Free Republic

SNIP Here’s the problem: Many of these “presidential norms and traditions” that Trump has left by the wayside aren’t timeless at all; they’re actually quite new. They grew up alongside and in reaction to the expansion of both the federal state and the presidency—a process that began in the early 20th century but gained steam from the 1930s onward. With the growth of what Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called the “imperial presidency,” each occupant of the Oval Office has left his imprimatur on the development of what we think of as normative presidential conduct. That means that whatever impact Trump has...

Rachel Bitecofer’s radical new theory predicted the midterms spot-on. So who’s going to win 2020? *SNIP* Bitecofer has already released her 2020 model, and is alone among election forecasters in giving the Democrats—who, of course, do not yet have a nominee—the 270 electoral votes required to claim the presidency without a single toss-up state flipping their way. She sees anyone in the top tier, or even the second tier of candidates, as strong enough to win back most of the Trump states in the industrial Midwest, stealing a march in the South in places like North Carolina and Florida, and...

“In conversations on the sidelines of a DNC executive committee meeting and in telephone calls and texts in recent days, about a half-dozen members have discussed the possibility of a policy reversal to ensure that so-called superdelegates can vote on the first ballot at the party’s national convention,” Politico reported. “Such a move would increase the influence of DNC members, members of Congress and other top party officials, who now must wait until the second ballot to have their say if the convention is contested.” Politico noted that it’s an uphill battle for those who want the rule change, but...

The other matchup that jumps out at me is the possibility of Jennifer Rubin matching up with her Washington Post teammate Max Boot with the Final Four on the line.This is a parody. This is not meant to reflect any beliefs or statements of ESPN or the personalities named in this parody, nor any of the actual mannerisms of such people. Scott Van Pelt: So one of the most eagerly awaited moments of the 2020 election year has finally arrived. The selection committee revealed its brackets for the Comfortably Smug #LiberalHack tournament, sponsored as always by the private equity firm...

U.S. and global crop production continue to set new records, even as climate activists ramp up a campaign to convince people that climate change is decimating crop production and forcing farmers out of business. A prominent propaganda campaign is being presented by Politico. Politico in October published an article titled, “‘I’m standing right here in the middle of climate change’: How USDA is failing farmers.” On December 9, Politico followed up with an article titled, “How a closed-door meeting shows farmers are waking up on climate change.” The October article claimed “American farmers are reeling” from extreme weather caused by...

Peek went on to major in international politics at Princeton, study Persian, and pursue a master's in international relations at Harvard before heading to D.C. as a foreign policy researcher for the conservative Heritage Foundation. He then became a foreign policy adviser to Oregon Senator Gordon Smith, a Republican. When Smith lost his next election, Peek went on to work for another Republican senator, Mike Johanns of Nebraska, on Syria and Lebanon policy, helping to draft a bill expanding sanctions on Hezbollah. In 2008, he enlisted as a reserve officer in the Army and spent a year in Afghanistan at...

California activist Jim Steyer is following his billionaire little brother into national politics — he’s launching a political advocacy group, and a super PAC may follow. Steyer, 57, a children’s advocate with close ties to Hillary Clinton, hasn’t quite figured out how to stage his debut as a major player. But he promises it will be memorable. “You don’t bring a squirt gun to a fight where the other guys have AK-47s,” he said in a telephone interview. “I will tell you this: We’re fearless.” Younger brother Tom Steyer, 56, splashed onto the national radar last fall with huge investments...

Chuck Schumer lost the first impeachment trial battle to Mitch McConnell. But the Democratic leader and his party insist they can still win the war. While Senate Majority Leader McConnell has locked up enough Republican votes to ignore demands for a bipartisan framework for President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, his Democratic counterpart is readying a counteroffensive. Schumer will force a series of votes designed to squeeze vulnerable Republicans and harm them on the campaign trail if they side with Trump. Democrats argue the half-dozen at-risk GOP senators will need some daylight between them and Trump to get reelected. And if...

Before Hunter Biden ... there was Chelsea Clinton, the only child of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She was similarly rewarded with jobs and board positions that had absolutely no relationship with that young woman’s interests, life, education or any perceived expertise. All of this has racked up to what the New York Post reported back in 2015 was an estimated net worth of $15 million for the then-34-year-old. More recently, Barron’s, the finance newspaper, revealed that Chelsea Clinton has now reaped $9 million from a corporate board position. In 2011, while her mother...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Wednesday announced the House of Representatives' plans to vote on a War Powers Resolution which would prevent President Donald Trump from taking further action against Iran. The vote is scheduled for Thursday. According to Pelosi, President Trump "endangered our servicemembers, diplomats and others by risking a serious escalation of tensions with Iran" when he ordered the airstrike that killed Iranian Qud Force General Qasem Soleimani. The Speaker said it's obvious Trump "does not have a coherent strategy to keep the American people safe, achieve de-escalation with Iran and ensure stability in the region" and said...

