Free Republic

President Trump took aim at the Federal Reserve on Saturday, labeling it the “most difficult problem” the U.S. faces and again criticizing the independent central bank for raising interest rates. “Strong jobs report, low inflation, and other countries around the world doing anything possible to take advantage of the United States, knowing that our Federal Reserve doesn’t have a clue!” Trump tweeted late Friday night. “They raised rates too soon, too often, & tightened, while others did just the opposite.” “As well as we are doing from the day after the great Election, when the Market shot right up, it...

Just over a year ago, French President Emmanuel Macron came to the United States to import two different species to Washington. One was a French oak tree and the other was a crackdown on free speech. Ironically, soon after the tree was planted, officials quickly dug it up to send it to quarantine. However, the more dangerous species was his acorn of speech controls, a proposal that resulted in rapturous applause from our clueless politicians. Ultimately, the tree died and the acorn has not fared much better. While our politicians may applaud Macron like village idiots, most Americans are hardcore...

Texas demographics today are strikingly similar to those of California in 1990, before Democrats began their seven to nothing streak of Golden State victories in presidential races. Like California in 1990, the Texas population currently hovers around 29 million and is changing rapidly in light of heavy immigration from Mexico. The second generation children of Mexican immigrants have played a major role in keeping California out of Republican reach. This same transformation is taking root in Texas. Young Texas voters overwhelmingly turned out for Beto O’Rourke over incumbent Ted Cruz in the Senate race last year. O’Rourke beat Cruz with...

More than 300 scholars have signed onto an open letter urging the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to retract its statement that rejects comparisons between migrant detention facilities and concentration camps. "The Museum’s decision to completely reject drawing any possible analogies to the Holocaust, or to the events leading up to it, is fundamentally ahistorical," the scholars write in a write in a letter letter published in The New York Review of Books. "It has the potential to inflict severe damage on the Museum’s ability to continue its role as a credible, leading global institution dedicated to Holocaust memory, Holocaust education,...

11/21/16 Donald Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon contacted Tulsi Gabbard to arrange Monday’s meeting with the president-elect...Many in the media raised their eyebrows when the news broke that Trump was meeting at Trump Tower Monday morning with Hawaii’s Democratic congresswoman. But for those who know Bannon best, there was no surprise at all. Bannon, who hates the entrenched two-party system, has long admired Gabbard. She’s an Iraq War veteran with an independent streak. Bannon, a navy veteran, was drawn to her when she began publicly excoriating the Obama administration over its plan to defeat ISIS. “He loves Tulsi Gabbard. Loves...

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that she believes women who say they felt uncomfortable after receiving unwanted touching from former Vice President Joe Biden. "I believe them and I respect them being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it," Harris said at a presidential campaign event in Nevada. The California senator added that Biden will need to decide for himself whether to run for president.

A group of California Democrats unveiled legislation Friday to place new requirements on how congressional districts are redrawn a day after the Supreme Court ruled that courts can’t resolve partisan gerrymandering claims. The bill, led by House Rules Committee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) along with Reps. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) and Julia Brownley (D-Calif.), would require that states adopt independent redistricting commissions to draw new district maps after each decennial census.The proposal comes one day after the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision along ideological lines, found that partisan gerrymandering claims are a political issue that courts can’t weigh in on....

President Donald Trump says he does not think it’s appropriate for a co-captain of the U.S. women’s soccer team to protest during the national anthem. ... Trump told The Hill in an interview Monday that he disagrees with her actions, but loves watching women’s soccer and thinks the players are very talented.

House Democratic leaders scrambled Monday night to rally support for their border funding bill amid a liberal outcry over the Trump administration's treatment of migrant children — and questions over whether the Democrats' proposal would do enough to protect them. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other top leaders huddled in Pelosi's Capitol office late into the night with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) and the senior appropriators who have championed the border bill. Lawmakers leaving the meeting said they expected changes to the $4.5 billion package to ensure stricter standards for the facilities...

President Trump on Monday refused to say whether he had confidence in FBI Director Christopher Wray, while acknowledging the two officials have disagreed on some key issues, including whether the president’s campaign was a victim of spying. In an interview, Trump was quizzed on his level of confidence in the FBI boss. “Well, we’ll see how it turns out,” he told The Hill, before discussing Wray’s previous claim that he would not use the word “spying” to describe the bureau's surveillance of figures linked to the Trump campaign in 2016. “I mean, I disagree with him on that and I...

