Free Republic

Already this week, a letter from 50 respected Republican foreign-policy gurus announced that they would not support Donald Trump; Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) wrote an op-ed declaring that she would not vote for Trump; and Trump once again roiled the race when he told a packed rally: “By the way, and if [Hillary Clinton] gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. The Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what, that will be a horrible day.” The Clinton team, not surprisingly, took this as an invitation to commit violence. Michael Hayden,...

Smarts don’t always equate to common sense. In the case of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), there is an inverse relationship between the two. I’m told by smart lawyers that he has a sharp legal mind, can think on his feet and has remarkable recall for facts, cases and even page numbers of the briefs. But his political judgment has become distorted by ambition. Interestingly, he no longer is touting the line that Republicans unwilling to join the suicide squad ”own” Obamacare. Perhaps someone told him that among the obnoxious and untrue things he has said, this ranks at the top...

exas Gov. Rick Perry has always cultivated a populist image. He began his campaign attacking Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke and calling Washington, D.C., a “seedy” place. These days he’s laying it on pretty thick. Last week he told the San Francisco Chronicle: The American people are not confused about what is on their minds. And it’s not whether some political operative takes a video and puts it up on YouTube. They care about who’s going to get this country back working, who is it that has a track record and a focus and the courage to walk into...