Free Republic

‘Imagine if former President Bush, as Trump’s most recent Republican predecessor, backed a Democrat. Bush’s voice has the singular power to reach moderate Republicans and Republican-leaning independent voters, freeing them to walk away from the Party of Trump.’ That’s Fox News analyst Juan Williams musing in an op-ed for The Hill on Monday about what an endorsement from George W. Bush could mean for Joe Biden’s chances in the 2020 election.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided Supreme Court on Friday rejected an emergency appeal by a California church that challenged state limits on attendance at worship services that have been imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Over the dissent of the four more conservative justices, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court's four liberals in turning away a request from the South Bay United Pentecostal Church in Chula Vista, California, in the San Diego area.

Former President George W. Bush penned an essay Tuesday stressing the importance of unity during the coronavirus pandemic, writing that maintaining a free society is dependent on the “character” of its citizens. “We were not meant to live apart from each other, especially in times of challenge,” the Republican wrote in a piece published in the George W. Bush Institute’s quarterly journal The Catalyst. “Our tools of compassion — a hug, gathering as people of faith or in friendship, caring for our family when they are ill — bring the opposite of the love we intend.

The economics director at President George W. Bush’s advocacy center slammed President Donald Trump’s popular, pro-American immigration policy. The May 1 slam came just before Bush posted a May 2 video urging national unity in the coronavirus crash that has pushed more than 25 million Americans out of jobs. “The most important thing to remember in this is that we don’t want [Trump’s] temporary policy to become permanent immigration policy,” economic director Laura Collins said a video posted on the center’s Twitter account. She continued: We know immigrants are good for the economy. We know they’re good for our culture....

David Ignatius managed to pull off an MSM two-fer this morning: using the coronavirus not only to swipe at President Trump, but going back in history to jab another Republican president, George W. Bush, for his handling of 9/11. [snip] Ignatius then said that President Trump's handling of the coronavirus will be at the center of the 2020 presidential campaign. Ignatius got off this laugh line: "We [in the media] don’t have to litigate it every day. That’s Joe Biden’s job if he is the nominee."Don't worry, Joe: the MSM will be with you every step of the way, making...

President Donald Trump did something difficult and remarkable during the White House press briefing on Sunday: he stood up for the free market in a moment of crisis, when at least half the country is pushing him to abandon it. A reporter asked the president why he was not using the Defense Production Act to nationalize industries to take control of companies and force them to produce needed health care equipment for treating coronavirus patients. Trump’s answer was that the United States does not believe in nationalization, and does not need it, either: Q: Mr. President, when it comes to...

Thanks to Senators Rand Paul (R., Ken.) and Mike Lee (R., Utah), as well as an amen chorus of Trump loyalists in the House, the president seems poised to fulfill one of the fondest dreams of Clinton and Obama Democrats: Government policy that regards international terrorism as a mere crime, a law-enforcement issue to be managed by federal judges rather than a national-security threat from which the officials Americans elect must safeguard our country. I doubt the president realizes these ramifications of declining to reauthorize three PATRIOT Act security measures that are set to expire. Successfully camouflaging themselves as “FISA...

It won't be comfortable in a city that has grown used to substituting talking points and campaign ads for governance, but the nature of the coronavirus crisis demands answers, and here's why. Washington, D.C. — Washington’s politicians are frightened for the economy and for their health, but in all this fear and the rush to flee the city there might be room for a political bargain — the kind of bipartisan bargain the working class and small and mid-sized business owners need to get through what’s coming.Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin are...

Bill's 45-year marriage to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton survived the scandal, and the couple were last pictured visiting their daughter Chelsea's Manhattan home on February 27 to celebrate her 40th birthday. 'I remember the day you were born like it was yesterday,' the Clinton Global Initiative founder gushed via Twitter. 'Being your dad is the best thing that's ever happened to me. Happy birthday, @ChelseaClinton.' . . . Eyebrows have also raised over Clinton's association with pedophile and sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, who's said to have died August 29 in his Metropolitan Correctional Center cell.

Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, tore into Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell over his plans for the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump. "The oath of loyalty is to the United States of America, not to Donald Trump. These senators, Democrats and Republicans, have an obligation to hear the facts, to hear witnesses, and make a decision," Painter said Thursday on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360. "And for Mitch McConnell to say he’s working with the White House, coordinating with the defendant in this trial before the trial has even begun, is atrocious....

The Swiss firm Allseas has suspended its pipeline laying operations for the Nord Stream 2 project that would export Russian natural gas under the Baltic Sea directly to Germany. Allseas studying the ramificiations of the sanctions signed into law Friday night by President Trump..... The top Russian general in Syria says some 200 members of the jihadist opposition forces were killed or wounded..... On Friday evening the British government announced approval of the takeover of defense and aerospace firm Cobham by the US private equity firm Advent International..... Hating Russia Is Good For American Business Well here we are the...

