Free Republic

One of the promises President Trump made to American voters is that he would shrink the federal government. With the latest announcement that the National Security Council is set to lose as many as 330 people, the President is closing in on that goal. The National Security Council has been at work in Washington, D.C., since 1947. Congress created it at the beginning of the Cold War to coordinate policy between the various government national security entities, such as the military and the CIA. President Truman was unenthused, resenting Congress's impingement on his ability to handle foreign affairs. Nevertheless, he...

The Iran deal is a disaster, and every day it gets more and more obvious. Iran's mullahs have no intention of stopping their quest for a nuclear bomb.  Less than two weeks ago, Iran's president told a group of Iranian expats in Kuala Lumpur that they were violating the whole thing: Iran President Hassan Rouhani said his country is working on the development of new, advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges, according to Iranian state-run news agency IRNA, a move that appears to violate the landmark nuclear agreement Tehran signed with world powers in 2015. Rouhani said at a meeting with Iranian expatriates...

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, that nation’s top trade negotiator, will visit Washington this week to sign the “phase one” trade deal with the U.S., the South China Morning Post reported Monday. The newspaper, citing a source briefed on the matter, said Beijing has accepted the U.S. invitation for a deal signing in Washington, and the Chinese delegation will stay in the U.S. for a few days until the middle of next week. The South China Morning Post is run by Alibaba but is often criticized for being biased in favor of the state. The two countries have been working...

At first glance, 2019 was a rough year for anyone in favor of an economy and society guided from the bottom up by people with the freedom to exchange, cooperate and think as they choose. The highly visible left flank of the Democratic Party, fully embracing socialism in name and approach, erupted with proposals that would drastically change the country in ways they intend and many more in ways they do not. Meanwhile, the Republican Party’s debt from its Faustian bargain with President Donald Trump began to come due.

In a 1981 interview on Today with Phil Donahue, a 39 year old Bernie Sanders says he is "not a capitalist." Sanders had just won his first term as Mayor of Burlington, Vermont. In explaining his case for Socialism he says, "Do I believe the profit motive is fundamental to human nature? The answer is no. I think the spirit of cooperation - that you and I can work together is better than compete against each other and destroy each other."

For decades before President Donald Trump’s tax plan took effect, U.S. corporations with foreign subsidiaries had no (sane economic) choice but to keep their overseas profits abroad. After all, they’d face double taxation if they wanted to bring them home. Their profits were already taxed by the foreign country they’re operating in, and then to repatriate those funds would’ve required them to pay the U.S. corporate tax rate, which was then among the highest in the world. By year end 2017, right before Trump signed his Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), upwards of $2.5 trillion in cash was parked...

BEIJING (AP) - China’s imports of soybeans surged in November following the announcement of an interim trade deal with the United States. Imports rose 53.7% over a year earlier to 5.4 million tons, according to customs data. Imports of U.S. soybeans more than doubled from the previous month to 2.6 million tons, according to AWeb.com, a news website that serves the Chinese farming industry.

Stocks climbed on Thursday, hitting new record highs, as the market rallied into the end of 2019. Stocks have been piling up new records as the market wraps up 2019. The S&P 500 has risen 2.9% this month and 8.6% this quarter, bringing the year-to-date gains to 29%. The benchmark has a chance at scoring a historic year: It is less than one percentage point away from posting the best annual performance since 1997.

Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang is on to something: Americans could use a big "freedom dividend" -- that is, a guaranteed source of income on which they can rely month after month, free from the uncertainties of the job market and employment. But like many Democrats' ideas, Yang's otherwise brilliant insight is corrupted by an ideology that strangely sees the government as the engine of wealth creation and distribution. Yang's plan to provide a universal basic income of $1,000 per month to every American over age 18 sounds pretty good. All that money could go toward education, health care, job...

Washington -- What do you make of it? Merry Christmas greetings have been assaulting me from every corner. The assaults began about two weeks ago. I think I was in a CVS store buying aspirin for a splitting headache. No, possibly it was at the dry cleaners, and I was picking up a sweater. The person at the counter let fall a "Merry Christmas." I, of course, reciprocated and hurried off. I would have thought nothing of it, but it has continued for two weeks. Will it even continue after Christmas Day? What does it mean? In recent years, I...

