Free Republic

A new poll shows the GOP is more trusted than Democrats to handle the hot-button immigration issue — and large percentages of Hispanic and African-American voters are backing President Donald Trump’s “Buy American, Hire American” immigration policy. The respondents were asked” “Who do you trust more to handle the following issue?” The answer for immigration was 40 percent for Democrats, 41 percent for the GOP and a huge 20 percent for “Don’t know” or “No answer.” That is a large percentage of non-answers, and likely hides a block of pro-Trump supporters who fear to respond truthfully. The poll of 1997...

This week marks the first full year of Donald Trump’s presidency. While the media would have you believe he is the worst president in history and his policies are literally destroying the world, the fact is, like him or not, the American people have had some really big wins this first year—and the biggest winners are moms!For those of us who determined it a complete waste of time to try and navigate through the sea of nonsense to find the real news, I, as a mom, thought it prudent to give a true accounting of Trump’s first year—and why...

The State Department has turned the page on Turkey for it no longer views Ankara as a reliable US partner. Many argue that Washington will abandon Syria’s Kurds in order to assuage Turkish anger. I doubt this. Washington expects more anti-US actions from Erdogan. Many in DC believe that Turkey’s rising Islamism, hardening dictatorship, and worsening anti-Israel rhetoric will only increase in the future. They do not hold out hope that Washington can reverse this trend.The US is increasingly falling back on support for Israel and Saudi Arabia. Trump has clearly set his course and reversed Obama’s effort to...

WASHINGTON DC, United States (Kurdistan 24) – Testifying at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, Acting Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs, David Satterfield, revealed a new US policy on Syria that took even the senators by surprise. The long-standing US policy—going back to the Obama administration—has been to support the UN-mediated Geneva talks to secure a political settlement that ends Syria’s protracted civil war, as well as Bashar al-Assad’s rule. However, as successive senators expressed their skepticism about prospects for the success of the Geneva talks, Satterfield revealed that the Trump administration, in fact, shared...

Homeowner Mark Parkinson and his wife Diana. (Photo: WSBTV.com) WALKER COUNTY, Ga. Agents with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation are investigating an officer-involved shooting in Walker County in which a deputy shot and killed a man in his Rossville home. The incident began in the early-morning hours of New Year’s Day when a woman called 911 and said her estranged daughter-in-law threatened to kill her child and then herself. When deputies arrived at the home on Meadowview Drive in Rossville, the family was sleeping. The estranged daughter-in-law was living in the home with her parents while going through a...

The increasing costs of population growth in Sweden, driven almost entirely mass migration, have forced the government to seriously consider raising the national retirement age to pay for the additional costs. Swedish Socialist party Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson announced that the retirement age would likely be raised in the near future in order to offset increased welfare costs, Swedish newspaper Expressen reports. “Looking at those who start working at 30, there should be opportunities to work longer than 65,” Andersson said. The minister made her remarks following an economic report from the Local Authorities and County Council (SKL) released earlier...

Turkey’s misguided foreign policy has increasingly become apparent in three main spheres: Syria, Iraq and the Gulf region. During an hourlong, live TV interview on Nov. 7 at Medyascope.tv — an independent, web-based, Turkish news platform — on the latest developments in the Middle East, I was asked what their impact could be on Turkish foreign policy in the region. The question referred to the recent dramatic steps taken by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the unexpected resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. In my response, I characterized Turkey’s recent political moves in the region as a...

The U.S. State Department consists of the most entrenched group of life-long professional political bureaucrats in any sector of the government.  The scope of the mindset really comes to the surface within leaks from inside the Deep State machine that became the basis for a Politico article today.   You really have to read it to fathom the scope of elitism.The article, and the sentiment carried from within the bureaucracy which frames the construct, highlights the level of indignation within the agency toward President Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson as they carry out foreign policy objectives. The article contains...

Three decades ago, as communications director in the White House, I set up an interview for Bill Rusher of National Review. Among his first questions to President Reagan was to ask him to assess the political importance of Barry Goldwater. Said Reagan, "I guess you could call him the John the Baptist of our movement." I resisted the temptation to lean in and ask, "Sir, if Barry Goldwater is John the Baptist, who would that make you?" What brings the moment back is Laura Ingraham's new book: "Billionaire at the Barricades: The Populist Revolution from Reagan to Trump." Thesis:...

A league spokesman said owners will consider player input on the issue, but suggested that a rule change would not require player approval. The National Football League’s owners will discuss next week whether to unilaterally change league policy and require players to stand during the national anthem. The decision to consider the change came after weeks of persistent criticism from President Donald Trump about players protesting during the anthem, including his call for fans to boycott games if the demonstrations continue. On Sunday, Vice President Mike Pence left an Indianapolis Colts game after members of the San Francisco 49ers took...

