Free Republic

Within the past few days, never-Trumper David Brooks praised President Trump. "Saturday Night Live" admitted that he'd had a good week. Willie Brown told Democrats to "stop bashing" Trump. And party officials bemoaned the liberal media's obsession with Trump scandals. It must seem to Democrats as if they woke up in Superman's Bizarro World. Meanwhile, the latest CNN poll shows Democrats with a meager 3-point advantage on the generic ballot question. The Reuters/Ipsos poll has Democrats up by only one point, and the Real Clear Politics average is +5, down from +13 in December. Trump's approval rating has been steadily,...

From legal pot to guaranteed jobs, progressive ideas are drawing more attention from Democratic lawmakers — especially potential 2020 contenders. Freed from the constraints of power, Democrats are becoming a progressive ideas factory. On issues like health care, immigration, jobs, and crime, once-fringe policy proposals are gaining traction with lawmakers, activists, and wonks as they debate the party’s path out of its current wilderness. HEALTH CARE This is the biggest shift. Top-tier Democratic candidates around the country, including some in conservative-leaning districts, are running on a promise of universal access to Medicare. JOBS The hottest new topic in progressive circles...

Democrats hope to wrest back control of the redistricting process from Republicans ahead of 2020 census The congressional maps are all but set for the 2018 elections. But for those on the front lines of a simmering battle over the next decade of elections, the results are about more than who will control the next Congress. This year’s election season could reveal just how much the current districts have entrenched an advantage for one political party over the other, whether courts will step in to stop state lawmakers from creating such partisan districts, and which party will control crucial local...

.Embattled Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, is declining to block from the November ballot three initiatives that could boost Democratic turnout in the midterm. Greitens faces possible impeachment in the Republican-controlled state legislature over twin scandals involving an extramarital affair and mismanagement of a charity. But the governor is defiant, and in a move interpreted as a shot at Republicans demanding his resignation, he is choosing not to exercise his authority to shift a trio of popular Democratic initiatives to the August primary. The measures would raise the minimum wage and legalize medical marijuana. Most worrisome for Republicans in...

President Trump's drug pricing plan will not include a call for Medicare to negotiate drug prices, a leading Democratic idea that Trump previously supported, a senior administration official said Thursday. “We're not calling for Medicare negotiation in the way that Democrats have called for,” the official said on a call with reporters previewing Trump’s speech on drug prices scheduled Friday. However, the official said there will be other proposals to increase competition in Medicare, likely using private sector players rather than Medicare directly negotiating prices. Democrats have been pressuring Trump ahead of his speech to renew his call for Medicare...

The Democrats Don’t Have a Foreign Policy, They Have A Trump Policy Not just treasonous, stupid. May 10, 2018 Daniel Greenfield Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism. Quick, what’s the Dem position on Syria? What about China? Don’t bother. There was once a time when Democrats could discuss Syria, North Korea, the South China Sea, economic tensions in the European Union and the future of Africa. But that was before Trump. Democrats don’t have a foreign policy anymore. They have a Trump...

Wednesday on Hugh Hewitt’s nationally syndicated radio show, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) warned Democrats would move to impeach President Donald Trump if they reassumed control of Congress after this year’s midterm elections. Hewitt asked Scalise about that possibility, calling it the “bottom line” of the 2018 campaign. “I think there’s no doubt they will, Hugh,” Scalise replied. “They’ve telegraphed a lot of that. Their base is so far radical to the left. Look, Nancy Pelosi yesterday, first of all, she said she’s running for speaker again, so you’ve got to just close your eyes and go back to...

Bruni: I knew you were going to bring that up, and if I may crow a bit, those numbers were on my list of questions to ask. So the whole belief that Democrats in November will be much more exercised, much more passionate, and will turn out more reliably — you don’t buy it Bliss: Of course the Democrats have more energy than Republicans right now. But will that be a good thing? History and every pundit on the planet says we’re going to lose the House! This was always going to be a tough environment, we’ve always known that,...

In 2018, black voters are finding out just what the hell they had to lose. Nazis and Klansmen march openly and proudly, and hate crimes appear to be on the rise. Police killings of people—especially black people—remain largely the same year to year, and this iteration of the Justice Department has largely abdicated any federal responsibility in reducing brutality. An infant-mortality crisis is tightening its grip on the most marginalized communities, and across many economic metrics—from evictions, to generational wealth, to segregation—disparities are either stagnating or trending in the wrong direction. Fifty years after the Kerner Commission’s report said the...

