Free Republic

President Donald Trump spent the first three years of his presidency taking a flamethrower to elite conventional wisdom. Before the president, an "elite" consensus had formed that lost manufacturing and industrial jobs were gone for good, "free" trade was good for America, and American leadership was about managing America's decline in the face of a rising power in China. These positions were so assumed to be true that politicians would spout them off in the same way they might observe that the sky is blue or that knowing the Clintons is hazardous to a person's health. The "you didn't build...

The Nevada Democratic Party is notifying about 1,000 early-voters that their ballots have been voided for errors, the Nevada Independent reported Thursday. The number of voided ballots account for 2.8 percent of 36,000 ballots cast in three of the first four days of early voting. Election officials said they are counting another 39,000 ballots, which could result in more unusable ballots. An election official told the Independent that most of the errors were from people who failed to sign their ballots. Affected voters are being notified by text message and will have the opportunity to participate in-person at Saturday's caucuses,...

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — His aura suddenly shattered, a defiant Michael Bloomberg sent a pointed message Thursday to a political world grappling with his underwhelming presidential debate debut: He’s not going away. The New York ultra-billionaire lashed out at leading Democratic rival Bernie Sanders and President Donald Trump, addressing voters face to face in the Super Tuesday state of Utah. That was just hours after struggling to answer dangerous yet predictable questions about his record on race, gender and wealth during a nationally televised beatdown that rattled would-be supporters and thrilled critics in both parties.

EXCLUSIVE: Republicans are on the rebound. A record number of candidates have filed to run for office in the House and Senate, breaking last cycle’s history-making numbers from the same point in time. But unlike the 2018 midterms when the surge was driven by Democrats, the congressional boom this time is on the Republican side, according to the latest federal candidate and financial activity report obtained exclusively by Fox News. In 2019 alone, 781 Republicans filed federal paperwork to run for the House, the most ever recorded in an odd year at the Federal Election Commission. That’s up from 593...

The Democratic presidential race is in fresh turmoil after former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg turned in a conspicuously poor performance in his first debate Wednesday evening. Bloomberg took a hammering in Las Vegas at the hands of his opponents, particularly Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). The negative impact is reverberating among centrists in the Democratic Party. The party's moderate vote is splintered among several candidates while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a democratic socialist, advances toward the nomination. Bloomberg's misfire means that dynamic won't change anytime soon. The centrists contend Sanders is too risky a candidate to run against President...

Former Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland said Friday that the FBI -- under the purview of the Mueller investigation -- tried to set up her up in a "perjury trap." Appearing on "Fox & Friends" with host Brian Kilmeade, McFarland -- who served under former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn -- explained that her life "went to hell" at the beginning of the Russia probe because investigators were convinced she was President Trump's to the Russians. "The FBI showed up at my house unannounced. I was all by myself. They come in and I said, 'Do I need a...

SAVANNAH, Ga. — A former government contractor serving time in federal prison for leaking a classified document to a news organization is making an appeal for early release to President Donald Trump, who once tweeted that he considered her crime to be “small potatoes.” Reality Winner, 28, is serving a sentence of five years and three months at a federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas, after she pleaded guilty in 2018 to a single count of transmitting national security information when she worked at a National Security Agency office in Georgia. Prosecutors called it the longest sentence ever imposed for...

First lady Melania Trump’s classy ability to handle attacks on her while keeping the focus on her and the president’s agenda steady is a top reason Republican women are flocking to support President Trump...In a deep dive into the reasons women back the president, the survey put Trump’s accomplishments and his wife at the top and said that she is a sign that the president has good “judgment.” the Frontier Center, provided Friday to Secrets, said, “Female supporters included First Lady Melania Trump as one of Trump’s greatest assets as she, too, provides leadership for how to act in a...

Hundreds of thousands of Broward County residents will have to stop recycling newspapers, pamphlets and other mixed paper because people have been tossing too much garbage into their recycling bins. McCormick said the reason is twofold: First, she said Broward (with a population of nearly 2 million) is putting trash in the recycling bin, causing contamination rates of 30 percent. That means paper that could be recycled is getting mixed with dirty diapers, bowling balls and leftover spaghetti. Unable to clean it enough to sell it, the paper gets sent to the landfill anyway. “The mixed paper that is finding...

President Donald Trump attacked the 2020 film Parasite at his rally in Colorado Springs Thursday night, complaining that a foreign film won the Academy Award for Best Picture. “How bad were the Academy Awards this year?” Trump, who is president, asked at his 2020 campaign rally. “And the winner is a movie from South Korea. What was that all about? We got enough problems with South Korea, with trade. On top of it, they give them the best movie of the year? Was it good? I don’t know. Let’s get Gone With the Wind, can we get Gone With the...

