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The Republican National Convention clearly reached its crescendo on Thursday night. The four-day run-up until Donald Trump's accepting of the nomination, while giving a strong ratings performance, did not bring any atypical highs for the political meetup. Trump's speech didn't change that narrative by much. With all three broadcast networks and cable news networks now tallied for the 10 p.m. hour, it appears just over 32 million viewers tuned into Trump's extended time on stage. On the broadcast networks alone Thursday night, Trump's time on the stage brought in 12.3 million viewers to the 10 o'clock hour on through the...

Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol made yet another plea Sunday for Mitt Romney or Sen. Ben Sasse to launch a third-party bid to challenge presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. "Look what's happening to our country. Look at the two party nominees. An independent candidacy is still doable. Please. @MittRomney @BenSasse," Kristole tweeted on Sunday. Kristol has spearheaded the charge for an independent candidate to enter the race and has worked with conservatives seeking to deny Trump the nomination at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland next week. Kristol earlier this month encouraged Republican delegates to protest on the floor...

Bisexuality is booming, with the number of people who bed men and women more than doubling, a study says. Some 7.7 percent revealed they had bi romps in 2014, compared to 3.1 percent in 1990. The stats follow the openness of Brit model Cara Delevingne and other celebrities about their bisexuality. In the same period the percentage of men who reported having had sex with at least one man rose from 4.5 percent to 8.2 percent. And the number of women who said they had bedded at least one female leapt from 3.6 percent to 8.7 percent. Meanwhile, acceptance of...

CLEVELAND — It is nearing time for the dump-Trump forces to put up or shut up, as they prepare for a final showdown this week on trying to free delegates to the Republican Convention to vote against presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump. Party leaders, and a growing number of rank-and-file delegates, say the renegades’ effort is going nowhere: Mr. Trump has solidified his support, struck the right balance with the party’s platform and is in little danger of being ousted. “Now is the time to stand united as Republicans,” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus told delegates Wednesday as he kicked off...

Given the rumors that are flying around about 'changing the rules' at the GOP convention so as to prevent Donald Trump from being the Republican nominee, I think some thought should be given to the potential collateral damage to the Republican Party's efforts in November. First, I'll state the obvious - if Trump is denied his position on the ballot in 2016, I simply will not vote for president - and I suspect that holds for many, probably a majority of Trump supporters. So Romney, Ryan, or whoever replaces him will simply have to find another pool of millions of...

CLEVELAND, Ohio — A Republican National Committeeman from Oregon warned reporters Tuesday that 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney is attempting to foil Donald Trump’s nomination at the GOP convention next week. Solomon Yue, a member of the RNC’s Standing Rules Committee, made these remarks after the committee adjourned Tuesday afternoon. Different from the Convention Rules Committee, which holds jurisdiction over the 2016 convention rules, the standing committee found itself responding to inquiries relating to whether or not certain delegates can vote in opposition to the results of their state primary on the first ballot of the nomination process. The Convention...

An ally of former Republican presidential candidate John Kasich has a message for the Ohio governor’s supporters: It’s time to convince Kasich to offer himself as an alternative to Donald Trump at next week’s Republican National Convention. According to Cleveland.com, in an email sent Sunday night, former New Hampshire Sen. Gordon Humphrey (R) told Kasich supporters, “John needs encouragement to make the move. Please email John and offer him your encouragement and continued backing. … The way is clear for John. It’s not going to get better than this, but time is of the essence. Please take a moment to...

Republican delegates unanimously adopted an amendment to their draft platform Monday morning that called pornography “a public health crisis” and a “public menace” that is destroying lives. The language went further in its condemnation of porn than the 2012 GOP platform, which condemned child pornography and encouraged the enforcement of obscenity and pornography laws.

Presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump has more support from Hispanic voters than both 2008 GOP nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney had during their general elections in 2008 and 2012.

Truncated title. Full title: EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Clinton advisers feel she has better White House shot against Mitt Romney than Jeb Bush Hillaryland is ready for Romney. Advisers to Hillary Clinton said the former secretary of state has a better shot of winning the White House in a race against former Mitt Romney than she does against Jeb Bush. Clinton confidants and other Democrats said in interviews that they view Romney as the weaker Republican opponent in a general election, unlikely to get a second chance from the key swing group of independents who made up their minds about him just...

