Free Republic

“Quiet voices” that became an “earthquake” is how President Trump explains his populist win in America—and today similar voices in France threaten the world’s most potent globalist structure: the United Nations.France is the world’s fifth most popular travel destination and sixth largest economy. Not too shabby for a country roughly the size of Texas. Despite these successes, the French people are growing increasingly unhappy with their political system. In April and May, French voters will elect a new president. Marine Le Pen is the National Front party candidate gaining popularity for her fresh and daring policies.“If anything, I’m to the...

Can you feel the pulse-pounding sense of excitement that’s sweeping the nation in the wake of the sudden rise to media prominence of superwoke everywoman Chelsea Clinton?I sure can, but then I’m a conservative Republican. I totally support the Democrats making Chelsea the face of their party. Please, please, please make her the face of your party.Let’s be clear – Chelsea is not an embodiment of malignant evil, as is her harpy mother. I am aware of acts of great kindness she has personally performed; she does not appear to be a morally bankrupt monster like her parents. Nor do...

Following a recent foreign policy dust-up between the White House and Britain over unfounded allegations of spying, the liberal media took it upon themselves to speculate the future of the long standing relationship. And during ABC’s This Week the network’s chief foreign correspondent, Terry Morgan mocked the Trump administration and argued that all of Europe was laughing at the expense of the United States. “He got an agenda in the world which is disruptive, like his agenda at home. They want to come to terms with it,” Moran stated, as he noted that Trump was sent by the American...

These activist judges are determined to stop President Trump from protecting Americans. They don’t care how many violent jihadis come in to the United States as “refugees.” They don’t care how many Americans die. This anti-American judicial tyranny has to be stopped.

Russia is an easy country to enter. Procedures at Moscow's airport including passport control allow passengers a speedy departure from the airport, and the hour-long journey to the center of the city and hotel passes quickly along the six-lane highway. Similarly, the reception is pleasant at the hotel, and the imperfect facilities in the room are of little account. The first surprise is the availability in the hotel of various foreign newspapers or mimeographed versions of them, including those in English such as The New York Times, Le Figaro, and The Wall Street Journal, as well the local Moscow Times,...

The so-called “two-state solution,” to subdivide the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea between independent Israel and independent Palestine, fails the tests of logic and history. And it ignores the Kingdom of Jordan – whose participation is required for any stable, long-term arrangement. There are presently three “states,” or at least three governments, west of the Jordan: Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA), and Gaza. Pro-Israel “two-staters” think Gaza and the West Bank territory should become one state with Israel as the other, assuming-for-no-reason that it is Hamas that will disappear. Hamas vociferously disagrees. Assuming-for-no-reason that a single...

In 1993 I was studying law at Cambridge University in England. Of course, we visited the Inns of Court in London, power-central for British jurisprudence. At lunchtime, a bit heady from the obligatory sherry-for-ladies-pre-prandial, I wandered a bit and came upon, of all things, the sepulcher of a Crusader. I knew what it was immediately. I am Catholic, and although quite unregenerate at that time, still, the old stories and pictures were there. Besides, you couldn't mistake it; the period was right: a knight in stone effigy, on the grave, decked out in the very latest warrior garb of the...

While the Democrats have abandoned the counterfactual claim that the Russians interfered with the election to help President Trump into office, Trump’s claim that U.S. officials surveilled him still has legs. Eli Lake reports: On March 1, the New York Times reported that in the final days and weeks of the Obama administration, White House officials rushed to preserve and distribute intelligence on connections between Russia and Trump’s associates throughout the government. In practice this meant that raw intelligence was processed into analytical reports and classified at a relatively low level. “As Inauguration Day approached, Obama White House officials grew...

In the Constitution, you will find liberty right up front in the Preamble. You will not, though, find any mention of a free market, regardless of how much you search. Free Market emphasis is an aspect of a philosophy supported by Libertarians and nouveau Conservatives called “Free Marketers." Many talk show conservatives repeat the Free Market dictum ad nauseam, and rant against any government-involved system, always claiming that what the central government does, the Free Market can do better. They repeat this mantra in spite of the fact that we have had a state capitalism economic system for more than...

Recently, I joked about political diets, noting that actress Lena Dunham complained that the “soul-crushing pain and devastation and hopelessness” of the new Trump presidency had caused her to lose weight. On the other hand, Barbra Streisand and others in Hollywood claim their unease about President Trump is triggering them to overeat and gain weight. Then, I compared these Trump-inspired diets to the “Maduro Diet.” The Maduro Diet, you ask? That’s the namesake of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the socialist successor to the late Hugo Chávez. Maduro is presiding over the complete economic collapse of what, prior to socialism, had...

