Free Republic

This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to write and admit: Trump is winning. In the brief space of a week, he won a brief court fight to shove Mick Mulvaney to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Mulvaney wasted no time in unhinging a spate of consumer protection rulings, regulations, and personnel hires made during the Obama years. His SCOTUS pick, Neil Gorsuch, eagerly cast a vote to impose the Muslim travel ban. His EPA head, Scott Pruitt, delivered a couple million acres of public monument land in the West to oil, gas, and coal industry...

The GOP would cut its throat if it denounced its racists and racism and really meant it. It was hilarious and telling to see No. 45 Trump tweet that he condemns “all that hate stands for” following the racial-fomented violence by white nationalists in Charlottesville, VA. (TWEET-AT-LINK) The hilarity is that one would have to reach back to presidential candidate George Wallace in 1964, and maybe toss in GOP presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, to find someone who aspired to sit in the Oval Office who so blatantly, nakedly and shamefully pandered to racial bigots to snatch the office as Trump...

*Freshly minted 2016 GOP presidential candidate Rand Paul has a few good things going for him. He has talked back to the war hawks. He wants to radically rein in out of control intelligence spying. He wants to chip away at the draconian drug laws that still incarcerate mostly minorities for long stretches for petty drug crimes. This has brought lots of grumbles and raised eyebrows from GOP hard liners who say that he isn’t the right fit for the GOP trying desperately to take back the White House. But the one thing that Paul banks on to separate him...

Several advocates are changing their stance on Daniele Watts' incendiary Facebook post: "It's like crying wolf" Civil rights leaders who initially defended Django Unchained actress Daniele Watts in her dispute with the Los Angeles Police Department are now calling on her to apologize. Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable president Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Project Islamic Hope president Najee Ali and other activists held a press conference Friday, telling reporters that they now have doubts about Watts' side of the story. "I was one that was very outspoken about it," Hutchinson said about having come to Watts' defense when her story first...

GOP strategists and analysts sounded desperate, even panicked, when they implored Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels to toss his hat in the presidential rink. Their panic to get Daniels in the race has less to do with any special magic that they think he’ll bring to a campaign to oust President Obama then their mounting horror at how the best known potential GOP presidential candidates have turned the party into a three ring circus. The would-be candidates that have snatched the most media ink and public attention typified the clown lunacy that GOP regulars shudder at. One (Donald Trump) was still...

This past weekend depictions of Obama as The Joker were sighted around Los Angeles and elsewhere. This, not surprisingly, has disturbed Obama supporters, including one Earl Ofari Hutchinson. But who exactly is Earl Ofari Hutchinson? KTLA describes him merely as “Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable President.” According to his own blog, The Hutchinson Political Report, he is way much more than that: [N]ationally acclaimed author and political analyst. He has authored ten books; his articles are published in newspapers and magazines nationally in the United States. Three of his books have been published in other languages. He is also a...

The kinder, gentler, retooled minority-friendly Arnold did what no Republican in living memory had managed to do. He got the raves of many blacks, and even more of their votes. On election eve, nearly 30 percent of blacks gave the governor a favorable rating. The Arnold Effect did two things for the GOP. It sent the message that a Republican governor could actually do more than pay lip service to the GOP?s pledge to make itself a party of diversity. It provides the party a potential model it desperately needs in order to rebound from the shellacking it took nationally....

NEARLY a year ago, Democrats were licking their chops at the prospect of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Sacramento swan song. At the time, his re-election seemed hopeless. He had just gotten his political clock cleaned on an ill-timed and ill-fated special election. His campaign chest had shriveled. Labor unions were riding high on a surge of anti-Arnold clamor, and they plainly hankered to slice off more of his political scalp. The state's Democrats were flush with cash, seemed more united than ever, and a crushing majority of the state's voters were Democrats. But those who crowed over Schwarzenegger's demise forgot one...