Free Republic

The back-to-back appearances in Arkansas by two of the biggest names in the 2016 presidential race — Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald Trump — illustrated how much the state's politics have shifted in recent years. But they were also a reminder, in many ways, of how little the state has changed. Republicans showed how comfortable they are in their newfound status as Arkansas' majority party by inviting Trump, the real estate mogul who has escalated his rhetoric since launching his presidential bid. Democrats, meanwhile, showed they're not ready to give up on the Clinton name as they try to rebuild...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump hat-tipped The Drudge Report at a campaign stop in Iowa Saturday, thanking the influential website for carrying a story about his recent visit to the U.S.-Mexico border.Trump spoke in front of a packed crowd in Oskaloosa in his first campaign visit to the state. He spent much time focused on immigration issues and border security and discussed the recent murder of 32-year-old Kate Steinle, who was gunned down by a five times-deported illegal alien earlier this month.Recounting his visit to Laredo earlier this week, Trump said that as he was arriving in the border city,...

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8gdRv5q1iww

Donald Trump on Saturday took shots at Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, the only Republican in a field of 16 who is leading the business mogul in Iowa polls. Trump has surged in such polls nationwide, during a campaign in which he has caused controversy over immigration and with a widely condemned attack on the Vietnam war record of Senator John McCain. On Saturday, Trump addressed a rally in Oskaloosa, Iowa from which his campaign had barred the Des Moines Register newspaper, which published a critical editorial about him. At the rally, he repeated several traditionally Democratic talking points in...

Hillary Clinton’s favorable rating has sunk to a new low as that of her 2016 rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) has doubled since March. A Gallup poll released Friday demonstrates that the share of Americans with a favorable view of Clinton has declined from 48 percent in April when she first announced her presidential campaign to 43 percent today. Meanwhile, Sanders is enjoying an incredible surge; the Vermont senator’s favorable rating has doubled since Gallup tested it in March, jumping from 12 to 24 percent. Unfortunately for Clinton, her unfavorable rating has been rising. The share of Americans holding...

It's time for someone on TV to step up and take Donald Trump down — or, at least, put him in his place. The situation has not risen to the level of Edward R. Murrow and Sen. Joseph McCarthy. But it's definitely in a league with Katie Couric and Sarah Palin. And every day that Trump gets away with driving the vast majority of political coverage on network and cable TV with his reckless, tabloid-style attacks and unsubstantiated claims is another day that the nation loses having an informed discussion about where it wants to go in terms of leadership...

Hillary Clinton accepted on Friday an invitation to testify before the House Select Committee on Benghazi in October. Chairman Trey Gowdy asked Clinton to appear before the committee earlier this week, according to campaign spokesman Nick Merrill. Merrill also disputed media reports that Clinton had handled classified information improperly on her private email server, which prompted two inspectors general to refer the matter to the Justice Department for a possible criminal investigation. "Friday began with the printing of a story that was false," Merrill said in a statement. "Entities from the highest levels of two branches of government have now...

So how much do Democrats value basic transparency, accountability, and honesty in their presidential candidates? Not bloody much, if you go by the handy polls over at RealClearPolitics. The six national polls taken this January and February, before the email scandal first broke, averaged out to a whopping 43 percentage-point lead for Hillary Clinton. How about the next six, in March and April? Plus 50. The 11 polls in May and June, when Berniementum first started sweeping the country, came in at +48, and the most recent five in July stand at +41.

A quick recap: Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, violated guidelines from the National Archives and her own State Department by using her own private email server for professional correspondence, and then destroying whatever messages she deemed destructible. At first Clinton claimed that she needed a single non-governmental email account for "convenience," because she only had one phone. That claim turned out to be provably false. Next, she claimed that it didn’t matter much, because "The vast majority of my work emails went to government employees at their government addresses, which meant they were captured and preserved immediately on the...

Currently it is 53% YES, 47% NO. Poll here (scroll down, left side)

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OSKALOOSA, Iowa — Speaking here at his first campaign event in Iowa, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump had high praise for a site that’s an important factor among conservatives and the media: The Drudge Report. “Drudge, who is great by the way, Drudge is amazing," Trump said as he was retelling his story of visiting the border in Laredo, Texas. Trump had little good will for the rest of the media in his speech here in front of a packed auditorium of more than 600 people at Oskaloosa high school (with at least 400 in an overflow room). The billionaire...

