Free Republic

President Trump yesterday announced that the US will increase tariffs on China and then ordered all US firms to begin seeking alternatives to doing business with China! The Chinese regime is in a lethal position and has only two choices. The regime can either give the US what it wants or perish. President Trump recognizes that China is in an all out war with the US in regards to information and economics. For years Western leaders have done nothing but negotiate into weak positions, never standing up to the Communist regime. Former US Presidents treated China like they did Russia...

After weeks of wrestling publicly with his Christian faith, Marty Sampson appears to have said goodbye to Christianity - or at the very least, the Church - once and for all in an emotional Instagram update posted on Friday. In the post, the Hillsong worship leader of many years expressed his love for the Church's senior leaders Brian and Bobbie Houston and for fellow worship leader Joel Houston, among others. He called Hillsong his "beautiful family of amazing souls" as he thanked them for the memories and their love. In the highly charged update, Sampson, who started out with Hillsong...

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday asked a federal appeals court to reconsider a case in which President Trump was told he could not legally b lock people on Twitter from seeing his tweets. The DOJ’s Friday court filing requests a rehearing from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which has not yet said whether it will hear the case, CNN reported. In the filing, the DOJ argued that Trump — whose personal Twitter account is not owned by the federal government and which was used by Trump for years prior to taking office — should be able to...

The president is irked by the dollar’s persistent strength, but he shouldn’t blame China or the Fed. This month the Trump administration officially declared China a currency manipulator. This declaration, the latest salvo in the ongoing U.S.–China trade war, came after the Chinese government allowed its currency, the yuan, to fall to its lowest value in a decade. It is now trading at just over 7 yuan to a dollar. The currency-manipulation designation is one of the most unwarranted charges volleyed against China by the Trump administration. The depreciation of the yuan was largely caused by market forces and, by...

Prayers up for continuing progress and success. FR is funded solely by contributions made by the liberty loving patriots who love and use it. We are beholden to no political party. No advertisers, no outsiders, no sugar daddies, no corporate string pullers. Definitely no government subsidies or tax breaks. No 501c or other IRS non-profit status. This means no commercial ads. No annoying pop-ups. No ad tracking. No mail campaigns. No spam. No third-parties -- not even the IRS -- trying to control what we do or say. We are self-funded, fiercely independent and enjoy our freedom to speak plainly...

There are three negative supply shocks that could trigger a global recession by 2020. All of them reflect political factors affecting international relations, two involve China, and the United States is at the center of each. Moreover, none of them is amenable to the traditional tools of countercyclical macroeconomic policy. The first potential shock stems from the Sino-American trade and currency war, which escalated earlier this month when President Donald Trump’s administration threatened additional tariffs on Chinese exports, and formally labeled China a currency manipulator. The second concerns the slow-brewing cold war between the U.S. and China over technology. In...

Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Milton Friedman. Click puzzle (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. Milton Friedman is the one of the most popular economist of the 20th Century among constitutionalists. All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidental spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To solve the puzzle: Enter the letters in the top half (letter columns) of the puzzle into the white squares on the bottom half (answer grid) belowEach...

So the annexation of Greenland has hit a snag. That’s okay. We can go back to having western Canada back on the top of the acquisition list. Meanwhile, I don’t understand what the left and the media (but I repeat. . .) have their knickers all in a bunch because Trump claimed to be “the chosen one.” Didn’t they call Obama “The One”? At least Trump didn’t choose himself, unlike Mr. “We-Are-The-One-We’ve-Been-Waiting For.” What?

While speaking to reporters on Friday, President Trump stated that he has “the absolute right” to order American businesses not to do business with China. Trump said, “Well, in 1977, we had an act passed, a national emergency act. I have the absolute right to do that. We’ll see how that goes, but I have the absolute right.”

That didn't take long. A former Obama adviser set the stage for a potentially nasty confirmation fight in the Senate next year within an hour of the Supreme Court announcing Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently completed three weeks of radiation treatment after doctors found a localized cancerous tumor on her pancreas. "If there is a SCOTUS vacancy next year and @senatemajldr carries through on his extraordinary promise to fill it-despite his own previous precedent in blocking Garland-it will tear this country apart," David Axelrod said in a tweet Friday afternoon.

President Donald Trump wished Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg well after learning that she has went through treatment for a cancerous tumor on her pancreas. The president said that Ginsburg, 86, is “strong” and “very tough” while speaking to reporters outside the White House on his way to leave for the Group of Seven (G-7) summit in France. “I hope she does really well. And our thoughts and prayers are with her,” Trump said. “I’m hoping she’s going to be fine,” he continued. “She’s pulled through a lot. She’s strong. Very tough. We wish her well.” On Friday it...

