Free Republic

Donald Trump moved closer to a jury trial over allegations he misled Trump University students with promises that seminars as good as the Wharton business school would be taught by his "handpicked" instructors. Trump, 69, and the school on Wednesday lost a bid to throw out the claims by senior citizens and other disappointed students ahead of trial. The billionaire and his business, which stopped enrolling students in 2010 and changed its name to Trump Entrepreneur Initiative, convinced U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego there was no need for a court order barring further misrepresentations about the seminars....

New York Attorney General Eric Schniederman is suing Donald Trump and his real estate "university" for defrauding more than 5,000 people of $40 million. "Mr. Trump used his celebrity status and personally appeared in commercials making false promises to convince people to spend tens of thousands of dollars they couldn't afford for lessons they never got," Schniederman says in a release. "No one, no matter how rich or popular they are, has a right to scam hard working New Yorkers. Anyone who does should expect to be held accountable."

Donald Trump has to put his mouth where his money is. The Republican presidential candidate will have to answer questions under oath about his net worth - and about how much money he raked in from his now-defunct Trump University, a California federal court judge ruled this week. Lawyers for The Donald had contended he didn't have to answer questions in a civil racketeering lawsuit about how much money he made from the "school" because he'd already acknowledged under oath that he had "significant involvement with both the operations and overall business strategy of Trump University." In a ruling Tuesday,...

Donald Trump must disclose how much money he made from his so-called Trump University, San Diego U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel ruled this week. The judge ruled that one of several plaintiffs that had signed up for Trump U is allowed to question the current GOP presidential candidate about the profit he made, whether directly or indirectly, from Trump University. ((snip)) In his ruling, Curiel added that Trump failed to show "that a broad federal right to financial privacy exists that bars discovery regarding any financial transactions of a defendant accused of defrauding large numbers of people." "Thus, Trump's payments...

One summer's evening, a skinny, not-particularly athletic boy, perhaps eleven years old, scored the most glorious touchdown of his life.  This was not a real game.  My friend and I, along with his older brother Phil, were just tossing a ball around in the park.  But it was a memorable triumph because I scored my touchdown by outmaneuvering Phil with a head fake, and then outrunning him for half the length of the field.  It was almost too easy!snip...today, addressing myself to any Trump supporters who are not already lost to the irrational anger he feeds on -- please don't...

Published on Feb 28, 2016 Gov. John Kasich looked ahead to Super Tuesday contests and predicted Trump will win "probably all of them" in an interview with Jake Tapper.

Republican voters need only look to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to understand that GOP lawmakers will willingly sacrifice the White House in order to save their own hides. As the Republican Party begins to accept the very real possibility that front-runner Donald Trump will be their presidential nominee, McConnell “laid out a plan that would have lawmakers break with Mr. Trump explicitly in a general election,” The New York Times reported. Despite his overwhelming victories thus far, leaders of the party think Trump will lose in the general election and will hurt Republicans down-ticket. According to The Times, resistance...

In hindsight, that would make sense...  How else to explain Christy's complete '180' from 'Trump lacks temperament to be POTUS' just last August to 'the man who can solve our problems' today. And I like the way Trump -at the Christie endorsement press conference- goes into how he 'doesn't usually care' about endorsements, they're mostly a 'waste of time', but 'this one is special'. Pretty rich coming from a guy some intelligent people suspect of buying such endorsements. Except for David Duke of course- he says he doesn't like that one. As for Chrispy Creme, if you'll rewind to last...

Either Donald Trump suffers from memory loss or he is completely lying about his healthcare plans. During Thursday night's debate Ted Cruz simply asked Trump, "True or false, you said the government should pay for everyone's healthcare?" Trump emphatically denied, claiming the accusation was completely false. To those watching who have been keeping up with this election cycle, the claim seemed dubious. After the debate, Cruz's campaign helped Trump and the rest of America understand the truth behind the spar: ...

Last night, in the final debate before the 2016 SEC presidential primary on Tuesday, March 1st – commonly known as “Super Tuesday” – Republican US Senator Marco Rubio threw everything he had at Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. Most of Senator Rubio’s attacks covered familiar ground, such as the Atlantic City bankruptcies and that Trump’s self-made narrative leaves out his rather bountiful inheritance. However, some of the attacks were new, and included dredging up a decades-old lawsuit regarding a subcontractor who used undocumented immigrant labor, and a current class-action lawsuit against now-defunct Trump University. But soon after Rubio’s attack on Trump...

