Free Republic

I take a more benign view than most conservatives of some of the dreadful budget compromises of the recent omnibus, because spending packages are always going to contain a lot of give and take. Better to look at the long game, to judge if any small victories or compromises may make possible better outcomes down the road. Such small details are as unsatisfying as cold peas, and often don't pan out, or get lost in the shuffle. But I think expecting Paul Ryan to turn around Congress in three months was more than a but unrealistic.Much worse in my mind...

It was the Detroit News headline "Trump goes after Ford Motor Co." not how long Hillary went overtime in the restroom that got our attention. Donald Trump made a whistle stop outside Grand Rapids, Michigan to take aim at Ford’s plans to expand production in Mexico. Trump promised if elected he would threaten manufacturers with big tariffs on imports to discourage building manufacturing plants south of the border. Trump to Ford, "If you build that plant in Mexico, I’m going to charge you 35 percent on every car, truck part that you send into our country," he said. "Every single...

Ex-Im Bank board still lacks a quorum to approve multimillion dollar, taxpayer-backed loan guarantees for big business WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) yesterday voted against the $281 billion, five-year highway bill that reauthorizes the Export-Import Bank, a quintessential example of cronyism and corporate welfare. Using various budget gimmicks and one-time revenue raisers, this bill guarantees an even larger shortfall in 2020 when the next highway bill comes up. Sen. Cruz issued the following statement upon the bill’s passage in the Senate:“Last night, sadly, the Washington Cartel reversed one of the few fiscal conservative victories achieved with this...

Britain's Tories fail to reform costly tax credits for the middle class.David Cameron's government last week abandoned its plan to reform Britain's expensive working-family tax credits. U.S. politicians who think this kind of "pro-family" tax policy is a good idea-hello, Marco Rubio might take note. The centerpiece of Mr. Rubio's tax plan is an increase in the child tax credit to $2,500 from $1,000, despite its cost and lack of growth incentive. Such ideas may have a short-term political appeal, but eventually they become entitlements that benefit the left.

Three things about Donald Trump have now become clear to the Republican establishment: 1) He might not implode before people start voting for president next year. 2) He could actually wind up as the Republican nominee for president. -snip- Right to Rise raised more than $103 million in the first six months of this year. It spent - as I mentioned above - $28 million on ads. Let's say the organization has spent another $15 million on fundraising, consulting fees and other miscellaneous costs. And let's assume, just for the sake of this argument, that Right to Rise hasn't raised...

With many analysts predicting that the upcoming United Nations Climate Summit in Paris will fail to produce an ambitious, binding global agreement, President Obama is hoping to come to the rescue. He does not want a repeat of the 2009 UN confab in Copenhagen, where he was roundly dissed by his green supporters for "failing to seal the deal." The president has loads of friends on Wall Street. As the grand sugar daddy handing out corporate welfare, Obama has taken the White House pay-to-play game to new stratospheric levels, as even many of his media allies and erstwhile supporters...

There’s a mysterious car company lurking in the shadows that has its sights set on Tesla. The trouble, however, is determining what it is and whether it’s really a threat. Faraday Future announced on Thursday that it plans to spend $1 billion on a U.S. manufacturing facility to build electric vehicles. Faraday has yet to announce the location of its facility, but the company’s senior vice president, Nick Sampson, said that the effort—if it comes to fruition—is “just phase one,” indicating that more, similarly major investments may be coming.

Photo courtesy AP Images Hillary Clinton has one key part of the electorate already in the tank for her candidacy — millionaires and CEOs. In Congress, Democrats represent the richest and most unequal districts in America. While liberal pundits attack the GOP as the party of the rich, the real plutocrats are on the other side of the aisle.How can this be? The Democrats rail against the abuses of the "one percent" and run on a platform of reducing income inequality, but the rich continue to support them. Liberals attack unregulated markets, call for unrealistic "green energy" proposals, and...

Yesterday, voters in the City of Houston overwhelming rejected Proposition 1, also known as the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO). As conservatives and values minded individuals organized to defeat the measure, liberal groups supporting HERO were bouyed by big business.   Utilizing 2nd Vote's research, The Daily Signal’s Kelsey Harkness identified 7 major coporations supporting the ballot initiative: 1. Apple 2. BASF 3. Dell 4. Dow Co. 5. General Electric 6. Hewlett Packard 7. United Airlines  HERO had been controversial since it was first implemented in 2014 and Houston area pastors leading the effort to recall the measure had their sermons subpoenaed by city attorneys. 2nd Vote stood...

After Paul Ryan helped Mitt Romney lose the 2012 election by doing the impossible -- losing a debate to Joe Biden -- he went on an intimate tour of poverty. It was a journey so personal, Ryan brought reporters, writers and documentary producers with him. So far, he's gotten one book and one documentary out of The Paul Ryan Intimate Poverty Tour and is currently promoting a major poverty-fighting initiative that he brainstormed during private moments of reflection, somehow captured by the press: "The Kemp Forum on Expanding Opportunity." Appropriately for an event named after Ryan's mentor, Jack Kemp, the...

