Free Republic

Yet another impeachment is "backfiring," as the Senate is unlikely to convict and political division will only spur President Donald Trump's voting base to retaliate at the ballot box, according to Trump campaign pollster John McLaughlin on Newsmax TV. "It's backfiring," McLaughlin told Thursday's "Greg Kelly Reports." "What they're doing on impeachment, people see it is unfair, unconstitutional, going against the president. "They really want them to deal with the coronavirus." McLaughlin appeared with constitutional legal expert Alan Dershowitz, who derided Democrats for "trying anything" to disqualify Trump from running in 2024, "that they're prepared to twist and turn and...

**SNIP** The impeachment of Andrew Johnson was mean-spirited and personal. He did no wrong, no high crime and misdemeanor. But impeachment hardly is about justice; in presidential politics, it is about raw politics. The Republicans had the power, the control. They had crushed the slave-owning Democrats who would give birth to the Ku Klux Klan. The Democrats were always the party of slavery, and even in our own lives they elevated a Ku Klux Klan leader, Robert Byrd, to lead them. **SNIP** The Democrats irresponsibly have just done something that perhaps is all but unprecedented in American history: they charged,...

The NBA’s viewership woes have been discussed ad nauseam over the past few months. By now, everyone knows that this year’s ratings have sunk by more than 50 percent. It is no secret that Games 2 and 3 between the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat, which did 6.1 million viewers and 5.9 million viewers, respectively, touched all-time lows. But the one thing the NBA has been hanging its hat on throughout is who has been watching. Young people, folks in major metropolitan cities, individuals in the key demo – that is who the league has been selling as its...

Here’s what is indisputable: ratings for the NFL are down, in some cases to an ugly degree. Thursday Night Football (NFL Network) was down an astounding 70 percent from last year, but that comes with a huge caveat: last year’s game aired on NFL Network and Fox. Broadcast TV always jacks up ratings, and it’ll do the same thing when TNF returns to Fox later this season. Still: only 5.41 million watched the Denver Broncos and the New York Jets play last Thursday. Sunday Night Football (NBC) took a steep dive, falling 37 percent in viewership from last year. The...

Has President Trump just eaten Joe Biden's lunch? Sure looks that way based on multiple indicators flashing pro-Trump signals in the wake of the Democratic National Convention. Sure, the leftist press is reporting that Biden's favorability numbers have notched up in the wake of his curiously gaffe-less convention speech, but it's thin gruel. Fact is, that's the only thing they have. But if you look mostly on the right column of the front page of RealClearPolitics, it's pretty clear the trend is President Trump's friend. Apparently the artifice and over-processed convention infomercial, with its many technical sleights of hand (see here and here), didn't fool the voters. And...

College football players have been voiceless for far too long. As the 2020 season hangs in the balance, they may not get what they want, but they’re not going down quietly. Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren and his member university presidents held a meeting Tuesday morning to address the viability of playing football in the fall. As of Tuesday afternoon, The Detroit Free Press is reporting that the Big Ten has officially canceled its season, making it the first Power 5 conference to do so.

Could Goya Foods be headed toward the Chick-fil-A effect, wherein the more leftists hate it, the more conservatives buy it? That may just well be the case. Following Goya CEO Robert Unanue’s expressed Trump support and the Left’s subsequent threats to boycott the (Hispanic-owned) company, customers have actually been buying the product as a counter-protest. This has been described as a “buy-cott.” According to Fox Business, the “buy-cott” began when radio host Mike Opelka encouraged people on Twitter to buy up $10 worth of Goya Food products. “My brother came up with a terrific idea and I am encouraging all...

Just in time for Joe Biden's Super Tuesday II victory dance, a new Gallup poll shows that both President Trump and congressional Republicans have sharply risen in voter estimation the wake of the Democrats' failed impeachment stunt. WASHINGTON, D.C. -- More Americans approve of the job congressional Republicans are doing than of congressional Democrats' performance -- 40% vs. 35%. The rating for Republicans in Congress has risen six percentage points since late October, before the impeachment of President Donald Trump in the U.S. House of Representatives. Over the same period, congressional Democrats' approval rating has edged down three points and...

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republicans said lead impeachment prosecutor Adam Schiff insulted them during the trial by repeating an anonymously sourced report that the White House had threatened to punish Republicans who voted against President Donald Trump. Schiff, who delivered closing arguments for the prosecution, was holding Republican senators rapt as he called for removing Trump from office for abusing his power and obstructing Congress. Doing anything else, he argued, would be to let the president bully Senate Republicans into ignoring his pressure on Ukraine for political help. “CBS News reported last night that a Trump confidant said that key senators...

Most of the people whom I like or trust believe—and believe rather strongly—that what Trump has done rises to a crime. For them, the analysis of whether Trump should be impeached can’t help but be informed by their view that Trump represents an existential threat to the country. If he might damage American democracy at some fundamental level, without any obvious recourse, then pursuing his removal from office would seem to go without saying. That he is in a position to win again in 2020 and serve another four years makes impeachment all the more urgent. --- On a purely...

