Free Republic

The Senate confirmed President Trump’s 19th federal judge Thursday, approving James Ho for a seat on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and further bolstering the judicial army conservatives wanted to build. Mr. Ho, confirmed on a 53-43 vote, becomes the first Asian American on that appeals court. Democratic Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota joined Republicans in voting for Mr. Ho. He’s the third federal appeals court judge the senate confirmed this week, and the 19th judge overall. That’s well ahead of the 14 President Obama had won by...

During his campaign, President Trump promised to ban all Muslims outright until he could figure out “what is going on.” He later explained that this idea had developed into several policies that would have the same effect. Keep Up With This Story And More By Subscribing Now Since his inauguration, Trump has begun to implement them—they include slashing the refugee program, banning all immigration and travelers from several majority Muslim countries, and imposing new burdens on all visa applicants as part of “extreme vetting” initiatives. So far, these policies appear to have “worked,” strongly reducing Muslim immigration and travel to...

The Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to repeal net neutrality rules, over the objection of Democrats in Congress, Internet activists and online companies. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, Commissioner Michael O’Rielly, and Commissioner Brendan Carr, all Republicans, supported the proposed rollback of the Obama-era rules. Democratic Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel opposed the change.

Spirits were high inside the House chamber on Thursday, November 16, when, in the early afternoon, the gavel fell and a measure to rewrite the American tax code passed on a partisan tally of 227 to 205. As the deciding votes were cast—recorded in green on the black digital scoreboard suspended above the floor—the speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, threw his head back and slammed his hands together. Soon he was engulfed in a sea of dark suits, every Republican lawmaker wanting to slap him on the shoulder and be a part of his moment. Ryan was the man...

Let me say I am extremely disappointed in the loss tonight. I would have stuck with Strange in the primary, but I would have voted for Moore if I lived in Alabama. This is a double loss since Sessions has been such a lousy AG and set the table for this Mueller witch hunt but would have been a reliable Senate vote. I wish people would understand that the difference between glory and destruction with high risk candidates is pretty slim even in Alabama. The media is the enemy - the communication wing of the DNC and will sabotage R...

Donald J. Trump‏ Verified account @realDonaldTrump Congratulations to Doug Jones on a hard fought victory. The write-in votes played a very big factor, but a win is a win. The people of Alabama are great, and the Republicans will have another shot at this seat in a very short period of time. It never ends!

French President Emmanuel Macron issued a stark warning on climate change at a summit in Paris on Tuesday, telling world leaders “we are losing the battle” against global warming. “We’re not moving fast enough, that’s the problem,” Macron told the One Planet Summit called to boost the 2015 Paris climate accord, which US President Donald Trump has renounced. “We must all act because we will all be held to account,” Macron told the gathering on an island in the River Seine, adding: “We cannot say we did not know.” Dozens of world leaders and hundreds of ministers, company bosses, and...

If you were having any doubts that the corporate left-wing mainstream media is the real opposition party and President Trump’s sworn enemy, here’s an article, more of an essay actually, published in Huffington Post, which announces its readers that after his 1st year in the White House, President Trump is winning, against all odds. The essay is signed by Earl Ofari Hutchinson and begins with: “This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to write and admit. Trump is winning.” Why is that, you may ask? Well, according to the author, who’s also a co-host of the Al...

After less than a year in office, President Donald J. Trump has exceeded the expectations of his supporters and confounded his enemies. Economic growth is accelerating, stock prices are rising, and consumer confidence is soaring. The only distressed asset in the US market is conventional wisdom, which dismissed the former real-estate developer and reality TV star as a blundering amateur. On the contrary, Trump evinces a shrewdness about American voters better than that of any politician of his generation. Even more importantly, he has the nerve to take risks in order to draw his opponents into battles that he thinks...

It's the knowing smirk that rankles most. When Donald Trump flashes his grating, self-satisfied grin, he's signalling to you and me that he's untouchable, beyond the reach of special counsel, Robert Mueller, and the comical remnants of the "rule of law". It's his easy, quick way of quashing the frayed spirits and hopes of those of us aching for his belated comeuppance and eviction from the White House. But Trump knows he's not going anywhere, anytime soon. So, he basks in his immunity and smiles. It's his tiny middle finger to anyone who believes that Mueller, the FBI or Congress...

