Free Republic

History is the most effective teacher we will have in our lives, because it gives us the answers to life's situations. This is especially true with war stories, as they tell of great courage in the face of even greater despair. Allow me to take you back in time to when a fierce battle was talking place between the armies of the Philistines and armies of Israel. As we study the history of this battle, we find both armies atop separate mountains with a great valley separating them. As Goliath, the leader of the Palestinian army, mocks the nation of...

Most news services are reporting that Ted Cruz currently has 559 delegates after gaining zero in yesterday's New York primary. With 1237 the goal, it is clear that Ted Cruz can no longer win on the first ballot at the Republican Convention. He would need 678 delegates to reach 1237 and only 620 delegates remain. Obviously, that is impossible. That would be 109% of what remains, and that is a mathematical impossibility. A good guess of how many additional delegates Cruz will gain between now and June 8 is 209. That would give him a total of 768 going into...

Let’s not risk the rightful wrath of legions of historians by comparing Donald Trump to Abraham Lincoln, but it is undeniable the campaigns of 1860 and 2016 share some eerie similarities. The Republican convention was held in Chicago that year, and on its eve, Harper’s Weekly, the standard of the day, published a huge, double page illustration of the eleven “prominent candidates” for the party’s nomination (see Ronald C. White’s A.Lincoln, p321 and following). Centered on the page was the presumed choice that year, the curmudgeonly William H. Seward, US Senator from New York. His picture was three times the...

It's easy for me to understand why people were so favorably disposed toward Trump at first because initially, I liked him, too. I'd read and liked Trump's books, I found him to be gracious in person and I had friends who went to work for him. I also loved his charisma, his stance on the wall, his refreshing lack of political correctness, his scrappiness and his ability to just shrug off what would be career-ending mistakes for other Republican politicians. Unfortunately today, Trump looks to be completely unelectable. There are massive numbers of Republicans pledging not to vote for him...

That sound you hear is the noise made by the Republican Party establishment crashing and burning. The only remaining question for them is how far they will go to blow up what remains.The GOP, as it has been known for decades, is no more. The cadres of white, upper-crust, East Coast establishmentarians has been elbowed aside by the upstarts Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. And nothing they can do from here on out will change that.They have no viable candidate. They have no agenda to speak of. Their rationale for being has been smashed. All they have left is to...

Looking at the Trumpsters of today, I am reminded of the rabid Schwarzenegger supporters of yesteryear. Not caring about conservatism, not giving a damn about principles, not caring one bit about anything but winning. Perhaps a few of a Schwarzeneggerites would like to comment about how all of that worked out.

Fresh off back-to-back victories in the Republican presidential race, Donald Trump is moving to expand his tight-knit campaign by building a political kitchen cabinet that includes former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. Giuliani, who has not made an endorsement in the 2016 contest, said in an interview Sunday that he has conferred at length with Trump at least three times in the past month, both in person and by phone, and has counseled the real estate mogul "as a close personal friend" about campaign issues. "We've been talking. Donald and me, Donald and a few other friends who know...

I rarely agree with Frank Bruni of the New York Times about much, but he's spot-on today: Over the last few months and even weeks, the question among many flabbergasted Republican traditionalists and incredulous political analysts was when the forces of gravity would catch up with Donald Trump and send him tumbling to earth. It was going to happen. Of course it was going to happen. You just had to be patient. You just had to be strong. But in the wake of his victories in New Hampshire and now South Carolina, the question is no longer "when." It's "if."...

It’s not every day that anti-war groups find themselves cheering on leading Republican presidential candidates. But, then again, this hasn’t been a presidential campaign that’s stuck to the script. The morning after he called the Iraq War a huge misstep and argued that President George W. Bush lied to get the country into it, Donald Trump has earned praise from, of all places, Code Pink, the group best known for protesting the Iraq War and subsequent military interventions. “I watched the debate last night and LOVED IT,” Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin said in an email.

