Free Republic

Last night poster IwaCornDogs on Free Republic posted what Trump's campaign is mailing to Iowans. The poster scanned the letter and you can read it at the link. The letter nicely asks for support and explains how easy it is to caucus, provides the voter's caucus location, and also a voter registration form to change their registration from independent to republican at caucus night. Probably hundreds of thousands of Iowans are receiving these letters. There are no vile scare tactics or attacks. There is no begging you for money or donations. It simply tells you how to caucus for Trump...

Of all the many things said about Donald Trump, what was said by Roger Ailes, head of the Fox News Channel, said it all in just two words: “Grow up!” It is amazing how many people have been oblivious to this middle-aged man’s spoiled brat behavior, his childish boastfulness about things he says he is going to do, and his petulant response to every criticism with ad hominem replies.

Bernie and Trump boast about inspiring new people to head to the polls but less than a week away from the Iowa caucuses, the number of registered voters has decreased in the state over the past year. If the major political parties had some trick up their sleeves to get more voters registered ahead of the Iowa caucus, it hasn't happened yet. With under a week left until people vote for the first time in 2016, the number of registered Democrats and Republicans has remained fairly static in the last six months. So the big crowds at rallies for Bernie...

As the end of the year approaches, Donald Trump is solidly ensconced at the top of the Republican polls nationally. The man just behind him? Senator Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) , an establishment bugaboo. The establishment’s favorite candidate, Senator Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) , is currently running far behind in national polling, a distant third in Iowa, and in a deadlock with Cruz and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for second in New Hampshire. Panic time. So, here’s the establishment roundup for Christmas week. If You Support Donald Trump, You Want to Lose. Earlier this week, Bret Stephens of The...

THE vice president of the United States was unhappy. In 1983, a "Conservative Digest" poll of conservatives found that 64 percent of right-leaning party leaders wanted George H.W. Bush replaced on the 1984 Reagan ticket. "Light reading," Bush scribbled across a cover sheet as he sent a copy to his friend James Baker - adding a frowning face. Reagan would have none of it - he liked and appreciated Bush. But the gulf between establishment and insurgent Republicans has only grown in the ensuing decades. The elder Bush's struggles through the years with a restive right shed light on the...

Cheri Jacobus ‏@CheriJacobus I will not vote for @realDonaldTrump under any circumstances in the primary OR general election I will write in a real Republican.

It occurred to me last night, as random strangers were tweeting this story at me, that I’ll be expected to commit ritual seppuku if Romney somehow ends up jumping into this clusterfark. Even though I have no influence over anyone, I took the joke too far. I planted the seed. And I watered it with the tears of thousands of bored readers who sat through post after post about it. All I want is a trial. I admit guilt. I just want to contest the sentence. The party establishment is paralyzed. Big money is still on the sidelines. No consensus...

Had a funny thought this morning...that is all.

FERGUSON • Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson says he probably wouldn’t have used deadly force against Michael Brown, the teenager whose fatal shooting by police Officer Darren Wilson sparked a national debate on race and the role of police. Carson gave an interview to the Post-Dispatch on Friday afternoon after visiting Ferguson. When asked if he would have shot Brown if he were in Wilson’s shoes, Carson said: “It’s hard to say. I probably, knowing who he was, I probably just would have arrested him.” Carson said he would have waited for backup before having the altercation. A Justice Department...

Ah: I see that there was a Twitter exchange among Brad DeLong, James Pethokoukis, and others over why Republicans don’t acknowledge that Ben Bernanke helped the economy, and claim credit. Pethokoukis — who presumably gets to talk to quite a few Republicans from his perch at AEI — offers a fairly amazing explanation: B/c many view BB as enabling Obama’s spending and artificially propping up debt-heavy economy in need of Mellon-esque liquidation Yep: that dastardly Bernanke was preventing us from having a financial crisis, curse him. Actually, there’s a lot of evidence that this was an important part of the...

