Free Republic

"Melania” was among the top five baby names in rising popularity last year, the first year of Melania Trump’s time as first lady of the United States. The name “Melania” came in just behind “Ensley,” “Oaklynn,” “Dream,” and “Oaklyn” in rising popularity for 2017, according to the U.S. Social Security Administration. The name Melania flew 720 spots up the chart from 2016 to 2017.....A CNN/SSRS poll released this week revealed the rising popularity of Mrs. Trump. Fifty-seven percent of Americans viewed her favorably in the new poll – a ten percent jump from a January poll, according to Politico. Mrs....

According to a new study, subscriptions to streaming TV services exploded by 450 percent in less than a decade. This has resulted in surge of cord-cutting, those who cancel their cable or satellite packages (pay TV). The result is that pay TV household penetration has collapsed from a years-long hold of 75 percent, to just 63 percent in 2017. In 2009, only 10 percent of homes subscribed to a streaming TV service (Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, etc.). By 2017, that number surged to 55 percent, or a 450 percent increase.

The Charlottesville Fake News Was the Best Persuasion Play of the Past Year Posted February 14, 2018

President Donald J. Trump has already, within just a year, defied the expectations of even those of us who had adamantly supported him.He almost instantaneously soared to frontrunner status in a field of GOP presidential contenders unprecedented both for its size and the quality of its candidates. In virtually no time, one by one, the New York City billionaire mogul who had never held political office dispatched his competitors.  With only his army of “Deplorables” behind him, Trump defied The Big GAME (Government-Academic-Media-Entertainment complex), the Regime, to make history and become the President of the United States.The Bushes; the Clintons;...

Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke joined Breitbart News Sunday on SiriusXM where he downplayed a report that President Donald Trump has turned on him after his controversial decision to remove Florida from consideration for his agency’s offshore oil and gas leasing program. That report, from Axios, claimed Trump is “angry” about the move and described it as a “mistake.” A former Interior Department official is quoted calling Zinke’s decision “clumsy” and an “unforced error.” Zinke countered the unnamed source’s characterization of the incident, describing his relationship with President Trump as “great,” telling Breitbart News Deputy Political Editor Amanda House,...

The visceral and often irrational disdain for Donald Trump displayed by otherwise seemingly high-functioning adults is beyond easy explanation. Here we are a year after his inauguration and large elements of the media, academia, left-of-­centre politicians, their followers and even many centrists still recoil at the very mention of his name, treating him as a dumb, dangerous and illegitimate President. It is silly and deluded. It also plays to Trump’s strengths, affirming his claim to be a Washington outsider opposed by the broad political establishment and misrepresented by most of the media. It only under­lines his narrative about insiders resisting...

As president, Barack Obama repeatedly mocked Donald Trump’s political ambitions, laughing at the idea of Trump ever winning the presidency. Obama mocked Trump in 2011 for calling into question whether he was born in America. Obama viciously attacked Trump for the controversy, before mocking the idea of Trump ever serving in the White House. Obama's comments on Trump from the White House transcript of the event: "Now, I know that he’s taken some flak lately, but no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald. (Laughter.) And that’s because he...

A cornerstone of a truly free society is the presence of a vigilant news media, one that is willing to hold powerful government officials accountable when they abuse their offices for their own personal gain or the advancement of corrupt special interests. A sign a society is on the path to tyranny is when the overwhelming majority of a nation’s journalists are committed to doing whatever they can to destroy one political group while they work feverishly to cover up the scandals of another.Which of these two scenarios sounds more like America today?To say that there is a conspiracy to...

PARIS — Slovenian-born Melania Trump has been unafraid to go against her husband's "America First" agenda and stay true to her roots, if there's a message to be taken from her bold, foreign-flavored wardrobe in 2017. In her first year as first lady, Mrs. Trump has often wrapped herself in the clothes of her home continent as several American designers publicly refused to dress her in what was a fashion industry-wide backlash against her unpopular spouse. The first first lady to be born in continental Europe, Trump grew up in Sevnica in Slovenia, in the southern Balkans, just over 100...