A truism has developed during the 2016 election campaign that Donald Trump can say the most outrageous things and not have it affect his poll numbers. That principle may be put to a severe test as a result of Trump not only claiming that President George W. Bush lied about Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction to justify the Iraq War but also blaming him for 9/11. These claims certainly livened up the debate in South Carolina where George W. Bush is regarded with some reverence

There's nothing irrational about Donald Trump's appeal to the white working class, writes Charles Murray: they have every reason to be angry If you are dismayed by Trumpism, don't kid yourself that it will fade away if Donald Trump fails to win the Republican nomination. Trumpism is an expression of the legitimate anger that many Americans feel about the course that the country has taken, and its appearance was predictable. It is the endgame of a process that has been going on for a half-century: America's divestment of its historic national identity. For the eminent political scientist Samuel Huntington, writing...

INDIANAPOLIS -- Donald Trump is weighing in on the news that Carrier is moving from Indianapolis to Mexico. 1,400 workers at the heating, cooling, air conditioning, and refrigeration company got word Wednesday that the plant was being relocated to Monterrey.

"...[Pastor Mark Burns] repeated four times: "Donald Trump is pro-faith. He is pro-faith. He is pro-faith. He is pro-faith." But an attendee called out loudly that Trump is "profane" - presumably referring to Trump's use of the word "pussy" on stage to mock opponent Sen. Ted Cruz and other such statements over the course of the campaign. Burns responded by admitting that Trump's language is profane. "Let me tell you one thing, I'm grateful you said that, that Donald Trump is profane, and that's what you're saying," he said. "Donald Trump is profane, but guess what? ... I don't know...

Donald Trump on Friday threatened to sue Ted Cruz for "not being a natural born citizen" if the Texas senator "doesn't clean up his act" and stop running negative ads against him. "If @TedCruz doesn't clean up his act, stop cheating, & doing negative ads, I have standing to sue him for not being a natural born citizen," he tweeted. If @TedCruz doesn't clean up his act, stop cheating, & doing negative ads, I have standing to sue him for not being a natural born citizen. -- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2016 Trump has previously argued that if...

Why does the mainstream media heap such scorn and disbelief on Donald Trump over his promise to build a great wall along the border with Mexico — and make Mexico pay for it? After all, Donald Trump has built a winning presidential campaign — and made the media pay for it.

Donald Trump announced Friday he raised $6 million for veterans at his fundraiser in Iowa the night before. Iowa was amazing last night. The event could not have worked out better. We raised $6,000,000 for our great vets. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) > But this would appear a significant increase from what he's given to the cause before, according to some reports which questioned whether the billionaire businessman has been a consistent donor to vet groups. Showbiz 411 reports that the Donald J. Trump Foundation gave a total of $2.6 million in charitable donations in the last three years,...

GOP frontrunner Donald Trump took to Twitter to “thank the evangelical Christians for the warm embrace [he’s] received on the campaign trail.” In his appeal to the evangelical vote just two days before the Iowa caucus, Trump posted a video on Facebook where he holds his mother’s Bible and also thanks the evangelical voting block for keeping him high in the polls. “I really appreciate the support given to me by the evangelicals — they’ve been incredible,” Trump said in the video. “Every poll says how well I’m doing with them.” He adds, “My mother gave me this Bible —...

The most politically active members of the Republican Party have warmed to Donald Trump’s bid for the party’s presidential nomination since last summer, according to a new YouGov poll, which finds 68 percent now think he could win the general election. While most surveys attempt to reflect the entire electorate, this one is the latest in a trio of polls focusing solely on Republican activists: well-informed party stalwarts who've run for or held office, served as party officials, worked on campaigns or volunteered their time before elections. They provide some insight into the role of GOP political leaders in an...

Research from the polling firm Gallup has found that Donald Trump is the "most unpopular candidate" for president in either major party - both in this election and all the way back to 1992. Trump's unfavorable rating currently stands at 60 percent, which is substantially higher than that of any of his Republican rivals. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush is at 45 percent, and everyone else is even lower: Chris Christie is at 38 percent, Ted Cruz is at 37 percent, Marco Rubio is at 33 percent, and the reliably likable Ben Carson is only at 30 percent. In the...

Last night poster IwaCornDogs on Free Republic posted what Trump's campaign is mailing to Iowans. The poster scanned the letter and you can read it at the link. The letter nicely asks for support and explains how easy it is to caucus, provides the voter's caucus location, and also a voter registration form to change their registration from independent to republican at caucus night. Probably hundreds of thousands of Iowans are receiving these letters. There are no vile scare tactics or attacks. There is no begging you for money or donations. It simply tells you how to caucus for Trump...