Former first lady Michelle Obama defended her friendship with former President George W. Bush in a new interview with Bush's daughter, Jenna Bush Hager. Speaking on the Today show on Tuesday, the former first lady, 55, said that while she and Bush, 73, may disagree on matters of politics, they actually have plenty in common — something that's true of most people, she believes. 'Our values are the same. We disagree on policy, but we don't disagree on humanity. We don't disagree about love and compassion,' she said. 'I think that's true for all of us. It's just that we...

A federal court in Tallahassee struck down a Florida law that listed the governor’s party first on all ballots, which Democrats argued gave Republicans a significant advantage in a state where the two biggest races in 2018 were both within 0.4 percentage points. In his ruling, District Court Judge Mark Walker issued a permanent injunction against the law, stating it violates both the First and 14th amendments of the Constitution. “Florida’s ballot order statute is not neutral; instead, it affects Plaintiffs’ rights in a politically discriminatory way,” Walker wrote. “… It is difficult to imagine what other purpose it could...

It was an image that instantly went viral on Sunday: Comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and her wife were spotted at the Dallas Cowboys game against the Green Bay Packers, seated next to George W. and Laura Bush.  As is inevitable in our outrage-fueled cancel culture, some malcontents, mainly on the Left, were irate that a popular and mainstream figure like Ellen would allow herself to be seen having a nice time with a Republican.  For just a moment, Trump derangement was supplanted by its predecessor condition on Twitter, as encapsulated by this rant from a professional angry...

Ellen DeGeneres addressed the backlash she received over the weekend after she was spotted laughing with former President George W. Bush at a Dallas Cowboys football game against the Green Bay Packers in Dallas, Texas. Photos circulated of the pair sitting together in the owner’s suite, which prompted some on social media to question why she would be hanging out with the former president, whose politics run counter to hers. “They thought, ‘Why is a gay Hollywood liberal sitting next to a conservative Republican president?,” DeGeneres said in a clip from the Ellen DeGeneres Show. “A lot of people were...

Differences over President Trump reverberated during a weekend reunion bash for White House alumni of George W. Bush, exposing rifts in the network of Republican operatives and officials. Matt Schlapp, a lobbyist and enthusiastic Trump supporter who served as political director in the Bush White House, had to be convinced to attend the reunion by a fellow "Bushie," often a term of scorn in the Trump White House, after he expressed fears of being confronted. Another Bush administration veteran, sometimes critical of Trump and sometimes not, was accosted at the gathering by a former colleague and accused of being too...

Eighteen years after the September 11 jihad attacks that murdered nearly three thousand people, this is where we are: the Bloomfield Hills Baptist Church in Michigan has canceled an event called “9/11 forgotten? Is Michigan surrendering to Islam” under pressure from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. And so the answers are clear: yes, 9/11 has been forgotten, and Michigan is indeed surrendering to Islam. The event was to feature an ex-Muslim, Shahram Hadian, speaking on “How the Interfaith Movement is Sabotaging America and the Church” and economist and investigative...

Robert Mueller was "the master when it came to covering up" 9/11 ... systemic efforts by the Saudi government to assist .. the 9/11 attacks .. Mueller .. covered up evidence pointing back to the Saudi Embassy and Riyadh — and may have even misled Congress about what he knew. ... In October of 2001, Mueller shut down the government’s investigation after only three weeks, and then took part in the Bush [administration’s] campaign to block, obfuscate and generally stop anything about Saudi Arabia from being released.. ... FBI Agent Stephen Moore headed a 9/11 task force .. concluded that...

Former President George W. Bush’s administration sold the 2002 plea deal with John Walker Lindh, an American who joined the Taliban, as a victory in the war on terror that would make the American people safer. But 17 years later, Lindh is out of prison, and his praise for terrorists while in prison has experts concerned he might still pose a threat. .... McNulty said the government was “quite confident that if we had gone to trial, we would have prevailed on all counts,” transcripts show. McNulty was specifically asked if the government could have proven that Lindh conspired to...

Another Republican has hopped on the impeachment train. After the Mueller report detailed President Trump's failure to take what Michael Gerson calls "a criminal plot by a hostile foreign government" to the FBI, the chief speechwriter for former President George W. Bush writes that "House leaders should lay the groundwork for impeachment." This move strays from politics' usual goals of "partisanship" and "endless fundraising," Gerson continues in his Monday op-ed for The Washington Post, but adds that this choice will "echo across the decades."