Immigrants entering the United States illegally through the southern border are quietly being relocated to different parts of the country on commercial flights, high-ranking Homeland Security officials told Judicial Watch this week. In the last few days alone, groups of illegal aliens boarded planes at airports in Texas and Arizona accompanied by a taxpayer-funded government escort in civilian clothes to avoid drawing attention. The first flight originated at Valley International Airport in Harlingen, Texas and was bound for Minneapolis. The second left from Tucson International Airport and arrived in Salt Lake City, Utah, federal sources said. In both locations the...

Shortly after taking office, Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt set out to permanently limit the agency’s regulatory power in what he billed as a “Back to Basics” agenda focusing on cleaning up toxic waste and providing safe drinking water ― but not curbing new industrial pollution.

January 20 is the first anniversary of President Trump’s inauguration. I have known nine presidents, beginning with President Richard Nixon. Of those nine presidents, the only one who was as effective as President Trump in his first year was President Ronald Reagan. That judgment may surprise a lot of people because the opposition in the news media and among the left-wing “resistance” has been so strong and one-sided that they have consistently misrepresented and maligned President Trump and his administration. This effort has produced a distorted, minimized view of what has been accomplished by this remarkably energetic and controversial Commander...

WASHINGTON (AP) — In his first year in office, President Donald Trump has frequently bent Washington to his will, shattering long-standing norms, plunging politics to a new level of corrosiveness and wielding his executive power to start rolling back his predecessor’s policies on the environment, education and America’s role around the world.

Manmade climate change is now dwarfing the influence of natural trends on the climate, scientists say. Last year was the second or third hottest year on record - after 2016 and on a par with 2015, the data shows. But those two years were affected by El Niño - the natural phenomenon centred on the tropical Pacific Ocean which works to boost temperatures worldwide. Take out this natural variability and 2017 would probably have been the warmest year yet, the researchers say. The acting director of the UK Met Office, Prof Peter Stott, told BBC News: "It's extraordinary that temperatures...

‘Advice’ dwindles in the GOP’s rush for judges Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans hardly could have done more last year to help President Donald Trump reshape the nation’s federal courts with conservative appointees. They put Justice Neil Gorsuch in a Supreme Court seat, one they blocked Barack Obama from filling during his last year in the White House. Then they approved a dozen Trump picks for the influential appeals courts that have the final say on the vast majority of the nation’s legal disputes — a record number for a president’s first year in office. Against the backdrop...

"2017 was a year of unrelenting bias, unfair news coverage, and even downright fake news. Studies have shown that over 90 percent of the media’s coverage of President Trump is negative," according to the announcement. The awards, hosted on the GOP's national website, were unavailable immediately following Trump's tweet announcing them, likely from a traffic overload. "The New York Times’ Paul Krugman claimed on the day of President Trump’s historic, landslide victory that the economy would never recover," according to the GOP-hosted website. Krugman's No. 1 listing is contrasted with a headline that shows the Dow hitting a record high....

Hiring an astounding number of women for senior-level positions in the White House. Despite impressive hiring practices during his first year in the White House, President Donald Trump has received little to no credit for his choice of women for the most senior positions on his cabinet, as well as the West Wing. So, why have the mainstream media given him no credit? Why haven’t the glossy magazines – who pride themselves on empowering women in the workplace — given him credit where credit is due?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 17, 2018 Contact: Press@paul.senate.gov, 202-224-4343 ICYMI: Dr. Rand Paul: ‘President Trump Has Had a Year of Accomplishments’ WASHINGTON, D.C. – In his latest op-ed for TIME, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) looked back on President Trump’s achievements during his first year in office. “I do not always align with President Trump — and I have voiced my opposition at times, including voting against some of his nominees and initiatives. But I will tell you, he has had some great success through his first year, and I look forward to what 2018 will bring,” Dr. Paul stated...

And the FAKE NEWS winners are... https://gop.com/the-highly-anticipated-2017-fake-news-awards/

Best movies: 1. Wonder 2. Dunkirk 3. Darkest Hour 4. The Shape of Water 5. Lady Bird 6. The Big Sick 7. Disaster Artist 8. The LEGO Batman Movie 9. I, Tonya 10. Spiderman: Homecoming Worst movies: 1. Mother (R) 2. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (PG-13) 3. Suburbicon (R) 4. The Dark Tower (PG-13) 5. The Snowman (R) 6. Power Rangers (PG-13) 7. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (PG-13) 8. Snatched (R) 9. Transformers: The Last Knight (PG-13) 10. Downsizing (R)