The GOP is often considered the party of business — but it looks like the nation's CEOs may not agree. Hillary Clinton has received more donations from CEOs than any Republican candidate so far this year, according to a Big Crunch analysis of the last complete batch of individual Federal Election Commission records. More than 760 people have given to Clinton's campaign and identified their occupations as "CEO" or a

Gov. Jerry Brown will visit Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles Wednesday to sign legislation mandating that half of the state’s electricity come from renewable sources by 2030. The ambitious mandates of SB 350, championed by Senate President pro tem Kevin de Leon of Los Angeles, were outlined by Brown in his inaugural address in January. But de Leon’s legislation was significantly watered down last month in the state Assembly, which stripped away a requirement that the state slash its gasoline use by 50 percent in the next 15 years. That provision sparked heated debate in Sacramento, thanks to opposition from...

Less than a year after being elected to lead the oldest state agency in Texas, Land Commissioner George P. Bush has dramatically remade the General Land Office by ousting most of its longtime leaders and replacing many with people with ties to his campaign and family. Eleven of the top 18 officials on the agency’s organizational chart a year ago have been fired or forced out or have quit, and more could leave soon in an overhaul that Bush has described as a “reboot.” In their place, Bush, a former Fort Worth resident, has given top jobs to two of...

Every day, Janet Rodriguez sits at her home in West Haven, Conn., and she waits. She waits for a knock at her front door, a knock she fears will bring news that Rodriguez and her family will be forced to leave the home they’ve lived in for nearly a decade. A knock that means the city has exhausted its efforts to negotiate with Rodriguez and her family and is moving to condemn their house to make way for a $200-million high-end mall.Rodriguez, along with her neighbors on First Avenue, is fighting the city of West Haven to keep her home....

Our economy is failing, and politics is in complete gridlock. Democrats can't articulate the difference between Democrats and Socialists. Republicans have no idea how to defend capitalism or even if they should. We have reached what Ayn Rand predicted 50 years ago in "The Obliteration of Capitalism": "It is true we are not a capitalist system any longer: we are a mixed economy, i.e., a mixture of capitalism and statism, of freedom and controls. A mixed economy is a country in the process of disintegration, a civil war of pressure-groups looting and devouring one another." We are reaching the end...

You may not know this, but Brazilian sugar is a threat to U.S. national security. At least, that is the view of Senator Marco Rubio (R., Fla.). Asked this month about his support for sugar subsidies, Rubio said he would eliminate them if “the countries that export sugar into the U.S. get rid of theirs as well, and here’s why: Otherwise, Brazil will wipe out our agriculture and it’s not just sugar.” If we eliminate our sugar subsidies first, Rubio warned, “other countries will capture the market share, our agricultural capacity will be developed into real estate, you know, housing...

General Electric is apparently not going to move to Texas because Congressman Jeb Hensarling doesn’t support the Export-Import Bank. Bloomberg cited the ever nebulous “people familiar with the matter” in their report on Friday. GE told Dallas business leaders in recent days it would look elsewhere for alternatives to its Connecticut home, said the people, who asked not to be identified because details aren’t public. They said GE cited some Texas lawmakers’ opposition to the U.S. Export-Import Bank, an important source of financing for some overseas sales. You can probably include Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn (allegedly), plus Congressmen...

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog, At this point, it almost feels like kicking someone while he’s down. Jeb Bush can’t even stand up to Donald Trump, let alone his own growing series of scandals. In the latest revelation from David Sirota and team at International Business Daily, we learn that: For Florida taxpayers, the move by the administration of then-Gov. Jeb Bush to forge a relationship with Lehman Brothers would ultimately prove disastrous. Transactions in 2005 and 2006 put the Wall Street investment bank in charge of some $250 million worth of pension funds for Florida cops,...

Mayor de Blasio’s patronage mill is churning out junk jobs funded with taxpayer money for longtime pals, campaign grunts and acolytes. In addition to creating a $150,000 post for Stephanie Yazgi — the longtime girlfriend of his top strategist, Emma Wolfe — de Blasio has created positions to amp up his progressive agenda and national profile and spread propaganda touting his “transcendent” accomplishments. The city’s television station — led by de Blasio buddy Janet Choi — devotes much of its taxpayer-funded $5.7 million budget to broadcasting his ribbon-cuttings, announcements and features about his friends, including his wedding singer. His $105,000...

Two days ago, I praised Gov. Scott Walker’s quiet conservatism. Today, I’ll criticize his inconsistency. The Milwaukee Bucks decided they needed a new basketball arena and they told the government to pay for it. If politicos didn’t cough up $250 million, the NBA warned that the Bucks might leave Wisconsin. Nice team you have here, Milwaukee. It’d be a shame if something happened to it… Taxpayers would rightly be furious if a private business demanded they fund a supermarket, an office building, or a strip mall — why on earth should they send their hard-earned money to millionaire athletes and...