The only thing that rivals President Trump’s tally of kept promises is the endless list of inaccurate predictions his critics have made about the U.S. economy.  Of course, we heard these apocryphal predictions even before Donald Trump won the 2016 election. For instance, in October 2016, the far-left publication Politico boldly declared that “Wall Street is set up for a major crash if Donald Trump shocks the world on Election Day and wins the White House.” The ability of Trump’s critics to predict our economic future hasn’t improved with age. Throughout 2019, numerous so-called “economists” and “experts” have taken a...

No one knows what the future holds, but these pundits and politicians knew even less than the rest. If you took the sum of political knowledge available at the end of 2018 and projected the course of 2019, the resulting spaghetti models could go in millions of directions. Perhaps Robert Mueller’s findings would devastate President Donald Trump. Or maybe they would vindicate him. Perhaps the new House Democratic majority would steadfastly avoid impeachment. Perhaps Trump’s likeliest 2020 opponent would be one of several new faces heralded as the second coming of Barack Obama, like Beto O’Rourke or Kamala Harris. And...

His resiliency in the primary has caught the attention of the party establishment. Suddenly, Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign is being taken seriously. For months the Vermont senator was written off by Democratic Party insiders as a candidate with a committed but ultimately narrow base who was too far left to win the primary. Elizabeth Warren had skyrocketed in the polls and seemed to be leaving him behind in the race to be progressive voters’ standard-bearer in 2020. Story Continued Below But in the past few weeks, something has changed. In private conversations and on social media, Democratic officials, political operatives...

RETIRED ADM. MICHAEL ROGERS, former director of the National Security Agency, has been cooperating with the Justice Department’s probe into the origins of the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump presidential campaign’s alleged ties to Russia, according to four people familiar with Rogers’s participation. Rogers has met the prosecutor leading the probe, Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, on multiple occasions, according to two people familiar with Rogers’s cooperation. While the substance of those meetings is not clear, Rogers has cooperated voluntarily, several people with knowledge of the matter said. Rogers, who retired in May 2018, did not respond to requests for...

'He just got impeached. He'll be impeached FOREVER.' Nancy Pelosi taunts Donald Trump as crisis over his Senate trial lurches into a third day Nancy Pelosi taunted Donald Trump, saying he will be 'impeached forever' 'He just got impeached. He'll be impeached forever. No matter what the Senate does,' she told the Associated Press in an interview Trump's lawyers are looking into a legal argument he is not impeached because Pelosi has not formally transmitted articles of impeachment to the Senate Trump has claimed Pelosi is afraid to send the impeachment articles to the Senate because of witnesses Republicans may...

When Kamala Harris dropped out two weeks ago, it hit Cory Booker hard. She may have been his rival in the race for the Democratic nomination, but her exit represented something bigger. If Harris — a friend of Booker’s and the only black woman in the race, who began her campaign with such promise — couldn’t make it to Iowa, what did it mean for him, a black man still in the fight but unable to qualify for the Democratic debate? At the heart of Booker’s dilemma is a larger question about the Democratic Party and American politics: What if...

Appearing on CNN’s Boss Files with Poppy Harlow, failed Republican presidential candidate and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina said she believes it is “vital” for President Donald Trump to be impeached.

President Donald Trump committed criminal bribery and wire fraud, the House Judiciary Committee alleges in a report that will accompany articles of impeachment this week. The report, a 169-page assessment of the case for Trump’s removal from office, contends that Trump committed “multiple federal crimes” — ones that Democrats addressed under the broad umbrella of “abuse of power,” the first article of impeachment against the president. “Although President Trump’s actions need not rise to the level of a criminal violation to justify impeachment, his conduct here was criminal,” the panel’s Democrats argue, labeling Trump’s behavior “both constitutional and criminal in...

On Tuesday in Washington, D.C., at Politico’s Women Rule Summit, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) admitted the impeachment process of President Donald Trump has been going on for “two and a half” years.

An Asian media outlet accused of alignment with the Chinese Communist Party lists Politico as a strategic partner for a scheduled China-related event in the United States.....The event is to be SCMP’s first U.S. conference, according to a Politico spokesperson....SCMP is owned by Chinese e-retailer Alibaba, whose billionaire co-founder 'Jack Ma is a member of the Chinese Communist Party.'..... Alibaba’s own “position aligns closely with that of the Communist Party.” SCMP itself has faced accusations of “toeing a pro-Beijing line.” Alibaba acquired SCMP “to use the paper to counteract the negative portrayal of China in the western media,” according to...