“Mitch McConnell has an unusual admonition for the new Republican majority as it takes over the Senate this week: Don’t be ‘scary.’”... Democrats are dubious of McConnell’s pledge to avert edge-of-the-cliff moments. They believe he will run into the same problems that have bedeviled House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) during the past four years — including the inability to corral rabble-rousers such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) to support an agenda that conservative critics will probably view as not bold enough in challenging Obama. Appeasing those far-right conservatives will lead to an agenda that Democrats hope to exploit in...

The Democrats? I’d rate the chances of the party reining in its extremes at below zero.

Republicans are split over whether to change the Senate’s rules to allow filibusters on executive and judicial nominations. As they head into a conference meeting on Tuesday, some Republicans say it’s time to undo a wrong committed by Democratic Leader Harry Reid and go back to rules that require 60 votes to clear most nominees. “I think it’s rank hypocrisy if we don’t,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said when asked about reversing the rule change. “If we don’t, then disregard every bit of complaint that we made, not only after they did it but also during the campaign,” he added....

Practically everyone expects California Attorney General Kamala Harris to win re-election handily in November. The Democrat won 53 percent of the vote in a crowded June primary. A rising star expected to ascend someday to the governorship, perhaps a U.S. Senate seat, Harris has won the endorsement of major newspapers in the state. She's such an attractive candidate that even though it was true, President Barack Obama had to apologize last year for calling her "by far the best-looking attorney general in the country." Yet Harris faces two unusual obstacles in the November runoff. One is Ron Gold, a never-elected...

Former Democratic pollster Pat Caddell blasted the Republican Party for not making the president’s planned executive amnesty a national issue ... The Republican Party, they’re not called the stupid party for nothing. These people are able to, are willing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory given the opportunity,” he stated. “It's amazing to me. I've never seen a party that doesn't grab opportunities thrown at it like this,” he declared. And “they [Republicans] should be taking this issue and making it a national referendum issue against every Democrat, and for every Republican in the country.” He speculated that...

The National Security Agency’s headquarters in Ft. Meade, Md., will go dark if a cohort of Maryland lawmakers has its way. Eight Republicans in the 141-member Maryland House of Delegates introduced legislation Thursday that would deny the electronic spy agency “material support, participation or assistance in any form” from the state, its political subdivisions or companies with state contracts. The bill would deprive NSA facilities water and electricity carried over public utilities, ban the use of NSA-derived evidence in state courts and prevent state universities from partnering with the NSA on research.

If U.S. Chamber of Commerce strategist Scott Reed really wants “no loser candidates” and “no fools on our ticket,” as he told the Wall Street Journal last week, then he might want to start by banishing himself from any involvement with the 2014 elections. It takes a truly foolish Republican consultant to declare war on the party’s most energized troops — the same foolish politico who once advised Republicans to work in favor of gun control and who ran the incompetent 1996 presidential campaign of Bob Dole. If Reed wants “no loser candidates,” presumably he will be working to rid...

The Ryan-Murray budget deal is a fake and a fraud that the Stupid Party thinks is on the level and the Democrats have constructed as a trap for them. It has only just been announced and it has already caused another split in the Republican Party which is just what the Democrats wanted to happen. This “split”was designed to happen. It was a very simple trap that is forcing the Republicans into another intramural war. The Democrats have once again played rope-a-dope with the hapless GOPe; and once again John Boehner, the Charlie Brown of politics, has fallen right into...

In case you missed it, John Boehner has hired Rebecca Tallent. Tallent worked for the left-of-center “Bipartisan Policy Center,” and is a serious amnesty advocate. She helped John McCain and Ted Kennedy during the Bush era on that disastrous plan. Here’s what is going to happen. Boehner will wait until 2014, after qualifying for all the serious challenges to incumbents is over. Then he’ll get all these Republicans talking out of both sides of their mouths and the Democrats together for a bipartisan immigration reform push. The threat of primary challenges well passed, they’ll get their amnesty deal done. The...

<p>While the Senate majority leader is blowing up his institution, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) held an interesting press conference, giving some broad hints as to where that body is going.</p> <p>First, Boehner suggested that the House isn’t merely going to club the president over Obamacare.</p>