Free Republic

Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon blasted the “geniuses” in former President George W. Bush’s administration for selling out American workers and getting the country stuck in the Middle East in a 60 Minutes interview with CBS anchor Charlie Rose. Bannon took offense at establishment Republicans associated with the Bush administration who went out of their way to question President Donald Trump’s competence during the 2016 campaign even though nearly all of their “genius” ideas—like Paul Wolfowitz’s brand of nation-building and neoconservatism—turned out to be disastrous. “I hold these people in contempt, total and complete contempt,” Bannon told Rose,...

<p>For those Christians who never tire of insightful lectures from the legions of Christians-haters who know what “true Christianity” is all about, I give you Danny Zuker, producer of the sitcom Modern Family, who seems pretty secure in the knowledge that Christianity means no borders, no rule of law, and government via emotional blackmail.</p>

President Trump called on Congress to “legalize” DACA late Tuesday, just hours after his administration announced the repeal of the amnesty for children brought to the country illegally — promising that he will “revisit this issue” if Congress does not turn DACA into legislation. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the repeal of the Obama era executive order — known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — both on constitutional grounds and also on principle. “The effect of this unilateral executive amnesty, among other things, contributed to a surge of unaccompanied minors on the southern border that yielded terrible...

Steely Dan co-founder Walter Becker has died at home aged 67, according to the legendary bands official website. Becker along with fellow bandmate Donald Fagen wrote some of the 1970s biggest hits, including 'Rikki Don't Lose that Number', 'Do It Again' and 'Reelin' in the Years'. No cause of death has been announced, but Becker underwent surgery last month and missed Steely Dan's Classic East and West concerts in July as he recovered from the unspecified ailment. Fagan had told Billboard, 'Walter's recovering from a procedure and hopefully he'll be fine very soon.' According to Rolling Stone, Becker's doctor had...

The thing to understand, what has always been the most important thing to understand, is that Jim Comey was out in front, but he was not calling the shots. On the right, the commentariat is in full-throttle outrage over the revelation that former FBI Director Comey began drafting his statement exonerating Hillary Clinton in April 2016 – more than two months before he delivered the statement at his now famous July 5 press conference. The news appears in a letter written to new FBI Director Christopher Wray by two senior Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans, Chairman Chuck Grassley and Senator Lindsey...

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has said there are at least 380,000 people that are seeking refuge in Europe every year, and the European Union should work to take in more migrants. Currently, the EU is increasing the number of asylum seekers it takes in through legal channels at a rate of 20,000 per year, but the UNHCR said the increase is not enough. The group has called for a double-digit increase in numbers and said the new proposal to accept migrants in Africa could facilitate a growth in numbers, Austrian newspaper Kurier reports. Ruth Schöffl, a spokesman for...

Two explosions have occurred at a chemical plant outside of Houston, hours after a spokesman warned a gas explosion was imminent. The explosions came after The Arkema Inc plant in Crosby, Texas, lost power and its backup generators amid Harvey's days-long deluge, leaving it without refrigeration for chemicals that become volatile as the temperature rises. Just after 2am local time, the Harris County Emergency Operations Center reported explosions at the plant and black smoke rising from the facility. The Harrison County Sheriff's Office said that at least one officer had been taken to the hospital after inhaling fumes following the...

Industrial chemical manufacturer Arkema said Wednesday it has “no way to prevent” a potentially large explosion and fire at its facility near Houston, after flooding due to Tropical Storm Harvey. The Arkema plant in Crosby, Texas, some 25 miles northeast of Houston, was evacuated late Tuesday. Working with authorities, the company also urged everyone within a mile and a half of the plant to evacuate, and shut down a stretch of Highway 90 that runs alongside the plant, which produces organic peroxides for things like acrylic-based paint. “We have an unprecedented 6 feet of water throughout the plant,” Arkema’s North...

The government of Egypt indicated that it was caught off-guard by the U.S. decision to delay $195 million in military aid and completely cut $95.7 million in additional assistance, saying it was only given “a few hours” before the Trump administration made the move public, contradicting claims by the State Department. The Egyptian newspaper al Ahram reports, “The Egyptian foreign ministry statement on Sunday denied reports that Egypt had sufficient prior notice of the planned reduction in aid, insisting that it was informed just hours before the US State Department went public.” Egypt’s foreign ministry expressed “regret” last week when...

The controversy-ridden Council on American-Islamic Relations has welcomed the resignation of Dr. Sebastian Gorka from the White House. The group — which has campaigned for the dismissal of Dr. Gorka from the beginning of the Trump administration — stated: “We welcome the resignation of Sebastian Gorka as a presidential adviser… His extremist and Islamophobic views, and his reported past and current associations with racist and anti-Semitic groups, should have disqualified him from any government position.” The “anti-Semitic” talking point has been widely circulated since Dr. Gorka first took the job as Deputy Assistant to the President in January, but has...

