Free Republic

The brilliance of our country's founders is revealed in many things but especially the checks on power built into our system of government. The Constitution is grounded in the natural-law principle that human beings derive their rights from God, not from government. On a more temporal level, governmental powers are deemed vested in the states, which delegated certain limited and enumerated powers to the federal government. (The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution states this explicitly.) At the federal level, legislative power is vested solely in Congress, and this acts as a check on the power of the president to issue...

Mueller’s team went down every blind alley relating to its investigation -- except where Obama-era officials were likely culpable for relevant unethical or illegal behavior. pecial counsel Robert Mueller’s two-year, $30 million, 448-page report did not find collusion between Donald Trump and Russia. Despite compiling private allegations of loud and obnoxious Trump behavior, Mueller also concluded that there was not any actionable case of obstruction of justice by the president. It would have been hard in any case to find that Trump obstructed Mueller’s investigation of an alleged crime. One, there was never a crime of collusion. Mueller early on...

(WASHINGTON DC) The National Security Agency has recommended that the White House abandon a U.S. surveillance program that collects information about Americans’ phone calls and text messages, saying the logistical and legal burdens of keeping it outweigh its intelligence benefits, according to people familiar with the matter. The recommendation against seeking the renewal of the once-secret spying program amounts to an about-face by the agency, which had long argued in public and to congressional overseers that the program was vital to the task of finding and disrupting terrorism plots against the U.S. The latest view is rooted in a growing...

... Ms. Warren proposed this week to erase a substantial portion of more than $1.5 trillion in student debt held by Americans. Her plan would cancel up to $50,000 of student debt for every person with household income under $100,000. The loan forgiveness amount phases out as income rises. No one who earns more than $250,000 would qualify, though the forgiveness would extend to plenty of upper middle-class earners who have the means to repay. She claims this will eliminate student debt for 75% of the 45 million Americans. “For most Americans,” she wrote in a post on Medium, “cancellation...

Fifty-three percent of voters believe political corruption is a crisis in the United States, while another 36% believe it is a significant problem but not a crisis. That's consistent with other ScottRasmussen.com polling data showing that 87% of voters nationwide believe corruption is widespread in the federal government. Solid majorities believe there is also corruption in state (70%) and local (57%) government. The belief that our nation has a political corruption crisis is shared by 53% of women, 52% of men, 51% of white voters, 55% of black and Hispanic voters, 54% of rural voters, 53% of suburban voters and...

In journalism, a "lede" is the introductory section of a news story, intended to entice the reader into reading the full story. Traditionally, the lede is the first (or "lead") paragraph. But in today's fast-paced news media, enticements include the story's headline, subheading and a short summary that precedes the actual story, usually distinguished by a different typeface. The term "burying the lede" refers to a newspaper story that is downplaying the significance of the actual story by "burying" important information deep in the article. Now, "burying the lede" ought not be confused with "fake news," an expression popularized by...

It’s the greatest crisis facing the country today and threatens not only the present, but the future as well. It’s not the national debt, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, climate change, health care, or any of the other issues Democratic candidates for president routinely ramble about, no. This is something far more serious – people making informed, really bad choices. And the Democratic Party is rallying to their defense. Out of pure self-loathing, I watched most of the 5-hour lovefest on CNN Monday with Democratic candidates for president. One hour each for Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Pete...

Each friendship is special. Some are powerful. And then there is a bromance made in conservative heaven: Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. This week, Netanyahu announced that a new community being built in the Golan Heights will be named after Trump in gratitude to the U.S. President for his historic recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the territory, which Israel has considered its own for the past 52 years. “I’m here on the beautiful Golan Heights. All Israelis were deeply moved when President Trump made his historic decision to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Therefore, after the Passover...

We’ve clearly got it good as a nation. Economic growth is robust. Joblessness has never been lower. The stock market is roaring. We live in relative peace. There’s very little to complain about these days. Which is why we had to travel back to the 1930s to find a problem. Apparently, it’s Kate Smith. I moved to Philadelphia nearly a decade ago and attended my first Flyers game shortly after. The sold-out crowd was fired up. It was a great atmosphere. Then, the pre-game festivities began. The overhead scoreboard, center-ice played a grainy video of what appeared to me to...

While it was immensely satisfying to watch the utter humiliation of the TRUMP TREASON COLLUSION RUSSIANS! liberals, that joy paled in comparison to the schadenfreude that came from watching the crestfallen Never Trump bitter-enders as they saw all their dreams die. Donald Trump is not going to be impeached; heck, it looks like he’s going to be reelected. And the Fredocon losers who went all in on opposing him because “Oh well I never!” are flat busted. Now, it’s not really fair to imply that the Never Trumpers hate Trump solely because he’s vulgar and crude – or, as...

