Free Republic

In order to defeat Donald Trump, The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol admits he is prepared to hand Hillary Clinton the Oval Office. On Wednesday’s “Morning Joe,” the Republican Establishment leader laid out his plot to deprive Trump of the 50% of delegates necessary to secure the nomination. From there, the idea is to go into a brokered convention and cut a kamikaze deal that awards enough delegates to an “acceptable” candidate (who will have won far fewer votes, states, and delegates than Trump). The problem with the Establishment brokering a behind-closed-door deal that hands the nomination to a Sen. Marco...

HE HOUSE CAUCUS TO RETURN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY TO MINORITY STATUS--also known as the House Immigration Reform Caucus--held a press conference Thursday. The GOP solons were upset. The Senate Judiciary Committee had not followed the lead of the House in adopting an "enforcement only" immigration bill. The committee had reported out a sensible and comprehensive immigration bill that includes border security measures, a guest worker program, and, for illegal immigrants already here, a path towards earned legalization and citizenship. California representative Dana Rohrabacher decried the Senate's guest worker proposal as "the foul odor that's coming out of the United States...

I've just heard from a political operative whom I've known a long time and whose integrity I trust. This person is working with an organization—not one of the campaigns—that was in the field (using a very reputable pollster) Wednesday night in South Carolina. Here's what the pollster found:

The Donald Trump-Ted Cruz battle for the GOP presidential nomination is a "good heavyweight fight" -- but while most believe the brawling billionaire will trounce the Texas senator, Cruz in no way should be underestimated, Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, tells Newsmax TV. "Cruz has a little better chance to win this fight with Trump than most people think. Most people think Trump is going to steamroll him," Kristol said Tuesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show." "I think Cruz is pretty tough and pretty able at this kind of infighting, but it's a heck of a fight I...

<p>Yet we continue to trust Republican primary voters will not select Donald Trump as the GOP nominee for president.</p> <p>And we continue to believe, as we said at the outset, that more conventional politicians could learn something from Trump. We suggested then that "politics is about dreams as much as it is about deliverables, about pride as much as it's about pocketbooks.</p>

This week we asked ABC News contributor and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol five questions about Donald Trump, the GOP's current frontrunner for the nomination for president, and the broader 2016 race for the White House. Kristol will appear on the "This Week" roundtable Sunday. 1] You sent a tweet suggesting a new party would have to be started if Donald Trump wins the GOP nomination. Were you serious? Would you leave the Republican party if he does win the nomination? KRISTOL: I was semi-serious. I don't think Trump will be the nominee, so I don't expect it to be...

On Monday, Weekly Standard editor-in-chief Bill Kristol tweeted out what the rest of the Republican establishment is thinking: better Hillary than Donald. Here’s the tweet: Crowd-sourcing: Name of the new party we’ll have to start if Trump wins the GOP nomination? Suggestions welcome at editor@weeklystandard.com — Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) December 20, 2015 Kristol isn’t alone. As I wrote at Daily Wire today, Politico’s Jeff Greenfield says, “If the operatives I talked with are right, Trump running as a Republican could well face a third-party run – from the Republicans themselves.” That follows last Thursday’s Politico column from former New Jersey...

The Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol predicted Thursday that Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Carly Fiorina will eventually lead the Republican ticket, and that Donald Trump would fade. "Now there's this Trump thing going on, I gather he's going to do OK in the polls for a while, but he's not going to be the nominee. We'll be fine," Kristol told MSNBC. "Rubio-Fiorina or a Fiorina-Rubio ticket's going to win in November everyone should calm down." After MSNBC's panelists prodded him into acknowledging Trump has a chance of winning the nomination, Kristol indicated it might be time for him to...

If frontrunner Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination, one of the biggest names in the Republican Establishment, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, says he “doubts” he would support the Democrat in a general election but would “support getting someone good on the ballot as a third party candidate.” “I doubt I’d support Donald. I doubt I’d support the Democrat,” Kristol told CNNMoney via email. “I think I’d support getting someone good on the ballot as a third party candidate.”

