Free Republic

Joe Biden is old. Like each of us, he comes from a particular place in history, in his case the LBJ years. And that’s one big reason why his first term has been so full of accomplishment: His age, often cited as the greatest obstacle to his reelection, is actually his superpower. The first presidential election in which Joe Biden was eligible to vote featured Lyndon Johnson beating Barry Goldwater. History remembers LBJ’s presidency as chaotic because of his tragic adventuring in Vietnam, but in other respects it was remarkable. His Great Society echoed Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal (FDR was...

Was I the only journalist in America who thought President Biden’s State of the Union speech Tuesday was hard to watch? At least until he departed from his script and began sparring with the nation’s rudest Republicans?Sometimes when Biden starts to speak, I involuntarily hold my breath, waiting for him to stumble over his words, or slur them or otherwise mangle his text in a way that will show up in clips on Fox News or MAGA Twitter. See, he’s incompetent! Worrying about this detracts from the pleasure of having a solid Democratic president after four years of Trumpian chaos...

President Biden will welcome Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House on Friday, a meeting intended to signal a more confrontational approach to China as Tokyo's defense turns south toward the Taiwan Strait.Kishida is pushing for a larger defense role for Japan in the Indo-Pacific region as his country and the U.S. face down threats on multiple fronts: a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a nuclear-armed North Korea and Russia's continued assault on Ukraine.Before Kishida's visit, the U.S. and Japan agreed on Wednesday to upgrade their security cooperation by equipping Tokyo with long-range missiles and refitting a U.S....

Gregory Yee, a hard-charging breaking news reporter for the Los Angeles Times, died unexpectedly Wednesday at the Hollywood bungalow where he lived. His family said the cause appeared to be complications from a respiratory issue. He was 33. ... Hired during the pandemic, he worked from home and did not have a chance to meet many of his co-workers in person. Colleagues said he enjoyed the adrenaline rush and constant novelty of breaking news, and studied the paper’s online analytics to gauge how much time readers were lingering on his stories.

There is a new cable news ratings champion. Nielsen data for 2022 rank the Fox News round table program “The Five” as the most watched show in cable news with an average of 3.5 million viewers. The figure tops “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” which averaged 3.3 million viewers for the year. The figure for the Fox News prime-time show is up 3% over 2021 when it was the most watched program for the year. But “The Five” grew more, up 17% over 2021. The program, which airs live at 5 p.m. Eastern and 2 p.m. Pacific, is also the first cable...

This industrial city an hour north of Indianapolis isn't as famous as Detroit, but it has become an unlikely battleground in the war over electric cars. Almost everyone you meet here either works in a factory, is retired from one or has a relative in a plant that makes parts for gasoline-powered cars — which have ruled Kokomo for nearly 130 years. Yet change is coming. Bulldozers are clearing Kokomo’s cornfields to build a $2.5-billion government-subsidized electric vehicle battery factory, with the aim of retaining jobs tied to auto production at a time California is leading the nation in phasing...

Senate Republicans on Friday blocked an independent, bipartisan commission to study the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.Eager to put the events of that day and former President Trump’s role in it behind them, Republicans blasted the commission proposal as a partisan attempt by Democrats to keep both in the news during next year’s pivotal midterm elections.The bill fell in the first legislative filibuster of the year as it failed to get the 60 votes needed to advance. The vote was 54 to 35 to move the bill forward, with a handful of Republicans breaking ranks — Sens. Mitt...

The myth of Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, Master of Pandemics, Destroyer of Trump, Boyfriend of America didn't create itself: It was the creation of U.S. media.The week isn’t even over and already New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has threatened a Democrat colleague, attacked nurses and nursing home staff, lashed out at the federal government, and attacked his “critics” for spreading “disinformation” and “conspiracy theories” about that time he literally conspired to hide easily avoidable deaths he caused. Things aren’t looking good for him.This, we’re told by his new enemies in corporate media, is what Democratic accountability looks like....

The first night of the Republican National Convention averaged 15.9 million viewers on Monday, a sharp drop of 28% from 2016. The audience figure from Nielsen was also below the opening night of last week’s Democratic National Convention which averaged 18.7 million viewers over the three major English language broadcast networks and three leading cable news channels. The audience for the Democrats on the first night of their convention was also down about 28% from 2016. With additional channels added, the final total was 19.7 million for the Democrats on Aug. 17. A total for coverage of the Republicans’ proceedings...

