Free Republic

Demonstrating just how ideologically alligned with the Obama administration was the entire US State Department, moments ago the WaPo reported that "the entire senior level of management officials resigned Wednesday, part of an ongoing mass exodus of senior foreign service officers who don’t want to stick around for the Trump era."

Live Global stocks hit 19-month high and Dow Jones breaks 20,000 for first time ever as markets reignite 'Trump rally'

President Trump will direct his secretary of homeland security to examine ways the administration can suspend grants to so-called "sanctuary cities," or areas where law enforcement agents do not enforce immigration laws, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday. "What the executive order does is, it directs the secretary to ... look at funding streams that are going to these cities ... and figure out how we can defund those streams," Spicer said of an executive action Trump was expected to sign later in the day. Spicer dismissed suggestions that Trump would seek to deport children who were brought...

Full Title:  Trump Didn’t Just Re-enact the Old Ban on Funding International Planned Parenthood – He Made It Vastly Stronger WASHINGTON, D.C., January 25, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – President Trump’s newly reinstated ban on funding to foreign pro-abortion groups is not just a repeat of old Republican policy it turns out. In fact, it is vastly stronger. The “Mexico City Policy” has been enacted by Republican presidents since Reagan, and subsequently overturned by Democratic presidents. It bars U.S. taxpayer funding to organizations abroad that perform or promote abortions. But Trump’s version of the executive order goes even further. Not only does it...

The Trump administration has frozen Obama’s parting gift to the the Palestinians. Former US President Barack Obama, in his waning hours, quietly released $221 million to the Palestinian Authority (PA), which Congress had been blocking. The Trump administration announced it is freezing the move. The State Department is reviewing the last-minute decision by former Secretary of State John Kerry to send $221 million dollars to the Palestinians. Kerry formally notified Congress that State would release the money Friday morning, just hours before President Donald Trump took the oath of office. The funds — supposedly intended for reconstruction in Gaza and...

WASHINGTON — President Trump will order the construction of a Mexican border wall on Wednesday, White House officials said, and is mulling plans to stop Syrian refugees from entering the country and to slash immigration of refugees from “terror prone” nations, perhaps as early as this week. During an appearance at the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday, Mr. Trump plans to sign an executive order to direct federal funds to be shifted toward the building of a wall on the southern border that became a signature promise of his campaign. He has argued that doing so is vital to...

Currently, a half-billion dollars in taxpayer money is given to National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) each year. Trump plans to do away with that. The Hill has reported: “The Trump Administration needs to reform and cut spending dramatically, and targeting waste like the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be a good first step in showing that the Trump Administration is serious about radically reforming the federal budget,” said Brian Darling, a former aide to Paul and a former staffer at the Heritage Foundation. The Regan Administration attempted something similar...

President Trump told leaders of the country’s largest automakers Tuesday that he will curtail “unnecessary” environmental regulations and make it easier to build plants in the United States, changes that he expects will shore up the manufacturing jobs he repeatedly promised to voters on the campaign trail. After weeks of taunting the automotive industry over Twitter, Trump made a point to meet with the chief executives of General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler just days into his term. He has pressured the companies to build more vehicles in the United States and hire more Americans into manufacturing jobs. …

President Donald Trump was expected to sign several executive orders restricting immigration on Wednesday, at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to several congressional aides and immigration experts briefed on the matter. Trump's orders were expected to involve restricting access to the United States for refugees and some visa holders from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, said the aides and experts, who asked not to be identified.

Fox News's Tucker Carlson is nearly doubling the ratings of his predecessor, Megyn Kelly, when compared to the same time period last year, according to Nielsen Media Research. "Tucker Carlson Tonight" is up 95 percent in the 25- to 54-year-old demographic that advertisers covet most compared with the same period in 2016, when "The Kelly File" occupied the 9 p.m. ET time slot. Carlson has averaged 775,000 viewers per night in the category, while Kelly averaged 398,000 during the same time period, Jan. 11–22. Carlson took over the 9 p.m. slot on Jan. 9, shortly after Kelly announced she would...

