Free Republic

When you plant your tree in another man’s orchard, you might end up paying for your own apples; it’s a risk you take… ….and President Trump knows how to use that leverage better than anyone could possibly fathom; because in this metaphor Beijing relies upon the U.S. for both the seeds and the harvest. President Trump drops the $200b M.O.A.T (Mother of All Tariffs):

President Trump is a businessman and a deal-maker—we knew that when we elected him. His administration operates differently from any other previous presidential administration, including in diplomacy, where deals are truly an “art form.” So, it is not surprising President Trump threw protocol out the window when he met last week with Chairman Kim Jon Un, the first-ever meeting between a sitting U.S. president and North Korean leader. Those disappointed with the outcomes of the summit posit that Kim, not Trump, benefited most, suggesting the U.S. gave up more than it got, following in the footsteps of previous U.S. administrations....

The political, theological, and cultural left in America believe in using children as pawns. They do it on as many different fronts as they can.They lie about doing it, and then lie about lying about doing it.It’s stomach churning because their pretend outrage is almost always about why Donald Trump shouldn’t be president, rather than what’s best for actual children.I’ve had enough!A Facebook post on Saturday declared with righteous indignation: Isaiah 10:1-2    “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to deprive the poor of their rights & withhold justice from the oppressed…”This post was in response to a Time magazine...

I regret to inform you, the mainstream media is at it again.The liberal press is hammering the Trump Administration because executive departments, at the behest of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, are separating parents and children when apprehended crossing the border illegally. The headlines give the whole gamut:Why the US is separating migrant children from their parentsTrump separating migrant kids from parents sparks national outrageWhy the Trump administration bears the blame for separating children from their families at the border Pelosi: Trump administration policy separating parents and children at border 'barbaric'President Trump and his allies have pushed back against the unjust...

Donald Trump took to Twitter on Monday to fire off two tweets about the “tenuous” state of politics in Germany. Not for the first time, he showed his ignorance of developments in German society. Trump waded into the political crisis facing Chancellor Angela Merkel, declaring that the German people were “turning against their leadership” over immigration. “We don’t want what is happening with immigration in Europe to happen with us!” he said in a pair of tweets. “The people of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition,” he said, adding that “crime...

If you’re not a health care policy nerd like me and don’t pay close attention to the fear-mongering commonly found in outlets like The Washington Post and CNN, you may have missed the recent explosion of news stories and opinion articles bashing the Trump administration for allegedly putting Obamacare in grave danger — and doing so in a reckless and legally questionable manner, too.For instance, New York magazine accused the Trump administration of “standing against the rule of law.” The New York Times’ Margot Sanger-Katz wrote a recent Trump administration decision could make it “much more difficult for individuals and...

The Trump economy is booming. Employers added 223,000 jobs in May instead of an expected 188,000. Unemployment is at a historic 3.8 percent, as low as it’s been since last century, and consumer confidence is skyrocketing right along with GDP. And for the first time in a long time, there are more jobs available than people to fill them."President Trump’s policies are having a tremendous positive impact on the lives of Americans of all classes and backgrounds," wrote Andy Puzder for Fox Business. "More people are working, there are more job openings, and fewer people are dependent on government. Good news for...

Any Montgomery County voter looking for traffic relief will not get much hope from the transportation manifestos of Montgomery County’s “progressive” Democrats this primary season. Collectively, they all try to outdo each other in their opposition to anything involving spending for roads. Instead of supporting projects that will reduce travel times, they propose diverting more money to public transit. They push a strategy of “planned gridlock” that is intended to drive motorists from their cars. If alleging “planned gridlock” seems harsh, consider the Montgomery County Council legislation designed to slow traffic flow by significantly narrowing travel lane widths on some...

We've made much of what President Donald Trump failed to get from Kim Jong Un in Singapore. Those failures would include steps toward verifiable irreversible denuclearization -- and a guarantee of an end to human rights abuses. Those are just a couple of the major issues. Then there's what he gave away: A sloppy salute and the upper hand in what should have been the toughest negotiation of his life. Negotiations held with an insecure hermit dictator who was said by South Korean intelligence sources to have ordered the murder of his half brother. In South Korea, however, the prism...

Here are two recent events you might have missed: In March, House speaker Paul Ryan was widely quoted as saying, “The last thing we want to do is pass historic tax relief and then undo that, so we are not going to raise gas taxes.”The next month, in California, Republicans submitted 54 percent more than the required signatures to put on the November ballot a measure that would repeal the 2017 state law increasing gasoline and diesel taxes. Meanwhile, roads in Los Angeles are in such bad shape that it costs the average driver $892 a year in additional vehicle...

