Free Republic

WASHINGTON – A storm is gathering. The voices raising alarms about President Donald Trump’s temperament, steadiness and attitude toward the competing power centers of a democracy aren’t new; they date to his days as Candidate Trump. But the new authors of those arguments are making those concerns louder and more credible. The consequences ahead – the speed and direction of the storm – aren’t set, at least not yet. But the stakes are already pretty clear, and they could include Trump’s presidency. Consider just the past week. Last Saturday, two former presidents, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican George W. Bush,...

Former Vice President Joe Biden was caught on camera calling a tracker for America Rising a “real prick” on Monday. In a short video posted to Youtube by America Rising PAC, Biden looks right at the camera and says, “you’re a real prick.” A woman in a white t-shirt near Biden appears to be trying to cover the tracker’s camera with her hand.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was in the hot seat Wednesday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee over his company’s practices on content moderation. Both Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Michael Burgess (R-TX) asked about the excessive amount of time it took the company to take down a tweet threatening Meghan McCain despite many people reporting it.An image of McCain crying by her father’s casket was doctored to show a gun trained at her with the caption: “America, this one’s for you.”Many Twitter users, including Meghan McCain’s husband Ben Domenech, complained as the image was left up for five...

After more than twelve hours of questioning on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Judge Brett Kavanaugh is back in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee today for a second round. Democrats like Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Richard Blumenthal have done their best to attack Kavanaugh's character, with little substance on his record. Republican Ted Cruz, also a legal scholar, says his far-left colleagues have been unsuccessful in their repeated attempts to derail Kavanaugh's nomination."In two days of hearings in the Judiciary Committee the Democrats have not laid a single glove on Brett Kavanaugh. There's been a lot of screaming, a lot of protesting,...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Wednesday that he expects a fight over funding for President Trump's border wall to happen after November's midterm elections. "The nine bills that we're going to put on [Trump's] desk before the end of September, which is the end of the fiscal year, deal with other substance but … also 90 percent of the federal budget will have been approved before the end of the fiscal year," McConnell said during an appearance on Fox News Wednesday evening. He added that Republicans "are in favor of the wall." "We still want to get funding...

The New York Times’ scathing anti-Donald Trump op-ed, which the paper attributed to “a senior official in the Trump administration,” has inspired a parlor game among people trying to figure out the author’s name. Some online commentators are leaning toward Vice President Mike Pence based on just one word in the piece. The unidentified author singles out the late Arizona Sen. John McCain as “a lodestar for restoring honor to public life and our national dialogue.” The word ― which Merriam-Webster defines as either “a star that leads or guides” or a person who “serves as an inspiration, model, or...

Watching Jeff Flake question Kavanaugh. You thought Republicans will only ask friendly questions to Republican nominees? You were wrong. Flake is right now asking a series of questions all of which are designed to attack the President. He's even a bigger Jerk than I thought.

Grant Woods, who is also a former Arizona attorney general, said in an interview that he has spoken to several Democratic senators about the idea, including Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.). Woods supported Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president and said he has been troubled by Trump in recent years. McCain’s death has led him to consider “whether I need to step up at this point in time,” he said.

Kyl is 76. He can quit in January AFTER Ducy is re-elected. Then he appoints someone else and there will be nothing we can do no matter who he appoints. He's taking the easy way out. The only thing he's concerned about is November. Cowardly. In 2022 he can go for McCains seat. If the seat is lost in 2020 it will be his fault. What newcomer wants to run in 2020 only to run again 2 years later? The fix is in.

Conservative economists Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore are predicting a new mass exodus of wealth from New York and California because of the new tax law. But academics who have studied taxes and migration call the forecast "pure nonsense."In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal headlined "So Long, California. Sayonara, New York," Laffer and Moore (who have both advised President Donald Trump) say the new tax bill will cause a net 800,000 people to move out of California and New York over the next three years.The tax changes limit the deduction of state and local taxes to $10,000, so...

Russian and Syrian aircraft attacked opposition targets in northern Syria Tuesday with a ground offensive anticipated in the region in coming days. Behind the Syrian government lines in northern Syria there was an Israeli air attack with Syria saying five missiles were intercepted by air defenses.... The British have just rolled out pictures of two Russians they claim were involved in the nerve agent incident.... Tropical Storm Gordon came ashore on the Gulf Coast last night near the Alabama-Mississippi border with gusty winds and heavy rains..... A big hurricane is building up in the Atlantic Ocean... At least 10 are...