Lost in all the frenzy over impeachment -- sparked by the Deep State leaker posing as a “whistleblower” (passing along hearsay does not qualify for protection under whistleblower statutes) -- is the trio of ticking time bombs that Democrats know are about to detonate in their faces. The three time bombs have names: Horowitz, Huber, and Durham. When the Department of Justice Inspector General issues his report then John Huber and John Durham, the US Attorneys tasked with investigating crimes suspected in the Clinton Foundation, Uranium One, and the FISA warrants used to spy on the Trump campaign, transition,...

Reuters) - Having his morning coffee and cigarette outside a Starbucks in one of the most politically contested counties in the United States, Richard Sibilla recoils at the memory of President Donald Trump's election. But impeach him now? Sibilla can see little upside. "After this he has a much better chance of winning another election, as scary as that sounds," said Sibilla, 39, a resident of Pinellas County, Florida, who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. "It's not even worth following because it's all going to help him." Among the public, interviews with more than 60 voters across four of...

[snip]"But while personalizing a movement, especially with the innocent face of a child, is usually PR gold, Greta’s ascendancy to the forefront of environmental activism could end up being a major negative to the movement – and the environment."[snip]Her story signals a clear change in environmental movement tactics, and just how much more divisive and ineffective that change is likely to be. Greta, and the adults guiding her, are seeking to shift almost all the focus from personal responsibility to governments and big corporations to enact environmental reform. Their argument is that individual people can’t do much to save the...

[Catholic Caucus] The synod and the sex scandal: two time bombs threatening Pope Francis’s moral authority This week’s Holy Smoke podcast discusses two looming disasters for Pope Francis. The first is the ‘Amazon Synod’ in October, at which the world’s bishops will discuss a bizarre plan to ordain Amazon ‘village elders’ as priests. The framework for the synod has already been published; my guest Dr Ed Condon uses the word ‘Orwellian’ to describe the language it employs.  The second threat to Francis is more personal. When he became Pope he lost no time making his friend Gustavo Zanchetta a bishop in...

A Texas business has seen an increase in business since the owner was outed as a supporter of President Donald Trump by Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas). Castro, the chair of his brother Julian Castro’s presidential campaign, published a list of 44 San Antonio residents who have donated to Trump. He highlighted to his supporters that it included Balous Miller, the owner of Bill Miller BBQ. Since then, business has exploded at the BBQ chain. Pictures published on social media showed a long line of cars waiting to pick up food from some of the locations. “One of the companies he...

…...Consumers, men in particular, must be made to feel worthless. They have to be reminded that their needs and desires are wrong under any circumstances, that their instincts are loathsome, that their very existence is a malignancy, and that they're responsible for all the world's ills whether they want to admit it or not. Now give them your money, you piece of garbage. But hey, maybe I was wrong. Maybe this was a good idea. How is it working out for Gillette? Douglas Ernst, Washington Times: Gillette’s infamous “toxic masculinity” ad may cost Procter & Gamble more than anyone imagined...

Democrat strategists are now publicly admitting that the Senate Democrats’ mistreatment of now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh harmed their chances in the midterm elections. The damage hit both their once-long-shot-but-now-virtually-non-existent odds at retaking the Senate and their very real shot at retaking the House. “The Kavanaugh hearings did set us back, but it depended on geography,” Democrat pollster Ben Tulchin said in an on-record quote to Politico for a piece published Tuesday. Tulchin argued that Democrats were hurt in rural and suburban areas by the way they treated Kavanaugh, while bolstered in inner cities they were already set to...

Several bombs were sent out to Democrat leaders Wednesday – none of which detonated.The Secret Service announced that suspicious packages were sent to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.George Soros, NY Governor Cuomo, former AG Eric Holder, Rep. Maxine Waters were also sent mail bombs.The return address name on the suspicious packages sent to Clinton, Obama, Holder and Maxine Waters belonged to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.One of the bombs appeared to have the ISIS flag taped on it.Former Bomb disposal officer Tom Sauer posted a thread on Twitter today discussing the incidents.1.) Proper pipe bombs don’t have wires connected to both ends. That’s dumb.2.) You...

ANALYSIS/OPINION: Anyone who knew the late Andrew Breitbart knew that there was one seminal moment in his youth that altered the course of his life and, by extension, the course of American history: the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings of 1991. Fresh from his American history degree at Tulane University, Breitbart was a self-described “default liberal.” As a child growing up on the tony streets of Brentwood in West Los Angeles, he was surrounded by liberals. The only real and legitimate “permissible” political identity was liberal. “It was my factory setting,” he would say. Four years at a liberal arts university...

Last night Allahpundit covered some of the most recent polls which show a bit of a GOP resurgence in some key races heading into the midterms. But what’s causing this disruption in the blue wave? It didn’t take a crystal ball to guess that the Democrats’ treatment of Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh could be a factor. Now, however, we have some new polling which attaches solid numbers to that idea. The Daily Caller as the rundown of a new survey (from Harvard of all places) showing that many Americans still may not be wild about President Trump, and...