New York State Senator John Sampson, a Democrat of Brooklyn, was convicted yesterday on three counts, including obstruction of justice. He was acquitted on six others, but the conviction should result in significant prison time. No date has yet been set for sentencing. Between 1998 and 2008, Sampson allegedly embezzled approximately $440,000 from the foreclosure sales of four Brooklyn properties on which he was a court- appointed referee. The embezzlement charges were thrown out because the state of limitations expired. The charges on which he was convicted relate to the cover-up. Reportedly, the Sampson investigation was an extension of...

Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee argued that “a lot of the things” Donald Trump is saying ” are things that, in many ways, I’ve been saying those for eight years, before he was a Republican” on Saturday’s “Fox & Friends” on the Fox News Channel. Huckabee said that Trump has “struck a nerve with people,” and “I’ll be honest with you, a lot of the things that he’s saying, those are things that, in many ways, I’ve been saying those for eight years, before he was a Republican. Thing like talking about how China has cheated....

After watching The Karate Kid too often as a child, I decided to take taekwondo classes when I was about 12. During the sparring sessions, I quickly learnt that the most dangerous person to fight was not the 6’3’’ black belt, but the guy who walked in straight off the street. A fighter with a black belt might have superior technique, but he also played by a set of predictable rules. Much more dangerous was the “newbie”, who was unorthodox and unpredictable. I was reminded of this recently as I watched Donald Trump race ahead of other Republican presidential candidates...

Complete Headline: ‘BLACK LIVES MATTER’: Hillary Clinton addresses nation’s racial inequality in meeting with South Carolina Democrats Hillary Clinton declared that "black lives matter" in South Carolina Thursday, as she repeatedly stressed that endemic racism must be tackled by government. "This is not just a slogan, this should be a guiding principle," she told a gathering of 400 local Democrats, many of them mayors and many of them African-American. "We have to also acknowledge we have some serious problems with race and justice and systemic racism which unfortunately is all too often present." [Snip] Clinton has been focusing heavily on...

Donald Trump continues to gain over his opponents in a variety of polls as he works to secure the Republican nomination for president, and now it seems he has found one more fan - Dennis Rodman. Rodman took to Twitter on Friday and wrote; '@realdonaldtrump has been a great friend for many years. We don't need another politician, we need a businessman like Mr. Trump! Trump 2016.' Trump seemed to genuinely appreciate the endorsement as well, writing back to Rodman; 'Thank you @DennisRodman. It's time to #MakeAmericaGreatAgain! I hope you are doing well!' The exchange comes as a bit of...

His opponents are trying to figure out a way to "get rid of the guy," says the legendary comic. "It’s going to reach the point that, pretty soon, sooner or later, one guy is going to take a gun and shoot him.”Jackie Mason, the 84-year-old Jewish comedian who has morphed into a political commentator, is warning the many GOP presidential hopefuls that they attack Donald Trump at their own peril. In a pre-taped radio appearance scheduled to air Sunday, Mason refers to the Republican field as Trump’s "perfectly calculated opponents, who study and struggle to protect every word." Trump, on...

New York state has some of the toughest gun laws in the country. Compliance with those laws is another matter. New York passed a broad package of gun regulations after the school shooting in Newtown, Conn., despite the objections of hunters and gun rights advocates. Now it appears that many gun owners are refusing to comply with a key provision that requires the registration of so-called assault weapons. "I think this law was so incredibly repressive that it drove people to the point now that they're basically saying we're not going to abide by any more laws," says Brian Olesen,...

Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to have it his way with New York's fast-food industry — and restaurant owners aren't loving it. Franchise owners say they're considering a lawsuit against Cuomo's plan to raise the minimum wage in their eateries to $15 an hour, arguing that it is not fair or legal to be saddled with such a significant increase in labor costs that won't apply to retail, landscaping, child care or other traditionally low-wage industries. "Singling out fast food restaurants while ignoring other industries that hire workers who are paid under $15 is unfair and discriminatory, harms New York workers,...