Free Republic

The Dems will not allow any semblance of normalcy to return until Trump and recalcitrant Republicans in the Senate agree to bail out Democrat-run states facing fiscal insolvency. Democrat socialist policies have left states like California and Illinois with unsustainable pension obligations and exponentially growing deficits too dear for a shrinking tax base to sustain. Buying votes ain't cheap. Yet why would citizens, prudently residing in red states, acquiesce to paying for votes Democrats have bought in the past and wish to purchase in the future? They would not unless forced to. Democrat governors, in particular Newsom (Calif.), Pritzker (Ill.),...

Think about an election where a ballot is sent to a person regardless of eligibility or to an address that person may not live at anymore; signed by someone else; picked up and delivered by a Democratic campaign operative; and still counted. If Democrats were to get their way, that is what would happen in my home state of Nevada this June, and nationwide in the November presidential election. This is clearly a trial run by Democrats to see if they can get away with The Scam of the Century with which they have one goal in mind: to steal...

As a nation and a society, we found ourselves not fully prepared for the sudden global pandemic of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. One of many ways that our society is struggling to keep up is for the public to understand basic concepts about medication and how to battle this new virus. We heard about the couple in Arizona who drank a fish tank cleaner designed to kill parasites in fish aquariums. This was somehow blamed on President Donald Trump — even though the wife is alleged to be a Democrat donor, not a Trump fan. There are some...

As soon as the Bolsheviks took over Russia in October 1917, Vladimir Lenin began churning out rubles. In fact, he spent half the state's revenue on just the printing of new currency. Within a year, the ruble was worth 100,000,000 times less than it had been before the communists took over. Existing rubles, and any investment denominated in rubles, were worthless. Lenin's inflationary program was not a response to the need for an increased money supply. It was a deliberate strategy designed to eliminate money as a means of transactions and, with it, to crush capitalism. From that point on,...

The 1800-page HEROES Act was passed along party lines on Friday in the House of Representatives, without hearings, without input from any Republicans and likely without meaningful input from most Democrats. How striking is it that the HEROES Act includes the grand sum of $1,200 in aid for individuals who desperately need the funds because they lost their jobs due to the pandemic and simultaneously, with zero transparency, includes a reduction in federal income taxes over the next two years for the Speaker of the House of Representatives of an estimated $50,000? It is instructive to read the two-page summary...

By their own standards, the House Democrats’ Round 4 “rescue package” is a flop. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi set herself up to fail by instructing her caucus and surrogates to insist that Congress prioritize testing, testing, and more testing in future rounds of coronavirus response funding. At the end of the day, Democrats scrounged up a budget for those tests amounting to less than 1 percent of the $3 trillion package Pelosi introduced this week. Instead of putting their money where their mouth is, they slapped together a leftist wish list dedicated to causes unrelated to the pandemic. It is...

An MSNBC article about the White House's early response to coronavirus ignores all of the White House's early response.In a blistering attack on President Donald Trump, MSNBCÂ’s Steve Benen accused the White House of ignoring the threat of coronavirus throughout January even though intelligence officials were warning about it. ThereÂ’s just one problem; it is an absolute lie. Well, thereÂ’s another problem actually, itÂ’s a lie that progressive propagandists have convinced millions of Americans is true. One tell that gives away the false nature of the story is how little of it is actually about the coronavirus response. In fact,...

Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Loyd Pettegrew.Free market economist Frederick Hayek held forth that socialistic economic planning, regulation, and intervention pave the way to totalitarianism by building a power structure that will inevitably be seized by the most power-hungry and unscrupulous. Hayek is quick to point out that emergencies have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberties have been taken away. It is a very short and slippery slope to an authoritarian dictatorship. The USSR, and Nazi Germany labeled themselves as socialist governments. Venezuela has been transformed from a democracy to a socialist dictatorship...

The world has not seen this dangerous of a virus since the Spanish flu of 1917. But in today's world, the press and the Democrats use it as a political football. They blame President Trump instead of the ones who are really culpable: the Chinese Communist government. American Thinker interviewed experts on China to get their opinions on who is really to blame. In looking at the Chinese government over the years, should Americans think of them as friendly, adversaries, enemies, or "frenemies"? Gordan Chang (@GordonGChang), an expert on Chinese affairs, is also a columnist, lawyer, and author of The...

These are incredibly stupid times. That should be the whole column right there, leaving it up to you to apply that unquestionably true statement to whatever it is you’d apply it to. But it doesn’t apply to one or two things or people, it applies to everything and everyone. You’re going to find something you agree with and to hate in this column, and that’s fine. Actually, it’s good. If you can’t get pissed off at someone you largely agree with every once in a while, well, you might as well be a Democrat. But these things need to be...

