Free Republic

First, the entire premise of Trump’s plan to retaliate against China is erroneous. Trump cites the U.S.-China trade deficit as proof that the dominant Chinese, via pernicious currency manipulation, are taking weak America’s manufacturing jobs, thereby justifying his tariff plans. However, as I explained in The Federalist last fall, the U.S. manufacturing sector has been (until the last month or so) setting production (and export!) records, and almost 90 percent of the decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2010 was caused by productivity gains (robots and computers), rather than import competition. In fact, a recent Ball State study...

No one, with the possible exception of Donald Trump, could have predicted six months ago that the billionaire real estate magnate would be sitting atop the Republican presidential nomination field less than two weeks before the first caucus in Iowa. But there is little doubt that that is where he is. According to Real Clear Politics, national polls have Trump at 35 percent, Ted Cruz at 19 percent and Marco Rubio at 13 percent. The site has Iowa's Trump average at 28 percent and Cruz's at 27 percent. In New Hampshire, which is more moderate than Iowa, Trump is at...

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump and his ally Sarah Palin galvanized an overflow crowd estimated at over 15,000 in Tulsa, Oklahoma Wednesday afternoon. Palin took some not-so-subtle jabs at Sen. Ted Cruz and other Republicans for criticizing Trump's New York background, while Trump said that Hillary Clinton might end up "in the clink." Palin called Trump "a redhead from the big red Apple" and turned her attention to Republicans attacking their own frontrunner. "They're saying we're not red enough, we're not conservative enough. And I say, what the heck do they know about conservatism?" Her jabs at Cruz, without mentioning...

The big donors to Mitch McConnell's anti-Tea Party defense fund gave amounts ranging from $1000 to $250,000. In the upper half of this donor list appears one Donald J. Trump, who gave $50,000 to the group. Five days earlier, he had already donated a few thousand dollars to McConnell's campaign directly.

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Character Studies From The Bible Paul (Paul's Letter to The Romans) 14 Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2 One person's faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. 4 Who are you to judge someone else s servant? To their own master, servants...

Conservative radio host and commentator Glenn Beck will be on the stump with GOP presidential contender Sen. Ted Cruz over the weekend in Iowa with less than two weeks before caucuses in the important early voting state. The Cruz-supporting Keep the Promise super PAC is organizing the events where Beck will accompany Cruz in Ankeny and Waterloo, the Des Moines Register reports.

Two hundred twenty people died in Milwaukee County in 2014 from heroin and other opiates, 10 times the number from a decade earlier for the entire state. The alarming rise in deaths from heroin and prescription opiates, like OxyContin, has led to a statewide media blitz, community summits and education campaigns, but the city of Greenfield is launching a novel program launching this week. “We're on the front lines of this heroin epidemic,” Greenfield Police Chief Brad Wentlandt said. Wentlandt said his department encountered nearly 500 heroin addicts last year, many of them repeatedly. “We just came to the realization...

[snip] A day after endorsing Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, Sarah Palin failed to appear as expected at a campaign rally for the GOP frontrunner Wednesday morning. Trump supporters in Norwalk, Iowa, were told on Tuesday that Trump would appear "with a very special guest" after the high-profile endorsement by the former Alaska governor. But after appearing in Norwalk, Trump gave a relatively standard stump speech without being joined by the onetime vice-presidential candidate.

After many years of debate, the meaning of "natural born citizen" remains unsettled. During last week's Republican presidential debate, Ted Cruz said it's "really quite clear" he is eligible to run for president even though he was born in Canada, because his mother was a U.S. citizen. His rival Donald Trump insisted "there is a serious question" as to whether Cruz qualifies as "a natural born citizen," one of the constitutional requirements for the presidency. Here is a sentence I never thought I'd type: Donald Trump is right. Cruz describes a consensus that does not exist. The Texas senator is...

