Free Republic

President Donald Trump is clearly concerned about the plight of American farmers. He pushed the Department of Agriculture to make available up to $12 billion of temporary relief to those farms caught in the middle of his tariff war – starting this Labor Day. It’s laudable that he wants to address this problem, but let’s remember that it was a problem of his own creation. America is a breadbasket to much of the world because of our exceptional farmland. We have about two-and-a-half times as much arable land as does China, for instance, with about the same landmass. That means...

Consider Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's travel schedule. Over the past two weeks, the aggressive new voice of the progressive left has crisscrossed the Midwest, making a stop in Kansas to campaign alongside Bernie Sanders as well as solo trips to Missouri and Michigan to stump for insurgent candidates hoping to follow in her path. That Ocasio-Cortez consistently finds herself hundreds of miles from the Bronx and Queens, where in June she stunned the political world by unseating the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House, shows just how important the next several weeks are for the movement she has come to represent. Beginning with...

An interesting phenomenon in politics is the flip flop. What would cause a politician who takes a stand on an issue to reverse himself and take precisely the opposite stand on the same issue? Even more interesting is the about face or volte face. The volte face goes beyond the flip flop because it represents a total and usually lasting shift of course, as when Reagan abandoned the Democratic Party and became a Republican. More interesting even than the volte face is when a whole group or party makes this shift. Perhaps the most dramatic example in our lifetime is...

The Republican Party has become the party of blue-collar America. After the 1992 election, 15 of the 20 most manufacturing-intensive Congressional districts in America were represented by Democrats. Today, all 20 are held by Republicans.

A new poll shows that voters in battleground states represented by vulnerable Senate Democrats decisively want President Donald Trump’s nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, to replace Anthony Kennedy in the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS)... The poll conducted by the Tarrance Group between July 5 and 8 revealed that voters agree by a decisive margin of at least 12 percent that their senators should confirm the SCOTUS appointment Trump announced Monday night. After explaining that the U.S. Senate will vote on the president’s appointment to replace Justice Kennedy, it asked voters, “Do you think Senator [Nelson, Donnelly, McCaskill, Heitkamp, or...

WASHINGTON — Democratic senators running for re-election in Trump Country face an agonizing choice over President Trump’s coming Supreme Court nominee: Vote to confirm the pick and risk demoralizing Democratic voters ahead of the midterm elections, or stick with the party and possibly sacrifice their own seats — and any chance at a Democratic majority in 2019.

WASHINGTON — Democratic senators running for re-election in red states where President Donald Trump remains popular face an agonizing choice over his coming Supreme Court nominee: Vote to confirm the pick and risk demoralizing Democratic voters ahead of the midterm elections, or stick with the party and possibly sacrifice their own seats — and any chance at a Democratic majority in 2019. The actions of a handful of Senate Democrats struggling to hold their seats in those states — notably Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia — will have broad implications...

Pssst! Don't call it socialism, especially in the Midwest. Pass it along. New York magazine writer Eric Levitz admits in his July 3 article that the socialism of Democratic-Socialist candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of the Bronx by way of Westchester County might be a tough sell to voters in the Midwest. His solution is to rebrand that leftist ideology in a way to make socialism somehow palatable to them. Levitz makes his palatability proposals in Ocasio-Cortez’s Socialism Can Work in the Midwest — With a Rebrand:

Country music star Trace Adkins will perform at a Nashville rally next week where President Donald Trump will headline. The rally is scheduled Tuesday evening at the Municipal Auditorium. It marks Trump's third visit to Music City since becoming the nation's 45th president. The addition of Trace Adkins will be a reunion for Adkins with President Trump, as the country music star was a finalist on Season 7 of Celebrity Apprentice in 2008, according to a news release. “We are excited to host Trace Adkins to warm-up the crowd for President Trump prior to the MAGA Rally on Tuesday in...

Alabama last elected a Democrat as governor 20 years ago. Former Gov. Robert Bentley received nearly twice the votes as Democrat Parker Griffith in the most recent gubernatorial contest four years ago. The Cook Political Report labels Alabama's governor's race as "solid Republican." The same label comes from the Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball, produced at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. "Barring some major developments in this race, it's difficult to see a path for a Democrat to win," said Geoffrey Skelley, associate editor with the Crystal Ball. Said Waymon Burke, a political science professor at Calhoun Community...

Democrats claim their policies are superior to Republicans, but they keep leaving their blue states and moving into red states. Democrats are known for taking over large urban areas and turning them blue, then deserting them as they become unpleasant to move on to better territory in red states where they make the same transformations. They increase taxes and regulations, making it expensive and annoying to live wherever they get into power. According to United Van Lines, the top 10 states people are leaving include the blue states Wisconsin, Ohio, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Illinois. Only three red...

Texas marks another year where it leads the nation in total population growth, adding nearly 400,000 new residents, according to the latest figures by the U.S. Census Bureau. Between July 2016 and July 2017, the Lone Star State grew by 399,734 people, boosting its population to 28.3 million the census data showed. Breitbart Texas reported the state added 432,957 people during July 2015 to July 2016, increasing the population to almost 28 million. By comparison, the number of Texans in 2000 reflected 21 million. In 2010, the population totaled 25.1 million. The Census Bureau’s State Data Center noted that each...

West Virginia still leads the nation in the rate of drug overdose deaths according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics. The age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths in West Virginia was 52 per 100,000 in 2016, The Register-Herald reported. Ohio just edged ahead of New Hampshire in 2016, coming in second with a rate of 39.1 deaths per 100,000. New Hampshire dropped to third place with a rate of 39 drug overdose deaths per 100,000.

7,016,272 When I moved here in 1963 there were about 1.4 million people here and the state was ranked 34th in population. Now it's just north of 7 million and ranked 14th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecFjU1WNxVM

Reid labeled rural Americans “the core threat to our Democracy” and called for the abolition of the electoral college to limit their ability to influence elections and government.

As we watch Roy Moore thumping his Bible to defend himself from accusations of child molestation, let me toss out a verbal hand grenade: To some degree, liberals practice the values that conservatives preach. This is complicated terrain with lots of exceptions, and the recent scandals involving Harvey Weinstein, Louis C.K. and Al Franken underscore that liberals can be skunks as much as anyone else. Yet if one looks at blue and red state populations as a whole, it’s striking that conservatives champion “family values” even as red states have high rates of teenage births, divorce and prostitution. In contrast,...

HILBERT, Wis. — Sargento Foods is expanding in eastern Wisconsin for the fourth time in the past decade. WLUK-TV reports that the company is adding 40,000 square feet (almost 3,720 square meters) and 150 jobs to its Hilbert location. The Hilbert location currently employs about 300 people

Donald J. Trump spoke to rural voters in a way that launched him into the presidency. His soaring rhetoric and no-nonsense promises to stand up against corruption were exactly what his constituents voted for. Say it ain’t so, but now, his own Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is pushing a rule that will hurt the very voters who put him in the White House. The swamp has overtaken the FCC and President Trump’s Make America Great Again motto is in jeopardy. Will the Trump Administration stand up to the big mobile carriers or will it cave just like every Administration...

I’m a political junkie. Every day I read The Washington Post and The New York Times, among other media giants, with great interest and appreciation. Here in conservative rural America, Trump is ascendant. I was loafing in a booth at the coffee shop Saturday morning, and my friend Mark said something like, “Hey Bob, if you want to understand why rural conservatives like Trump, watch the speech he gave at the Values Voters Summit.” Doing my best to understand how my conservative friends might read Trump’s speech, I read. I contrasted Trump’s messaging with how rural conservatives often view Democratic...