Free Republic

Billionaire GOP mega-donor Charles Koch is urging elected Republicans and Democrats to pass amnesty for illegal aliens and increase legal immigration levels, even as 24.5 million Americans remain jobless or underemployed. Koch, in an op-ed with Brian Hooks of Stand Together, writes that Republicans and Democrats should “come together” to give amnesty to the roughly 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living in the United States and increase legal immigration levels beyond the 1.2 million green cards given to foreign nationals annually.

It seems obvious that President Donald Trump is going to need a blockbuster economic revival if he hopes to win reelection in November. Part of the equation to achieve that spring back is to resist trade protectionist temptations. But will he? While everyone likes the sentiment of bringing manufacturing jobs back to America, trade barriers have never been very effective. What has been effective for Trump, as more than 1 million blue-collar jobs have come back to these shores, has been a competitiveness brought on by cutting taxes, slashing regulations and so on. But protectionism against our friendly trading partners...

Senator Thom Tillis and other liberal Republicans are hell-bent on turning our rural communities into pipelines for cartel drug trafficking and criminal aliens. Rather than holding vote after vote on ridding our communities of sanctuary cities and dangerous criminal alien gangs and drug traffickers, liberal Republicans like Thom Tillis are working on, amazingly, more amnesty for illegal aliens. The North Carolina senator evidently doesn’t think that the Tar Heel State is turning blue like Virginia as quickly as he would like. He also believes that now that he lied about being tough on illegal immigration in order get Trump’s endorsement...

A former GOP county chairman and Ohio farmer said Monday he wouldn't vote for President Trump again even if the president walked on water. Chris Gibbs, the former chairman of the Shelby County Republican Party, told CNBC that he feels "dubious" about the Trump administration's announced agricultural buys from China amounting to $40 billion to $50 billion amid the heated trade war between Washington and Beijing that experts say has hit farmers particularly hard. "He could come up with this $50 billion, he could walk across my pond and not get wet, and I'm still not going to vote for...

[...] On Thursday, as Lee attempted to push through his and Sen. Kamala Harris’s (D-CA) S. 386 — legislation that would allow Indian nationals to effectively monopolize the U.S. green card system for at least ten years — Perdue blocked a vote because he is concerned about the impact the plan will have on rural healthcare industries. “I support this bill … we have some language that needs to be clarified,” Perdue said. “And I still have some concerns about the impact this legislation would have on some specific industries in my state and in the country.” Lee said he...

(Video at Source)On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Trish Regan Primetime,” host Trish Regan argued that gun control “could be this president’s Nixon in China moment.” Regan said, “You don’t want people who are mentally ill having guns or access to guns. The funny thing about all this, not that there’s anything funny about it.........Because who would have thought that a conservative, endorsed by the NRA, would actually be out there looking at so many common sense measures and reforms. I’ll tell you, this could be this president’s Nixon in China moment.”

Tariffs are a popular remedy to maintain a favorable balance of trade and create domestic jobs. Some believe tariffs will foster a renaissance of American manufacturing, but let’s consider the facts. America has six million unfilled jobs, with almost every industry desperately trying to hire qualified personnel. Our trade surplus is widening as these trade wars progress, and international relations are very stressed. Free trade allows buyers and sellers to be winners and facilitates comparative advantage and the division of labor. For example, iPhones are designed and engineered in the United States, manufactured in China, and sold worldwide. China assembles...

Sen. Mitt Romney warned Friday that President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs against Mexico were the wrong approach and could harm Americans more than they help curtail illegal immigration. “A tariff targeting Mexico that negatively impacts our own interests will only end in a waiting game of increasingly harmful consequence to the American people,” Romney said.

A surprisingly strong burst of job growth over the past year has led many economists to wonder: Where are all the workers coming from? As recently as last spring, analysts had worried that hiring would slow as the pool of unemployed shrank. Many employers have complained for years that they could no longer find enough people to fill their open jobs. Turns out they were both wrong. The pace of hiring in 2018 was the most robust in three years, and for a surprising reason: Many more people have decided to look for work than experts had expected. The influx...

The George W. Bush Presidential Center is helping to develop a White House immigration policy, as it is urging the government to help CEOs and investors hire an unlimited number of foreigners in place of white-collar and blue-collar Americans. Employers should be allowed to freely hire foreign graduates for middle-class jobs, said the center’s recommendations. “Congress and the Administration should eliminate, or at least increase, the visa cap” for foreign college graduates, says the center’s recommendations on immigration. “Industries like agriculture, construction, landscaping, and hospitality rely on low-skilled foreign workers to fill vacant jobs … A higher cap [on the...

