Free Republic

"It's not fair!" may be the most pitiful lament in the English language, but Donald Trump seems intent upon adopting it as his battle cry heading into this summer's Republican convention. The GOP's poorly designed nominating process includes more than its share of problems, but is it really unfair to Trump? ..... < snip > ..... open primaries invite abuse from voters whose goals may not involve selecting the party's strongest representative. Those with deep ties to the party deserve greater input than those with tenuous or nonexistent connections. Yet Democrats and Republicans alike have chosen to pretend otherwise. ........

GUTHRIE: Do you believe in raising taxes on the wealthy? TRUMP: I do. I do – including myself. I do. That was...this morning, in an interview that featured some other controversial statements.  In fairness to Trump, he's been using the "raise taxes on rich people like me" line for months, embracing Obama-style class warfare tax gimmicks like the 'Buffet Rule.'  But raising taxes on anyone, an outcome Trump just re-endorsed, is not what his formal policy agenda proposes.  Just the opposite.  As we've seen on issues such immigration, abortion and foreign policy, Trump routinely makes clear that he isn't familiar with his own positions.  His stances aren't...

Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump discussed the unreleased classified portion of the 9/11 report, which some have some speculated ties Saudi Arabia to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Trump argued for their release, adding “it’s sort of nice to know” who your friends and enemies are. “I think we should have seen it a long time ago,” Trump said. “And you know, I think I know what it’s going to say. It’s going to be very profound having to do with Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia’s role on the World Trade Center...

Some people claim that Trump only recently arrived at most of these viewpoints, so I'd like to discuss Trump's history with each of these issues (sorry for the length but I think these important topics deserve to be delved into). I was told yesterday that Trump is a liberal Democrat. Trump’s political registration records since 1987 are public and available online. During this period, Trump has been a registered Republican for more than twice as long as he was a registered Democrat. If people would bother to read his books, look at the full-page ads he took out on policy...

Donald Trump played up his plans to tax companies that move jobs out of the United States as he tried to appeal to blue collar workers in a New York rally Sunday. Speaking for about an hour Sunday in Rochester, N.Y., Trump recited statistics about the area's loss of manufacturing jobs and economic hardship in recent years. He reiterated his desire to tax goods sold by companies once based in the United States that moved away to find cheaper labor. The plan has been widely panned by economic experts. But the Rochester crowd ate it up. "I'm the only one...

Donald Trump on Saturday told a crowd of thousands he was sanguine about potential hostilities between North Korea and its neighbors. Speaking at a rally in Rothschild, Wisconsin ahead of the state’s primary on Tuesday, the Republican Donald Trump on Saturday told a crowd of thousands he was sanguine about potential hostilities between North Korea and its neighbors. Speaking at a rally in Rothschild, Wisconsin ahead of the state’s primary on Tuesday, the Republican presidential frontrunner said that if conflict between Japan and nuclear-armed North Korea were to break out, “it would be a terrible thing but if they do,...

As I’ve said before, if Donald Trump is the nominee I will vote for him over anyone the donkey party runs. Why? One reason… the single greatest threat to our nation is open borders and the continued entry of people from failed states with no understanding or appreciation for limited government or individual rights. The Democrat Party, which has a similar disdain for both things, has almost destroyed the country on its own and with open borders it seeks to tip the scales of our Republic towards their tyranny by packing the voting rolls with such invaders… The candidate who...

The manufacturing executives had gathered in an Atlanta conference room last year to honor their senior United States senator, Johnny Isakson, for his tireless efforts on their behalf in Washington. But as the luncheon wound down, Mr. Isakson found himself facing a man from Coweta County. The man, Burl Finkelstein, said trade policies with Mexico and China were strangling the family-owned kitchen-parts company he helped manage, and imperiling the jobs it provided. Mr. Isakson politely brushed him off, Mr. Finkelstein recalled, as he had many times before. So when the Georgia primary rolled around this month, Mr. Finkelstein, along with...