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 24, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – The U.S. House of Representatives voted 238 to 183 today to permanently ban taxpayer funding of abortion. The No Taxpayer Funding of Abortion Act (HR 7), introduced by Rep. Chris Smith, R-NJ, makes the Hyde Amendment permanent. Thus far it has been subject to annual renewal. The Hyde Amendment prohibits federal money from being used to fund abortions through Medicaid. The Charlotte Lozier Institute says the Hyde Amendment has saved over 2 million lives since it was enacted in 1976. A January 2017 Marist poll revealed 61% of Americans don’t support using tax...

It was one of the promises Donald Trump made on the campaign trail which drew widespread approbation from conservatives while spurring varying degrees of either anger or depression among the beltway crowd. Trump said that it would be more of an ax than a new broom when it comes to the size of the federal workforce and he would freeze hiring if elected. The pledge led as many as a third of federal workers to say they might walk off the job if he was elected. So would he really do it? Well… that didn’t take long. (Government Executive)...

“I think as an industry, we’re excited about working together with the president and his administration on tax policies, on regulation, and on trade to really create a renaissance in American manufacturing,” Fields told reporters after the meeting, according to the Detroit News. Fields also praised Trump’s decision to kill former President Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, pointing out that it failed to address currency manipulation.

President Trump on Tuesday imposed a media blackout at the Environmental Protection Agency and barred staff from awarding new contracts or grants. Emails sent to EPA staff since his inauguration on Friday and reviewed by the Associated Press detailed the specific prohibitions banning press releases, blog updates or posts to the agency’s social media accounts.

The Senate has just voted to confirm Representative Mike Pompeo as CIA Director. This represents the third intelligence and security nomination confirmed – General Kelly (DHS) and General Mattis (DoD) receiving earlier confirmations. WASHINGTON – The Senate has confirmed Rep. Mike Pompeo, a Kansas Republican, to be President Donald Trump’s CIA director. The vote tally is 66-32, with a significant number of Democrats voting no. Two senators are delayed by weather. (link) Two republican senators Tom Cotton (Yes) and Rand Paul (No) outline the dynamic within the overall DC intelligence outlook from the GOP. Neither are 100% correct; each distinct...

The day before he signed an important executive order to withdraw from the negotiating process for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), President Trump indicated that he will renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico.Reuters reported that during a swearing-in ceremony for his top White House advisors on January 22, Trump said, "We will be starting negotiations having to do with NAFTA. We are going to start renegotiating on NAFTA, on immigration and on security at the border.""Anybody ever hear of NAFTA?" Trump joked at the ceremony. "I ran a campaign somewhat based on NAFTA. But we’re...

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee split along party lines Monday to endorse Rex Tillerson as the country’s next secretary of state, setting up a confirmation vote in the full Senate that is all but guaranteed to succeed. Republicans unanimously backed Tillerson in the 11-to-10 vote, after key Republicans who had voiced criticism of Tillerson opted to support his nomination. Chief among them was Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a committee member who announced Monday morning that he would support Tillerson despite concerns about how Tillerson would approach Russia and other countries Rubio counts as human rights violators, resolving the final major...

Lou Dobbs just broke in with the report that Mike Pompeo now has 56 votes for confirmation, and has been confirmed by the Senate.

President Donald J. Trump killed the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) once and for all on Monday, signing an executive order officially withdrawing from the trade deal negotiations. It came as a part of series of three separate executive actions that President Trump took on Monday. “The first is a withdrawal of the United States from the Trans Pacific Partnership,” White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said, explaining the first executive action President Trump was taking in the list of three. The other two were one freezing hiring of all federal employees except in the military, and one that restores...

No more tingles. Chris Matthews is clearly missing the tingle. There is no longer a thrill running up his leg. Like a jilted lover, he desperately desires to be wooed once more and, apparently, he was hoping that President Donald Trump would do that in his inaugural address. It seems Trump was too harsh and abrupt in his speechmaking. Tingles was left unsatisfied, and came away disappointed.