Free Republic

In his magnum opus work, “The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money,” published in 1936, John Maynard Keynes made famous the reference to “animal spirits” – those things that relate to the instincts and emotions that can drive human behavior. Keynes wrote of them in the context of economics. The passage which has become the stuff of economic legend reads: “Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits – a spontaneous urge to action...

Donald Trump’s presidency has been anything but predictable. It’s a continuous roller coaster and no one can really know what might follow, but underneath all the noise, the commander-in-chief has actually done a better job than many might have thought. Yes, the presidency has been controversial with Trump often angrily-tweeting from behind his phone, but has he worked enough to get re-elected as Democrats gear up to remove the businessman-turned-politician out of the White House? With a successful midterm election from the Democratic Party, one might think the president holds a bleak chance of regaining office, however, things might not...

For President Donald Trump, it may prove to be the bounce that never comes. On the afternoon of March 24, the news broke that special counsel Robert Mueller had found no collusion between Trump's campaign and the Russians — a moment for which the president and his allies had been waiting almost two years. But a week later, Trump's average approval rating, according to the Real Clear Politics tracker, had climbed a grand total of one-tenth of one percentage point — to 43.2 percent from 43.1 percent. You could argue, of course, that Americans are reserving judgment. The complete Mueller...

"We're going into the war with some socialists," President Donald Trump told an adoring audience of Republican congressmen this week, sharing his assessment of the coming election and saying he had a new theme for his campaign. "I love the idea of 'Keep America Great' because you know what it says is we've made it great now we're going to keep it great because the socialists will destroy it." Saving the country from fears he's stoking about socialism has become his main strategy to demonize Democrats, and he's seized on the rise of self-described democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders, the...

The move by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) immediately paves the way for quicker confirmation of President Donald Trump’s judicial and executive branch picks and comes amid deep GOP frustration with Democratic delays. Future presidents will benefit too, though McConnell and Trump stand to gain inordinately as they seek to fill 130 District Court vacancies over the next 18 months before the 2020 election. The nuclear option — a change of the Senate rules by a simple majority — gained its name because it was seen as an explosive maneuver that would leave political fallout for some time to...

Liberal obsession with the Mueller probe has gifted Trump the moral high ground and electoral momentum. It's over. While Democrats and the familiar clique of the centrist media types quibble like bickering patent lawyers about the fine print, the verdict is in: Donald Trump has indeed been vindicated, exonerated, exculpated - take your disheartening pick. The same band of centrists whining about the need for American "taxpayers" to see all of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report is missing the neon-bright, marquee-sized point: Trump and his 43 million rebar-sturdy supporters have never been preoccupied with the "fine print." They're much more...

<p>He also rejects calls from Trump allies that he step down.</p> <p>Rep. Adam Schiff faced Republican calls for him to resign Monday after the attorney general’s letter summarizing the special counsel’s report on the 2016 election contradicted the Burbank Democrat’s claims of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.</p>

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Sunday the Democratic House majority is determined to impeach President Trump, regardless of the findings in special counsel Robert Mueller’s now-concluded investigation into Russian election meddling. Lamenting what he called “extremism” on the part of the Democrats, Cruz cited remarks by House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) in an earlier segment on CNN's "State of the Union" that the House’s mandate goes beyond investigating crimes. Cruz added that the House "doesn't care about the basis" for impeachment. When asked by CNN’s Dana Bash whether he agreed with Trump’s frequent characterization of Mueller’s investigation as a...

Watch in slow motion as Democrats, goaded by the media, conspire to re-elect President Trump: Voters care about the economy and making education and health care affordable. And so Democrats are talking about … abolishing the Electoral College? Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren started the latest distraction at a CNN town hall on Monday. “Get rid of the Electoral College,” she said, neglecting to mention that this has zero chance of occurring in the foreseeable future. The media took it from there. On Tuesday, MSNBC’s Garrett Haake pressed former representative Beto O’Rourke: “Getting rid of the Electoral College: Is that an...

The House speaker said any briefing must be unclassified so that members of Congress can talk publicly about the findings. Democrats in Congress are gearing up for a fight to ensure that special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings are made public, calling for the release of the full report. On Friday, Mueller submitted his report to Attorney General William Barr, who now has to determine what to do with the conclusions from the 22-month investigation that resulted in charges against 34 people. As a start, he is expected to send lawmakers a summary of the findings as early as Sunday. Democrats...