On a single day in December 2015, Gary Jones, who resigned last month as president of the United Automobile Workers, spent more than $13,000 of the union’s money at a cigar store in Arizona. His purchases included a dozen $268 boxes of Ashton Double Magnums and a dozen boxes of Ashton Monarchs at $274.50 each. “Hi Gary, Thank you & Happy New Year,” read a handwritten note from the store. The purchases, documented by a federal complaint filed against a union leader in September, were part of more than $60,000 in cigars and cigar paraphernalia that Mr. Jones and other...

Expect the president to ride an economic tailwind to victory, with the S&P topping 3400 by Election Day [SNIP] U.S. economy could accelerate in 2020 Keep in mind that in 2020 the U.S. will have an impeached president running for re-election, with a record number of people working and unemployment near 50-year lows (see chart). I know everything is not perfect, but historically, a good economy has been an electoral advantage for an incumbent. My job is not to make political statements but to interpret how policies affect markets and help clients to profit from those facts. So far, what...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks at the Kuala Lumpur Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Muslim nations looking to fight back against future sanctions are exploring an age-old approach — using gold dinar and bartering. Leaders from Qatar, Iran, Malaysia and Turkey met during the Islamic summit in Kuala Lumpur to discuss the matter this week. “With the world witnessing nations making unilateral decisions to impose such punitive measures, Malaysia and other nations must always bear in mind that it can be imposed on any of us,” Malaysia’s 94-year-old Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told Reuters. “I have suggested that...

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida — President Donald Trump spoke to thousands of students on Saturday evening at Turning Point USA’s annual Student Action Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he told the young conservatives “there has never been a better time to be young and to be American” than now. “The future of our nation is unlimited,” the president continued. “We’ve gained more than 7 million jobs since the election, including 266 thousand new jobs last month alone.” “For everyone graduating into the workforce this year, there are now more job openings than job seekers for the first time...

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying on Friday that Ankara would retaliate against potential U.S. sanctions over its purchase of Russian defense systems and a natural gas pipeline. U.S. Congress has moved to impose sanctions on Turkey over its purchase of S-400 defense systems from Russia and related to Russia's TurkStream pipeline, which will carry Russian gas to Turkey. Asked about the various sanctions against Ankara, Erdogan repeated that the S-400 deal was already completed. "Now they are saying, 'we will impose sanctions against this' regarding TurkStream," he was quoted as saying. "This is a...

While most everyone in America is obsessing over the impeachment follies, the situation on the Korean peninsula has gone from bad to worse, at least in terms of the goals of the United States and the west. Russia and China have prepared a UN resolution that would lift many sanctions on North Korea. The stated goal is to “enhance the livelihood of the civilian population.” But as admirable as such a goal might be, it would effectively take the handcuffs off of Kim Jong-un, leaving America and her allies nothing to go on but Kim’s promises to be a...

Rep. Maxine Waters, one of the Democrats who have wanted to impeach President Trump since the day he took office, was on CNN with Erin Burnett Monday night and jumped back in time to the Russian collusion hoax. She admits she doesn’t have the facts to prove it, but she says she’ll always believe that Trump and Vladimir Putin had a deal: Putin would help elect Trump, and Trump would drop the sanctions against Russia.

On Thursday, the Trump administration will host the White House Summit on Child Care and Paid Leave, convening lawmakers, local officials, parents, and industry leaders to discuss paid family leave and affordable childcare – issues vitally important to the lifeblood of the U.S. economy and the betterment of the American family. The summit, spearheaded by Senior Adviser Ivanka Trump, is yet another example of President Trump’s advocacy for working families and further underscores that the Republican Party is now the party of working families.For example, long thought to be an issue owned by the left, it is now the GOP...

Germany on Thursday (12 December) warned Washington to mind its own business after US lawmakers gave initial approval to a bill that would sanction contractors working on a Russian pipeline to Germany. The EU also opposed sanctions against ‘companies doing legitimate business’. “European energy policy is decided in Europe, not in the US,” Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Twitter. “We reject external interference,” he said. The €9.5 billion Nord Stream 2 pipeline will run under the Baltic Sea and is set to double shipments of Russian natural gas to Germany. The German-Russian Chamber of Commerce (AHK) said the pipeline...

WASHINGTON - After three interest rate cuts and a fresh round of record highs for U.S. stock markets, has President Donald Trump lost interest in the Federal Reserve? A count of tweets from Trump about U.S. monetary policy suggest a detente may have taken hold between an elected leader who has lambasted Fed officials with insults like “clueless” and “boneheads” and a central bank whose rate cuts have helped buffer the economy from the administration’s own unpredictable trade and tariff policies. On Wednesday, the Fed left interest rates unchanged at the end of a two-day policy meeting, and signaled it...