Free Republic

President Trump, angrily, to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, February 28: “You don’t have the cards! You’re buried there! Your people are dying! You’re running low on soldiers!” Since that time . . . In March alone, the Russians suffered an estimated 41,000 combined killed or wounded in action, with 272 Russian tanks, 1,644 artillery systems, and 607 combat armored vehicles destroyed or disabled. (Since the start of the war, Russia has lost an estimated 12,835 tanks and armored vehicles, 305 aircraft, and 22 naval vessels.) Without anything resembling a manned navy, Ukraine has largely nullified the...

... In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Garcia to America from El Salvador so that his claims can be adjudicated. (He currently sits there under an agreement negotiated by the Trump administration with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele for the use of his notoriously brutal mega-prisons to house potential deportees.) This weekend the Trump administration refused, claiming, on stunningly disingenuous logic, that because Garcia had been dumped quickly into El Salvador he was now beyond American jurisdiction. (“He is detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador.”) Why not...

After months of uncertainty, the White House has finally announced tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China. The uncertainty since the election and especially the lack of clear communication in the past several days have caused apprehension in the stock market, which is likely part of the reason why these measures were announced on a Saturday, when the markets are closed — always a sign of confidence that an economic policy decision is the right one. The stated purpose is to reduce the flow of illegal drugs and immigrants to the U.S. Trump has had success using blunt-force threats in the...

Donald Trump nominated Representative Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.), an unqualified toady, to the nation’s top law-enforcement office. And, in the blink of an eye, Gaetz resigned from the House to, apparently, force the shutdown of an ethics investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, obstruction, and other unsavory conduct — misconduct allegations over which Gaetz narrowly escaped being indicted by the same Justice Department Trump would have him lead. To be sure, Gaetz was not charged. He has denied any wrongdoing. And allegations, even colorable ones, are not evidence. Nevertheless, the standards of fitness for an office of...

The price of an $80 pair of blue jeans spiking to $90 or even $96. A pair of $90 gym shoes rising to $116. A $1,500 mid-tier couch rising to over $1,600. The rising costs of these three household items may seem like examples of Bidenomics at work over the last four years. But if that’s what you’re thinking, think again. These are the kinds of price increases American consumers can expect if President-elect Donald Trump proceeds with some of the tariff proposals he floated on the campaign trail this year, according to a new report from the National Retail...

Governor Ron DeSantis on Friday directed the Florida Department of Education to suspend four schools from the state’s school-choice scholarship program because of their alleged “direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party.” “Through a thorough investigation, FDOE has determined that Lower and Upper Sagemont Preparatory Schools in Weston, Parke House Academy in Winter Park, and Park Maitland School in Winter Park have direct ties to the CCP and their connections constitute an imminent threat to the health, safety, and welfare of these school’s students and the public,” the DeSantis administration said in a statement. The Florida DOE is working with...

I was not going to write about Oliver Anthony’s brilliant song, Rich Men North of Richmond, because I have nothing worthy to add. The video puts all other commentary to shame. North of Richmond refers to the federal government, which is too large, too powerful and too uncaring. But Mark Antonio Wright, executive editor of the Never Trump National Review, butted in with a Learn-to-Code column attacking Anthony for daring to complain about DC’s treatment of the working class. It lectured Anthony to be more like Woody Guthrie, the Nazi apologist and communist. Anthony’s song says: I’ve been sellin’ my...

John Davidson asks at the Federalist, “Does DeSantis Know What Time It Is? Didn’t Sound Like It In That NBC Interview.” Responding to DeSantis’s assertion that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and was in large part responsible for allowing Covid-driven rules changes that helped Democrats collect a lot of mail-in votes, this is Davidson’s thesis: "Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis seems to have lost his way, unable to articulate a clear position on the most important issue of the primaries, which is what happened in 2020. . . . No issue is more important for DeSantis (and the entire GOP...

A new poll conducted for the Wall Street Journal by the polling firm run by Tony Fabrizio, the pollster for Donald Trump, finds Ron DeSantis leading Joe Biden by three points but Trump trailing Biden by three points: 🇺🇲 2024 Presidential Election Poll (D) Biden: 48% (+3) (R) Trump: 45% . (R) DeSantis: 48% (+3) (D) Biden: 45% Wall Street Journal | Apr 11-17 | 1,740 RV — InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) April 21, 2023 The good news for Trump is that the same poll finds Trump regaining his lead over DeSantis in a head-to-head GOP primary matchup. After the midterm elections,...

I know, I know; National Review is still the outfit that published the infamous “Against Trump” issue as a last ditch effort to foil the successful 2016 candidacy that led to four years of peace, prosperity, low inflation, and disproportionate gains for the lower end of the income scale under President Trump. But still, it comes as a bit of a shock that the publication I must credit for opening my eyes to the virtues of conservativism seems to be throwing in with Adam Schiff, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and the rest of the J6 kangaroo court crowd that censored...

