Free Republic

It is time to look more seriously at the Donald Trump presidential candidacy.... ...For the first time in its history, the United States has had four, and arguably five, consecutive terms of unsuccessful federal government, from administrations and Congresses of both parties. The last Clinton term under-reacted to the original terrorist incidents at the Khobar Towers (1996), the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam embassies (1998) and the USS Cole (in 2000); and stoked up the housing bubble through the Community Reinvestment Act and executive orders to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to invest massively in sub-prime mortgages. George W. Bush...

If there was any doubt that Ted Cruz is the hot commodity of late in the Republican presidential race, it should be dispelled by the results of the latest national poll. Ryan Lovelace of the Washington Examiner reports, “A new national survey shows that while Donald Trump maintains a huge lead among GOP primary voters, Sen. Ted Cruz is continuing to surge. Marco Rubio“According to the latest New York Times/CBS poll, Trump wins 35 percent of the vote, and has a 19-point lead over Cruz. But Cruz jumped into second place with 16 percent, which is roughly four times the...

If The Donald needed a bit of an ego boost heading into tonight’s debate (okay… I choked a bit typing that phrase) he got one from Monmouth last night. Though he was already pretty much crushing the field nationally and in all the states except possibly Iowa, the pollsters recorded Trump breaking the 40% barrier for the first time in that survey and threatening to hit the “Game Over” benchmark of 50. (Politico) Donald Trump just got a little more vault in his ceiling. Nationwide, the polling-obsessed Manhattan multi-billionaire and leading Republican presidential candidate broke into the 40s on Monday.According...

GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, who seems to grow stronger in the polls with every controversial remark that he makes, is crushing the competition in YouTube views. That is according to a recent analysis conducted by ZEFR, which bills itself as the video identification technology company for content owners and brands. ZEFR analyzed YouTube data for the top 10 Republican and Democratic candidates for the week of Nov. 30 to Dec. 6. Not only is Trump beating his Republican rivals by a nearly 8-to-1 margin, but he had more than double the views of likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and...

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump got into an interesting war of words on Twitter last week with a Saudi prince. "Dopey Prince (Al-Waleed bin Talal) wants to control our U.S. politicians with daddy's money. Can't do it when I get elected," Trump tweeted. Trump's social-media salvo was truly provocative, and not because he called a billionaire member of the Saudi royal family "dopey." What made Trump's outburst on Twitter so interesting was his willingness to call out the tacit and longstanding subversion of the U.S. political system by foreign interests. "You are a disgrace not only to the GOP but...

So dominant is Hillary Clinton's polling in the presidential primaries, notes the press critic Howard Kurtz, that the media have essentially stopped paying attention to the Democratic race at all. The logic, for a media organization, is simple: Why lavish limited resources on a fait accompli? The Democrats, after all, have spoken. They are fully ready for (or perhaps fully resigned to) Hillary. That's certainly not the case on the Republican side, where, we are told (ad nauseam), that the race is still "wide open." With "no clear frontrunner" on the GOP side, the contrast between the Republican and Democratic...

[Full title] Trump Edges Cruz in Iowa; His Supporters Think Japanese Internment Was Good; Clinton Still Well Ahead of Sanders In State PPP’s newest Iowa poll finds Donald Trump and Ted Cruz at the top of the heap with 28% and 25% respectively. Marco Rubio at 14% and Ben Carson at 10% are also in double digits with Jeb Bush at 7% the only other candidate who clears even 3%. Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, and Mike Huckabee all hit that level with John Kasich and Rand Paul each getting 2%, Lindsey Graham and Rick Santorum each getting 1%, and Jim...

Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump I wonder if @megynkelly and her flunkies have written their scripts yet about my debate performance tonight. No matter how well I do - bad! 10:40 AM - 15 Dec 2015 Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump Between Iraq war monger @krauthammer, dummy @KarlRove, deadpan @GeorgezWill, highly overrated @megynkelly, among others, @FoxNews not fair! Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump .@megynkelly is very bad at math. She was totally unable to figure out the difference between me and Cruz in the new Monmouth Poll 41to14. 10:34 AM - 15 Dec 2015

So we have got a new poll out from Quinnipiac University looking at Iowa. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 100% has just taken over the Real Clear Politics lead in Iowa by a hair, a finding of Donald Trump 28, Cruz 27 is not surprising at all. What is interesting though is to see who is winning Iowa’s conservatives, and who is winning the moderates.It turns out it is not even close. Cruz wins TEA Party Republicans 45-26 and Very Conservative Republicans 34-24. It is among the center and left wings of the party that Trump takes over: Somewhat Conservatives are...

When U.S. presidential candidate Ted Cruz withdrew from a fundraiser in Texas, his wife Heidi stepped in to charm donors. A major backer uses her whenever she needs to close a deal. Another is planning a women's only event featuring Mrs. Cruz. Heidi Cruz, a Harvard Business School graduate and former Bush administration official, has emerged as a central figure in her husband's campaign, charming on-the-fence donors while acting as a bridge to the Republican establishment. The effort to broaden Ted Cruz's appeal is crucial as he soars in the polls. He has long had a strong base of support...

Two years ago, Trump met with immigration activists who told them their stories and asked for his support on immigration. "You convinced me" Trump said as the meeting ended. Donald Trump with Antonia Tijerino, Estuardo Rodriguez, and DREAMer activists at his office in 2013. Courtesy Estuardo Rodriguez On an August day two years ago, Donald Trump was in a much different place: He was just a billionaire with the simple goal of connecting his beauty pageant business with the upcoming Hispanic Heritage Awards. So at his New York penthouse office atop Trump Tower, he convened a meeting. Trump ushered in...

As a young man, I learned that sometimes that hot chick you're dating is also completely crazy and, as much fun as it is to go out with her, it's going to end badly. That's Donald Trump, the super hottie of the "I Hate the GOP Establishment with a Burning Passion That Has Rendered Me Insusceptible to Reason" crew. He's sexy, he likes to party, and he certainly puts out – in the sense that he fulfills your fantasies about giving it to the RINOs good and hard. That intensely troubling metaphor aside, the point is still valid. Donald Trump...

GREER, S.C. (AP) — As she's working the counter at a hole-in-the-wall hot dog stand named Rosie's in upstate South Carolina, Tracy Hooker isn't interested in debating the merits of Donald Trump's proposal to temporarily block Muslims from coming into the United States. She knows some people think it's bigoted. That others argue it's impractical, legally dubious or both. And that every other Republican running for president has, in some way or another, rejected the idea the plan is even worth talking about. That's why she says Trump is "my guy." He's the only one who gets it. "Think about...

Donald Trump proved again why he’s the man the Establishment loves to hate, suggesting last week that we ban Muslim immigration “until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.” In response, the powers-that-be, fearing becoming the powers-that-were, have roundly condemned him, in one case saying he should “go to hell.” And I could fault Trump, too: His proposal doesn’t go far enough. We should halt all immigration, as I’ve recommended for years. Yet in the least and as Trump suggests, Muslim immigration should be suspended immediately. The apocryphal saying informs, “The definition of insanity is...