Free Republic

This isn’t a policy election. There’s no defining issue like tax cuts in 2000 or health care in 2008 or trade in 2016. Democrats are focused on convincing voters that Donald Trump poses an existential threat to the American way of life, and vice versa. But policy remains the purpose of politics, and the choice of a president is also the choice of a housing policy. Kamala Harris has a plan to address the nation’s housing crisis. Donald Trump (kind of) has one, too. And the differences say a lot about the two candidates. Housing prices across the country have...

Supermodel Tyra Banks just opened her own ice cream store in Washington, D.C., according to Today. Smize & Dream takes its name from a word Banks invented in the course of her time as host of “America’s Next Top Model.” The word “smize” smashes together “smile with your eyes,” which is something she encouraged models to do. Now, Banks is hoping her ice cream will get customers in Washington, including Vice President Kamala Harris, smiling with their eyes as well as their mouth.

A left-wing publication published a hit piece on Vice President Kamala Harris after she officially secured the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee without a single primary vote. Author Nancy Rommelmann criticized Democrats for their “COVID amnesia,” President Joe Biden claimed Harris accomplished an excellent task of reopening the nation. However, the left-leaning outlet is refusing to let the Democratic Party off the hook for this one. Rommelmann pointed out that schools were forced to remain closed in Democrat-run cities while Republican governors began opening back up their states. She cited the destruction that these cities are still facing the repercussions thanks...

Did everyone get their fill of 'joy' over the past four days of the Democratic National Convention? What was your most joyful moment? Was it the constant demonizing of (and lying about) Donald Trump? Or maybe it was the gleeful way in which Democrats celebrated abortion, even having a Planned Parenthood bus administering abortions outside the United Center, with no questions asked? We thought millionaire Michelle Obama lecturing Americans about 'not taking too much' was extremely joyous. As was billionaire Oprah Winfrey complaining about all of her experiences with 'income inequality.'

**SNIP** Trump proposed spending $267 billion more. Biden, $297 billion. The socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders wanted to spend an astonishing $3.976 trillion. But Harris was even worse! $4.162 trillion in new spending. Biden’s big spending ignited nasty inflation. Imagine how much prices would have increased had Democrats selected Harris back then. Last week, in her first policy speech, she proposed $1.7 trillion in new spending. At least that’s not as bad as what she wanted during COVID: She thought government should give every American $2,000 a month. That would have cost taxpayers $21 trillion! Her love for big government dominates...

President Joe Biden's former chief of staff Ron Klain acknowledged in an interview with the New York Times that "we were all united behind the idea she should be successful. But it just didn't happen. Basically, she failed as vice-president." Jeffrey Zients, Biden's current chief if staff, who was co-chair of the Biden-Harris transition team, said "when I started running the transition, the president's first directive to me was the vice president must be involved in every decision that hits his desk, from start to finish. So, she was in the loop, but had nothing helpful to offer on any...

Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday night if she is ready to be interviewed by his network. Doocy asked Harris the question as she walked down the hallway following her nomination speech at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), as she has not sat for an interview since the launch of her campaign. Harris told Doocy she is “working toward” an interview. “Are you ready for your Fox News interview?” Doocy asked.

Daniel Alman from Squirrel Hill @DanielAlmanPGH #KamalaHarris's proposal to tax #UnrealizedCapitalGains sounds very similar to #France's #WealthTax. People who don't undertstand #HumanNature, #Economics, and #Math should not be allowed to create #TaxPolicy. https://washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2006/07/16/old-money-new-money-flee-france-and-its-wealth-tax/49ac2ec7-c1b2-423e-a89b-699750275cd4/ #TaxTheRich #Tax #Taxes #KamalaHarris2024

You know that aisle at CVS and Walgreens, the one full of cards with pre-conceived sentiments? “So sorry for your loss.” “Congratulations on the new baby!” And you know those friends who buy those cards, give them to you, and don’t write anything other than their name, because Hallmark has said it all? Meet Kamala Harris, the Hallmark president. This, in her own words, edited down for space (but not substance), is what she said at her big coronation at the Democratic National Convention: Kamala loves her “most incredible husband,” he is “an incredible partner.” She is “filled with gratitude.”...

According to Fox Sports’s president of Insights and Analytics, Vice President Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech drew 22% more viewers than former President Donald Trump’s speech. Michael Mulvihill shared via social media that Harris’s speech, which started at 10:30 and ran to 11:15, saw a 15.0, while Trump’s speech in late July, which also started roughly at 10:30 and ran through to midnight, pulled a 12.3 number. Mulvihill appears to be referencing early Nielsen numbers, which are subject to slight change when final numbers are released later in the day.

