Free Republic

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s Tuesday testimony ought to ring the death knell for former President Donald Trump’s political career. Trump is unfit to be anywhere near power ever again. Hutchinson’s resume alone should establish her credibility. The 25-year-old had already worked at the highest levels of conservative Republican politics, including in the offices of Sen. Ted Cruz (TX) and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (LA), before becoming a top aide for former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows. In short, Hutchinson was a conservative Trumpist true believer and a tremendously credible one at that. She did not overstate...

Nobody should, any longer, pretend that Joe Biden is fit to lead this nation.Joe Biden has badly, visibly bungled America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. He has compounded the problem with his sluggish and dishonest public statements. This has gone so badly that even people and institutions that are normally sympathetic to Biden and his party have noticed. American allies have been appalled, and vocal about it. What is slowly dawning on people is that Biden’s critics were right about him all along. Not since James Buchanan has America had a president who came so prepared by experience for the job, yet...

Two days ago, the New York Times’s Maggie Haberman reported that Donald Trump “has been telling a number of people he’s in contact with that he expects he will get reinstated by August.” In response, many figures on the right inserted their fingers into their ears and started screaming about fake news. Instead, they should have listened — because Haberman’s reporting was correct. I can attest, from speaking to an array of different sources, that Donald Trump does indeed believe quite genuinely that he — along with former senators David Perdue and Martha McSally — will be “reinstated” to office...

Art Laffer Spouting Nonsense on 9-9-9 Josh Barro October 19, 2011 I guess somebody had to try to defend Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan. Art Laffer does so in today’s Wall Street Journal, but his defense is really embarrassing.First, Laffer describes the business tax component of 9-9-9 as a 9 percent tax on “net business profits.” This is false. Cain’s business tax, as described by his campaign, applies to “Gross income less all purchases from other U.S. located businesses, all capital investment, and net exports.” Because wages and salaries are not deductible, this is a tax on much more than just...

LAS VEGAS – After months of diversions — sideshow candidates, Hamlet acts and straw polls — Tuesday night’s sizzling Republican presidential showdown boiled the nomination fight down to its essentials: a deeply personal, ideological and smashmouth contest between two rivals with almost nothing in common.

Via Greg Hengler and Guy Benson, if this answer doesn’t destroy him, nothing will. I get the sense watching it that he’s so unsure of how to answer this exceedingly easy question that he defaults to Netanyahu’s position on the assumption that prisoner swaps must always be the wise, statesmanlike, conservative thing to do. The alternative, that he knows what he’s talking about yet is still sincerely inclined to release the guy who planned 9/11 plus dozens upon dozens of other jihadi fanatics in exchange for one G.I., is even worse. I’d bet 95 percent of people asked on the...

Whatever questions come flying at Herman Cain at Tuesday’s night Republican debate in Las Vegas, there is one big one he has to answer: Are you serious? It is a measure of Cain’s success that anyone would care to ask. For much of this year Cain seemed to be enjoying his role as political novelty act — an entertaining sideshow at debates, and even an occasional presence on the early-state campaign trail — when he wasn’t otherwise occupied with speeches, television appearances and book-tour publicity. But now that Cain, buoyed by bulging poll numbers, is demanding to be viewed as...

David Axlerod took a swing at Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain Monday, saying that he thought Cain’s 9-9-9 proposal would hurt the poor and the middle class. The senior Obama adviser called Cain an “intruiging personality” on “Morning Joe,” but took a shot at the Republican candidate’s tax proposal, saying, “I think his plan deserves scrunity … I don’t think it’s good for most Americans.” “I think you’ve got to add the 9-9-9 up, get to 27 percent, and that’s probably what poor and middle-class people will end up paying once the thing is implemented,” Axlerod said. Despite the attention...

"Cain was supposed to attend the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on Sunday. I like many people watched it -- was moved by it -- but he failed to attend," MSNBC host Martin Bashir said on his show today. "Now there’s been some surprise at his absence. But being honest, isn’t this consistent for a man who really doesn't want to be overtly associated with African-Americans?"