WATCH: Transgender Rights Ad to Air on Fox During GOP Convention

During presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s acceptance speech next Tuesday, a group fighting for wider acceptance of transgenderism will be airing an ad decrying North Carolina’s bathroom policy. The 60-second ad was put together by Movement Advancement Project, an LGBT think tank headquartered in Denver, Colorado. It depicts a transgender person named Aliana Kupec being turned away from using the restroom of choice. Kupec, a North Carolina resident, feels threatened by the state’s law protecting single-sex bathrooms and changing rooms. “I’ve lived as a woman for many years,” Kupec says in the ad. “Most people, when they stop and

First Draft of the GOP Platform: What You Need to Know

On Sunday evening, the Republican National Committee shared a 58-page first draft of the party’s 2016 platform with members of the convention’s platform committee, which will debate, add, or change provisions over the next week. For the most part, the RNC’s draft is similar to the 2012 platform. On Common Core and other education issues, the party’s stance is still strongly against federal meddling in local affairs, even if some Republican lawmakers are less committed to a principled stance on the issue. The platform also condemns the growth of the federal administrative state at the expense of local sovereignty. Even

The Inconvenience of Conscience

And so it begins. The next episode of the Civics Reality Show that is the Republican presidential nomination was previewed last Thursday when the Republican National Convention floated a draft rule that, if passed, would ignominiously squelch the nascent “Stop Trump” movement. In an NBC News report, according to the draft rule: …it would effectively lock-in Donald Trump as the GOP nominee and kill the “Stop Trump” movement once and for all…freezing the 2012 rules so that no alternatives go into effect this year. The proposal states “any amendments” to the party rules will not “take effect” until after this

A Divided GOP Will Not Defeat Hillary Clinton

According to the current Republican convention rules, Donald Trump is the GOP nominee. Months ago, when Trump was leading, the Krauthammers and Kristols of the world were quick to point out that Trump needed to get 1,237 delegates to claim the nomination. They were just as quick to predict that Trump wouldn’t get to that number and legitimized calls for an open convention. Trump now stands at 1,542 delegates, but that hasn’t put to rest the calls for a floor fight in Cleveland. Just as Trump’s campaign should be staffing up and pivoting to the upcoming general election campaign, the

Dear Republican Elites: You Can’t Have It Both Ways on Trump

There has been increasing talk among pundits about the possibility of a GOP delegate revolt, in which the delegates to the Republican National Convention would refuse to nominate Trump in favor of . . . well, somebody else. It’s unclear whether this hypothetical candidate would be someone the voters have already rejected or someone who didn’t even run. Though, of course, according to the people advocating such a move, the votes never actually mattered. Or, rather, the votes mattered until they disagreed with them. After all, they seemed plenty invested in the primary process while it was going on. To

These 3 Rule Changes Backfired on the GOP — And Helped Nominate Trump

Mitt Romney may be vehemently opposed to Donald Trump. But Trump could not have won the nomination without him. At least, that is the case put forward by Gwynn Guilford in a recent article from Quartz. Guilford details how rule changes implemented by the GOP elite in 2012 election ended up backfiring, and to the elite’s dismay, propelled the unconventional, anti-establishment wild-card Trump to the Republican nomination. The article identifies three dramatic rule changes, which, though aimed at ensuring party unity around an establishment candidate, instead helped pave the way for Trump’s resounding victory: 1.) The first rule “forced states

Cruz Promises to Fight for Conservatives at GOP Convention

Last month, I wrote that the real battle to watch at the Republican National Convention in July would not be nomination-related but rather over the content of the Party’s platform, particularly in regards to social issues. Conservatives have ample reason to be wary. Earlier this year, presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump suggested he might support a watering down of the Republican plank on abortion, and mega-donor Paul Singer has been quietly funding an effort to change the GOP’s stance on marriage. Given the possibility of these and other fights, it should come as no surprise that Sen. Ted Cruz, despite suspending

The Real GOP Convention Battle to Watch for This Summer

Most Republicans have by now conceded that Donald Trump will be the named the nominee at the party’s convention in July. However, while the nomination fight may be over, other convention conflicts are just beginning. The New York Times reports that conservative delegates to the convention are gearing up for yet another wave of attempts to water down the Republican Party platform, especially on social issues: In an email sent Sunday to pro-Cruz convention delegates, a top aide to [Cruz] wrote that it was “still possible to advance a conservative agenda at the convention.” “To do that, it is imperative

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