Free Republic

Hillary Clinton's declining personal image, ongoing battle to break free of the challenge from Sen. Bernie Sanders and struggle to adapt to an anti-establishment mood among voters this year have become caution signs for her campaign and the focus of new efforts to fortify her position as she prepares for a bruising general election. More than a dozen Clinton ­allies identified weaknesses in her candidacy that may erode her prospects of defeating Donald Trump, including poor showings with young women, untrustworthiness, unlikability and a lackluster style on the stump. Supporters also worry that she is a conventional candidate in an...

A new super PAC partnership between billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, the AFL-CIO and major public sector employee unions has triggered an angry backlash among the building trade unions -- dividing organized labor just as it ramps up its 2016 political programs. In letters delivered Monday to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, the presidents of eight building trade organizations called on the AFL-CIO to cut ties with Steyer, whose opposition to an extension of the Keystone XL Pipeline infuriated unions that had championed the jobs that the oil pipeline would have created.

WASHINGTON - A dream for 100 years, the National Museum of African American History and Culture promises to become an instant favorite when it opens Sept. 24, its soaring spaces and magical views of the Mall a fitting setting for its tale of African-American history and achievement. Museum officials offered a sneak peek last week at the 400,000-square-foot museum, the 19th of the Smithsonian Institution, that’s next to the Washington Monument. President Obama is expected to cut the ribbon on the dramatic space, which features layers of galleries focused on slavery, segregation and the civil rights movement as well as...

A band of exasperated Republicans — including 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney, a handful of veteran consultants and members of the conservative intelligentsia — is actively plotting to draft an independent presidential candidate who could keep Donald Trump from the White House. Those involved concede that an independent campaign at this late stage is probably futile, and they think they have only a couple of weeks to launch a credible bid. But these Republicans — including commentators William Kristol and Erick Erickson and strategists Mike Murphy, Stuart Stevens and Rick Wilson — are so repulsed by the prospect of Trump...

A band of exasperated Republicans — including 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney, a handful of veteran consultants and members of the conservative intelligentsia — is actively plotting to draft an independent presidential candidate who could keep Donald Trump from the White House. These GOP figures are commissioning private polling, lining up major funding sources­ and courting potential contenders, according to interviews with more than a dozen Republicans involved in the discussions. The effort has been sporadic all spring but has intensified significantly in the 10 days since Trump effectively locked up the Republican nomination. Those involved concede that an independent...

The booing was nearly as loud as the cheering when Bill Clinton stepped to the microphone in this remote mountain hamlet deep in the depressed heart of coal country. In the audience at the local elementary school Thursday night was a sizable contingent of coal miners and their families, many wearing helmets and T-shirts declaring their support for Donald Trump. […] The event here was Bill Clinton’s fourth in a long day of campaigning across Kentucky, where his wife faces a similar backlash in next week’s primary. …

Greg Nash Mitt Romney, the GOP’s 2012 nominee, is among those courting prospects for a possible third-party bid to keep Donald Trump from the White House, according to a Washington Post report . Among those prospects are Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), one of Trump’s most vocal Republican critics, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who suspended his presidential campaign in early May. Kasich’s chief strategist John Weaver said the governor isn’t interested in running an an independent. A Sasse spokesman declined to comment. But it’s not looking to good for a late in the game third-party bid, according to the...

As almost everyone is aware by now, The Washington Post –via recorded commentary from Bob Woodward– officially announced their intents to assign 20 reporters to take down the threat to their preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton. Before he died Andrew Breitbart spoke of this time of inevitable conflict. The ultimate battle between a center-right nation and the Cultural Marxists occupying the left-wing “Democrat Media Complex”. We might not have known the timing, but we all knew this war was coming. It’s here.

Video only Report says he pretended to be someone else in 1991 phone call

n Thursday night on Fox News’ “Hannity” show, Trump went after Jeff Bezos and Amazon following reports that the Washington Post (owned by Bezos) is deploying reporters to vet every aspect of Trump’s life. “[The Washington Post] is owned as a toy by Jeff Bezos who controls Amazon. Amazon is getting away with murder tax wise. He’s using The Washington Post for power so that the politicians in Washington don’t tax Amazon like they should be taxed. … [H]e’s got a huge antitrust problem because he’s controlling so much … What they’ve done is he bought this paper for practically...

