Free Republic

Abusive, monopolistic behavior is never popular: just ask John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, or J.P. Morgan. Nor, for that matter, is it sustainable, no matter how many high powered lobbyists you hire to control the debate in Washington, DC. Sooner or later, monopolists back the wrong horse, and someone comes to power who owes them nothing. Just ask President Theodore Roosevelt, and now President Donald Trump.But where Roosevelt famously wrung the life out of the aforementioned tycoons and their trusts, President Trump faces two very different but no less abusive foes: the Snowflake Barons of the tech sector, and the...

No offense, my Democratic friends, but only in the modern Democratic Party could a Democratic icon such as Andrew Cuomo fearlessly and publicly claim that America "was never that great." Just two decades ago, few Democrats would dare make that statement. Lest you fall for the lie that this was merely a one-off hyperbole, notice the full range of Cuomo's intentional remarks. "We're not going to make America great again," said the New York governor. "It was never that great. We have not reached greatness. We will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged. We will reach greatness when...

In the latest issue of Vanity Fair magazine, perpetually bilious writer James Wolcott has attacked the "myth of Hollywood's conservative blacklist." He finds it highly amusing that anyone would fear damage to their acting career for publicly favoring this president. "Hollywood conservatives still act as if prison searchlights are prowling the studio parking lot," Wolcott wrote. "A bigger bunch of crybabies you've seldom heard in your life." How does one respond? One cannot be gentle here. Is this man a liar or just a fool? Either he is pretending to speak authoritatively, which makes him dishonest, or he truly believes...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Justice Department have continued to insist they did nothing wrong in their Trump-Russia investigation. This week should finally bring an end to that claim, given the clear evidence of malfeasance via the use of Bruce Ohr. Mr. Ohr was until last year associate deputy attorney general. He began feeding information to the FBI from dossier author Christopher Steele in late 2016—after the FBI had terminated Mr. Steele as a confidential informant for violating the bureau’s rules. He also collected dirt from Glenn Simpson, cofounder of Fusion GPS, the opposition-research firm that worked for Hillary...

Thanks to President Trump, Christmas will come twice for Floridians this year— if “Tax Cuts 2.0” can make it through Congress by December.Floridians are already enjoying the benefits of President Trump’s first tax plan enacted at the beginning of this year, but Congressional Republicans are currently drafting new legislation to make those changes to our tax code permanent, along with some additional improvements.Florida is perhaps the number one showcase of how President Trump’s tax plan is benefiting Americans. Dozens of businesses in our state have either increased salaries, raised hourly wages, or awarded employees one-time bonuses of $1,000 or...

In 1972, Pope Paul VI warned that "the smoke of Satan has entered the Church of God." We see that smoke throughout the report from a Pennsylvania grand jury, which alleges that more than 300 priests abused more than 1,000 children in six Pennsylvania dioceses -- including 99 priests from the Diocese of Pittsburgh, which was led for 18 years by Cardinal Donald Wuerl, now archbishop of Washington. How bad was the abuse? The report notes that "during the course of this investigation, the Grand Jury uncovered a ring of predatory priests operating within the [Pittsburgh] Diocese who shared intelligence...

During Wednesday’s edition of The Lead, the panel found itself in a little bit of shock after learning that President Trump had revoked the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan, who has previously called President Trump treasonous in his new capacity as an NBC News analyst. Panelist Symone Sanders agreed that it was done to distract from any number of negative Trump storylines: “I think someone wants to muck up the news cycle.” She then described the revocation of Brennan’s security clearance as “ridiculous” and warned that “we should all be scared about the state of our democracy”...

The New York Times recently hired as a writer and board member Sarah Jeong. The Times knew that in recent years Jeong had posted a series of unapologetically racist anti-white tweets. She had offered wisdom such as #CancelWhitePeople" and expressed hatred for males. Yet when the Times discovered less graphic versions of such tweets from newly hired technology writer Quinn Norton earlier this year, the newspaper immediately fired Norton. The message of disparate treatment was that what bothers the New York Times is not racism per se, but who is the racist and who are her targets. Over at The...

These attacks come from all political levels, all political stripes. Really, it comes from any rank or sector in which a journalist's work shines a bright light on an issue that others would prefer stay in the dark. Always have. Yet we must be careful about drawing lines that pit "us" versus "them." We risk playing into the very narrative that we are "enemies of the people" working together against one political viewpoint. We must seek out a range of viewpoints, aim for constructive conversations and rise above the toxic rhetoric to stay engaged..

In a media circus filled with spectacles, it would undoubtedly be the biggest in modern history.Imagine for a moment that, for one reason or another, impeachment articles are seriously filed against our President. Assume that, unlike the numerous impeachment articles filed against President Bush or President Obama that simply languished in committee purgatory, it actually made it out to the floor of the House for a vote. Perhaps it was because Democrats regained control of Congress and simply couldn’t resist a far-left demanding our President’s removal. Maybe Special Counsel Robert Mueller comes back with investigatory results that recommend it and give...