<p>Bill Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard, said he would likely look beyond both of the major parties if Trump, the clear frontrunner in the GOP's crowded presidential field, emerged with the party's nomination.</p> <p>"I doubt I'd support Donald. I doubt I'd support the Democrat," Kristol told CNNMoney in an email. "I think I'd support getting someone good on the ballot as a third party candidate."</p>

Not the endorsement someone heading into the Republican primaries would normally want, but it's the one Rand Paul got. On today's This Week [hosted by Jonathan Karl in the absence of Stephanopoulos], far-left Rep. Keith Ellison declared that on a variety of issues, including opposition to the Patriot Act, he is "proud to stand" with Rand Paul. Roll the video and watch Bill Kristol look on benignly as Ellison praises Paul. You can imagine he was thinking that every Ellison accolade was another chunk of GOP primary voters lost for Kristol's least-favorite Republican candidate. In the unkindest cut, Kristol claimed...

Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign will be in serious jeopardy if she's challenged by a fellow Democrat, says Bill Kristol, founder and editor of The Weekly Standard and an ABC News contributor. "She's in real trouble the moment a Democratic candidate or potential candidate, elected official, attacks her," Kristol said Monday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV. ---snip--- Kristol, who attended the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas over the weekend, said he was very impressed with Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, the first Republican to declare his candidacy for president. "The big story of the weekend was Cruz....

What does this have to do with Netanyahu? Agree with his policies or not, no one doubts he loves his country. In fact, he seems to like America a lot, too. One suspects that if asked, respondents to the YouGov poll might have judged Netanyahu more of an America-lover than Barack Obama. And they would in a sense have been right. After all, Obama is not just a citizen of America. He’s a citizen of the world. And he’s a disbeliever in American exceptionalism in any sense stronger than the British believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks in Greek...

Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman are undoubtedly on opposite sides of America’s political spectrum. But the conservative commentator and liberal economist came to a rare point of agreement on Sunday: regardless of his comments on race, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s law-breaking stand against the federal government is inexcusable. Kristol and Krugman appeared on ABC’s “This Week” to discuss Cliven Bundy’s racially insensitive comments published earlier this week. Once seen as a right-wing folk hero for his stand against the Bureau of Land Management’s push to reclaim grazing fees he owed the Feds, Republican...

Russia and Israel seem to have a growing affinity for each other. A few weeks ago, Israel abstained from a vote in the UN censuring Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported [link at URL] that this is a sore spot for the White House and a diplomatic novum on the world scene. A senior Israeli official said that Israel's absence from the United Nations vote was viewed around the world as an extremely irregular measure, a departure from a long-standing Israeli policy of voting with the United States in the UN. While the Americans viewed...

It's not likely the race for president in 2016 will pit former Florida Republican Gov. Jeb Bush and former Democratic Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol predicted. "I'm willing to go out on a limb," Kristol told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Tuesday. "I think there's no way there will be a Bush-Clinton race in 2016."

Former vice presidential candidate and Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin would prove "formidable" in a 2016 run for president, Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol predicted Thursday. "She's a huge political talent. She has a real populist streak, and a real feel for, sort of, middle America in a way that very few politicians do," Kristol told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "The truth is, she might be kind of formidable," he added.(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Her biggest obstacle, Kristol maintained, would be explaining why she stepped down as Alaska's governor before serving her entire term. Kristol advised the next Republican nominee to "spend some time...

In his new “Kristol Clear” prediction segment on Morning Joe, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol augured Thursday morning that Sarah Palin might run for president in 2016. “I mean, why wouldn’t she run?” he asked, causing NBC News White House correspondent Chuck Todd to answer what was probably a rhetorical question. “I think it’s a financial reason,” Todd said. “To get back into the spotlight. Get the speaking fees back up. You know, there’s some question in my mind about [Mike] Huckabee’s motivation, how much of that is about — you know, there’s a lot of people who run for...

Iran is continuinh to make slow but steady progress on its nuclear program according to the August 2013 quarterly repory [URL at link] by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Tehran continues to install more centrifuges including its second generation model. Iran's accumulated its stockpiles of uranium to 3.5 percent hashas increased modestly while the quantity of uranium hexaflouride enrichef to 20 percent remains roughly the same as teported in May. Iran is also moving forward on construction of its heavy water reactor at Stak, which could potentially provide it with a second path to producing material for nuclear weapons,...

A young Christian girl beheaded in Syria. The sign of extremism and fanatics, the long beards, is present in each and everyone of these subhuman Muslims who killed this small child, in their jihad to Allah – inspired by the Quran. This is Obama, Britain, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey funded and supported handiwork. Don’t put your support behind any of these people, whether for military action in Syria, asylum, immigration, another hate preaching mosque. This is what is moving into your town, your country, your society, your neighborhood: video... This video is written with false propaganda claiming...