In Donald Trump’s Worldview, America Comes First, and Everybody Else Pays By DAVID E. SANGER and MAGGIE HABERMANMARCH 26, 2016 Mr. Trump’s views, as he explained them, fit nowhere into the recent history of the Republican Party: He is not in the internationalist camp of President George Bush, nor does he favor President George W. Bush’s call to make it the United States’ mission to spread democracy around the world. He agreed with a suggestion that his ideas might be summed up as “America First.” “Not isolationist, but I am America First,” he said. “I like the expression.” He said...

"They say I have the most loyal people - did you ever see that? - where I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters," Trump said, illustrating his point by pulling his fingers into a gun shape. "Okay? It's like incredible." The crowd laughed and clapped, and someone in the audience shouted out love for the candidate. "We love you, too, man," Trump said. Trump's comment came during a campaign rally Saturday at Dordt College in northwest Iowa. The 1,500-seat theater completely filled, hundreds more watched his speech from an...

In 2013, the tea party rallied to Matt Bevin against Donald Trump. RedState and tea party groups around the country swung into action in an ultimately unsuccessful bid to get Matt Bevin through the primary against Mitch McConnell. We were completely out-funded by establishment interests and Washington lobbyists. It turns out, one of those establishment interests was Donald J. Trump. In 2013, Donald Trump gave $220,000.00 to organizations, many of them dedicated to stamping out the Tea Party. From Karl Rove’s American Crossroads to Mitch McConnell’s Super PAC, Trump spread out money. Rove got $50,000.00 and McConnell got $60,000.00. Trump...

Since joining the Trump campaign as a national spokeswoman in November, Katrina Pierson has served as an attack dog of sorts for Donald Trump, attempting to expose his critics and opponents as faux conservatives who are simply pulling the wool over the eyes of the American people. And yet, Ms. Pierson's own statements reveal she is a self-proclaimed devotee of Malcolm X (whom she has referred to as her "idol") and has a history of attacking conservatives as racists, sneering at Christians who are unable to "handle the truth" and mocking candidates who open up about their faith on the...

And once I saw it, realized it says everything that needed to be said and all straight from Trump's mouth.

National Review's publication of the collective anti-Donald Trump missives from 22 self-appointed conservative potentates has caused quite a stir in Republican circles. The nationwide responses range from, "Wait, I thought National Review went out of business years ago," to "Ed Meese? Seriously?" The Gang of 22 have officially become parodies of themselves. One would have to reach back to the days of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew to lift an adequate quote to describe them. "Nattering nabobs of negativism," "vicars of vacillation," "pusillanimous pussyfooters," "the decadent few," "ideological eunuchs," "the effete corps of impudent snobs," or "the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs...

If you thought the Republican establishment was finally getting used to the idea that Donald Trump could become the party's nominee for president, the National Review would like to set the record straight. That's because the conservative magazine, according to CNN, will release on Friday an edition in which it declares that Trump is a threat to conservatism and that it officially opposes his candidacy. Included in the edition will be 22 conservative voices who have written essays to describe why Trump is a bad idea for the party.

Here is a history of Trump’s voter registration since 1987: * JULY 1987: Trump registers for the first time from his Fifth Avenue penthouse. The real estate developer, 41 at the time, reports having previously been registered from his boyhood home in Queens (though his prior party affiliation is unclear). Trump enrolls as a REPUBLICAN. * OCTOBER 1999: Trump dumps the GOP and enrolls as a member of the INDEPENDENCE PARTY. * AUGUST 2001: Trump enrolls as a DEMOCRAT. * SEPTEMBER 2009: After eight years as a Democrat, Trump returns to the REPUBLICAN PARTY. * DECEMBER 2011: Trump lasts two...

<p>Donald Trump and Ben Carson could dangle the possibility of independent runs for president well into the primary season next year, but they can't wait forever.</p> <p>State filing deadlines would give the two Republicans until about March to launch independent or third-party campaigns, experts said. That would give a well-financed campaign enough time to gather sufficient signatures on petitions so the candidate could appear on the ballot in every state.</p>