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Wednesday the administration has no plans to launch another push for infrastructure spending legislation this year. "We're going to continue looking at ways to improve that nation's infrastructure, but in terms of a specific piece of legislation, I'm not aware that that will happen by the end of the year," Sanders said at the daily White House press briefing. There have been at least three serious attempts by the administration to spur congressional action on an infrastructure bill, seeing the package as an opportunity for bipartisanship.

Most criticism of the impending agreement with North Korea espouses a traditional liberal bias. Instead of reading President Trump’s “The Art of the Deal,” Trump’s critics should be reading “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu, the Chinese warrior-philosopher who wrote the book two thousand years ago. Sun Tzu taught that the central importance in war is deception. “Even though you are competent, appear incompetent. One with great skill appears inept,” Sun Tzu advised. “Wear them down by fight, foster disharmony, use their anger and pride against them.” We all remember Trump’s midnight tweets: “little rocket man,” “this maniac,” “much...

Trump’s budget proposal set out several reforms for lowering drug prices, including giving low-income seniors free generic drugs. Azar said the agency wants to solve problems such as the high list prices set by drug makers and “seniors" and government programs overpaying for drugs due to the lack of the latest negotiating tools; rising out-of-pocket costs for consumers; and foreign governments free-riding off American investment in innovation.” Azar also touched on the need for greater transparency of prices of healthcare procedures..........“I believe you ought to have the right to know what a procedure is going to cost, and what it’s...

Washington has a spending problem. The national debt is now more than $21 trillion and the deficit could reach $1 trillion next year. Through his two budget requests to Congress, President Trump has proposed trillions of dollars in common-sense spending cuts. He has sought to eliminate outdated and ineffective programs across the federal government, ending the debt spiral. Among the fiscal tools at Mr. Trump’s disposal is Title X of the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act. That law gives the president authority to propose rescinding specific funding previously approved by Congress. Because such “rescissions” require Congress to pass...

President Trump scheduled to speak at 12:45pm.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 51% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Forty-nine percent (49%) disapprove.

Here is a link to the Oregon Firearms Federation's 2018 Ratings of Oregon Candidates based on their support of the 2nd Amendment. There is a very serious threat to gun ownership in Oregon in the form of ballot initiatives 43 and 44. Initiative 43 bans any future sale or purchase of 'assault weapons'. Existing assault weapons would have to be registered with the state police. The definition of an assault weapon is so broad even a .22 semi-auto can fall under the ban. Example: The wording states any full or partial shroud meant to protect the non-trigger hand from being...

President Donald Trump’s approach to his job is seen as unconventional by the vast majority of Americans, with many saying this has not been particularly good for the country. However, few are particularly surprised by Trump’s behavior in office, which is one reason why his job approval rating has remained negative but fairly stable over the past year. The latest Monmouth University Poll also finds that just one-quarter of the public feel Trump has made progress on a key campaign promise to “drain the swamp” in Washington. Pres. Trump’s job rating currently stands at 41% approve and 50% disapprove. This...

Turns out, when you’re a famous musician with 28 million Twitter followers people are going to sit up and pay attention to what you tweet, regardless of the topic.So when rapper Kanye West, a man who got over 41,000 likes for tweeting the word “decentralize,” lit the social media world on fire last week with a series of tweets seeming to support President Trump, the world was quick to take notice. Is one of the most successful recording artists of our generation actually ‘waking up’ to the folly of liberalism? Has Kanye actually been red-pilled?On the one hand, conservatives understandably but...

In battleground states in the middle of the country, some Democrats watched with frustration as their party grabbed headlines last week with a splashy new lawsuit alleging a vast conspiracy between President Donald Trump and Russia. The Democratic National Committee’s drumbeat of messaging on Trump and his relationship with Russia is wearing thin with some Democrats in purple states — particularly in the Midwest, where people on the ground say voters are uninterested and even turned off by the issue. The suit exposes a gap, they say, between the party’s strategy nationally and what Midwest Democrats believe will win elections...

RUSH: I think it was — let’s see — this is April, March. It was about 14 and a half, maybe 15 months ago, and I was appearing on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. And he asked me a question about something, and my answer was, “Before I get into that, Chris, I just want to tell you, this whole idea that the Russians had anything to do with the outcome of the presidential election is absurd. The idea that they colluded or tampered or worked with Donald Trump to do it is doubly absurd. There is nothing to...