The FBI has managed to transform its image from Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., into Special Agent Boogaloo Shrimp, and the Inspector General’s report was the bureaucratic self-policing equivalent of Breakin’ Faith 2: Electric Bamboozle.Here’s the punchline: MC Hammered, who dropped his Glock and shot a dude whilst bustin’ a move, was one of those “top 5% of applicants” that zombie FBI Director Christopher Wray kept babbling about during his excuse conference following the report’s release. But that guy would not have even placed in competition for the title “Worst FBI Agent Ever” against the toadies, flunkies, and hacks the report highlights.During...

One mistake by an air traffic controller can easily cause hundreds of deaths, and that grim reality has prompted the highest hiring standards for any federal workers. That all changed during the past administration when Federal Aviation Administration boss Michael Huerta accepted hiring standards that were politically correct rather than aeronautically correct. “A group within the FAA, including the human resources function within the FAA, the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees, determined that the workforce was too white,” attorney and air traffic controller, Michael Pearson recently told Tucker Carlson of Fox News. “They had a concerted effort...

Unlike Americans, Germans had no legal right to keep and bear arms and the liberal Weimar Republic sought to register, regulate and prohibit firearms. When Hitler’s National Socialist (Nazi) Party took power, they used those records to disarm and oppress the people, and that is why there was no armed resistance movement in Germany.  That is the story of Stephen Halbrook’s masterful 2013 Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and “Enemies of the State.”  Halbrook’s new book, Gun Control in Nazi-Occupied France: Tyranny and Resistance, charts the same process in occupied France. As he notes, of...

Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. The Department of Justice Inspector General’s Report released last week didn’t tell us anything we didn’t know, but merely added more damning evidence for the corruption of the FBI and its investigations over the last few years. More worthy of comment, as Andy McCarthy writes, is its refusal to use common sense and note the obvious interconnections among the various bad actors, and the bond of political bias, seasoned with careerism and arrogance, that united them.  But the problems we are confronting reflect deeper dangers than...

Crocodile tears are flowing from Democrats and their allies in the Democrat Media Industrial Complex (DMIC) over the Trump administration’s enforcement of immigration laws signed by then-President Bill Clinton in 1997, followed by then-President Barack Obama’s decisions and policies. Immigration laws are a function of every country on the planet. Otherwise, why have borders? Which is something Democrats would apparently prefer not to have — or enforce. Because they want a recurring wave of new underclass voters, dependent upon the state for all their needs. Illegal aliens fit that description perfectly. The latest salvo in the immigration imbroglio stems from...

By any reasonable account, the historic meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong-un, resulting in an agreement pledging to work toward a stable and enduring peace (over six decades after the Korean armistice was signed at Panmunjom) was an incredible achievement. In fact, had Obama or Clinton achieved as much, we would expect a ticker-tape parade down Fifth Avenue. North Korea has agreed to completely denuclearize and has begun the process, according to reports of satellite imagery , and has agreed to return the remains of U.S. military who perished in North Korea. China, long rightfully considered the muscle behind...

Cecile Richards’s editorial in the June 13th Los Angeles Times is indicative of the inaccuracies propagated by Planned Parenthood, the organization she led for 12 years.Richards is dismayed with what she calls Arkansas’s effort to “ban medication abortion.” It was no ban. Participants in the abortion industry are free to prescribe the chemical abortion pills provided they have a basic safety standard in place for women – that is, a contract with another physician who can facilitate an emergency hospital treatment should the need arise. And it does.Richards called chemical abortion “safer than Tylenol and Viagra” and railed against state legislators in...

"The VFW opposes this attempt to balance the budget on the backs of service members, veterans and their families," Fuentes said. "We opposed the TRICARE fee increases in last year’s NDAA and hope that the NDAA conference committee will once again defeat this proposal which would endanger the financial wellbeing of the brave men and women have worn our nation’s uniform."

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is just about killing it at the global body. In recent remarks to the General Assembly, Haley first condemned the anti-Israel faction of the bunch for using the global body for politics, not peace promotion. And then, dramatically enough, she brought to vote a U.S.-penned measure that explicitly faulted Hamas for violence at the Gaza border — a measure that was tacked on as an amendment to an anti-Israel resolution and that actually received the thumbs-up from the majority of the voting parties. Did you get that? It actually received a majority...

Mr. Trump has stated he would like to meet with the leader of Russia.  As part of our post-tax season vacation this year, we spent nine days visiting the Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.   We highly recommend you visit these great emerging democracies, but more importantly President Trump should visit them on his way to Russia to reinforce our support for their freedom.It just worked out to visit them this year, but it was glorious to be there during the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the three countries as independent states coming from the aftermath of...