(CNN)Speaking in Mexico City, Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday came close to offering an apology for comments made by Republicans about Mexico and Mexican immigrants on the campaign trail. "I almost feel obliged to apologize for some of what my political colleagues said," Biden said alongside Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. "It's a heated campaign season and I just want you to know, Mr. President, that the most heated rhetoric you've heard from competitors for the nomination for president is not who we are as the American people. It is not the view that is the view of the...

And so we are now being treated to a wave of Donald Trump fatalism. Yes, he's defied expectations in a pretty remarkable way. Yes, he's won three of the first four GOP contests. Yes, he's ahead in the polls in the states coming up. Yes, he has an easier path to victory than any other candidate. But only four states about 1.2 million people have actually cast ballots. Trump has won about a third of the votes cast; Cruz and Rubio have each won a bit over a fifth. Trump leads in delegates with 79 out of the 110 selected...

This is one of the most difficult posts I have ever had to write. I had naively hoped that this election cycle, I would be treated to a substantive contest between a spate of highly accomplished two-term conservative governors, and Senators of great rhetorical skill acting as the ideological conscience of the bunch. As the primary wore on through the summer of 2015, it became clear that the GOP electorate was not interested in governors of accomplishment, but I still had hope for a final contest between two of my favorite Senators: Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. I hoped to...

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox on Friday kept up his withering criticism of Donald Trump, saying the GOP front-runner reminds him of Adolf Hitler. "Today, he's going to take that nation (U.S.) back to the old days of conflict, war and everything. I mean, he reminds me of Hitler. That's the way he started speaking," Fox told CNN's Anderson Cooper in a phone interview on "Anderson Cooper 360." "He has offended Mexico, Mexicans, (and) immigrants. He has offended the Pope. He has offended the Chinese. He's offended everybody." Fox's comments come one day after he delivered a scathing response on...

A number of things have crystallized in the last week, none of them good for the GOPe. First, the latest (foolish) mantra: Trump "was exposed" by Cruzbio in the debate. No such thing. Only Cruzbio fanboys think anyone seriously hurt Trump, let alone stopped his momentum. What continually gets exposed is that no matter WHO Trump hired years ago to build WHATEVER. . . He alone actually hired someone and built something. Please, please Cruzbio, keep hitting that nail. What about Trump's weakness on health care reform? What no one will say is that (as was Obama's design) this is...

- Texas will be the biggest delegate prize of the primary season so far. The Monmouth University Poll finds home state senator Ted Cruz with a solid lead in the Republican contest there as the GOP candidates prepare for tonight's debate in Houston. -snip- Ted Cruz currently has the support of 38% of likely GOP primary voters in his home state of Texas. Donald Trump (23%) and Marco Rubio (21%) are battling it out for second place. They are trailed by Ben Carson (6%) and John Kasich (5%). Cruz has more support among men (44%) than women (33%), while Rubio...

Former staffers to Jeb Bush's suspended presidential campaign on Friday tore into Chris Christie for endorsing GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump. Former Bush communications director Tim Miller called Christie "pathetic" and suggested he bonded with Trump over a "big meal," an apparent reference to Christie's weight. And former chief strategist David Kochel compared the endorsement to a "fat kid" surrendering his lunch money to a "bully."

Bangor Daily News ‏@bangordailynews 1h1 hour ago BREAKING: LePage, Christie endorse @realDonaldTrump for president http://bdn.to/xzxr #mepolitics Michael Shepherd ‏@mikeshepherdME 2h2 hours ago LePage calls Rubio and Cruz "two of the people who create the gridlock" in Washington. #mepolitics 23 retweets 14 likes

At an unhinged moment in the 2016 presidential primary season, the Republican candidates turned in a fine set of unhinged performances at Thursday night's critical debate. Let's begin with Donald Trump, far and away the strongest contender, be it in Ted Cruz's backyard or Marco Rubio's home state. For the first time, he met his rhetorical match in a surprisingly vitriolic Rubio. The Florida senator devoted himself to going shout-for-shout with Trump, dragging out old scandals and unseemly details that put the mogul's present-day promises in an unflattering light. But even when Trump visibly ground his gears, he stayed characteristically...

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham thinks his party has gone "bats---" crazy, and joked Thursday that it's possible to get away with murdering Ted Cruz if it happened in the Senate. "If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you," the former presidential candidate said at the Washington Press Club Foundation's 72nd Congressional Dinner, referencing the Texas senator's unpopular reputation on Capitol Hill. CNN has reached out to Cruz's presidential campaign for comment. While Graham teased Democrats and other politicians in the room -- at one...