Did you realize you have a right to not be offended? That you have a right to other people’s property and their labor? Were you unaware that you, as a citizen, have the same rights in the United States of America as an illegal alien? These are among the newly declared “rights” Democrats have bestowed on people through the power of simply saying they exist. The problem is this concept is fundamentally un-American. Our rights as Americans are not granted to us by the government. Our government is empowered by us on the condition it does not infringe upon the...

Defense Secretary James Mattis says transgender troops will be allowed to continue serving in the military while the Pentagon studies the issue. This comes after President Trump reversed an Obama-era policy that would allow trans-soldiers to serve. In a statement the Defense Secretary said once the panel reports its recommendations and he meets with the Homeland Security Secretary, he wll provide his advice to the president. This will allow the Trump administration to decide how to respond to the president’s executive order. He says in the meantime, the policy will remain law.

Now for the top story tonight. Donald Trump giving a big foreign policy address yesterday in Washington. He joins us now from Evansville, Indiana. First of all, you did not mention Afghanistan in the address. We have got about 10,000 troops there right now. The place is still in chaos after 13 years. What exactly will you do about Afghanistan? DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would stay in Afghanistan. It's probably the one place we should have gone in the Middle East because it's adjacent and right next to Pakistan which has nuclear weapons. So I think you have...

Whether it is a public policy idea whose time has come remains to be seen. But it is, in the least, worthy of serious study. But would Western Pennsylvanians embrace such a concept? We refer to word out of Eastern Pennsylvania that researchers will begin a federally funded $1.2 million study to investigate the viability of a mileage-based highway tax system to pay for highway infrastructure. What’s prompting such a study in the Keystone State, and what led to previous studies elsewhere, is two-fold. First, modern vehicles with better fuel mileage use less gasoline and diesel. Which means less money...

Partisan political advantage, gained at the real or potential life-threatening expense of American personnel undertaking high-risk assignments, was the deep moral issue driving prosecutors in the 2005 Valerie Plame name exposure scandal. An even more disturbing and exploitative example of high-level Washington political operatives exposing low-level American field personnel to greater physical risk is the moral issue at the core of the on-going Benghazi scandal. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said national security concerns drove his pursuit of Bush Administration officials involved in exposing Plame's status as a covert CIA agent. For Fitzgerald, Plame's precise operational status at the time her...

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a frequent critic of the Trump administration, blasted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for suggesting that America’s foreign policy must stray from its core values at times. Tillerson said it was important to “understand the difference between policy and values,” in an address to State Department employees Wednesday. He said that that “America First” means that U.S. national security and economic interests will sometimes override the demand for other countries to adhere to American values. “If we condition too heavily that others must adopt this value that we’ve come to over a long history of our...

US President Donald Trump is expected to recognize thousands of new housing units in Judea and Samaria, and to approve the erection of a new town for Amona's expellees, reported Israel's Channel 2. According to the reports, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will later agree to limit building in Judea and Samaria, while advancing building in the existing "settlement blocs." However, Netanyahu's aides have said the report is inaccurate, and it is not clear how the Likud and Jewish Home parties will react to the final policy. On Sunday, the White House and Israel published a joint readout announcing four...

Investors reacted positively from President Donald Trump’s Tuesday night address to Congress, pushing the Dow Jones industrial average above 21,000 points Wednesday for the first time in its history. Banks, financial institutions, companies in the energy and materials sector saw huge gains as Trump reaffirmed during his speech his plans to cut taxes and push for other business-friendly policies. The Dow jumped 242 points, or 1.2 percent, to 21,055 as of 10:07 a.m. Eastern Time. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index gained 24 points, or 1 percent, to 2,387. The Nasdaq composite index added 59 points, or 1 percent, to...

Trump’s global gag rule is seen as an attack to health care for women across the globe. It basically blocks U.S. funds to organizations involved in abortion advice and care in other countries. I hate to be critical of helping other countries, but we have to help ourselves for a change. We are suffering here, too! We have those who cannot help themselves here, too, and it is getting worse all the time.

US President-elect Donald Trump labeled German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s stance on refugees a “catastrophic mistake.” He said the policy would lead to even more countries leaving the European Union after Britain. President-elect Trump heavily criticized Chancellor Merkel’s open-door policy on refugees in a joint interview published on Sunday with German tabloid newspaper Bild and British newspaper The Times of London.“I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals, you know, taking all of the people from wherever they come from,” he said. “And nobody even knows where they come from. So I think...