Our election was corrupted, our democracy assaulted, our sovereignty and security violated. This is the definitive conclusion of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report. It documents a serious crime against the American people. The debate about how to respond to Russia’s “sweeping and systemic” attack — and how to hold President Trump accountable for obstructing the investigation and possibly breaking the law — has been reduced to a false choice: immediate impeachment or nothing. History suggests there’s a better way to think about the choices ahead. Obviously, this is personal for me, and some may say that I’m not...

USA Today has run a seriously hot take on the issue of term limits and public service from author and former police officer Marshall Frank. He’s turning 80 this year and wants to share a bit of perspective with you on the subject of both elected officials and Supreme Court justices. The long and the short of it is that at some point you’re simply too old to be entrusted with these responsibilities and we need to set limits on how long people can continue in public service. I am turning 80 this month. I don’t care if I were...

We’ve seen a few of these stories in the past year or so, and now another has shown up. If this is turning into a trend, I certainly hope that it continues to gain in popularity.Robert Grala of Williamstown, New Jersey, was a veteran who served in the United States Army and served in Korea in the late sixties. Last week, at the age of 70, he passed away of natural causes alone in his home. A couple of friends and neighbors knew him, but a search by officials failed to locate any living relatives. It appeared that Mr. Grala...

RUSH: Are you ready for this? Are you ready for this? (interruption) No, I’m not playing any of the sound bites yet because I don’t know if I’m gonna get the entire interview in order or if we’re gonna cherry-pick it here. There’s some confusion back and forth in the email. But we’ll get to it. We’ll get to it quickly. But get this. The Wall Street Journal, just within the last I guess hour or two, published a story saying that Michael Cohen, in a recorded phone call, is now walking back parts of his guilty plea. Michael Cohen…...

RUSH: We’ll get into the interview with Martha MacCallum last night. I tell you, folks, it’s gonna be interesting. She actually did something that doesn’t happen much. She played video clips. I couldn’t see them, but she played video clips and asked me to respond to them, and so that made this somewhat different from the average television appearance. And with a compressed amount of time, I had to say a lot of things in very little time. The amount of data, amount of information, amount of commentary in this 20-minute interview was equivalent to maybe two hours of this...

RUSH: I just saw something on CNN that is funny. New York Magazine. (laughing) Everything’s striking me as funny today. New York Magazine says that Joe Biden’s campaign is beginning to look like the campaign of Jeb Bush in 2016. Now, how many delegates did Jeb Bush get? He got three. They spent a hundred million dollars. With the lead Republican consultant of all time, Mike Murphy, running the operation, they got three delegates. From New York Magazine — Biden’s campaign is resembling that of Jeb Bush. That is not a good sign. Now, here’s the truth, though. If you...

RUSH: Are you ready? We are ready, set, revved, and ready to go. Three hours broadcast excellence straight ahead right here at the EIB Southern Command behind the Golden EIB Microphone, Rush Limbaugh. 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program. And email address, ElRushbo@eibnet.us. So Mr. Snerdley and my brother think that I ought to just replay the entire interview from Fox last night, the interview with Martha MacCallum on The Story. It was originally set up as an eight- to nine minute segment. She said, “Yeah, it’s gonna be our longest segment of the night.” I said,...

A couple of years ago, after sending my five-year-old daughter off to school, she came home reciting the same cheerful environmental mantra I was taught in elementary school. “Reduce, reuse, recycle,” she beamed, proud to show off a bit of rote learning. The moral virtue of recycling is rarely questioned in the United States. It has been ingrained into the American psyche over several decades. On a recent trip to the Caribbean, my friend’s wife exhibited nervous guilt while collecting empty soda, water, and beer bottles destined for the trash since our resort offered no recycling bins. “I feel terrible...

The National Rifle Association is used to battling forces that criticize its fiery and unbending efforts to protect gun rights. But as the group gathers for its annual convention this week, the NRA may be facing its toughest foe in decades: its own members. NRA insiders and longtime observers describe an organization at war with itself over a central question: Has it strayed too far from its original mission of gun safety and outdoor shooting sports and become too political? It is rare for the NRA to betray any hint of internal turmoil. But it erupted very publicly recently when...

On February 27, 2019 at a speaking engagement held at a Washington D.C. bookstore, newly elected Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar stated, with apparent reference to both American Jews and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee ("AIPAC"), "I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country." This comment followed recent tweets from Omar suggesting that American elected officials were "bought off" by the pro-Israel lobby, and earlier tweets from before she was elected, beseeching Allah to punish Israel for its "evil deeds." The tweets...