Let me stipulate for the record: The American press is an embarrassment. Journalists are being unfair in their coverage. CNN and Politico and the New York Times and the Associated Press and NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt and NPR News are hyping Kamala Harris as the second coming and putting a thumb, two hands, and a 45-pound dumbbell on the scales in an attempt to prop her up. It also doesn’t matter. None of it is remotely decisive. The reason why the Republican Party is, at the moment, on track to lose the 2024 election is that the Republican...

Closing out the Democratic National Convention, VP Kamala Harris officially accepted her party’s nomination for president and delivered an address that – while hitting all the high notes on lofty goals – would have been better suited to a political neophyte. The viewing audience was treated to a mix of two parts hagiography and three parts emotional outreach with a dash of questionable hyperbole thrown in for flavor. And yet, as her maiden speech atop the ticket, Harris delivered just what her fans in the crowd and the media wanted: An unburdening of association with the last three years.To borrow...

Donald Trump slammed Kamala Harris for her rapid-fire repetition of the phrase 'Thank you' before she began her prime-time speech at the Democratic National Convention speech Thursday. 'Too many “Thank yous,” too rapidly said, what’s going on with her?' wrote Trump, himself a seasoned practitioner of big rallies from years of campaigning. Harris said 'Thank you' a total of 27 times before she even began her speech. She did so while thanking the ecstatic crowd for its rapturous welcome and appeared to be trying to politely stop the clapping and cheering so she could begin.

During her speech on the final night of the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Kamala Harris outlined her plans to push for significant immigration reforms, including a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal aliens currently residing in the United States.

…With things trending so positively…the campaign probably calculates that it’s unlikely many undecided voters will be persuaded by anything she says in such formats (as opposed to messaging Harris can more fully control, like rallies and ads), while a botched answer could generate a great deal of new negative coverage and attacks. Harris has suffered such fates in the past. In January 2019, at the start of her presidential campaign, anchor Jake Tapper asked at a CNN town hall whether her support of Medicare-for-all meant she wanted to eliminate private health insurance. Harris responded by saying that, yes, you won’t...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) claimed Thursday night that electing Vice President Kamala Harris president would lead to lower grocery prices despite the fact that inflation has skyrocketed over the last four years during the Biden-Harris administration. Warren made the comments as she spoke during the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Thursday. Throughout her speech, she claimed that Harris would be better on economic and social issues. “You know what I love best about Kamala Harris? Kamala Harris can’t be bought and she can’t be bossed around,” Warren claimed after walking onto the stage and breaking...

“Kamala, you are supposed to drink AFTER the speech.” — Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA. “The entire Democrat campaign will now be focused on gaslighting the country into believing Trump has been president for the last 4 years and Kamala has been an innocent bystander the whole time. They can’t run on her record, so they’re going to invent one and lie about it.” — Sean Davis, The Federalist. Get this: there is one thing, one lurking terror, behind every fake and desperate move the Democratic Party has made this dire election cycle: the fear that hundreds of high officials...

That fetid gust of hot air you may have detected wafting from Republican and conservative social media postings over the last day or two was a fabricated claim that Kamala Harris is plotting to tax everyone’s unrealized capital gains if she becomes president. That would be a departure from current law, which taxes capital gains only when the underlying assets are sold, or “realized.” That it’s a mythical allegation hasn’t stopped right-wingers and GOP functionaries from hand-wringing over the economic implications of any such change, and over the purportedly horrible impact on average Americans. Here, for instance, is the far-right...

Learning isn't necessarily cumulative. Human experience over the centuries provides lessons, some clearer than others. But each generation has to learn lessons anew, and some do not. The lessons about economic growth taught over the long run of history are clear. Growth is not inevitable, and while riches may be accumulated, or appropriated, by the few in high positions, the lives of the very large majority throughout the centuries have been nasty, brutish and short. The exception, the Great Enrichment, began some three centuries ago, around the North Sea, in the Dutch Republic and England, according to economic historian Deirdre...

Once upon a time, I was invited to the White House for a private dinner with the Vice-President. I am a respected businessman, with a factory that produces memory chips for computers and portable electronics. There was some talk that my industry was being scrutinized by the administration, but I paid it no mind. I live in a free country. There's nothing that the government can do to me if I've broken no laws. My wealth was earned honestly, and an invitation to dinner with an American Vice-President is an honor. I checked my coat, was greeted by the Chief...