We are only 20 months away from the next Presidential election, and at this stage, the Republican party should be starting to whittle down its field of contenders. Yet here we are with most of the people expected to run still sitting it out, silent. It’s true that Nikki Haley has started her campaign, as have a few outriders like Vivek Ramaswamy, to whom I wish much luck. But the serving or former officials who should have started their campaigns by now are still sitting it out. Leaving the ground open for Trump to do stunts like his Ohio trip...

Once again, Donald Trump has proposed dismantling the United States Constitution. “Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION?” Trump asked on TruthSocial Saturday. “A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” The answer to Trump’s question is “neither.” The response to his declaration is, “No, it does not.” The conclusion one must draw is that the 45th president of the United States has lost whatever was left of his...

In the Sunshine State, the voting is easy and the results are quick.The day after the 2020 general election, Florida governor Ron DeSantis crowed about his state’s performance. While vote-counting in other states was slow going and the results in several key races were still in doubt, Florida’s elections had seemingly gone off without a hitch. Of course, it wasn’t always that way. Two decades earlier, Florida had become the national poster child for mismanaged elections. In the razor-thin race between George W. Bush and Al Gore, images of Florida vote-counters with magnifying glasses eyeing so-called pregnant, dimpled, and hanging...

The increasing ridiculousness of the stance of the supervisors in Cochise County, Ariz., appears to be another hard lesson of, “Don’t elect lunatics to positions of serious public responsibility”: Cochise County officials may go to court Thursday without an attorney to represent them against charges that they broke the law by failing to certify the results of the Nov. 8 election. County supervisors on Tuesday voted to hire attorney Bryan Blehm to defend them and the county government against two lawsuits, even though they had not discussed the matter with him. On Wednesday, they were caught flat-footed when Blehm declined...

Florida governor Ron DeSantis led former president Donald Trump by eleven points in a new poll of likely Republican primary voters by the Republican Party of Texas. The survey, conducted by CWS Research on November 12 and 13 among likely GOP voters statewide, asked respondents, “If the upcoming 2024 Republican Primary for president were held today, and the candidates were Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley and Mike Pence, for whom would you vote?” Forty-three percent of respondents said they would support DeSantis, while Trump followed in second with 32 percent of the vote. Thirteen percent...

If the Florida governor can get past Donald Trump in 2024, he will prove something important about himself. Ron DeSantis has a Donald Trump problem. How he solves it -- if he can -- will be the first test of an important aspect of presidential character. Let us assume -- as is widely assumed, but as yet unannounced -- that DeSantis would like to run for president in 2024. Many across the Republican spectrum would like to see him do so. The trick is that DeSantis needs to wrest the Republican nomination away from Trump, either by defeating him or,...

On the homepage today, Rich writes that “for the good of the country, Biden shouldn’t run again.” The same is true of Donald Trump. In my view, there are many, many reasons for this — not least that Trump permanently disqualified himself from consideration with his behavior after the 2020 election. But, whether or not you agree with me about that, you can surely grasp that, as a political matter, Donald Trump is a spent force? Yesterday’s New York Times poll sent shockwaves through the political world. It found that President Biden’s approval rating is at 33 percent; that “more...

It seems to me that the Secret Service and the commentariat are misfiring in their claimed contradictions of Cassidy Hutchinson. If there is a proper target of criticism (and that’s not clear at this point), it is the House January 6 committee, not the witness. In the course of her riveting testimony Tuesday (which I described in a column posted last night), [cut] We shouldn’t leap to the conclusion that anyone is lying. But we should be provided with all of the relevant testimony. And, contrary to the committee’s practice, there should be probing cross-examination so we can get to...

It’s understandable that Democrats would want to constantly revisit Jan. 6 — to invoke it, investigate it and sacralize it even. It’s a mystery, at least from a certain level of abstraction, why Republicans would want to have anything to do with that day or want to fixate on the 2020 election. The party is on the cusp of a midterm triumph, has enormous openings on the economy and education thanks to Biden administration stumbles and left-wing overreach, is making inroads among Hispanic voters and has a well-stocked political bench that Democrats should envy. Yet the GOP is stuck litigating...

The crux of Robinson’s post: “On Primary Day in Georgia, Kemp gets 74% and Perdue gets 22%. Nobody in any election in America gets 74% of the votes. Ever. It doesn’t happen. Obvious fraud.” But the thing that Robinson claims never happens actually happens with regularity. Aaron Blake points to a 2009 study that “found that about 1 in 10 Senate incumbents took less than 75 percent of the vote in their primaries. Many faced token or no opposition, but it does happen — very regularly.” . . . Marjorie Taylor Greene carried 70 percent of her district at the...