return the compliment, Republican outrage has not abated. Arriving on Capitol Hill to repair ties between Trump and party elites, Gov. Mike Pence was taken straight to the woodshed. John McCain told Pence that Putin was a "thug and a butcher," and Trump's embrace of him intolerable. Said Lindsey Graham: "Vladimir Putin is a thug, a dictator...who has his opposition killed in the streets," and Trump's views bring to mind Munich. Putin is an "authoritarian thug," added "Little Marco" Rubio. What causes the Republican Party to lose it...

If Hillary Clinton is elected president, the world will remember Aug. 25 as the day she began the Second Cold War. In a speech last month nominally about Donald Trump, Clinton called Russian President Vladimir Putin the godfather of right-wing, extreme nationalism. To Kremlin-watchers, those were not random epithets. Two years earlier, in the most famous address of his career, Putin accused the West of backing an armed seizure of power in Ukraine by “extremists, nationalists, and right-wingers.” Clinton had not merely insulted Russia’s president: She had done so in his own words. Worse, they were words originally directed at...

He is friends with the Clintons. He politically supported Hillary in the past. He has given the Clinton Foundation hundreds of thousands of dollars. He has been more liberal than conservative than the naked eye can see. Most of the liberal news sites and outlets are reporting on a WaPo article stating Bill Clinton and Donald Trump had a chat at the end of last spring. Could Bill Clinton have called Trump to make this GOP run in order to derail any other GOP candidate and pull votes away from a legit conservative (should he decide an independent run if...

What started as a seemingly mild admiration between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin took an uncomfortable turn Friday when the GOP White House hopeful seemed to defend the Russian president’s strong-arm tactics – and dismiss his alleged killing of journalists and others who cross him.

Donald Trump, a candidate even Republicans once considered a side show, increases his lead yet again in the nomination race, according to the latest Fox News national poll. The poll also finds Ted Cruz ticking up, Marco Rubio slipping, and Ben Carson dropping. Trump hits a high of 39 percent among Republican primary voters, up from 28 percent a month ago. The increase comes mainly from men, white evangelical Christians, and voters without a college degree -- and at the expense of Carson. ... The favorites among white evangelical Christians are Trump (39 percent), Cruz (26 percent) and Carson (12...

S T. PETERSBURG -- Suspicions of connections with organized crime have dogged Vladimir Putin since his stint in the St. Petersburg mayor's office in the early 1990s. The accusations have gained new momentum in recent weeks with two important developments. On December 1, opposition politician and anticorruption campaigner Aleksei Navalny released a film expose on Prosecutor-General Yury Chaika and his sons, outlining circumstantial evidence of ties to organized crime and abuse of the prosecutor's office for financial gain. The film has garnered more than 3.5 million views and it is becoming increasingly hard for the Kremlin to ignore, despite the...

Confidence that Donald Trump will be next year’s Republican presidential candidate is down slightly following the last GOP pre-primary debate of the year. The latest Rasmussen Reports weekly Trump Change survey finds that 66% of Likely Republican Voters still believe Trump will end up as their party’s 2016 nominee, with 27% who say it’s Very Likely. But that’s down from 70% and 31% respectively last week. Unchanged from a week ago are the 27% who say he is unlikely to be nominated, but that includes only 10% who say it’s Not At All Likely. (To see survey question wording, click...

SIERRA VISTA — A decorated Marine veteran of the Korean and Vietnamese wars will ride down Fry Boulevard today as grand marshal of this year’s Sierra Vista Veterans Day Parade. Norman Francis Sponcey called his selection to take part in the parade “a great honor and privilege.” The retired Marine sergeant major was selected by Sierra Vista Mayor Thomas Hessler from a number of nominees. “I honestly have no idea why I was selected,” the 77-year-old Sponcey said. “I’m honored to represent all veterans of all the services.” There is a saying that once a Marine always a Marine. Sponcey’s...