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As the bad news out of Brussels continues to unfold today, we are reminded of some of the coverage that the city has received in the past. As I listened to the expert analysis of precisely what went so wrong there, the name of on particular segment of the city kept coming up repeatedly. The neighborhood of Molenbeek has long been known as a breeding ground for terrorists and a virtual “no go” sector for the cops, no matter what other European leaders say. CNN terrorism analysts this morning were bemoaning the fact that previous efforts to locate suspects in...

Donald Trump was the clear favorite in today’s winner-take-all Arizona primary, even before the Brussels terrorist attacks. The immigration issue and the flood of early voters favors him, as does the fact that some of those early voters will have cast ballots for Marco Rubio before he dropped out last Tuesday night. If they had known Rubio would no longer be a candidate, many of those voters might have gone with Cruz. But polls have been tricky and often erratic this year (think Michigan and the surprise win of Bernie Sanders). For example, the latest poll showing a 14 point...

Cruz: "It is striking that the day after Donald Trump called for America weakening NATO withdrawing from NATO we see Brussels, where NATO is headquartered, the subject of a radical Islamist terrorist attack."Cruz supporters: "How dare you say Cruz is blaming Trump for Brussels? Cruz said no such thing."

Over the past 28 years there has been a sea change in the media. Not only has the monopoly of the so-called mainstream media been shattered but the phenomenal rise of conservative media has been truly stunning. It began in 1988 with the national syndication of Rush Limbaugh and his distinctive brand of conservative political commentary espoused in an entertaining and captivating way, which opened the flood gates for other conservatives, together with Rush, to dominate the talk radio airwaves. In the 1990’s the internet, through hundreds of websites, gave voice to journalists to report stories either ignored or downplayed...

Since Obuma was elected to POTUS, I have been coming to Free Republic to get news, opinions and a few laughs. Most of the serious posts were bemoaning the out of control government and what could be done about it. "Oh Whoa is Me!". Then along comes a constitutional conservative. For the first time since Ronald Reagan, we have a constitutional candidate running for the GOP nomination. This man was elected by conservatives to go to Washington and stand up to the elites that no longer listen to the American people. He didn't go to Washington and "fall in" with...

The French see René Descartes, a 17th century philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, as the truest expression of their national mind. I am afraid they are right.Descartes rejected authority in intellectual life and insisted on reconstructing knowledge on plain sense and strict reasoning, hence his famous motto, cogito ergo sum (“I think and therefore I am”). However, he also disdained experience as long as it could not be boiled down into logical and mathematical terms. This approach, so much at odds with the empirical and pragmatic approach favored in the Anglo-Saxon world, is indeed a hallmark of French culture -- including...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative CDU party was humiliated in key regional elections on Sunday as voters delivered their verdict at the ballot box about her open-door refugee policies. Exit poll results in three out of 16 German states foretell a wipeout in next year's general election as the hard-right capitalized on public disquiet and altered the political landscape forever. Baden-Wuerttemberg - solidly middle class and home to blue chip companies like Porsche and Daimler - was won by the Green Party after Merkel's CDU lost nearly 11 percent support since the last vote there in 2011.

Republican presidential candidate John Kasich said Wednesday that Donald Trump’s call to ban most Muslims from the United States would weaken the nation and “doesn’t represent what we are.” “This is not what leads to a strong America,” Mr. Kasich said during an appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. “We have never been strong by focusing on things designed to divided us.” -snip- Mr. Kasich also said that he is encouraged by how moderate Muslims have come out against the Islamic State terror group, or ISIS. “They have condemned aggressively the attacks all over the word,”...

When I moved to Florida several years ago, one of my greatest joys was getting to vote for Marco Rubio to take a seat in the U.S. Senate. It was exciting to support such a bold, courageous, visionary young leader. I loved taking on the establishment in Florida and doing my part to help Marco beat the odds. I had hope and confidence in him. I believed that he would help us take our country back from insane and immoral policies that are bankrupting our children's future. But Senator Rubio betrayed me. He betrayed the army of conservatives across our...

Fully 116 members of the GOP’s national security community, many of them veterans of Bush administrations, have signed an open letter threatening that, if Trump is nominated, they will all desert, and some will defect – to Hillary Clinton! “Hillary is the lesser evil, by a large margin,” says Eliot Cohen of the Bush II State Department. According to Politico’s Michael Crowley, Cohen helped line up neocons to sign the “Dump-Trump” manifesto. snip Our Principles PAC, backed by Nebraska’s billionaire Ricketts family, has poured millions into trashing Trump. American Future Fund is dumping $1.75 million in Florida this week; Club...