Last year, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was serious about making one last bid for the White House. Only after realizing that Jeb Bush had already secured pledges from most of the top Republican donors did he decide to sit out the 2016 election. Of course, as it turned out, Bush – even with a reported $100 million war chest – could barely make a blip on the electoral radar. In the year of Donald Trump, the former Florida governor was just another victim. Since then, Romney has become one of Trump’s biggest and most outspoken detractors. When the primary...

Neil W. McCabeJune 30, 2016 Former Massachusetts governor W. Mitt Romney told “Face The Nation” host John Dickerson Wednesday that his conscience would not allow him to vote for his party’s presumptive nominee Donald Trump, reports Atlantic.com. “It’s a matter of personal conscience,” he said. “I can’t vote for either of those two people,” he said at the Aspen Ideas forum, co-sponsored by Atlantic and the Aspen Institute. Romney also allowed that his wife Ann would be an ideal president and he could write in her name, or failing that, he would write in the name of a third-party candidate....

With just a few weeks to go until the GOP convention, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney says he’s still getting some encouragement from his family to jump into the 2016 race for the White House. “My wife and kids wanted me to run again this time,” Mr. Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, said this week at the “Aspen Ideas Festival.” “I’ve got some kids — I got an email from one of my sons yesterday saying ‘you gotta get in, Dad — you gotta get in,’ ” he said....

Mitt Romney still can’t see himself voting for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. However, he can’t bring himself to vote for the Democratic counterpart, Hillary Clinton, either. But the 2012 GOP nominee has a solution: putting his own wife’s name on the ballot. “It’s a matter of personal conscience,” Romney told CBS News’ John Dickerson Wednesday at the Aspen Ideas Festival. “I can’t vote for either of those two people.” Romney explained that he simply cannot get behind Trump’s divisive character. “Our nominee is saying, ‘Hey look it’s these people here. It’s these Mexicans coming across the border... it’s...

Mitt Romney's family is still pleading for him to mount an independent bid for the presidency, the 2012 Republican nominee said Wednesday. Romney, speaking to CBS News' John Dickerson at the Aspen Ideas Festival, said a son asked him as recently as Tuesday to do so. "My wife and kids wanted me to run again this time, interestingly enough," Romney said. "I got an email from one of my sons yesterday, saying 'You gotta get in, Dad! You gotta get in!' "

A prominent neoconservative intellectual and early promoter of the Iraq War is headlining an official campaign fundraiser for Hillary Clinton next month, Foreign Policy has learned. The move signals a shift in the Clinton campaign’s willingness to associate with prominent Republicans and is the latest sign of how far some GOP defectors are willing to go to block a Donald Trump presidency.Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, will speak at a Hillary for America fundraiser ...

The specter of Donald Trump’s presidential nomination being ripped from under him in a nastily contested Republican National Convention next month is alive — again. Anti-Trump forces appeared to have been defeated after he ousted his remaining opponents from the race in early May and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus all signaled that Mr. Trump had sewn things up. But weeks of bad press stemming from Mr. Trump’s criticism of a federal judge and uneven handling in the aftermath of the Orlando, Florida, terrorist shooting have kick-started efforts...

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus tapped former congressman Enid Mickelsen to chair the all-important rules committee during the convention. Just two weeks ago, Enid had this to say about the presidential race: Ryan Struyk @ryanstruyk Enid Mickelsen just named chair of GOP convention rules panel. Here's what she told Salt Lake Tribune two weeks ago. She has also spoken approvingly of the idea that the rules could be changed to allow delegates to vote for someone other than a candidate they are bound to by result of primary or caucus. It's unkown if Trump was consulted about the choice.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) has made clear he doesn't agree with a proposal put forward by Donald Trump -- whom Ryan has endorsed -- to ban Muslim immigration into the United States, but in an interview with the Huffington Post Thursday, Ryan floated taking a President Trump to court if he tried to implement such a ban or some of his other controversial proposals unilaterally. “I would sue any president that exceeds his or her powers,” Ryan said in a back-and-forth about Trump's claims that he could implement a Muslim ban or build a Mexican border wall without congressional...

But the fact is that the attacks by Romney and others not only do not harm Trump’s chances of winning. They enhance them. Rather than seek to heal the split, he should try to widen it. A political leader is particularly credible when he speaks ill of members of his own party, particularly after the primary season has ended. While we treat as boiler plate criticism of Democrats by Republicans and vice versa, we take seriously derogatory comments about members of one’s own party (hence the media’s interest in intraparty criticism of Trump). If Trump can criticize the Romney wing...