Free Republic

At a mosque in the Bronx, African immigrants who had been regulars have stopped attending prayer services. At a church just outside Boston, where most congregants are of Haitian descent, roughly two-thirds of parishioners have vanished. At multiple Baptist congregations in the South, pastors are considering locking church doors once services begin.Their common fear: That immigration agents will bust in and arrest congregants mid-prayer.That’s because President Donald Trump recently gave Immigration and Customs Enforcement the go-ahead to conduct raids at houses of worship. That directive is now the target of two major lawsuits, the second of which was filed Tuesday...

CNN political analyst Scott Jennings and Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell got into a heated debate on Monday over billionaire Elon Musk’s widely-debated gesture during an inaugural event for President Trump last week. “I don’t understand why this guy keeps getting the benefit of the doubt, whether or not he believes this stuff, personally,” Rampell said while appearing on CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip. “We’ve moved on from Trump derangement syndrome to Elon derangement syndrome,” Jennings quipped in response. “So, he has a long record of supporting the Jewish people, number one. Number two, anybody who is asserting this thing...

The biggest threat to your health isn’t your inability to afford an inhaler or to get that weird mole checked, the GOP argues. It’s everything else about American society, from nutrition to neurotoxins.Unfortunately, the party’s agenda would make those other societal problems worse, too.Republicans desperately want to cut taxes this year, which will be expensive. So, they’re plotting to pay for the revenue loss (at least partly) by slashing the safety net. Among the biggest programs on the chopping block: Medicaid and Obamacare marketplace subsidies, which help low- to middle-income Americans purchase private-market insurance.Of course, the last time Republican lawmakers...

The Washington Post economics columnist Catherine Rampell seemed to forget a rule of thumb when analyzing polls: read the crosstabs. Either that or she deliberately twisted data to make it seem like Americans are happier with President Joe Biden’s decrepit economy than they actually are. Rampell’s blaring March 5 headline would make one believe that Americans did an about-face in their view of Bidenomics: “Americans are happier about the economy. Why are they crediting Trump?” Rampell declared, “The good news for President Biden: Americans are finally starting to appreciate the strength of the U.S. economy.” She pointed to at least...

A Washington Post columnist suggested Monday that the magic solution to rampant inflation and supply chain impediments would be to allow more illegal immigrants into the country. Catherine Rampell wrote a piece titled that “Democrats are missing the bigger immigration issue,” noting that “Democrats are terrified that a coming border surge might tank their midterm chances.” She then went on to suggest that problems will occur not with “too many immigrants” but rather “too few.” Rampell claims, without any evidence or authority, that inflation will start to recede if there are more migrants “who can fill critical labor-market shortages.” She...

President Trump has made a lot of ill-advised nominations. But perhaps no single choice could inflict more long-term damage than the one he announced Friday: Stephen Moore, Trump’s pick to join the Federal Reserve Board. Moore’s many economic claims over the years have revealed him to be, shall we say, easily confused. A decade ago, as the Fed was battling deflation (that is, price declines ) during the financial crisis, Moore preposterously fearmongered that hyperinflation (that is, out-of-control price increases ) was nigh: Americans could soon be carting “wheelbarrows full” of cash a la Weimar Germany. Moore has also repeatedly...

President Trump’s generational warfare continues, as he repeatedly prioritizes cheap political wins today over the massive costs they will impose tomorrow. Consider, first and foremost, all the ways he’s trashing the planet... Or think about Trump’s unfunded tax cut, which, at its core, is a huge intergenerational transfer of wealth toward the old and away from the young... Other regulatory changes cheat the young to profit their elders. Amid the flurry of Trump tweets and porn-star scandals, many of those changes have received scant attention... With virtually no coverage, for instance, Trump’s Education Department announced on Friday it would once...

MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews was back and firing on all cylinders Monday night, overseeing a show devoid of reason as it linked conservatives, Republicans, and anyone in the “right-wing” to the KKK, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists associated with Saturday’s Charlottesville terrorism.  Matthews also showed ineptitude in not knowing until very recently that progressive heartthrob and President Woodrow Wilson loved the KKK film Birth of a Nation so much that he had it shown at the White House. Out of Control ‘Hardball’ Lumps GOP in with Neo-Nazis, Shocked Wilson Loved ‘Birth of a Nation’He began his show with a personal summation...

On Thursday evening, a 40-year-old man — with dark, curly hair, olive skin and an exotic foreign accent — boarded a plane. It was a regional jet making a short, uneventful hop from Philadelphia to nearby Syracuse. Or so dozens of unsuspecting passengers thought. The curly-haired man tried to keep to himself, intently if inscrutably scribbling on a notepad he’d brought aboard. His seatmate, a blond-haired, 30-something woman sporting flip-flops and a red tote bag, looked him over. He was wearing navy Diesel jeans and a red Lacoste sweater – a look he would later describe as “simple elegance” –...

But in recent years, conservatives have found playing the victimhood card to be equally profitable for their own causes. ... Donald Trump is a successful businessman. His residences and modes of transit are plated with gold. He has married three gorgeous women. He claims to have a multibillion-dollar net worth. He has mocked the disabled, women, Asians, Hispanics, Muslims, even prisoners of war.... Yet he constantly rationalizes his bad behavior and political setbacks as the inevitable consequence of unfair systems and anti-Trump persecution. Disapprove of his pro-violence rally rhetoric? He’s just protecting his beleaguered voters against those “big, strong, powerful”...

Last year, government scientists tell us, was the hottest year on record. This news is terribly — what's the word? — inconvenient. No, not for polar bears or drought victims or coastal dwellers. It's inconvenient for politicians across the country who, despite whatever data or overwhelming scientific consensus might be proffered, insist on denying global warming. In recent weeks, West Virginia has snatched national headlines for its attempts to doctor school science standards to discredit climate change. The sixth-grade science curriculum, for example, was amended so that, rather than having students "clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the...

AKA "Somehow, the Unemployed Became Invisible" Here's the key paragraph: "Why populist anger over the poor economy is leaning right, rather than left this time around is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps it is because Democrats, traditional friends of labor, control the White House and the Senate."