Sen. Lindsey Graham paused for five full seconds and stumbled over his words pondering the question: When is the last time he split with fellow Republican Sen. John McCain on a major issue? “I don’t know, let me think about it,” Graham (S.C.) finally said of his closest Senate friend. “There have been several. I just can’t recall right now, right off the top of my head.” Yet that’s what has happened in the wake of Donald Trump’s ascendancy to presumptive Republican nominee for president. In the Republican civil war over Trump, this is perhaps the most glaring example of...

The Washington Post has built a sizable army of reporters to dig into every facet of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's life under orders of new owner Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder and Democratic Party donor. Post Associate Editor Bob Woodward revealed Wednesday that the Post has assigned 20 staffers to Trump. In addition the paper plans a book. "There's a lot we don't know," he told the National Association of Realtors convention in Washington. "We have 20 people working on Trump, we're going to do a book, we're doing articles about every phase of his life," he added.

Americans, collectively, are not as angry as watching cable TV would lead you to believe. But many poorer, less-educated folks who have been left behind in the 21st century—the ones who have seen their wages stagnate, their opportunities for upward mobility disappear and their life expectancies shorten—are looking to disrupt a status quo that has not worked for them. That’s what Sanders and Trump are both promising to do. And that’s the main reason why Bernie beat Hillary Clinton in yesterday’s West Virginia Democratic primary by 15.4 points. He carried every single county in the Mountaineer State, which by every...

Donald Trump will come to Washington on Thursday for a series of meetings with Republican congressional leaders. The goal, all involved say, is to hasten the process of unifying a fractured party. The reality is that, nice words to the contrary, Trump and those party leaders are likely never to fully achieve that result.

Republicans have a major electoral-map problem in November. Major. Donald Trump’s victory last week in Indiana’s primary not only effectively sealed the GOP nomination for the real estate billionaire but also brought into sharp relief how difficult it will be for any Republican to get to 270 electoral votes and beat Hillary Clinton to become the 45th president this fall. Start here: Eighteen states plus the District of Columbia have voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in every election between 1992 and 2012. Add them up, and you get 242 electoral votes.

On Thursday evening, a 40-year-old man — with dark, curly hair, olive skin and an exotic foreign accent — boarded a plane. It was a regional jet making a short, uneventful hop from Philadelphia to nearby Syracuse. Or so dozens of unsuspecting passengers thought. The curly-haired man tried to keep to himself, intently if inscrutably scribbling on a notepad he’d brought aboard. His seatmate, a blond-haired, 30-something woman sporting flip-flops and a red tote bag, looked him over. He was wearing navy Diesel jeans and a red Lacoste sweater – a look he would later describe as “simple elegance” –...

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, doesn’t talk all that much about education issues, but when he does, it is usually about the Common Core, rankings and spending. And usually he is wrong, wrong and wrong. In one Trump ad this year, he hit all three in just a few sentences: “I’m a tremendous believer in education. But education has to be at a local level. We cannot have the bureaucrats in Washington telling you how to manage your child’s education. So Common Core is a total disaster. We can’t let it continue. We are rated 28th in the...

Jodie Foster is on point. Mere minutes into conversation and she’s talking politics, specifically as they pertain to “Money Monster,” a timely thriller she’s directed. It’s impossible to watch “Money Monster,” which stars George Clooney and Julia Roberts and opens May 13, and not be reminded of the indeterminate rage of the Trump phenomenon. She’s eager to talk about “Money Monster,” in which Clooney plays Lee Gates, the swaggering, superficial star of a cable financial show who’s taken hostage by a young man, played by Jack O’Connell, whose savings have been wiped out by one of Gates’s stock tips. Foster...

Losing the endorsements of George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush — as harsh an indictment as the "establishment" can offer — is no punishment at all in the eyes of many conservatives. ... The utter failure of the Bush brand surprised some people, given that Republican voters still generally say that they like Bush. But this ignores the role both Bushes now play in conservative history — as sellouts. George H.W. Bush's acceptance of a tax hike (forced on him by a Democratic Congress) is the Genesis story of the anti-tax movement. George W. Bush's record in office, for...

“Our target date is June 7, but our goal is in the middle of May to be the presumptive nominee,” Paul Manafort, Trump’s newly installed convention manager, who has been given broad authority to shape the campaign, said in a wide-ranging interview here.