During my time as a Congressman, I was involved in the easing of American sanctions on Cuba. President Bill Clinton signed the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act in October of 2000, marking a major posture shift toward Cuba after nearly sixty years of steady economic sanctions. Cuban-American relations through the twentieth century highlight the fact that the Communist Cuban regime was largely able to persist, despite harsh economic treatment from the United States. Sanctions aren’t always an effective tool to inspire the change we want. Nevertheless, today, American leaders are trying to run the same play against Russia. Vladimir...

America lost more than three-fourths of its textile-mill jobs between 1991 and 2016. “One of my main objectives was to bring those opportunities back,” says Gary Heiman, president and CEO of Cincinnati-based Standard Textile. Mr. Heiman has succeeded, creating around 400 jobs in two Southern towns, but now the Trump tariffs are threatening to drive those jobs back overseas. That’s the opposite of what Mr. Trump claims is happening due to his tariffs. Standard Textile specializes in making sheets, towels and other reusable fabric products for hospitals and hotels. Since 2002 the company has invested some $66 million in American...

<p>That sound you hear is the wall of elected Republican support for Donald Trump beginning to crack.</p> <p>There was Sen. Lindsey Graham warning that firing special counsel Robert Mueller would be “the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency.” There was Sen. Charles Grassley warning that if Attorney General Jeff Sessions were fired there is “no way” that the Judiciary Committee would consider a replacement this year. And there was Sen. Ben Sasse warning Trump that if he were considering a recess appointment to replace Sessions, he should “forget about it.” Added Sasse: “The presidency isn’t a bull, and this country isn’t a china shop.”</p>

Mark Levin's new book, "Rediscovering Americanism," an assault on the media and progressives and a call for Americans to take back their country, debuts today at No. 1 on Amazon. Showing the draw of the New York Times bestselling author and top syndicated radio host, his book is already on the way to becoming another big seller. "My new book covers a lot of territory — philosophy, history, economics, law, culture, etc. And I look deeply into what is meant by Americanism, republicanism, individualism, capitalism. What do we mean by natural law, unalienable rights, liberty, and property rights? From where...

An Iowa information technology staffing company last week posted an ad that essentially told American citizens they need not apply.The ad by American Technology Consulting, posted to the recruiting website ZipRecruiter, sought a java developer to work in San Diego. Initially, it stated “H1B Only,” a reference to the H-1B guest worker visa program for high-skilled workers. The company changed the ad and deleted reference to the H-1B visas, but critics said it likely violates the Civil Right Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of citizenship and national origin.“It’s explicitly against the law,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of...

It was 1967. The local music store had an ink-blue Mosrite Ventures solid body electric guitar, and I wanted it badly. Cost: $500. My family was not poor, but neither could they drop five bills on one of four children. My first guitar was a $29.99 Stella acoustic from Sears. There was only one way to get the guitar of my dreams: a summer job. Complication: I had long hair, and even in the psychedelic sixties, few legitimate employers wanted that at their front counters or even their back rooms. All the head shop jobs were taken. We lived in...

The American middle class is disappearing. We hear it from everybody. Senator Bernie Sanders (D., Vt.) focused throughout his campaign on what he termed the “disappearing middle class” — disappearing, Sanders said, thanks to income inequality. Sanders explained, “If you have seen a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the top one-tenth of 1 percent, you know what, we’ve got to transfer that back if we’re going to have a vibrant middle class.” From the other side, Donald Trump has echoed the same message: “The American worker is being crushed. . . . The great American middle...

in Adam Smith, Balance of Payments, Myths and Fallacies, Trade This post follows closely an earlier post from today. (I likely have used in the past a very similar analogy as the one I use here. Nevertheless, it works and is worth repeating.) Suppose that we take all Americans whose last names start with the letter “N” and do an accurate accounting of this group’s spending and saving during some period (say, 2016). Further suppose that our accounting reveals that these “N” Americans earned, collectively, in 2016 a total of $750 billion, and that of this $750 billion, these “N”...

One insistent question that will shape 2017 is whether we're witnessing the gradual decay of the post-World War II international order, dominated by the economic and military power of the United States. After the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, it became fashionable to talk of the United States as the only true superpower. Pax Americana... ...It wasn't. Obviously, this reassuring vision no longer describes the real world, if it ever did. On all fronts, the actual future confounds the imagined future. Economies around the world have slowed. In virtually every major country — the United States, China, Germany — growth...

...Kudlow is being eyed by the incoming Donald Trump administration as the next Council of Economic Advisers Chairman. Kudlow is not afraid of good ideas, nor does he dismiss good policies solely because they come from the Democratic Party... ...Kudlow understands this well, and will bring this common sense to a CEA that has too often embraced what is senseless. Sadly, it’s not just on the subject of inflation that credentialed economists have lost their way. To see why this is true, ask most any economist what ended the Great Depression. Almost to a man and woman the reply will...