Free Republic

To watch Donald Trump on the stump is to wonder if this is a campaign with a strategy. To study the Trump re-election effort in Pennsylvania is to understand the carefully calculated bet it is making. Pennsylvania is becoming ground zero of the 2020 election. Commentators tend to forget that Mr. Trump in 2016 won 304 electoral votes, 34 more than a majority. He can afford to lose a Michigan or Wisconsin. But he has few paths to the White House without the Keystone State. The president knows it; he’s dive-bombing the state. And Joe Biden knows it, making it...

Joe Biden sure knows how to pick ’em. The Democratic nominee had the opportunity to name a competent female running mate, one who would excite his base and reassure undecided voters. He instead chose California Sen. Kamala Harris, the definition of political mediocrity. Don’t take Donald Trump’s word for it. Take the left’s—at least a few months ago, when it had no stake in creating a legend. The media and Democrats this week can’t roll out enough praise for the veep pick: She’s brilliant, savvy, seasoned, vetted, smooth, forceful, appealing, authentic, powerful, a fighter. This is the same woman the...

The concerted Republican effort to fritter away both policy and principle in these pandemic times continued apace this week—indeed, it leapt forward. Who needs Nancy Pelosi demanding more spending, more unemployment benefits and more union payoffs when Steven Mnuchin and Mitch McConnell will do it for her? Five months after the coronavirus’s arrival, Washington has settled into a predictable loop. Speaker Pelosi’s House unveils sweeping virus legislation with vast dollar figures and progressive policy demands. Republicans argue among themselves. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin crashes in to “negotiate” the GOP back to their own 5-yard line. Senate Majority Leader McConnell reminds his...

The Senate Republican playbook should be put House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on mute and get this trial started. Pelosi and the Democrats have no say in the matter. They don’t. And by withholding the articles of impeachment against President Trump because they know it faces certain death in the Republican Senate creates a new constitutional crisis of its own. This isn’t about a fair trial. As Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel noted, a trial would only further degrade their position in the polls on this impeachment push. It was never popular from the start, and now it’s underwater nationally. It’s...

Fanatics can justify any action, and House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff this week demonstrated where that mindset leads. In his rush to paint Donald Trump as a lawbreaker, Mr. Schiff has himself trampled law and responsibility. That’s the bottom line in Mr. Schiff’s stunning decision to subpoena the phone records of Rudy Giuliani and others. Mr. Schiff divulged the phone logs this week in his Ukraine report, thereby revealing details about the communications of Trump attorneys Jay Sekulow and Mr. Giuliani, ranking Intelligence Committee member Devin Nunes, reporter John Solomon and others. The media is treating this as a victory,...

... The “deep state”—if we are to use the term—is better defined as consisting of career civil servants, who have growing power in the administrative state but work in the shadows. As government grows, so do the challenges of supervising a bureaucracy swelling in both size and power. Emboldened by employment rules that make it all but impossible to fire career employees, this internal civil “resistance” has proved willing to take ever more outrageous actions against the president and his policies, using the tools of both traditional and social media. Government-employed resisters received a call to action within weeks of...

The Justice Department is investigating how a former British intelligence agent, Christopher Steele, came to exert so much influence over the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s erroneous Trump-Russia collusion narrative. Let’s hope the department is also investigating an even more influential man who had even less business manipulating the government: Glenn Simpson, the head of opposition-research firm Fusion GPS. That’s a pressing question in light of new documents from high-ranking Justice official Bruce Ohr, obtained recently by Judicial Watch. The papers include, among other things, a dozen official FBI interviews (known as 302s) of Mr. Ohr that date from just after...

20) "Trump’s mention of Ohr’s wife appears gratuitous. Her role in the matter, as yet, appears minimal." She worked for the main player in this drama, Fusion. And Fact Checker has zero ability to make that claim, since we still don't know her role. Bizarre.

Kimberley Strassel DISMANTLES Washington Post fact check of Bruce Ohr This is a must read thread from the WSJ’s Kimberley Strassel where she absolutely dismantles point-by-point the Washington Post’s fact check of senior DOJ official Bruce Ohr, a recent target of President Trump.Please have a read (21 in all):1) It is never fun to tackle fact checkers, but this one is a case study in that modern art of omitting details, stating unsupportable assertions as fact, slipping things in, manipulating a narrative. Opinion as "fact." So let's go through it. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/08/16/who-is-bruce-ohr-why-does-trump-keep-tweeting-about-him/?utm_term=.e30d884f001c …2)"Ohr exists in a netherworld — a subject of fascination...

Leakers to the New York Times confirmed in a story published on Wednesday that the FBI had run a spy operation on the Trump campaign that involved government informants, secret subpoenas, and possible wiretaps. The story comes ahead of the release of the pending Department of Justice inspector general report on the FBI’s actions during the 2016 election, and likely is an attempt by the leakers to paint the FBI’s efforts in the most flattering light possible. But the story revealed that the FBI – which is supposed to be an apolitical agency – was spying on the Trump campaign...

The release of the FISA memo is upon us. The four-page document Democrats have maligned as an attempt to undermine the FBI and the Russia investigation alleges egregious abuses, some of which are said to echo that of the KGB. It’s sparked a war between the Department of Justice/FBI and Congress. The White House is now involved, as they’re supportive of releasing the memo. The vote to declassify was held by the House Intelligence Committee on Monday. It passed on a party-line vote. It then undergoes a five-day period in which the president can either support its release or block...

Dennis Prager interviews Kimberley Strassel about he article in the Wall Street Journal regarding "Trump’s Federalist Revival" (http://tinyurl.com/jzefjrn). Almost every pick Trump chooses is a step to stop or slow the growth of BIG government the Left has seen fit to attempt. Great article and interview in regards to Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt for the head of the EPA. For more clear thinking like this from Dennis Prager... I invite you to visit: http://www.dennisprager.com/ ~ see also: http://www.prageruniversity.com/ Donate to these two wonderful causes: https://www.prageru.com/donate | and | https://home.isi.org/donors

There's an old saying that "to catch a fish, you need to think like a fish." And there's a modern translation of that for today's GOP: To beat a Donald, you need to think like a Trumpvoter. We don't know if Mr. Trump is unstoppable, because nobody has actually gone after him. To the extent his Republican rivals have nipped at his heels, they've done it in obvious, conventional ways. They've argued he's not a real conservative. They've pointed to his lack of policies. They've worried about his temperament and electability. Those arguments probably do resonate with the 50% or...

If the Bergdahl uproar feels creepily reminiscent of the Benghazi uproar, or the Syrian "red line" uproar, or the choose-your-own- Obama -foreign-adventure uproar, it's because they all have a common denominator. This is what happens when political hacks formally take over foreign policy. It's the "formal" point that bears some meditation. Barack Obama isn't the first president to make foreign-policy decisions on the basis of domestic political calculations. He does, however, win the distinction of being the first president to utterly disregard—to treat with contempt—the institutions and procedures that were designed to help the commander in chief insulate the serious...

Bodansky: What If Bashar Didn't Do It? [Syria Chemical Attack] September 03, 2013 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: All right. So here's the deal. Last week, Obama reverses himself and says that he's not gonna go into Syria. Remember, they're using nerve gas. John Kerry goes out there, 1,500 people, 2,400 people, a lot of kids, nerve gas, sarin gas, got the proof.Look, I'm gonna get into all the hypocrisy.Yes, Kerry dining with Bashar back in 2009 and talking about what a great guy Bashar was. The bottom line is this administration is as incompetent as Jimmy Carter. There's only one...