Free Republic

An odd thing happened at this week’s State of the Union: President Biden and congressional Republicans got into a skirmish about an issue over which, apparently, they completely agree. Neither party, it seems, wants to make changes to Social Security or Medicare during upcoming negotiations to raise the debt ceiling.

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida prizes preparation and the way it allows him to control his political narrative. But suddenly, he was on the verge of going off message. He had traveled to a Central Florida warehouse this past week to promote a $2 billion tax cut proposal when he was confronted with the inevitable: an especially ugly attack from former President Donald J. Trump that seemed to warrant a strong response. Mr. Trump had insinuated on social media that Mr. DeSantis behaved inappropriately with high school girls while he was a teacher in his early 20s. As a reporter...

<p>Former President Trump’s 2020 election campaign hired an outside research firm to try to prove allegations of voter fraud, but never released the results because the company disputed many of its theories and, according to Four, could not provide any proof that he was the rightful winner of the election was people who are familiar with the matter.</p>

... For too long Washington has refused to think strategically about some of the major foreign policy issues of our time. In the rare instance where Washington’s policymakers do think strategically, the strategies they concoct seem less like realistic attempts at applying state power and more like they were conceived over a game of Risk while under the heavy influence of alcohol. Such is the case with the current American preoccupation in Ukraine. The Russians have invaded Ukraine. They’ve committed their entire society to the war. In the words of popular geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan, this is “Russia’s last war.”...

State of the Union: A Trump ’24 focus on foreign policy restraint is very good news. And we shouldn’t be surprised.Over at Politico, there’s a noteworthy report on some early jockeying in the 2024 GOP primary:Those close to Trump’s campaign operation say he plans to try and paint himself as an anti-war dove amongst the hawks. They believe doing so will resonate with GOP voters who are divided on, but growing wary of, continued support for Ukraine in its war with Russia.This is a smart political move from 45. “Growing wary” of Ukraine support could prove to be an understatement,...

Bennett speaks out. Former Israeli PM talks about Zelensky the coward.

Trump gave an interview on Thursday to Hugh Hewitt, who repeatedly asked him to spill on what disparaging nicknames he plans to use against those who compete with him in the 2024 Republican primary. When Hewitt floated Glenn Youngkin (R) as a possible bid, Trump referred to the Virginia Governor as a “disappointment,” complaining that he didn’t get enough gratitude from Youngkin or his team even though “I did a lot for him. And he got elected because of me, just like Ron DeSantis. Even more so.” DeSantis is often considered Trump’s biggest potential primary threat, and the former president...

Carlson added, "I wish we could stop and acknowledge this is a serious election. It is a crummy selection, but there has to be someone who understands the issues better than Herman Cain."

I once asked a senior American official about why he accepted honoraria from the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, or the MKO, given the group’s cultlike nature and its lack of popularity inside Iran. His response: Even if the group lied about its support, they said the right things about democracy and regime change, and so he saw no harm in collecting the cash. The regime’s fall, he said, would be a moment of truth: Either the MKO would prove itself right, or its political Ponzi scheme would collapse. The problem with engaging in the MKO’s endorsement-for-cash scheme is the impact it has on...

American conservatives love to imagine immigrants as secret Republicans desperate to flee the Democrat barrio. The fantasy goes something like this: “Immigrants are hard-working, God-fearing people who love America more than any native! We just need to stop being bigoted and speak to these people in Spanish.” This line has been propagated for as long as I’ve been alive. Despite the billions Republicans have spent on outreach, they only started doing well with immigrant communities when they were led by a guy who called them criminals and rapists. Can immigrants save America? The answer is obviously no. By any metric,...

Advisers to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are actively preparing for a possible presidential run, according to two Republicans with knowledge of the conversations who described meetings and preliminary staffing moves — the latest indication that DeSantis is laying a foundation for a national campaign. DeSantis’s political team has already identified multiple potential hires in early primary states such as New Hampshire and Iowa, according to one of the Republicans, who said experienced operatives have expressed interest. This Republican also said that Phil Cox and Generra Peck — two key members of DeSantis’s 2022 reelection team — are involved in ongoing...