Steve Bannon, the figure most frequently touted as the Machiavellian mastermind behind President Donald Trump’s connection with his populist base, left the White House late last week. But his absence has shown no signs of hampering the support Trump enjoys among those core supporters. All indication in the past five days has been that those voters like Trump for Trump and it makes little to no difference who stands beside him inside the White House. Rhetorically speaking, the president’s marathon address in Phoenix yesterday—in which he bashed the media, coyly suggested he’d pardon Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and threatened...

The United Nations Human Rights Council is now demanding President Trump enact a full open borders policy that would release more than 350,000 illegal aliens and foreign refugees into the public. In a 23-page report by the U.N. Human Rights Council, Trump is requested to set free all foreign nationals who are currently awaiting immigration hearings in the United States, Reuters reported. “The Working Group is of the view that all administrative detention, in particular of immigrants in an irregular situation, should be in accordance with international human rights law; and that such detention is to be a measure of...

WASHINGTON — Rupert Murdoch has repeatedly urged President Trump to fire him. Anthony Scaramucci, the president’s former communications director, thrashed him on television as a white nationalist. Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, the national security adviser, refused to even say he could work with him. For months, Mr. Trump has considered ousting Stephen K. Bannon, the White House chief strategist and relentless nationalist who ran the Breitbart website and called it a “platform for the alt-right.” Mr. Trump has sent Mr. Bannon to a kind of internal exile, and has not met face-to-face for more than a week with a...

Attorney General Jeff Sessions defied the establishment media’s attempt to smear President Donald Trump using an article on the Daily Stormer neo-Nazi website. During an interview with Sessions, Craig Melvin, host of NBC’s Today, read verbatim from a Daily Stormer article praising Trump for not condemning them by name during his statement on Saturday about the violent events in Charlottesville, Virginia. “Isn’t that proof that the president didn’t stand up sufficiently to white supremacy on Saturday?” Melvin asked. “They are simply attempting to legitimate themselves in any way possible,” Sessions replied. “They are about to find out that we’re coming...

The current issue of Newsweek (yes, it's still in business!) has a picture of President Trump sitting in a recliner, with snacks and an iPad in his lap, pointing his TV remote at the viewer, blazoned with the headline, "Lazy Boy." Liberals only wish. Last week, the president joined Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.) to announce legislation that would make seminal changes to our immigration laws for the first time in more than half a century, profoundly affecting the entire country. The media have chosen not to cover the RAISE Act (Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment)....

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster gave an interview to Hugh Hewitt, a conservative member of the establishment, on Saturday morning amid attacks from the president’s conservative base. McMaster was asked about nearly every major national security issue that’s made headlines over the past few weeks, except for his recent firing of three President Trump loyalists from the National Security Council: Ezra Cohen-Watnick, Derek Harvey, and Rich Higgins. Hewitt asked him to talk about his “role in the White House and the White House generally,” but did not ask him about the chorus of voices from the right calling for his...

The Republican majority leader of New York's state Senate has come clean about his struggle with alcohol dependency. Long Island state Senator John J. Flanagan, 56, said in a statement on Sunday that he had completed an alcohol rehab program, drawing a supportive response from colleagues in both parties. 'Alcohol was becoming a crutch to deal with pressure I was under related to my responsibilities as Majority Leader of the New York State Senate,' Flanagan said in the four-paragraph statement in response to inquiries from Newsday. Flanagan said he 'took control of the situation and sought immediate help so I...

President Donald Trump took time out of his busy schedule to greet a wedding party at his New Jersey golf club on the first day of his 17-day vacation. Trump hopped out of his golf cart to say hello and schmooze attendees of a wedding that was hosted at his National Golf Club in Bedminster on Saturday. The president sported his iconic Make America Great Again cap as he ambled over to the group and asked some of the women where the bride was. Trump was seemingly in a good mood on the first day of his 17-day golf vacation,...

Bill Kristol, the Never Trumper and top H.R. McMaster defender and ally who is reportedly working behind the scenes to primary or oust President Donald Trump, wants Never Trumpers to rebrand themselves as “liberals.” Kristol’s “conservatives” are mostly the Never Trumpers on Twitter, the professional “conservative” establishment in Washington, and professional operatives in the establishment political world. They also favor “liberal” immigration laws so legacy media elites and corporatist establishment Republicans will like them. In a Saturday tweet that speaks for itself, Kristol wrote: Conservatives could "rebrand" as liberals. Seriously. We're for liberal democracy, liberal world order, liberal economy, liberal...

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley is structuring a U.N. Security Council resolution toward North Korea by targeting a ban on DPRK exports. This approach is in line with the larger Trump strategy to leverage economic sanctions as pressure on North Korea to stop advancing military expansion and nuclear weapons. However, how President Trump has set Nikki Haley up for success on this resolution is something for the history books to write about: First: A review of the possible enhanced sanctions against N-Korea should be incorporated with the larger issue of policy toward the DPRK’s enabler, China. President Trump, Secretary Mnuchin and...