Are rich people fleeing California to escape astronomical state income taxes? That’s the word. But it’s fake news. In fact, more wealthy people are moving to California than leaving, research indicates. It’s the poor and middle class who are departing. It makes sense. If you’re getting rich in California and can afford to live comfortably here in this balmy climate, there’s little incentive to leave — except to stick it to the tax collector in Sacramento. “If you’ve got your business here and you’re making money, it’s hard to leave,” says Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce....

RUSH: In the LA Times today, how predictable is this? How often have we seen this? The LA Times has a story which purports to be written from the opinion-free middle. It’s a piece of consternation and hand-wringing over the wide gap between the mainstream media and conservative media and their audiences. They’re practically crying in frustration over this division. And the focus of the story is the Susan Rice story. The LA Times says on CNN and CBS and ABC what you have is the entire premise being ridiculed and CNN proudly refusing to even cover it and telling...

Donald Trump’s flair for connecting with veterans won him an overwhelming share of their votes, but the durability of the alliance is already being tested as Trump’s search for a Veterans Affairs secretary veers in a direction that has alarmed some of America’s most influential retired soldiers. Under pressure from conservative activists, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and organizations funded by the Koch Brothers, Trump is contemplating choosing an agency chief who would upend the entire veterans healthcare system. That would come over the protest of the country’s major veterans groups. An appointment like that could prove an early...

The Los Angeles Times paid a visit to Donald Trump’s Southern California headquarters in Long Beach on Monday and was stunned by the diversity of volunteers who are committed to seeing him win the Golden State and the presidency. “It was as if the whole thing had been staged, in Cambodia Town, no less, to belie the notion that Trump’s appeal is largely limited to older white males,” the Times‘s Steve Lopez wrote. In Long Beach, one of America’s most diverse cities, that same diversity was reflected in Trump’s supporters at his Southern California headquarters. Lopez spoke with a woman...

Contradicting Trump, Mexican president says he made it clear Mexico will not pay for a border wall

Americans viewing the recent failed coup attempt in Turkey as some exotic foreign news story -- the latest, violent yet hardly unusual political development to occur in a region constantly beset by turmoil -- should pause to consider that the prospect of similar instability would not be unfathomable in this country if Donald Trump were to win the presidency.

Ignore Cruz And Trump — Scapegoating Muslims Is An Un-American Response To The Brussels Attacks It has been clear at least since the massacre in Paris last November that jihadist terrorists are embedded in Europe, difficult to detect and determined to engage in spectacular acts of violence. So while Tuesday's carnage in Brussels was horrific, it also was achingly familiar. This time more than 30 people were killed and hundreds injured in separate attacks at the Brussels airport and at a downtown subway close to the headquarters of the European Union. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks. While condemnations...

hough other companies and organizations are cutting ties with Donald Trump following his inflammatory comments about Mexican immigrants, the golf world is continuing to do business with the Republican presidential candidate. NBC, Univision and Macy's have cut ties with the real estate mogul following his comments, but the PGA of America, the LPGA, the USGA and the PGA Tour will go forward with their previously scheduled plans to host tournaments on his courses.

On February 19, the Los Angeles Times reacted to the growing momentum for Campus Carry legislation across the country by referring to the NRA as “crackpots” and reminding the organization that it is the government’s “responsibility to protect the public through reasonable gun control laws.” In other words, “shall not be infringed” does not mean shall not be regulated and/or controlled. According to the Times, the NRA has hit a new low by promoting the idea that an expansion of Campus Carry means “gun-toting women would be armed to defend themselves in the event of sexual assaults.” The Times claims...

Washington — Consumers saved nearly $1.5 billion in 2011 as a result of rules in President Obama´s healthcare law that limit what insurance companies can spend on expenses unrelated to medical care, including profit, a new analysis shows. Much of those savings — an estimated $1.1 billion — came in rebates to consumers required because insurers had exceeded the required limits. The study by the New York-based Commonwealth Fund also suggests that the Affordable Care Act forced insurers to become more efficient by limiting their administrative expenses, a key goal of the 2010 law. In some cases, insurers passed savings...

The assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi last month appears to have been an opportunistic attack rather than a long-planned operation, and intelligence agencies have found no evidence that it was ordered by Al Qaeda, according to U.S. officials and witnesses interviewed in Libya. The attack was "carried out following a minimum amount of planning," said a U.S. intelligence official, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a matter still under investigation. "The attackers exhibited a high degree of disorganization. Some joined the attack in progress, some did not have weapons and others just seemed...