A quick back-and-forth occurred over the last week between President Trump and the nation's federal judges. After lying to Attorney General Barr about seeking a minimum sentence, the prosecutors in the Roger Stone case (including two from the Mueller Crew) entered a harsh sentencing recommendation that he serve a decade behind bars for lying to Congress. President Trump rightly criticized the prosecutors for their double standard in persecuting one of his political allies while leaving Hillary, Huma, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, McCabe, and countless others free to lie, destroy evidence, and obstruct investigations with impunity. The president lit into Judge Amy...

NBC LA published a story this week focused on the problem of human feces on the streets of Los Angeles. There are an estimated 36,000 homeless in the city (60,000 in LA County) but the city only has 16 portable toilets and those are removed at night. The result is people using streets, sidewalks, and even businesses as bathrooms: In one act caught on camera, a homeless man is seen waking up on South Hope Street. He unbuckles his belt, walks over to the front door of a business, pulls down his pants, and defecates right on the door...

1. PARTICIPATION AT EVENT AND STUDY METHODOLOGY Top 3 Pathways to Attendance: 1. Directly from campaign or RNC email 2. Media or news items 3. Friend or family member 2. VALUES THAT EXPLAIN 2020 FEMALE SUPPORT FOR TRUMP Four distinct values, or underlying emotional planes, explain high-intensity support for President Trump among the females we interviewed: “Community,” “Peace of Mind,” “Relatable/Anti-Elitism,” and “Exuberance of Freedom (Empowerment).” (Fig. 1) In 2016, women reported the same values, but identified different reasons that President Trump fulfilled them. Rather than requiring optimism, identified in 2016 along with the other four values to explain support,...

There has been and will continue to be much discussion on FR regarding whether to vote in the Demonrat primaries and for whom. Let us not neglect the almost equally important topic of appropriate attire for the primary. Below I offer a list of suggestions for T-Shirts to wear to confound your fellow primary voters and perhaps elicit some interesting reactions and conversation: “Make Orwell Fiction Again” “Dark Humor Is Like Food- - Not Everyone Gets It “ (there is a picture of Stalin in between) “His Name Was Seth Rich” “Truth Is Treason in the Empire of Lies” “It...

Democrats have investigated their own claims of President Trump's "collusion" with Russia, his "quid pro quo" with Ukraine, his business holdings, his associates, his advisers, his travel, his appointments and his telephone calls. Now they insist they'll be investigating his pardons. For the record, the Constitution allows the president "shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States." But President Trump's confirmation this week of a handful of pardons and commutations has his opposition party in an uproar. Democrats have claimed his actions have "normalized" corruption.

The pieces are falling in place for a complete debacle for the Democrats, up to and including a convention walkout and riots if Michael Bloomberg’s plans to gain the nomination succeed. Under that scenario, an embittered radical wing of the party convinced that they have been betrayed in favor of a greedy plutocrat would not provide the necessary votes to defeat President Trump’s ambitions for a second term. More likely, they would back a third-party radical candidate, or stay home.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - U.S. energy firm Westinghouse is expected to sign a new agreement with state-run Nuclear Power Corporation of India for the supply of six nuclear reactors during U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit next week, officials said, aiming to kickstart a long-running project.

The Florida House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday that will require parents or a legal guardian to consent to a minor child’s abortion. The legislation was approved by the State Senate earlier this month and now heads to the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who promised to sign it into law during his State of the State address in January. As the Miami Herald reported, with the governor’s signature, the parental consent law will be reinstated after it was declared unconstitutional 30 years ago. “In the Sunshine State, a young girl needs a parent or guardian’s approval before...

State legislatures across the U.S. have convened for new sessions over the past month, and a growing number of governors are taking steps to push lawmakers to include legalizing marijuana as part of their 2020 agendas. At least 10 governors have gone so far as to put language ending marijuana prohibition in their annual budget requests, or used their State of the State speeches to pressure legislators to act on cannabis reform. Some are proactively addressing the issue, while others appear to be mostly reacting to support that has already built up among lawmakers. But altogether, it’s clear that top...

[snip] Ford also praised Swedish teen-age anti-climate-change activist Greta Thunberg during a recent public appearance, during which he criticized “our lack of moral leadership” and lamented that “Science is being ridiculed by people in ideological campgrounds.” Ford didn’t mention Trump specifically during a clip published by the Associated Press on Thursday, February 6, but appeared to refer to him. Ford took a different tack on commenting about public affairs when interviewed in 1997 by George, a magazine founded by John F. Kennedy Jr. that published from 1995 to 2001. Kennedy, who wrote the article, asked Ford about his interest in...