I recently wrote a column about a law that California put into force on January 1, 2017, that requires certain small business owners to acquire workers’ compensation insurance that most or all will never use. This is an added cost for the small businesses that will only inure to insurance companies and in the end drive up costs to consumers. After publication of this column, I learned more about the passing of the law which was fascinating to me and hopefully will be fascinating to you.The bill, AB 2883, sailed through the legislature with virtually no discussions and near unanimous...

There is an interesting phenomenon that happens among red state Democrats in the Senate every six years. They suddenly start sounding conservative when their re-election bid approaches. They talk more conservatively. They act more conservatively. They vote more conservatively, at least until they get re-elected and can go back to holding the Democratic Party line in the Senate. The same phenomenon happens in the Republican Party. Only last year, the American people called their bluff, put them in power, and now expect them to do what they promised. Republicans are terrified at the prospect. Politicians are quite good at...

The Senate has scheduled confirmation hearings for President Trump’s nominee, Neil Gorsuch, to fill the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court to begin on Monday — almost exactly a year after President Obama nominated Merrick Garland for the same post. What difference a year makes. President Obama held a Rose Garden press conference on the morning of March 16, 2016, to announce his choice of Garland, the centrist chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Two out of three voters (65 percent) told Pew Research Center last summer that Supreme Court appointments were “very important”...

He's done it before, but he quadrupled down this time. CNN's serial plagiarist Fareed Zakaria, who insists that former President Barack Obama's administration was "largely scandal-free," contended on Don Lemon's CNN Tonight show Friday evening that Donald Trump owes his whole life, his success and his election to the presidency to "bullsh*tting." As Matthew Balan at NewsBusters observed in early August, Zakaria described Trump as a "bullsh*t artist," and went to the left's favorite characterization of anyone they disagree with or don't like: CNN's Fareed Zakaria ripped Donald Trump with an uncensored expletive on Monday's Wolf program over the billionaire's...

One can argue about whether public officials should be expected to release their tax returns. Frankly, as a former public official at the Federal Election Commission, I believe we’ve gone way too far in denying officials any semblance of a private life. I don’t care what President Donald Trump’s tax returns show, and I don’t think they are any of my (or anyone else’s) business. I am interested in the principles and policies that candidates and elected officials stand for, not how much income they earned or taxes they paid. Others feel differently, of course. But there is no question...

Words matter. Fact: The administration of President Barack Obama surveilled the campaign associates of the PresidentÂ’s political opponent, Donald Trump. Then the classified information gained was leaked to the press - repeatedly. All of which furthered a liberal narrative that Trump colluded with the Russians to steal the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton. How do we know? Because the New York Times says so. This week White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer went in to considerable detail - specifics - on press reports of Obama spying on Trump. Yet time after time after time the media across the board -...

It was only yesterday when Ed was talking about the decision by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to crack down on “illegal bakers” who were committing the unimaginable sin of making brownies using… flour. As ridiculous as the story sounds, it was only one more of many bricks in a constantly growing wall which should be telling us that this guy needs to go. The people of Venezuela are literally starving to death in the streets while Maduro and his cronies continue to eat well and live comfortable lifestyles. But what, if anything, can we realistically do about it? The editorial...

Remember the date of March 13, 2017. It was the day President Trump was guaranteed his re-election and Republican congressional gains in 2018 and 2020. It's not complicated. Follow along. The Congressional Budget Office released its study of Trump and Paul Ryan's plan to repeal Obamacare and begin to reform our healthcare system. It had many numbers. Only two mattered: taxes and spending.

The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education must reduce capacity and/or consolidate degree programs at its 14-member schools if they are to survive and prosper, says a scholar at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. The system is a state-owned group of universities. Its schools range in size from Cheyney University, with just over 700 students, to West Chester University, with more than 15,000 full-time students. But enrollment has been flagging. The number of Pennsylvania high schoolers graduating each year -- which represents the largest pool of State System students -- has plateaued and is expected to fall. That, and...

... In Washington under Trump even so rudimentary an activity as eating has become politicized, weighted with aesthetic and class significance, put under the jurisdiction of social arbiters who declare what is woke and what is haram. “Actually, How Donald Trump Eats His Steak Matters,” proclaims a contributor to Eater.com. “The president of the United States insists that his steaks be cooked well-done. Unfortunately, that’s a big problem.” But why is it a problem, Eater.com? Why should so trivial a detail impress itself on the average person’s consciousness for even a microsecond? Aren’t there far more important subjects that warrant...