Today’s Cryptogram BDKGDS OWG WBM DSNSA LBCS B LUMEBPS WBM DSNSA EAUSC BDKEWUDJ DSO. –BDGDKLGZM You can find this little fun word game, to combat early dementia and senility in us baby boomers, in several daily publications. The way it works is a letter stands for another letter. For example: AXYDLBAAXR is LONGFELLOW (does not apply to today's cryptogram). Beware, the game is very addictive. If this is your first time, don't be intimidated. PLEASE DO NOT post the answer in general comments, but DO post your time and any tips you might give the group on how you solve...

In the weeks since a deadly mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, Latino lawmakers have come forward publicly to denounce Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) for his language that they say is "dangerous" for the state's immigrant communities. Democratic members of the El Paso legislative delegation and the Mexican American Legislative Caucus condemned Abbott’s tweet that said the state had to “provide and fund public education for illegal immigrants." TWEET: "5 liberals on the Supreme Court ruled that Texas had to provide and fund public education for illegal immigrants. The next decade, in Texas v. U. S., Federal courts rejected...

The sack of Rome, the Eternal City, by Alaric and his Goths occurred on this date, August 24, in anno Domini 410. This catastrophic event, caused as much by the inept diplomacy of the Romans as by the intrepidity of Alaric, was a major turning-point in history that shook the Roman Empire to its very core. Indeed, this event was such a profound shock that it inspired Augustine of Hippo to write his greatest and most influential work, The City of God, as a response. Writing later in a work called Retractiones, Augustine records the event and the immediate reaction...

..The people of Northern Ireland have nothing to fear from Britain leaving the European Union, UK Independence Party (Ukip) leader Nigel Farage has said. The MEP was in Belfast yesterday to encourage support for the campaign to leave the EU after the June 23rd referendum. ... On Irish Border arrangements in event of Brexit, Mr Farage said he saw no reason why soft Border arrangements with the North could not continue.

What could better illustrate the floundering chaos of the Democratic Party than a new national poll showing Joe Biden as the clear front-runner? The party's got nothing else besides this fumbling faux pas factory. You know the base doesn't want Biden, yet he's leading the party's polls. Sen. Kamala Harris decided to challenge Biden in the first round of Democratic presidential primary debates in June, and for a second it appeared to work, as her poll numbers surged, largely at Biden's expense. But the latest CNN survey shows Harris dropping by 12 points to just 5 percent support and Biden...

...“We just heard from NASCAR on a number of gun-related ads and unfortunately, due to a gradual shift in NASCAR’s position on guns, these ads must be edited/changed—especially those that are depicted as assault-style rifles/sniper rifles. NASCAR is still open to some of the less controversial gun accessories, concealed carry, or classes.” Consider this, even if your audience was split 50-50 as to the issue of the Second Amendment, why would you intentionally alienate half of your base? Let’s take it to an extreme. What organization wants to intentionally anger even 10 percent of its base? I am sure much...

Joe Biden was on the campaign trail in New Hampshire Friday, which means that the potential for a new gaffe to add to his growing repertoire was high.While speaking at a health care town hall at Dartmouth College in Hanover, the Democratic front-runner did not disappoint.Biden, who is considered the Democrats' most electable candidate, hit his first snag while trying to describe his healthcare plan: “For folks in the working class that are below 400,  they will, in fact, increase their premiums,” he stammered, adding quickly,  "excuse me, will increase the generosity of the premium tax cut that they now...

Today’s Campaign Update (Because The Campaign Never Ends) Should we change their names to CIANN and MSFBI? – After the news-fakers over at CNN added disgraced serial liar Andrew McCabe to its roster of paid contributors on Friday, the Daily Caller News Foundation notes that CNN and MSNBC now employ no fewer than 15 former employees of the myriad U.S. intelligence agencies. That’s right: 15. Amazingly enough, America’s national Teenage Drama Queen, James Comey, is not among them. But he and McCabe were out on the CIANN airwaves performing as your basic Abbott and Costello tag team of Clintonian non-denial...

Many of the millions of people who shop on Amazon.com see it as if it were an American big-box store, a retailer with goods deemed safe enough for customers. In practice, Amazon has increasingly evolved like a flea market. It exercises limited oversight over items listed by millions of third-party sellers, many of them anonymous, many in China, some offering scant information.