Free Republic

“Maybe Trump is onto something...” a friend averred on Monday as we watched Donald Trump’s foreign policy speech unfold in Youngstown, Ohio. This November, for the first time, my self-proclaimed “apathetic liberal-type” friend will consider voting Republican. For her, as for many young people over the past few months, the terrorist attacks in Orlando, San Bernardino and Nice roused her from her Bernie slumber to see that we live in a real world, with real enemies, and real consequences for inaction when it comes to standing up for our values. The inaction is that our leaders fail to assign blame...

After 15 years, the US's counter-terror strategy has 'unequivocally failed' Apple and Google, two of the country’s biggest employers, don’t mess around with failure. Leaders either produce or they’re gone. Major League Baseball and National Football League teams have one standard for their leaders: get us into the playoffs or you’re fired. The government’s foreign policy elites, however, don’t have to succeed to keep their jobs. Unlike the rest of America, when U.S. leaders in foreign policy fail, they are rewarded or promoted, while the 330 million Americans living outside the Washington beltway foot the bill.

I have had a long-time list of weapons to be purchased, basically for household of 6. I have 3 AR15's, 3 AK47's, 1 Glock 17, 1 Mossberg 500, 1 Hipoint 9mm carbine, 1 Keltec Sub2000 9mm carbine, a FNS SCAR-17(.308), a DPMS LR-308, and a Ruger 10/22 Takedown(22LR). This is considering the possibility of a Hillary victory in November and a potential gun ban...

The U.S. Army is about to acquire a new weapon that could dramatically impact infantry warfare. The U.S. Army is introducing a new shoulder-fired weapon that has the potential to change infantry tactics and revolutionize infantry warfare in a way unseen since the Battle of Königgrätz in July 1866. That battle, which marked the beginning of the end of the line infantry attack, saw Austrian troops carrying muzzle-loaders outgunned by Prussian infantrymen carrying breech-loading needle guns. According to its fiscal year (FY) 2017 budget request, the U.S. Army will produce 105 so-called XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement (CDTE) weapons, a...

Do Republicans deserve to lose? Consider the state of play as we write this in late January, just days from the first GOP nominating contests. The Republican frontrunner is a longtime liberal whose worldview might best be described as an amalgam of pop-culture progressivism and vulgar nationalism. His campaign rallies are orgies of self-absorption, dominated by juvenile insults of those who criticize him and endless boasting about his poll numbers. He’s a narcissist and a huckster, an opportunist who not only failed to join conserv­atives in the big fights about the size and scope of government over the past several...

DES MOINES, Iowa - It's a little past 8:30 in the morning and Ken Brolin is marching down the narrow hallway of an old college dormitory, pounding on doors to make sure everyone's up and at 'em. But the three-story residence that sits next to a business college here is no longer housing students seeking a degree in administration or accounting. Instead, this is the temporary home for foot soldiers devoted to securing the Republican presidential caucuses for Ted Cruz. Brolin, who assisted Newt Gingrich's Iowa campaign in 2012, is a silver-haired political hand who is now the equivalent of...

HOUSTON, Texas – Today, the Cruz for President campaign announced its Kentucky State Leadership Team consisting of Tea Party and conservative leaders from across the Bluegrass State. Scott Hofstra, Marty Kares-Workman, Barbara Knott, and Boone County Constable Joe Kalil will serve as Kentucky Co-Chairs."From day one, Cruz has said we needed to coalesce conservatives around the country to get behind his campaign," said Hofstra. "And there is no better example of that than right here in Kentucky where the various Tea Party leaders have consolidated efforts to support Cruz. He is unapologetically conservative and routinely fights for the issues we...

Washington (CNN)—Media mogul Rupert Murdoch believes Donald Trump's ability to appeal across party lines will lead to victory over Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. "Cruz bets uniting white conservatives/evangelicals enough, Meanwhile Trump appealing across party lines. Surely the winning strategy," Murdoch tweeted Friday night. Murdoch added that in the wake of Thursday night's Republican debate, the party's establishment is viewing Trump as the inevitable nominee. "24 hours and many influential Republicans see Trump inevitable and get ready to switch. United by horror of Hillary whose campaign staggers," Murdoch tweeted.

In his latest interview with talk-host Michael Savage, Republican presidential primary front-runner Donald Trump was asked what he will do if the GOP establishment tries to "cut him out" of the nomination. Trump drew on his experience hosting prizefights, including 17 bouts featuring Mike Tyson. "When the fighter goes into the other fighter's home territory, his home territory, they'll always say, the only way I'm going to win is, 'I gotta knock him out,'" he explained. "The way you knock him out is to just win the primaries. If I win the primaries, if I can win in Iowa and...

  The Art of the Deal In the last few months — like many people — I’ve become a YUGE Trump fan.  And watching several of his rallies on YouTube, he often mentions his 1987 book, The Art of the Deal.  Well, he aroused my curiosity enough that I went out and bought a copy from Amazon. Now being a self-employed market analyst in the tech industry, I also figured the book would give me some profitable ideas for my business, which it has. So what’s my opinion of the book?  Well, it’s a highly interesting read, and any...

