Free Republic

For two years, the GOP had many opportunities to fund Trump’s wall both in part or in whole and it declined on every occasion. On Friday, January 11, a dubious milestone was reached. We are now living through what has become the longest government shutdown in American history. This seemingly intractable stalemate has created the illusion of partisan consensus. Democrats seem united in opposition to President Donald Trump’s demand for a small amount of funding that would be used to construct portions of the president’s long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Republicans, meanwhile, are posturing as though they have always...

Since January 1, neither CNN nor MSNBC has booked a single “Angel Mom” — mothers of children brutally murdered by illegal aliens — as guests on their networks, per an analysis conducted by the Republican National Committee (RNC). The RNC told Breitbart News it has tracked both networks since the beginning of the year as they intensely bash President Donald Trump over the government shutdown that is now the longest ever in the history of the United States. Since the turn of the year to 2019 from 2018, neither network has conducted a single interview with any family members of...

The 48-hour build-up to President Trump’s first Oval Office address to the nation was chock-full of breathless hand-wringing in the media over whether they should air the speech in the first place. “How can we air a speech that will be full of lies and distortions?” they asked each other on endless panel shows. “Maybe we should tape-delay the address so we can contextualize his statements and provide a thorough fact-check,” they insultingly suggested. This is the Trump era. Fact-checking has moved into the mainstream. CNN’s 22-year-old production assistants are now responsible for running lower-third graphics designed to snark the...

(CNN) First things first: The theme song of the week is the theme song to Saved by the Bell composed by Scott Gayle. Poll of the week: A Gallup poll out this week finds that 51% of self-identified Democrats call themselves liberal. This is a record high percentage of Democrats calling themselves liberal since Gallup began tracking this statistic in 1994. What's the point: Potential 2020 Democratic contenders seem to be falling over themselves to be seen as the most progressive. This group includes those who were always very liberal such as Elizabeth Warren and those who were more moderate...

Jill Rorem, like many Americans, had made some special plans for the holidays. The Chicago native, whose legal work often brings her to Washington, D.C., was finally going to get to see the nation's capital with her arts-obsessed kids. "I have very nerdy daughters, and they're super cool. Like, my oldest kid was Andy Warhol for Halloween," Rorem says. So they'd planned a grand tour of the Smithsonian museums, from the National Gallery of Art to the National Portrait Gallery, maybe even the zoo if she could convince her husband. "They would have soaked it up. I always love watching...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has awarded the Trump administration a victory by staying a lower court decision which blocked the administration’s attempts to restrict the military service of transgender people who suffer from a condition known as gender dysphoria. The court found that Trump’s new policy, which was based upon the findings of former Secretary of State Jim Mattis (see below), was in fact a more nuanced version of the original policy and should not have been summarily blocked by District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to...

WASHINGTON — Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., announced Wednesday that she would vote against her own party's rules for the incoming House over restrictions on deficit spending, pushing long-simmering Democratic divisions into public view. **SNIP** "PAYGO isn't only bad economics ... it's also a dark political maneuver designed to hamstring progress on healthcare + other leg.," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Wednesday. "We shouldn't hinder ourselves from the start." She joined Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who came out against the rules package while warning that PAYGO "unilaterally disarms the incoming Democratic majority's ability to govern."

Casting himself as a key opposing figure to President Trump, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo invoked the name of Trump's immigrant grandfather in a Tuesday speech at Ellis Island. "This is the harbor where Fredrick Trump arrived from Germany, and whose grandson would become President of the United States," Cuomo said at his third inaugural address, rattling off a list of dignitaries whose parents and grandparents came through the island, including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Vice President Mike Pence. "This is not a faded memory of yesterday, but rather a shining beacon...

They have already committed a criminal act by staying in the country illegally, yet a number of the illegal aliens attempted to compound their transgressions by buying guns. According to a new report of background checks, the FBI has rejected a record number of illegal immigrants trying to purchase guns this year. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System said that it has turned away 7,836,600 attempted gun purchases from “illegal/unlawful alien” this year. The record covers the 2018 period until November, which means it still did not include data for December. Christmas purchases of guns are always typically high....

