Free Republic

U.S. coal exports have jumped more than 60 percent this year due to soaring demand from Europe and Asia, according to a Reuters review of government data, allowing President Donald Trump's administration to claim that efforts to revive the battered industry are working. The increased shipments came as the European Union and other U.S. allies heaped criticism on the Trump administration for its rejection of the Paris Climate Accord, a deal agreed by nearly 200 countries to cut carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels like coal. The previously unpublished figures provided to Reuters by the U.S. Energy Information...

AmericaÂ’s largest companies are on pace to post two consecutive quarters of double-digit profit growth for the first time since 2011, helped by years of cost-cutting, a weaker dollar and stronger consumer spending. Earnings at S&P 500 companies are expected to rise 11% in the second quarter, according to data from Thomson Reuters, following a 15% increase in the first quarter. Close to 60% of the firms in the index have reported second-quarter results so far. Even as activity inside the Beltway bogged down, the markets have been on an almost nonstop rally since the election. The S&P 500 is...

Oh, this is almost too much winning… almost. A pearl-clutching op-ed in the New York Times declares the hurt sensibilities within the State Department are leading to multiple people quitting Specifically citing the different managerial strategy of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and the priorities of the entire Dept. of State mission being reset, the career bureaucrats are dropping like flies hitting the T-Rex zapper.

It’s been an utter disaster for Megyn Kelly since kicking things off at NBC. The New York Post reports Kelly’s Sunday show has been pulled two episodes sooner than scheduled due to poor ratings. Ouch. Breitbart News reports:   Last week, Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly set another viewership low with just 2.71 million total viewers. In the last three weeks, her show has failed to beat the years-old Dateline rerun the network ran in her show’s time slot when Kelly took a week off during the Fourth of July holiday weekend.According to the New York Post, “Kelly’s ratings-challenged Sunday show was announced as a limited” run that...

Before delving into individual courts and possible nominee names, let’s discuss some matters of general applicability. Here’s the big issue looming over everything: President Trump can nominate whomever he wants, but will these nominees get confirmed — especially in states with one or two Democratic senators? Republicans in the Senate have successfully maintained a united front on judicial nominees — not just on Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, but even on John K. Bush, just confirmed to the Sixth Circuit, despite some controversial undercover blogging — so confirmability truly turns on blue slips. As Kevin Daley of the Daily Caller explains:...

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) suggested on Saturday that Vice President Pence is already planning his inauguration in anticipation of President Trump's impeachment. "Mike Pence is somewhere planning an inauguration. Priebus and Spicer will lead the transition," Waters wrote on Twitter, referring to former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, both of whom resigned their positions over the past week. To be sure, impeachment proceedings against Trump are unlikely to advance in the near future. But Waters has been among the president's most vocal opponents in Congress and has repeatedly raised the...

President Donald Trump’s outgoing chief of staff Reince Priebus told Breitbart News Satuday SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam that the president’s “amazing” work during his first few months in office includes signing a record number of bills into law. “I could tick of for an entire 10, 20 minutes that facts of what’s he’s accomplished and the amazing amount of work he’s done,” Priebus said. “The amount of bills he’s signed are more than any president in the last 50 years,” Priebus said. Priebus — whose departure from the White House was announced on Friday night — also said that Trump...

The US says it has carried out a successful test of its controversial anti-missile system and has flown B-1 bombers over the Korean peninsula. The exercises are a direct response to recent North Korean missile tests. A projectile fired by the US Air Force was intercepted over the Pacific by a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) unit in Alaska. US B-1 bombers also conducted exercises over the Korean peninsula with South Korean and Japanese planes. On Friday, North Korea test-fired a second intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) which it said proved that the entire US was within striking range. The...

The Cold War between the president and secretary of state became obvious from the latest State Department annual report on the global terrorism situation, which blames Israeli security policies for stalling the peace process and claims that the Palestinian leadership rarely incites terror attacks. This, in spite of Trump’s repeated statements of support for Israel. In the 2016 State Department Country Report on Terrorism, State clearly took the position of the Palestinian Authority against Israel. That was particularly evident in citing changes on the Temple Mount as incitement of terror, clearly referring to Israel’s recent erecting metal detectors at the...