Officer Daniel Holtzclaw was a 27-year-old hardworking, dedicated police officer. He worked in a high-crime area and he was engaged in proactive policing. This means that Daniel made a lot of stops and arrests. This also means that he made a lot of people angry, annoyed and vengeful. True to form, an angry woman made a complaint against him for stopping her. For those of you unfamiliar with policing and complaints, the two go hand-in-hand. An overwhelming majority of complaints against officers are unfounded, foul crap. About 92% of the complaints against officers are in this category. This angry woman alleged that Daniel...

During the 2016 presidential campaign, a man dressed like a construction worker, carrying a pickax, destroyed Donald Trump's sidewalk star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce promptly replaced it. Just three weeks ago, a different man, presumably with a different pickax, also destroyed Trump's star. Meanwhile, the neighboring West Hollywood City Council (an independent city) passed a unanimous resolution urging the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce (which selects who receives a star) and the City of Los Angeles (where the public sidewalk tourist attraction resides) to remove the star. The resolution read: "Starting with the...

In May of 2016, Navy Seal Charlie Keating was embedded with Kurdish Peshmerga forces in an area of Northern Iraq known as the Nineveh Plain.  Christians, Yazidis, and the Shabak sect of Shia Islam all call the area home, forming a unique cultural mosaic, a centuries-old tapestry of religious diversity. ISIS targeted these communities for genocidal extermination. In a battle to regain control of the ancient Christian village of Teleskof, Charlie and his team were ambushed by ISIS. Charlie fell to a sniper’s bullet.At this point, America has given so much, lost so much in Iraq, it’s hard to understand...

Democrats haven’t been able to lay a glove on Donald Trump, and neither has the media. Oh, they’ve tried – accused him of just about everything under the sun – but none of it has panned out. Proof, as they say, is in the pudding…and there hasn’t been any pudding. President Trump has been blessed by his enemies and their inability to act rational, even for an hour, making anything they falsely accuse him of seem even more crazy. While his enemies have been one of his greatest assets, he’s been one of his own biggest liabilities.I don’t have a...

Will allegations of domestic abuse against DNC vice chairman Keith Ellison hurt the Democratic Party ahead of this fall’s midterm elections? DNC chairman Tom Perez says “no.” With three contributing to the story, (the AP reports) Perez’s assurance yesterday that allegations of domestic abuse against Ellison would not hurt the party ahead of this fall’s midterm elections. “Yet four days after the first public accusation of physical and emotional abuse emerged against Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison,” they add, “other would-be allies across the nation were far less certain.” Warning: Don’t make Ellison mad while we sort this out. [snip]Here’s the...

Full title: Gregg Jarrett: Ex-CIA Director Brennan shouldn't have a security clearance - He's a national security risk.Former CIA Director John Brennan is a serious national security risk, and President Trump was wise and correct to revoke his security clearance Wednesday. Brennan has repeatedly shown he cannot be trusted with classified or top-secret information. He has a history of leaking and exploiting confidential material for partisan reasons. Maybe it keeps him on TV, but it also jeopardizes national security. The primary job of the agency Brennan ran for President Obama is to collect, process, and analyze intelligence information from all...

It’s important to laugh at liberals, which is why liberals want to stamp out laughter. Laughter is subversive. Back when comedy was funny, before it got woke, the left used to use it to undermine traditional culture. Now that they have the wheel of the cultural car, they are afraid that people pointing and giggling at their hypocrisy, venality, and stupidity will make them lose control and crash.Hence, comedy must die.Sadly, it’s the comedians themselves who are carrying the wood to pile up around the stake. Now that liberals are firmly in control of the culture, comedy is no longer...

About a week ago, authorities responded to a report of children living in New Mexico in filthy conditions, starving, and exposed to physical dangers. What authorities found was even more disturbing: an “extremist Muslim” compound where children were being tortured, brainwashed and trained to kill teachers, law enforcement and others with whom the Islamists didn't agree. On Monday, Judge Sarah Backus, an elected Democrat, released the five adult men and women responsible for running this operation, on bail. She explained that although she was concerned by “troubling facts” and that these people were "living in a very unconventional way,” prosecutors did...

In the fight between the bygone bureaucracies of the twentieth century and the booming innovations of the twenty-first, America’s largest city has chosen the rearview mirror.On August 8, 2018, the New York City Council voted to freeze new licenses for Uber and Lyft drivers for one year, the first city in the nation to enact such a cap.  The council also voted to regulate drivers’ pay.  The stated rationale behind the draconian measures is to study how ride-hailing apps affect traffic congestion in the city, as well as ease the financial pressure on the taxicab industry, subways and buses.  After...

People are making this so complicated. A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times editorial board hired a technology writer, Sarah Jeong. When it was revealed that she had tweeted barbs against white people, conservatives formed a Twitter mob to demand her dismissal. While a few on the right said -- or claimed -- that they were offended by the substance of her tweets, the overriding passion derived from an understandable outrage about liberal double standards. The argument took a familiar form: "If a white or conservative person said something like this about any other group, her career would...