A four-star US Air Force general has warned of a conflict with China as early as 2025--most likely over Taiwan--and urged his commanders to push their units to achieve maximum operational battle readiness this year. In an internal memorandum that first emerged on social media on Friday, and was later confirmed as genuine by the Pentagon, the head of the Air Force Mobility Command, General Mike Minihan, said the main goal should be to deter "and if required, defeat" China. "I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me we will fight in 2025," Minihan said. Laying out his reasoning,...

A federal judge on Thursday imposed nearly $1 million in sanctions on former President Donald Trump and his lawyer for filing a since-dismissed ‘frivolous’ lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and many others, which had claimed they tried to rig the 2016 presidential election in her favor by smearing Trump.“We are confronted with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, which was completely frivolous, both factually and legally, and which was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose,” wrote Judge John Middlebrooks in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in his order sanctioning Trump.The judge in his...

Florida Gov. DeSantis is emerging as a bigger potential threat to President Biden than former President Trump, polls indicate. Though he’s not as well-known to voters overall, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is emerging as a bigger potential threat to President Joe Biden than former President Donald Trump, according to a new nationwide poll conducted for the conservative Club for Growth. The poll shows Trump losing to Biden 41-48% — an 8-percentage point disadvantage for the Republican that’s outside the poll’s 3-point error margin. But in a head-to-head matchup against DeSantis, Biden gets 42% of the theoretical vote compared to 45%...

President Biden would easily beat former President Donald Trump in a hypothetical 2024 election matchup — but would lose if he faced off against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to a recent poll. In a rematch of the 2020 presidential contest, the 80-year-old Biden would prevail over his 76-year-old predecessor by eight percentage points in the popular vote — 49% to 41% — but would fall to the Sunshine State’s Republican governor by 45% to 42% in a head-to-head contest, the WPA Intelligence survey released Jan. 13 found. Trump announced Nov. 15 that he would mount a third consecutive run...

A speaker at the World Economic Forum (WEF) held at Davos, Switzerland, said Tuesday that mining cobalt, a material vital for the batteries used by electric cars, had “horrific” costs. “The question about mining is — we mine for cobalt and we don’t recognize that cobalt mining has a catastrophic impact if it’s — if it’s, you know, local cobalt mining or even if it’s large-scale cobalt mining, it’s really horrific,” Alan Dangour, the Wellcome Trust’s director for climate and health, said during a panel titled “Protecting the Climate Vulnerable.” Cobalt is one of several metals and minerals critical for...

So just how badly are we depleting our own arsenal of military hardware as we keep sending more and more arms to Ukraine? You rarely hear a peep about this from our swamp-dwellers in Washington, but our supplies, particularly ammunition, are obviously running low. This week we tapped into an infrequently-mentioned stockpile that we keep in Israel for short-notice use, both for American missions in the Middle East and for our Israeli allies during emergencies.

President Biden would easily beat former President Donald Trump in a hypothetical 2024 election matchup — but would lose if he faced off against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to a recent poll. In a rematch of the 2020 presidential contest, the 80-year-old Biden would prevail over his 76-year-old predecessor by eight percentage points in the popular vote — 49% to 41% — but would fall to the Sunshine State’s Republican governor by 45% to 42% in a head-to-head contest, the WPA Intelligence survey released Jan. 13 found.

Former President Donald Trump has dismissed claims that COVID-19 vaccines are broadly unsafe while asserting that his own role in the development of the vaccines may have saved 100 million lives. Trump touted the effectiveness of Operation Warp Speed, his administration's program to accelerate the development of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics, during a Monday interview on the conservative podcast The Water Cooler. Host David Brody asked the former president if he would "acknowledge" that the vaccines "were not as safe or effective as we were told.... "I was able to get something approved that, you know, that has proven to...

Observers say DeSantis is not as clueless as the ex-president, but can be just as ruthless. And he’s building momentum to be the GOP’s candidate in 2024 By some measures, Ron DeSantis is Donald Trump’s carbon copy. The Florida Governor achieved a national profile by rejecting social distancing, masking and vaccination mandates during the pandemic. He launched a culture war in his state, cracking down on discussions of racism and LGBTQ issues in schools. And he has shown a penchant for using the power of his office to punish those who defy him, from corporations to sports teams to government...