President Barack Obama has been quietly pushing new plans to bring thousands of additional Syrian refugees into the country, despite the concerns of state and county officials and the outrages committed by welfare-dependent migrants in Europe. Obama’s special assistant to the president for immigration policy, Felicia Escobar, recently announced plans to increase America’s intake of migrants, according to the Washington Examiner. “We want to make sure that we can increase our numbers of refugees that are able to settle here,” Escobar said. “The need globally is so, so, so massive right now, given all the displacement and conflict around the...

Conservative donors have engaged a major GOP consulting firm in Florida to research the feasibility of mounting a late, independent run for president amid growing fears that Donald Trump could win the Republican nomination. A memo prepared for the group zeroes in on ballot access as a looming obstacle for any independent candidate, along with actually identifying a viable, widely known contender and coalescing financial support for that person. The two states with the earliest deadlines for independent candidates, Texas and North Carolina, also have some of the highest hurdles for independents to get on the ballot, according to the...

Onlookers applauded as a suspected arson fire destroyed a planned refugee shelter in eastern Germany, police said Sunday. The roof of the former hotel Bautzen, in the eastern state of Saxony, was undergoing renovation when a fire broke out overnight. Police said that no one was injured but reported that bystanders “commented with derogatory remarks” and showed “unashamed joy” as firefighters struggled to subdue the flames. Police forces ordered three people to leave the scene for obstructing emergency services and detained two “intoxicated 20-year-old locals” for ignoring the order. Investigators believe the fire was caused by arson and are not...

Few professional analysts seriously expected six months ago that Donald Trump could win the Republican nomination. But after Tuesday night, it is a clear possibility. How much of a possibility? To get that answer right, it is important to understand some things about the Trump phenomenon. Perhaps most important, Trump's campaign is not a Tea Party phenomenon. While there's been a tendency to try to lump Trump in with various G.O.P. insurgencies of the last few years, that role is best filled by Sen. Ted Cruz, who really occupies the "Tea Party lane" of the G.O.P. primary more cleanly. Instead,...

Conservative activist Richard Viguerie says divisions over immigration could spark a “civil war” within the Republican Party, leading frustrated conservatives to abandon the party if the 2016 Presidential nominee is too liberal on this crucial issue. Viguerie began the exclusive interview with Breitbart News by citing one of his main concerns — and pet peeves — regarding immigration. The “root cause of the problem,” he says, is the desperate situations immigrants face in the countries they are leaving. “Has anyone looked beyond our border?” he asked. “At some point you have to do that, but no one seems to be...

Nihad Awad, Executive Director of CAIR (The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim Brotherhood-linked group), has called on the growing numbers of American Muslim voters to increase and utilize their electoral power. Specifically, Awad said that the increasing Muslim populations in eight "swing" states should take advantage of their strength for the upcoming presidential elections. [...] A six-state survey released by CAIR shows that 73% of registered Muslim voters say they will go to the polls in upcoming primary elections - and that no fewer than two-thirds will vote for Democratic Party candidates. ...

It has been fashionable the last two weeks to pen articles attacking Donald Trump, the front-runner in the race for the Republican Party nomination for President. "He's not a true conservative." "He's not Ronald Reagan," they said. The jury's still out on whether or not he's a true conservative, but we can agree that he is not Ronald Reagan. I would say he is more like Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had been elected to Congress as a member of the Whig Party, but he parted company with the Whigs and joined the Republicans, when the Whig leaders wouldn't take a stand...

Republican front-runner Donald Trump has broken just about every rule of conventional US presidential campaigning. Short on a long-term political vision to help shape the destiny of the nation, he has gleefully insulted Muslims, Mexicans, women and virtually all of his opponents. A Trump-in-the-White-House scenario poses high stakes for the Gulf region. Gulf Arabs could pull billion in investment money from the US if Trump, who triggered a global outrage when he advocated a temporary ban on all Muslims entering the US, wins the presidency later this year, prominent UAE businessman Khalaf al-Habtoor said. Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal,...

<p>I pray FR survives this election. Our forum has never been so divided. But even more so, I pray our divided nation survives. If traitor Hillary or communist Sanders is elected, it will be difficult to continue as a free nation without invoking certain clauses in the Declaration. Our constitution is certainly being put to the test.</p>