Gone are the days in American presidential races when a candidate would rise or fall on policy differences. Today, Democrats choosing their candidate for the 2020 race are asking just one question — does the person have what it takes to stay the course and defeat Republican Donald Trump? First, the candidates will have to fight it out among themselves in debates this year, and in party primary voting contests next year, during which they could inflict serious damage on each other and dangerously weaken their candidacy in the general election. So far, 13 have formally declared their candidacy, and...

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez praised the leadership shown by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on the issue of gun control in the wake of the deadly Christchurch mosque shootings by a white supremacist. Ardern announced that, as a result of the far-right terror attack which left 50 people dead and dozens more injured, some critically, New Zealand will ban a swathe of what she called “military-style” weapons and parts that allow other guns to be converted. Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat and rising star in the party, drew a comparison with the lack of action on gun control in America...

The next election belongs to Trump. Donald Trump will win the 2020 presidential election. That’s not a prediction. That is a projection based upon history. Beginning with the presidential contest of 1900, the party holding the White House has stood for its second term a total of 12 times. In 11 of those 12 campaigns, the incumbent party has triumphed. That’s about a 92 percent success rate. Those odds must look pretty good to a swashbuckling politician of the Trump stripe. There is a single exception to the two-term incumbent party lock: President Jimmy Carter. The Georgian lost his re-election...

Democrats are planning a vote that aims to override President Trump's veto of legislation blocking his emergency declaration, an effort that’s all but certain to fail...

Emergency Resolution Disapproval PASSES 59-41 with Romney & Rubio voting against the emergency funding for the Wall. Republican "YES" votes: Alexander Blunt Collins Lee Murkowski Paul Portman Romney Rubio Toomey Wicker

Call me a skeptic, but I’m quite certain that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent claim to The Washington Post that “I’m not for impeachment” of President Trump doesn’t match her actual position on the issue. The California congresswoman is a crafty career politician who specializes in telling the American people one thing and doing the exact opposite. In fact, she’s risen to the top of the liberal pyramid because she is an extremely gifted manipulator. In January, Pelosi’s own daughter Alexandra described her mother as a political leader who could “cut your head off and you won’t even know you’re...

The White House and Republican senators sought compromise Tuesday on limiting presidents' powers to unilaterally declare national emergencies, as chances improved that President Donald Trump might avoid a long-expected rejection by Congress of his effort to divert billions more for building barriers along the Mexican border. As a Thursday showdown vote in the Senate neared, GOP Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and others were talking with the White House about related legislation that would curb the ability of presidents to declare future emergencies. If Trump would commit to signing a bill handcuffing future emergency declarations,...

After contested recounts in Broward and Palm Beach Counties, DeSantis, 40, prevailed over Gillum, 39, by a margin more svelte than Palm Beach — 49.6 percent to 49.2 percent. Among 8.1 million ballots cast, just 32,463 votes divided victor from vanquished. Most significantly, DeSantis replaced three Florida supreme court justices who were required to retire at age 75. His appointees — Barbara Lagoa, Robert J. Luck, and Carlos Muñiz — have shifted the court’s composition from four liberals and three conservatives to one liberal and six conservatives. This jump to the right should keep the Sunshine State’s top tribunal safe...

A winning 2020 candidate needs three things: authenticity, credibility, and viability. Few could have predicted that President Donald Trump would be this good at surrendering the political advantage of a strong economy. Not only is he now underwater in the three states that pushed him to victory in 2016—he’s now unexpectedly vulnerable in places such as Texas, Florida, and Ohio as well. His popularity rises to 50 percent or higher in states that total a mere 102 electoral votes. Probably of more concern to his campaign: He’s fallen below 40 percent approval in states encompassing a 201-electoral-vote bloc. But Democrats...

Americans are as proud of the cities and towns we live in as we are of being American itself. We expect degrading attitudes toward our native lands to come from hostile countries, not from people within our own nation. Yet that was exactly what happened last week when Bill Maher, host of the HBO show “Real Time,” went on a disparaging rant that picked at the scab that is the cultural and political divide of red state and blue state America. Maher began by blaming Jeff Bezos for courting wealthy cities like New York for his next Amazon headquarters while...