Hillary Clinton's defense lawyers made a stunning appearance on today's Morning Joe, asserting that David Petraeus' mishandling of his emails was "worse" than what Hillary did, and arguing that she should not be charged. Oh, wait: those weren't Hillary's lawyers: they were NBC's Chuck Todd, and politician-turned-professor Harold Ford, Jr. Can anyone recall this level of naked partisan advocacy by an MTP host? And when Ford would not stop telling Joe Scarborough that he "had" to agree with Todd, Scarborough eventually snapped at Ford "you're a gd lawyer." View the video here.

Pray For Our American Heroes and Our Nation Stand Firm Psalm 143:8-10 ESV Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord! I have fled to you for refuge! Teach me to do your will, for you are my God! Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground!

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump says rival Ted Cruz is worried the election is slipping away from him. "He's very concerned because his poll numbers are going down and he looks very, very nervous," Trump told CNN's Don Lemon on Wednesday evening. The business mogul questioned whether Cruz would be able to perform as president after angering so many of his congressional colleagues. "Everybody dislikes him. I mean, he's a nasty guy that everybody dislikes," Trump said. "You're going to have to make deals, you're going to have to get these senators and congressmen and all of these people, you...

China's PLA forces carry out landing drills near Taiwan outpost days after elections PUBLISHED : Thursday, 21 January, 2016, 8:22pm UPDATED : Thursday, 21 January, 2016, 8:28pm The People's Liberation Army based in the Fujian provincial city of Xiamen - 10km opposite one of self-ruled Taiwan's outposts - has carried out live-fire exercises and landing drills just days after the pro-independence opposition party won elections in Taiwan. Military experts said the drills were aimed at sending a "political warning" to Taiwan's president-elect Tsai Ing-wen, chairwoman of Democratic Progressive Party, that Beijing would never give up using "non-peaceful means" to solve...

Opposition leader MK Yitzhak Herzog admitted on Wednesday that the "two-state solution" is not feasible at this time. "I look at the reality, and the reality as I read it is a complex one. I cannot see in the current reality how the two-state solution could be implemented," the Zionist Union chairman told Army Radio in an interview. "I want to aspire to it, I want to negotiate it, and I am committed to it, but I do not see the ability to do that now," added Herzog, who continued, "In the absence of the ability to do that right...

The Russian ruble has just collapsed to its lowest ever level. It dropped 4% to 82 rubles per U.S. dollar on Wednesday, passing a previous low hit in late 2014 and piling on the pain for an economy already deep in recession. The latest slump was triggered by another steep drop in oil prices -- crude sank below $27 a barrel to its lowest level since September 2003. The ruble often mirrors movements in oil prices because the Russian economy is extremely dependent on energy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin "probably approved" the killing of a former Russian spy ten years ago, a report by a British judge concluded Thursday. Judge Robert Owen said Thursday that he is certain Alexander Litvinenko was given tea laced with a fatal dose of polonium-210 at a London hotel in November 2006. He died three weeks later of acute radiation syndrome. Owen said there was a "strong probability" that Russia's FSB security service, the successor agency to the notorious KGB, directed the killing. In his 326-page report, Owen also said that based on the evidence he had seen, the operation...

Accountability: The infamous and deadly "gun walking" scandal President Obama stonewalled and then dismissed as "phony" years ago may finally get the attention it deserves, thanks to two recent developments.

fter desperately trying to convince the Democratic base that she's as liberal as Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and her backers are now charging that Sanders is unelectable because he's too extreme.

Every American should be glad that American hostages have been freed by the tyrannical Iranian regime and are being reunited with family, friends and co-workers. Less satisfying is the return of Iran's $400 million trust fund, used to buy military equipment, which was frozen in 1979, along with its diplomatic relations with the U.S. (plus what President Obama ludicrously called "appropriate interest" of $1.3 billion), all returned to what the U.S. State Department branded the world's "preeminent sponsor of terrorism." Expecting Iran to use this windfall for purposes other than terrorism would be like expecting a kidnapper to donate the...

GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee joined the growing number of Republicans criticizing rival Ted Cruz by attacking him for meeting with gay businessmen despite being a staunch opponent of gay marriage. Huckabee on Wednesday tweeted a link to a New York Times article about the meeting, saying "I'll never play political games with my faith." "We shouldn't say one thing for votes, and another for NYC money," he added.