The next day, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina upped the ante, saying, “any effort to go after Mueller could be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency unless Mueller did something wrong.” He added that he will introduce legislation to block any attempts to fire the special counsel without judicial review — and said he was certain all Democrats and many Republicans would support him. [snip] So it is with Trump. Problems, some of them self-inflicted, that looked temporary and manageable have been compounded over time and are reaching a crisis point. Most important, he is losing...

Unless the Republican Senators are total quitters, Repeal & Replace is not dead! Demand another vote before voting on any other bill!

With Kelly replacing Priebus Gen. Mattis' Iraq clique (Kelly, Mattis, Dunford) now has ✓ White House ✓ DoD ✓ Joint Chiefs Julian Assange‏ @JulianAssange 7h7 hours ago More If you can't fire them don't hire them. Trump can't fire any one of them without risking war with all 3--which he is in no position to do 52 replies 114 retweets 270 likes Warrior Princess‏ @lionhardt77 7h7 hours ago More When you have the former DNI & NSA Dirs calling for a coup may be smart to surround yourself with Generals. Hope they're really on his side. Julian Assange‏ @JulianAssange 7h7...

Fox News co-host Dana Perino on Friday night suggested former Homeland Security head John Kelly was named new White House chief of staff to clear a path for President Trump to remove Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions has been in disfavor with President Trump for some time, with the president's criticism rapidly escalating over the past week. “I think that this was all set up for a few weeks because the president has been so upset about Jeff Sessions and his recusal in the Russia investigation,” Perino suggested on her show "The Five." Perino added that removing Sessions from his...

The U.S. Department of Defense says the missile, which launched just before midnight local time, traveled roughly 620 miles — from the country's northern province of Jagang to the Sea of Japan, where it finally splashed into the waters off Japan's west coast. There have been no immediate reports of damage, and Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis says the North American Aerospace Defense Command "determined the missile launch from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America." In response to the launch, the Pentagon announced that it had conducted a precision missile firing exercise with South Korea. President...

After Donald Trump was swept into the White House on the shoulders of his far-right base, moderate Republicans and centrist Democrats clung to a hope first kindled after Election Day that his daughter would act as a tempering force on issues, a calming presence even on her father’s sometimes erratic personality. It didn’t happen. And by the end of this week, they know it likely never will. “I had hope she would make some difference,” lamented Connie Morella, a moderate Republican who represented Maryland in Congress for 15 years. “I know she makes an impression on him but she doesn’t...

It’s no secret that President Trump’s Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci do not much care for each other — and this was BEFORE the The New Yorker piece was published on Thursday. After the November election President Trump asked Anothony Scaramucci to join his Administration. Scaramucci sold his company, SkyBridge Capital, in anticipation of joining President Trump in the White House but Reince Priebus reportedly blocked him from being appointed to a top job within the administration. Late last week President Trump appointed Scaramucci Communications Director despite continued objections from Reince Priebus. Scaramucci was understandably...

In an explosive interview with with the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza, Anthony Scaramucci issued his sternest warning yet to those leaking information to the press. Scaramucci said he wants to “f*cking kill all the leakers and I want to get the President’s agenda on track so we can succeed for the American people.”  Now this…Scaramucci also told Lizza he would fire three to four more leakers on Friday.

Incoming White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci blasted chief strategist Stephen Bannon in a phone call with a reporter from The New Yorker Wednesday night. “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own c--k,” Scaramucci reportedly told The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza, according to an account of the explosive phone call published Thursday. “I’m not trying to build my own brand off the f---ing strength of the president. I’m here to serve the country,” Scaramucci continued on the call.

Conservative commentator and best-selling author Ann Coulter pointed out on Twitter this week that President Donald Trump is in his current predicament regarding Russia and Special Counsel Robert Mueller because of Jared Kushner’s political malpractice.

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump’s newly appointed communications director publicly acknowledged his power struggle with the White House chief of staff and said their differences may be too wide to bridge. Anthony Scaramucci, who joined the White House last week and reports directly to the president rather than to the chief of staff, as is customary, said in a CNN interview that he and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus have been at odds “We have had differences. When I said we were brothers from the podium, that’s because we’re rough on each other,” he said, referring to a comment he made last...