President Trump on Monday said he doesn't believe the federal government will pursue reparations for descendants of slaves, an idea that has gained traction among some Democrats. "I don’t see it happening," Trump said in an exclusive interview with The Hill. The House Judiciary Committee held the first hearing on the issue in a decade earlier this month, and a handful of Democratic presidential candidates seeking to challenge Trump in 2020 have broached the idea. "I think it’s a very unusual thing," Trump said of the possibility of reparations. "You have a lot of — it’s been a very interesting...

Palestinian leadership said Saturday that White House adviser Jared Kushner's proposed economic plan was a non-starter unless it came coupled with a political solution for the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Reuters reported that leaders of both the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the West Bank and Hamas, the Islamist militant party that controls the Gaza strip, dismissed Kushner's proposal for a $50 billion plan that includes a global investment fund meant to improve economic opportunities in the Palestinian territories.

The official who was previously tapped by former President Obama to lead the U.S. response to the Ebola crisis, slammed the White House physician’s recent memo summarizing President Trump’s second physical health exam in office. “No doctor can predict someone’s future health,” Ronald Klain, who also served as chief of staff to former Vice President Joe Biden, said in a tweet on Saturday morning. “This is a disgrace to an office with a great tradition of professionalism. Just another institution turned into a joke by a President determined to make anyone willing to submit an instrument of his lies,” he...

Iran executed an ex-contract employee on charges of spying for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Reuters reported Saturday. Jalal Hajizavar left his post at the aerospace organization of the Iranian defense ministry nine years ago. He was convicted by a military court after an investigation which discovered documents and spying equipment at his home, according to Reuters, which cited an IRIB news agency report. Hajizavar was reportedly executed at the Rajai Shahr prison in Karaj, west of Tehran.

President Trump said Saturday Iran was “very wise” not to shoot down a manned plane when it decided to down an unmanned U.S. surveillance drone. “There was a plane with 38 people yesterday, did you see that? I think that's a big story. They had it in their sights and they didn't shoot it down. I think they were very wise not to do that. And we appreciate that they didn't do that. I think that was a very wise decision,” Trump told reporters Saturday. The Associated Press reported Friday that an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general said a manned U.S....

A slate of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates hammered President Trump Friday for his administration’s efforts to add a citizenship question to the census. Speaking at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Presidential Campaign Forum hosted by Telemundo, the candidates panned the question as an effort to undercount immigrant communities and possibly reduce their resources and representation in Congress. The census will help determine the number of congressional seats and electoral votes each state gets, making it critical to how votes will be counted in the decade after it is taken. The prospect of a citizenship question’s...

An anonymous, but wise, Wyoming rancher recently summarized special counsel Robert Mueller's report in clear middle-America language: "We know that old boy didn't actually steal any horses, but he's obviously guilty of trying to avoid being hanged for it." The House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), wants a hangin' no matter what. We know they're serious because they had former Nixon counselor John Dean testify, which had everyone in America under age 60 searching Google. The parallels to Watergate apparently are uncanny in the minds of some. Next up: Maybe Robert DeNiro, since his resemblance to Bob...

Jimmy Fallon says the wide field of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates offers "a breath of fresh air" for late-night TV hosts looking for new material. I want my show at the end of a long day to be a wind-down,” the host of “The Tonight Show” says in an interview with Variety published Monday. “We talk about everything that’s in the news. Right now, all it is is Trump — that’s just the way it is,” says Fallon in a conversation with Hasan Minhaj, host of Netflix's “Patriot Act.” “Now we’re getting into the [2020 Democratic presidential field] and it’s...

Chasten Buttigieg, husband to South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D), said he's proud of the progress that has been made in the gay rights movement leading to his husband's presidential candidacy, but warned that there is still a long way to go "for equality." "The fight for equality is far from over," Buttigieg said Monday at a Democratic National Convention gala for LGBTQ rights in New York. "I wish I could stand here and tell you that all of the responses to my husband running for president have either been positive or that the criticisms have simply been about...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) in an interview published Monday said the Republican Party is headed for the “waste bin of history.” In an interview with Politico, Newsom compared national Republicans to the GOP in California in the 1990s. California Republicans were once a force, but have seen their power disappear over the last two decades. Washington Republicans will "go the same direction — into the waste bin of history, the way Republicans of the '90s have gone. That’s exactly what will happen to this crop of national Republicans,” Newsom told Politico. Former California Gov. Pete Wilson's (R) push for...