Free Republic

Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) faced the closest race of his career in 2016. I was not completely surprised. In 2013, one article polled public attitudes about the congressman, who had a net negative, just 43 percent. IssaÂ’s standing with Republicans in general had wavered as well, since many people see him as more of an Establishment get-along/go-along type. But all of that startling negative polling was just hot air, at least for that year. Election 2014 was beyond any kind of outlier that I had ever seen. The turnout was so low, that long-standing Democratic lawmakers like Lucille Roybal-Allard won...

Whenever I hear Christian leaders talk about the inevitable collapse of the church of America (or elsewhere) I ask myself, “But hasn’t Jesus risen from the dead? Didn’t He ascend to the right hand of the Father? Hasn’t all authority in heaven and earth been given to Him? And aren’t we commanded to go and make disciples in His name and by His authority?”If so, how then we can speak of any inevitable collapse of the church (or, specifically, of Christian society), regardless of how inevitable that collapse appears to human eyes?I therefore differ strongly with conservative journalist Rod Dreher...

The big losers of the Russian hacking scandal may yet be those who invested all their capital in a script that turned out to based on a fairy tale. In Monday's Intelligence Committee hearings, James Comey did confirm that his FBI has found nothing to support President Trump's tweet that President Obama ordered him wiretapped. Not unexpected, but undeniably an embarrassment for the tweeter-in-chief. Yet longer-term damage may have been done to the left. For Monday's hearing showed that its rendering of the campaign of 2016 may be a product of fiction and a fevered imagination. After eight months investigating...

Everyone in Washington hates Donald Trump's new budget. So it must have something going for it. This is a budget plan that will surgically remove trillions of dollars of wasteful spending from the obese $3.9 trillion federal budget. Many agencies will have to live with cuts of 5, 10 and 30 percent, while other outdated, duplicative or unproductive programs will go to the graveyard. It's a gutsy document that takes on the hoards of special-interest groups that populate Washington, D.C. The Washington metropolitan workforce will shrink, and so the town is in cardiac arrest. The Washington Post quoted an...

Author’s Note: This is a continuation of my last column “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”Given his decades-long identification as an atheist, the fact that my father’s final words on earth were those of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” was truly remarkable. It seems that he was telling us in his own way that he had heard the Gospel's message, believed it to be true, and was sure of where he was going after he died. But my mother provided some additional context when we sat down to talk the next day, which was the Friday leading into dad’s final weekend here on...

All addictions -- whether to drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex or cigarettes -- are very hard to escape. There is one addiction, however, that may be more difficult than any other to escape, in part because it is not even regarded as an addiction. It is entitlements addiction, the addiction to getting something for nothing. One indication as to the power of entitlements addiction is the fact that while great numbers of people have voluntarily given up drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc. -- almost always at great pain -- few give up an addiction to entitlements. For the majority of able-bodied people...

Budget: Let's start with a basic fact. Contrary to news reports last week, President Trump is not eliminating funding for Meals on Wheels. He's not even cutting it. How do we know this? Meals on Wheels says so. A statement issued by Meals on Wheels America on Thursday notes that 35% of the revenues at the 5,000 or so local Meals on Wheels programs come via the Older Americans Act Nutrition Program. Trump's budget outline says nothing about this program whatsoever. What Trump's budget does propose is cutting is the corruption-prone Community Development Block Grant program, run out of Housing...

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Trump certainly isn't the first politician to lie, but he's made a reputation of it for a couple of reasons. One, he lies a lot. And two, when he's called out, he handles it poorly. Here are a few things you shouldn't do when you're called out in a lie, unless you want to make things worse. We've all lied about something and been called out on it. When I was 14, for example, I lied to my mom about wearing makeup. When she found my concealer, what did I do? I completely denied it was mine, which, of course,...

So the FBI director James Comey going on and on and on and on and on about the Russians undermining faith in our elections, that that’s what the Russians want to do. It may be so. I can remember when Teddy Kennedy worked with the Soviets to undermine the 1984 Reagan campaign. Now, you might think that’s not relevant, that’s so long ago and it’s not the same Russia as the Russia we’re talking about today, but it’s highly relevant, folks, because the Democrats have not changed who they are. Barack Obama in open microphone gaffe with Dmitry Medvedev You...

James Comey should not simply be fired as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He must be barred forever from any form of public service. In the last 10 days, Comey has whipsawed the election for president of the United States. Now we know he did it for no reason. When his agents found information that suggested there were emails on a laptop that might have relevance to the investigation of Hillary Clinton and her email servers, Comey did not wait until he knew even a scintilla of information before announcing it to the world. Reasonably, lots of voters...

RUSH: I have a question. It’s an open-ended question to which there are answers, but I just want to ask them. If we think back to all of these media leaks and stories that there have been, from… Let’s just say since the election. We’ve had stories indicating a serious investigation of the Trump campaign and its ties to Russia. We’ve had unnamed intelligence officials — IC, intelligence community officials — saying this or that or the other thing. They’re unnamed. It’s the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN. And, of course, the three networks — ABC, CBS, NBC —...

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Same Old Playbook: Democrats Attack Gorsuch as Sexist Mar 20, 2017 By the way, the Gorsuch hearings began today too. The Democrats have two soap operas going today. They’ve got the destroy Trump soap opera and the effort here on Gorsuch, who is the Supreme Court nominee, and this is somewhat interesting, ladies and gentlemen. This is from the… What is this? Well, I’m not sure the source of this, but the story is this. There’s a backup story NPR. It’s a legitimate story. I just can’t find — in the small font here — the actual source here. But...

With Democrats facing tough prospects in the midterm elections, will they also have to worry about primary challenges from their left flank? The path of Sanders' former staffers reflects the split in his movement, and the some are already galvanizing for the 2018 elections — and setting their sights on their own. The more radical strain, which led hundreds of Sanders delegates to walk out of the Democratic National Convention in protest last summer, is still present on the left and emboldened by the loss of Hillary Clinton and their belief that "Bernie would have won." A handful of groups...

There is one person — and one person alone — who can begin to sort all of this out: Former President Obama. He should be called to testify post haste. Here are a sample of the questions for any interested member of Congress or the Senate. 1. Your administration surveilled the e-mails of Fox reporter James Rosen, tried to force New York Times reporter James Risen to testify on his sources for a book on the CIA. Mr. Risen went so far as to say you were the “Greatest Enemy To Press Freedom In A Generation.” Understanding these facts, why...

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Even if the House passes The American Health Care Act [“AHCA”] next week, it must overcome what have been — falsely — portrayed as insurmountable Senatorial procedural hurdles. One circuitous method to overcome them would necessitate the Vice President overruling the parliamentarian regarding compliance with budget reconciliation-based constraints, so that TrumpCare could include more features and adjustments to insurance mandates and other ObamaCare rules, and pass by a simple-majority. It would be preferable to alter the Senate’s arcane rules, thereby neutralizing any such constraints. From the GOP’s perspective, it is desirable to work backwards from the intended endpoint, namely, to...

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