Free Republic

President Trump is working around the clock during the government shutdown trying to negotiate with Pelosi and Schumer to secure border wall funding. The Democrats however, are partying at a beach resort in Puerto Rico on day 22 of the government shutdown. The Democrats don’t care about the 800,000 federal workers who are currently not receiving a paycheck. Democrat Senator Bob Menendez was spotted hanging out with a bikini-clad “colleague” on the beach in Puerto Rico three weeks into the shutdown without a care in the world. The Hispanic Caucus of liberal Democrats is holding their retreat at a posh...

Looking at the Washington Post’s August 15 op-ed warning that “the U.S. can’t afford to lose Turkey,” a casual reader might glance at the writer’s bio to find sparkling credentials – a former U.S. diplomat with long years of experience working on Turkish policy at respected think tanks. Yet among the crucial details that writer, former U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan Matthew Bryza, left off the bio was his employment by companies based in Turkey under the influence of the powerful ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). While this does not necessarily amount to a damning conflict of interest, Bryza’s article...

As China’s wealth has grown, so has its sophistication at currying favor in Washington and among the American elite. Both the Chinese government and Chinese companies, often with close state ties, have retained lobbying and public-relations firms in the Beltway, in some cases hiring former U.S. officials as personal lobbyists.

Embattled former Trump White House national security adviser Michael Flynn is joining a new consulting firm, Stonington Global, which offers lobbying, public affairs and investment advisory services. The hire comes as Flynn is looking at potential jail time stemming from the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Last December, the former lieutenant general pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. He is currently cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller. On the same day of the announcement, Flynn faced another sentencing hearing where his lawyers pushed to speed up the process, saying Flynn is “ready to...

In his State of the Union address in January and again in New Hampshire in March, President Trump made a bold promise: “You’ll be seeing drug prices falling very substantially in the not-too-distant future,” he said, “and it’s going to be beautiful.” Not if the pharmaceutical companies can stop it. Big Pharma is pouring money into a lobbying campaign to thwart any serious efforts to rein in prescription drug prices ahead of a presidential speech this month where Mr. Trump plans to lay out his drug pricing proposals. “There is apprehension across the industry,” said Bruce Artim, who retired recently...

A Washington, D.C. lawyer and lobbyist is offering $25,000 to any credible whistleblower willing to come forward with evidence of FBI wrongdoing in investigations related to the 2016 presidential election. Jack Burkman issued a statement Thursday announcing the reward. He has promised to keep the whistleblower’s identity anonymous. “Enough is enough, let’s settle this,” Burkman said in a news release. “America is facing too many issues at home and abroad to be preoccupied with infighting. If an issue exits, it’s critical to our society to fix it immediately.” Questions of political bias have engulfed both the FBI’s probe into Hillary...

The Russian lawyer who penetrated Donald Trump’s inner circle was initially cleared into the United States by the Justice Department under “extraordinary circumstances” before she embarked on a lobbying campaign last year that ensnared the president’s eldest son, members of Congress, journalists and State Department officials, according to court and Justice Department documents and interviews.

The Media – who during the Obama years never encountered any deficit spending they didn’t like - are now suddenly concerned that Trump’s “tax cut for the rich”  is not being offset by spending cuts. I wonder how nouveau riche ex-president Barry feels about the proposed cut. Given that he’s already established his starter speaking fee at $400k a pop, Even as President Obama faced criticism for getting $400,000 for a speech to a Wall Street bank, he pocketed the same amount of money for a second speech, The Post has learned. Obama made another $400,000 on Thursday when he...

Democrat super-lobbyist Tony Podesta was paid $170,000 over a six-month period last year to represent Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, seeking to end one of the Obama administration’s economic sanctions against that country, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group has learned. Podesta, founder and chairman of the Podesta Group, is listed as a key lobbyist on behalf of Sberbank, according to Senate lobbying disclosure forms. His firm received more than $24 million in fees in 2016, much of it coming from foreign governments, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

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There was no press honeymoon for President Trump during his first month in office. A meticulous new study by the Media Research Center finds that 88 percent of the broadcast news coverage of Mr. Trump and his team was “hostile” during the first 30 days of office. The coverage was intense and plentiful. The study, which analyzed both tone and content for evening newscasts on ABC, NBC and CBS, found that the “Big Three” networks produced 16 hours of coverage on the new president and his staff. That is over half — 54 percent — of their total coverage for...