One thing that frustrated even the most ardent supporters of George W. Bush's administration was his refusal to hit back hard at over the top, abominable personal attacks against him and his family, including his daughters, by those in the media and in the culture at large. Bush revered the office of the president and, unlike his successor, held it to a higher standard than did gutter snipes such as Sean Penn or the New York Times. This is why Newt Gingrich drew cheers and praise during the 2012 election cycle when he hit back at the media for its...

The latest poll shows Ted Cruz opening his lead over Donald Trump in Iowa to nine points — nine points. If Cruz does indeed win in the Iowa caucuses on February 1, he’ll have enough momentum going into the February 9 New Hampshire primary to place second or third. The next primary will take place on February 20 in South Carolina, where the GOP primary voters are deeply conservative — and, I suspect, likely to give Cruz first place. Three days later the caucuses in Nevada will take place. Receiving little attention in the press, this event will be determined...

Ted Cruz has assembled an impressive presidential campaign structure in Iowa, veteran political observers here say, with one going so far as to describe Cruz’s campaign as perhaps "the most sophisticated" the first in the nation caucus state has ever witnessed. Because of that grass roots organization, Cruz is primed to maintain his recent surge in the polls and win the Iowa Republican caucuses in five weeks, those observers say. Cruz, the Tea Party firebrand and first term U.S. Sen. from Texas, was the first Republican candidate to enter the presidential race, on March 23. Nine months later, he has...

DES MOINES | Ted Cruz has assembled an impressive presidential campaign structure in Iowa, veteran political observers here say, with one going so far as to describe Cruz's campaign as perhaps "the most sophisticated" the first-in-the-nation caucus state has ever witnessed.Because of that grassroots organization, Cruz is primed to maintain his recent surge in the polls and win the Iowa Republican caucuses in five weeks, those observers say.Cruz, a tea party firebrand and first-term U.S. senator from Texas, was the first Republican candidate to enter the presidential race, on March 23. Nine months later, he has overtaken longtime front-runner Donald...

Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, John Kasich and Mike Huckabee can all be counted on to give their small delegate counts to Jeb Bush later in the race. However, the non-GOPe candidates Trump, Cruz and possibly Ben Carson are currently polling beyond the GOPe group. Fox Poll Example: GOPe Collective = 27% (Rubio 11, + Bush 3, + Christie 3, + Fiorina 3, + Paul 3, + Kasich 2, + Huckabee 1, + Santorum 1 = 27) Non-GOPe Collective = 66% (Trump 39, + Cruz 18, + Carson 9 = 66) So what we are now seeing is two...

Las Vegas - James Dobson, founder of the Christian group Focus on the Family and one of the nation's most influential evangelicals, will endorse Ted Cruz for president today, according to sources briefed on the announcement. It will represent the latest in a series of endorsements for Cruz from prominent conservative leaders, dozens of whom met secretly last week and voted to coalesce their forces behind the Texas senator. The plan, as decided by the Tony Perkins-led group, is to slowly roll out endorsements from prominent conservative leaders individually to create a perception of the "movement" uniting behind Cruz. Dobson,...

As campaigns become more focused and debates become more heated, Ted Cruz is rapidly emerging as a front runner for the GOP. His highly organized grassroots efforts are spreading in Georgia like wildfire, and he is now the first presidential candidate with a campaign headquarters established in Lowndes County. The office will open with a ribbon cutting Wednesday, Dec. 16, at 3 pm. County Chairman Trey Taylor says, “Our nation is at a political crossroads. We cannot continue down the road we have traveled over the last several years. Leadership is what this nation needs, the kind of leadership Ted...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)97% smashed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) 79%, one of his 2016 GOP presidential rivals, for breaking his promise to the voters who elected him that he would not support amnesty for illegal aliens. The aggressive comments from Cruz about came during the last part of his lengthy exclusive interview with Breitbart News in his Greenville campaign office here last Monday. They represent one of the most unreported stories in the 2016 presidential cycle: Rubio's work on not just the "Gang of Eight" amnesty bill, but now the recently discovered unlimited mass Muslim migration provisions in his so...

The Ted Cruz surge has officially arrived. Predictably, the same political class that previously didn’t give him any shot to win the nomination is now saying he’s “peaking too soon” or the “flavor of the month.” Here are five reasons why they’re wrong (as they almost always are). 1. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Iowa does not “break late.” Accounting for the upcoming holidays when most people tune out politics, there are about 40 days until Iowans vote in their first-in-the-nation caucuses. Cruz is now the leader in the Real Clear Politics polling average in Iowa. By that point in the...

LAS VEGAS : Ted Cruz knows he'll be a center of attention, if not the center of attention, at the fifth Republican debate here in Nevada Tuesday. In the first GOP debate, back in August, questions went to Donald Trump, and Ben Carson, and Marco Rubio, and Jeb Bush, and Trump again before moderators got around to Cruz. (The first question: "How can you win in 2016 when you're such a divisive figure?") It won't be that way this time, with Cruz now leading the RealClearPolitics average of polls in Iowa and in second place to Trump nationally. The Cruz...