We’ve heard it all before.“Analysis: Trump has 1% chance of nomination” – CNN (7/9/2015)“Why Trump Will Never Make the Ballot” – The Daily Beast (8/20/2015)“Relax, Donald Trump Can’t Win” – The Nation (6/21/2016)“On Nov. 9, let's pretend Donald Trump never happened” – Chicago Tribune (10/24/2016)As the old saying goes – “the more things change, the more they stay the same” – so it seems with the predictions for President Trump’s failure now. “Poll by sinking poll, Trump inches toward impeachment” – The Washington Post (8/31/2018)“Poll finds Trump would lose in 2020 against literally any Democrat” – AOL (3/7/2018)“No, impeachment will...

Illegal immigrants are opting out of government welfare programs out of fear of Trump Administration crackdowns coming done the pike, reported POLITICO on Monday. Due to a proposed Trump Administration rule to deny legal status to illegals on welfare, both legal and illegal immigrants have been inundating health care providers with calls demanding they be dropped from federal assistance programs like WIC. “Agencies in at least 18 states say they’ve seen drops of up to 20 percent in enrollment, and they attribute the change largely to fears about the immigration policy,” says the report.

https://media.townhall.com/townhall/reu/ha/2018/246/6429fcd1-edda-40f4-8b53-695eab79b9cb.jpg> “[John] McCain’s funeral seems to be shaping up as the Washington Establishment’s response to Trump. Wonder if it’ll have a lasting impact.”So wrote Wall Street Journal correspondent David Wessel on Saturday morning, reacting to the fact that the late Senator’s funeral rites seemed to be essentially about “two things” - as political comedian Tim Young put it via Twitter - “Remembering Sen. McCain and hating on Trump.”“From the reporting on it, it seems the latter was sadly more important than anything else,” continued Young. “There has never been quite such a spectacle against a sitting president,” tweeted Financial Times columnist Edward Luce.“Watching the...

PHOENIX, AZ — Gov. Doug Ducey will reportedly announce John McCain's successor at a news conference Tuesday morning. The Arizona Republic reported the conference is scheduled for 10 a.m. PST at the Arizona State Capitol building in Phoenix.

Funeral services are not for the benefit of the defunct, who is beyond our praise or condemnation, but for the living, who know before long that they will follow the honored dead into a cold grave. Senator John McCain’s funeral was the most ostentatious that Washington has accorded except for a president, and much grander than the 2006 funeral of Gerald Ford, for example. The American Establishment took the opportunity to mourn a world that it imagined but never inhabited.

“The number of immigrants added to the labor force every year is of a magnitude not seen in this country for over a century,” one American president wrote back in 2006 – and it wasn’t Donald Trump. The excerpt is from Obama’s 2006 memoir “The Audacity of Hope,” and the full quote has gone viral after commentator Candace Owens posted it to her twitter. The rest of the quote is as follows: Re: Illegal Immigrants “…this huge influx of mostly low-skill workers provides some benefits to the economy as a whole —it also threatens to depress further the wages of...

So now we know what ‘the resistance’ really is. It’s the establishment. It’s the old political order. It’s that late 20th-century political set, those out-of-touch managerial elites, who still cannot believe the electorate rejected them. That is the take-home message of the bizarre political spectacle that was the burial of John McCain, where this neocon in life has been transformed into a resistance leader in death: that while the anti-Trump movement might doll itself up as rebellious, and even borrow its name from those who resisted fascism in Europe in the mid 20th-century, in truth it is primarily about restoring...

The Senate’s final verdict on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh – whose high-stakes, high-wire confirmation hearing begins Tuesday – will hinge on the views of just a handful of lawmakers. As it stands, Republicans hold a razor-thin, 50-49 majority with one vacancy. Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey will soon appoint a successor to the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., but even then the GOP majority can suffer few defections. These are the senators to watch: Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska These senators can be mavericks in their own right. Further, they fret about how health care issues...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday predicted that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh would receive the support of multiple Democrats and be easily confirmed. Graham said on "Fox News Sunday" that he believes at least 55 senators will vote to confirm Kavanaugh if the nominee does well in his confirmation hearings, which begin this week. To receive 55 votes, Kavanaugh would need the support of at least four Democrats. The Republicans currently hold a 50-49 majority in the Senate, which will increase to 51-49 when Gov. Doug Ducey (R) appoints the replacement for the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). "I...