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush will act as a consultant for the lobbying firm Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, the firm announced Monday. The firm, which has offices in Tallahassee, Fort Lauderdale and four other Florida cities as well as in New York, Washington and Philadelphia, lobbies governments on behalf of industries including finance, health care, energy and education - a particular interest of Bush, a longtime vouchers and charter school proponent. Bush will act as a "strategic consultant" to the firm and its clients through his own consulting firm, Jeb Bush & Associates. "This move adds to our firm’s distinguished...

encourage international investment. The Podesta Group is the key firm in question for the purposes of this article. So what is the Podesta Group? From the firm’s website we learn that: The Podesta Group is a top-ranked bipartisan team of tested global advocacy and strategic communications specialists. With that out of the way, who runs the show at the Podesta Group? Well that would be none other than Tony Podesta, the brother of Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Chair, John Podesta. Here’s a description of Tony Podesta from the firm’s site: Many people in Washington can tell you what just happened to...

Iran, the nation that has built a well-deserved reputation as the world’s premier state-sponsor of terrorism has a new lobbyist and he is none other than U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Since the Obama administration inked the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in January, Kerry has been busying himself with ensuring that European banks start doing business with the Iranians. Yes, you read that correctly. Not only has the United States and its European allies agreed to lift sanctions against the Islamic Republic, the administration is now encouraging the private banking sector to do the same. It appears however,...

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He was a lobbyist who represented one client who sought funds from the federal stimulus program and then another, a group backed by the Koch brothers, who opposed it. He was a political operative who once debated a cardboard cutout of the Democratic governor of New Hampshire to protest tax rates. And he was a congressional aide who was arrested after he brought a gun to work, then sued when he did not get it back. Perhaps not surprisingly, the campaign manager for Donald J. Trump’s unorthodox bid for president, Corey Lewandowski, a 40­year­old New Hampshire resident, does not have...

- Every Republican who has won the Iowa caucuses since 1980 has strongly backed ethanol....- Enter Ted Cruz. Insiders agree the Texas senator is the current frontrunner going into the Feb. 1 caucuses. He's been unabashedly critical of federal support for ethanol, including the RFS, which he sees as market-distorting corporate welfare.- Recognizing he poses an existential threat to the special benefits it receives from the government, the corn lobby is going all in to stop Cruz in Iowa.....- But what if they aren't able to stop him?- Here's the bottom line: If Cruz wins Iowa, it could become untenable...

After the media inexplicably dubbed Hillary Rodham Clinton the “winner” of the Benghazi hearings, her apologists dismissed a line of questioning into her unofficial adviser, Sidney Blumenthal. So he was sending her e-mail offering advice on Libya and other matters of state. In the immortal words of Clinton at an earlier Benghazi hearing, “What difference does it make?”

With this announcement representative Paul Ryan is openly announcing his intention to destroy the conservative elements within the republican party. And yet again, its doubtful anyone will try to stop him. The president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Tom Donohue, recently announced his intentions to eliminate opposition to their progressive big government positions and destroy fiscal conservatives (Tea Party). Tom Donohue demands: ♦ approval of the TPP trade deal, ♦ continuation of ObamaCare, ♦ comprehensive immigration reform to include amnesty, and ♦ federal education Common Core education standards. Previously we explained how deep the tentacles of the CoC reach...

If the Bergdahl uproar feels creepily reminiscent of the Benghazi uproar, or the Syrian "red line" uproar, or the choose-your-own- Obama -foreign-adventure uproar, it's because they all have a common denominator. This is what happens when political hacks formally take over foreign policy. It's the "formal" point that bears some meditation. Barack Obama isn't the first president to make foreign-policy decisions on the basis of domestic political calculations. He does, however, win the distinction of being the first president to utterly disregard—to treat with contempt—the institutions and procedures that were designed to help the commander in chief insulate the serious...