Why have the Democrats in Congress decided to punish small businesses? Make no mistake, that is exactly what Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the congressional Democrats are doing in their latest politically tone-deaf move by denying funding for the small business loan program. As of last week, the program officially ran out of money, leaving millions of small business owners and their employees wondering how they’ll survive the government-mandated lockdowns. It makes you wonder why Speaker Pelosi and her colleagues would possibly risk being so out of touch with the needs of our country’s small businesses—despite small businesses being the driver...

Our best chance at saving America is to open America. Now. Certainly, states like New York and New Jersey, must open at a slower pace than Minnesota and Iowa. But we must ground all decisions in reason and science—or politicians inebriated by power will gain more dominance by peddling fear. “Safer at home!” is chanted on social media by the Communist Party of China’s co-conspirator—the World Health Organization (WHO)—and many Americans are buying the lie—hook, line and sinker. Fear (the most irrational motivator) is causing Americans to relinquish the ability to think for themselves, or to face the genuine virus...

Why are some leaders so reluctant to admit that in the early days of the coronavirus crisis, they were slow to realize the seriousness of the threat? That's the charge leveled against President Trump daily. Just look at the number of times various critics have said he has "blood on his hands." Trump has denied responsibility, and has argued that rather than being slow off the mark, he was actually quick to respond. There is much angry debate on that point. What is clear now is that more than a few officials around the country were slow to act. And...

Yes, that title is a Democratic Party mantra, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t useful lessons in it for everyone. For the American people, it’s an important reminder that Democrats will seek to exploit something as horrible as the coronavirus pandemic to advance huge portions of their big-government agenda. For conservatives, it may be the best opportunity to roll back the size of government we’ve ever had because it’s been the best real-life example of the failures of massive concentrated power in history. Anyone paying attention has noticed how Democrats across the country are using this emergency to expand their...

The details are out of Treasury now, and it looks like it isn't going to work for a large number of small business owners after all. Remember the deal the president signed to save America’s small businesses from ruin during the government’s coronavirus shutdown? The one hammered out by the Senate and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin over weeks of tense negotiation while Americans worriedly watched, hoping good news might come before a depression does? The details are out of Treasury now, and it looks like it isn’t going to work for a large number of small business owners...

The coronavirus pandemic is bringing out the best in people – and the bad and the ugly. The best is coming from front line responders, medical personnel, and many others who put themselves at risk to save lives. Then there are President Trump, Vice President Pence, and the tireless officials and experts working around the clock to blunt the impact of the virus. Also, the many corporations pitching in to find a vaccine, manufacture safety equipment and help stricken communities in a myriad of ways. A welcome development is the Some Good News (SGN) Network on YouTube, anchored by actor...

I’m trying to restrain my anger and speak measuredly, but it’s damn hard to do so. (Nancy Pelosi’s latest trial balloon -- an investigation into the President’s handling of the Wuhan virus, was so preposterous it drove me into something I never do -- binge watching old TV serials, in this case “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”) The Wuhan virus spread throughout the world due to the Chinese government’s lies, and the acts of the head of the WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysesus who came to that position from the violent Ethiopian Communist party and covered up for China...

Amid the confusion, fear, and uncertainty surrounding the outbreak of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic in the United States, one thing is obvious: this country is astonishingly fortunate to have Donald Trump as our president. In predictably trite, small-minded fashion, the liberal media and clueless Democratic politicians have treated the pandemic as nothing more than an opportunity to score shallow political points against President Trump. All manner of "Trump has blood on his hands" and "His Pollyanna-ish downplaying of the scope of the crisis at the beginning cost us valuable time" comments and criticism have been forthcoming on an almost daily...

Since the Minutemen of Lexington and Concord rallied to the cause of liberty in 1775, the American military has held a unique place of respect and affection in our national ethos. Yet in the Coronavirus relief package recently passed by Congress, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats tried to include language making it easier to commit voter fraud with the ballots of our military stationed overseas. House Democrat’s proposed additions to the Families First Coronavirus Response Act included changes to election law that would provide cover for individuals and activists yearning for federal protection for voting fraud schemes that...

Last week The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, whose patrons tend to be very wealthy, received a whopping $25 million American taxpayer dollars. The funding was part of Washington's $2 trillion Wuhan coronavirus rescue package.  Politicians like Speaker Nancy Pelosi and lobbyists backing the center argued musicians, who are no longer working, needed financial stability like workers in other parts of the country. But despite the pleading and justification for the emergency funding, musicians and other workers are being fired anyway.  NEW: According to internal discussions and documents obtained by RCP, the Kennedy Center intends to furlough 60%...