Free Republic

“…there’s little political upside in defending the rights of undocumented shoplifters.” — Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times. If past is prologue, Mr. Trump lacks the acumen to carry out his ambitious agenda. The first problem is management style. In his first term, Mr. Trump was a poor administrator because of his mercurial, polarizing style and a general indifference to facts and the hard work of governance. — Jack Goldsmith, The New York Times. Thus spake one Shawn McCreesh of The New York Times, America’s all-wise, all-knowing font of everlasting rectitude. But to answer his question, why blah blah: Donald...

Tech billionaires, corporate chieftains and stars such as Carrie Underwood are flocking to Washington to fete Donald J. Trump. There has been such a stampede of big-money donors that his inaugural committee has run out of V.I.P. tickets and perks. And yet here is the president-elect, positively glaring in the official photograph his aides released on Thursday in advance of his inauguration. The image, which will be printed inside the programs his supporters will clutch in their shivering hands come Monday morning, does not exactly scream celebration. Mr. Trump is shown sternly squinting, bathed in eerie, David Lynchian lighting...

Even though Donald J. Trump is cloistered in Florida and planning his return to Washington, it seems like he has been stuck in a New York state of mind. He went out of his way to throw rallies in the Bronx, Nassau County and at Madison Square Garden, and then, after winning the election, he went right back to the Garden to watch a fight there. He has been uncharacteristically friendly toward the governor and both of the state’s senators (and they have been uncharacteristically friendly back). He keeps talking about how he wants to fix the subways and rebuild...

Donald J. Trump and the assorted fat cats to whom he was speaking seemed to be processing many complicated emotions all at once. “You think this is easy?” the former and perhaps future president asked. “Standing up here in front of half a room that hates my guts, and the other half loves me?” There he stood, the godhead of a populist revenge movement, tucked into his satiny cummerbund, a black bow tie around his neck. It was the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in Midtown Manhattan. This charity event, held Thursday evening in the ballroom of the Hilton...