An award-winning U.S. diplomat who was seen as a rising star at the State Department has issued a scathing resignation letter, accusing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the Donald Trump administration of undercutting the State Department and damaging America’s influence in the world. Elizabeth Shackelford, who most recently served as a political officer based in Nairobi for the U.S. mission to Somalia, wrote to Tillerson that she reluctantly had decided to quit because the administration had abandoned human rights as a priority and shown disdain for the State Department’s diplomatic work, according to her letter, obtained by Foreign Policy.

President Trump gives a Hanukka gift to the Jewish people and a Christmas gift to the American people. Trump’s gift to Israel is not merely that 68 years after Israel declared Jerusalem its capital, the US finally recognized Israel’s capital. In his declaration, Trump said, “Israel has made its capital in the city of Jerusalem, the capital the Jewish people established in ancient times.” . By stating this simple truth, Trump fully rejected the anti-Israel legacy of his predecessor Barack Obama. In his speech in Cairo in 2009, Obama intimated that Israel’s legitimacy is rooted in the Holocaust, rather than...

This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to write and admit: Trump is winning. In the brief space of a week, he won a brief court fight to shove Mick Mulvaney to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Mulvaney wasted no time in unhinging a spate of consumer protection rulings, regulations, and personnel hires made during the Obama years. His SCOTUS pick, Neil Gorsuch, eagerly cast a vote to impose the Muslim travel ban. His EPA head, Scott Pruitt, delivered a couple million acres of public monument land in the West to oil, gas, and coal industry...

Deputy national security adviser Dina Powell will step down from her position early next year, the White House said Friday. Powell, who took on the role in March, is among several aides expected to leave the administration following President Trump's first year in office. She is in talks to continue advising Trump from the outside. Powell is leaving on good terms and chose to depart on her own, according to The Washington Post, which first reported her exit. “Dina Powell has been a key, trusted advisor in this administration,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement....

General Electric Co. announced Thursday that it will cut 12,000 jobs from power division amid a global softening of electricity demand and the switch from coal and other fossil fuels. "The plans announced today are driven by challenges in the power market worldwide," the manufacturing giant said. "Traditional power markets including gas and coal have softened. Volumes are down significantly in products and services driven by overcapacity, lower utilization, fewer outages, an increase in steam plant retirements, and overall growth in renewables." The company said Thursday that the cuts will "right-size" GE Power amid the transition taking place in the...

Not only is President Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and begin the process of moving the U.S. embassy there one of the boldest moves of his presidency. It is one of the boldest moves any U.S. president has made since the beginning of the Oslo "peace process" in 1993. That process collapsed at Camp David in 2000 when Yasir Arafat rejected President Clinton's offer of a Palestinian state. And the process has been moribund ever since, despite multiple attempts to restart it. That is why the warnings from Trump critics that his decision may wreck...

Ever since he announced his candidacy, conservative critics of Donald Trump have been put off by his willingness — at times, eagerness -- to smash norms. But us critics also should acknowledge that there are cases in which norms need to be smashed. President Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is one of those cases and he deserves praise for his decision. For decades, the United States has perpetuated the fiction that there is some vagueness over the location of the capital of Israel. The U.S. Congress, in 1995, voted overwhelmingly to declare that Jerusalem is...

During his presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump had promised to “stop the massive inflow of refugees” in order to safeguard the country from terrorists. According to Fox News, only 3,108 refugees came to the U.S. in October and November. In the same period last year, under Barack Obama's reign, 18,300 refugees were admitted. That's a jaw-dropping decline of 83 percent.

President Donald Trump has been systematically dismantling the Obama administration’s legacy ever since he took office, and he’s showing no signs of slowing down. Most recently, the Department of Agriculture finally announced that it would be rolling back some of former first lady Michelle Obama’s restrictions on what can be served in public school lunches, ABC News reported. Effective July 1, after a period for public comment, schools will again be allowed to serve chocolate milk to students thanks to the lifting of some restrictions. The USDA announced that it is also easing restrictions on sodium content, and allowing milk...

The tax bills passed by the House and the now the Senate include slightly more generous benefits for parents. Unless their children are undocumented immigrants. Currently, non-citizens filing taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITIN, are allowed to claim the child tax credit, which gives back up to $1,000 per child under age 17. In tax year 2013, according to the Government Accountability Office, 4.4 million ITIN filers claimed child tax credits worth $6 billion. Under both the House and Senate versions of the Republican tax bill, ITIN filers — most of whom are undocumented — would need...