There was a time that this was the second busiest shopping day of the year, as everyone went back to the stores to return the gifts that they didn’t like or that didn’t fit. This year, it’s projected to be the eighth busiest shopping day of the year. No, Really, We’re Talking about Literal ‘Fake News’ One more major journalistic scandal before the year closes out: Der Spiegel has announced that it will press charges against a former star reporter accused of systemically faking interviews and articles, in what might be the biggest journalism scandal in Germany since another newsmagazine...

In early November, gale-force winds whipped a brush fire into an inferno that nearly consumed the town of Paradise, California, and killed at least 86 people. By the second morning, I could smell the fire from one foot outside my door in Berkeley, some 130 miles from the flames. Within a week, my eyes and throat stung even when I was indoors. Air quality maps warned that the soot-filled air blanketing the Bay Area had reached “very unhealthy” levels. For days, nearly everyone wore masks as they walked their dogs, rode the train, and carried out errands. Most of those...

Despite the efforts of a miserable American media and liberal establishment to malign her, first lady Melania Trump continues on with work that endears her to the American public. Her agenda as first lady is expansive, focusing on children and the importance of all aspects of their lives, from self-esteem to education to health care. Our nation has a first lady who is smart, beautiful and a person of faith. She is committed to her family and to this nation. Her sense of self-worth is not reliant on whether or not she’s on the cover of Vogue or invited to...

Well, the liberal media is back at it again. What else is new? The Left hates Trump so much that were now re-litigating his bone spur diagnosis, which earned the young Donald Trump a pass from the draft during the Vietnam War. First, who cares? Whatever comes from this story won’t impact his presidency. He’s not going to resign over this, and his supporters surely won’t abandon him either. So, here’s the story, which cannot be verified in any way: the daughters of some podiatrist, who is now dead, say the bone spur diagnosis was a favor to Fred...

A nation devoid of grace immiserates its people. When you think of the sheer vindictiveness of what happened to Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray, it takes your breath away. On the very night of his greatest career triumph, a reporter dug up his old tweets (composed when he was a young teenager), reported on the most offensive insults, and immediately and irrevocably transformed his online legacy. Now he’s not just “Kyler Murray, gifted quarterback and humble Heisman winner,” but also the man who was forced to apologize for his alleged homophobia. And for what purpose? Which cause did the reporter advance?...

“Gun deaths in US reach highest level in nearly 40 years, CDC data reveal,” blared Thursday’s headline on CNN.com. A press release from Everytown for Gun Safety noted that “39,773 people were killed by gun violence in 2017 — approximately 1,100 more than were killed by motor vehicle accidents.” The picture these announcements evoke is of mass shootings and random gun crimes that pose a mortal danger to every American. But that image is not quite accurate. The number of homicides actually declined last year — and is believed to have fallen again this year. Our streets have gotten safer....

Link only.

"... the tin cup is such a low-tech way to beg. There’s a better way. Meet Jovan Hill, digital beggar. Hill is an unemployed Brooklyn man who spends his days asking strangers for donations on social media and is now bathing in other people’s money ...

New York (CNN Business)The Weekly Standard, the magazine that espouses traditional conservatism and which has remained deeply critical of President Donald Trump, will shutter after 23 years, its owner Clarity Media Group announced Friday morning. The magazine will publish its final issue on December 17. * * * Employees were told at an all staff meeting, which CNN obtained an audio recording of, that they would be paid through the end of the year, and that afterward they would receive severance which would range in scale depending on factors like seniority. To receive severance, however, employees would need to sign...

11-Year-Old Bullied Simply Because His Last Name is TrumpIt’s time to take a quiz… Are you ready? Question # 1: Who is the most bashed person in the United States today? Answer # 1: President Trump is the most bashed person in the U.S. today. You guessed correctly! Question # 2: What happens when you happen to have the same last name as the President? Answer # 2: You get bashed! You answered correctly again! Congratulations! With President Trump taking a daily dose of criticism from the media and his supporters dealing with a ton of nonsense from leftists, I...

Donald Trump continues to suffer from upside-down job ratings as his second year as president winds down. In addition, views of the economy remain divided, voters feel the administration’s economic policies have not helped them -- and fewer are optimistic about future economic conditions than two years ago, according to the latest Fox News poll. Forty-five percent of voters think the economy will be in better shape a year from now, down from 56 percent who felt that way in December 2016. Although the question has been asked at irregular intervals on the Fox News poll over the past 20...