Free Republic

I was 16 when I saw the news. Matthew Shepard’s murder taught me and many in this country that homophobia kills. Let us honor his life by channeling pain into purpose and striving to build a country where all belong. https://twitter.com/MattShepardFDN/status/1183008667672698881

As poor as CNN’s ratings are in the United States, a rational person would conclude that, at some point, the executives who run the place would figure out what they’re doing wrong and fix it so that they could attract more viewers. But CNN isn’t run by rational people. In fact, we believe everyone who works there is certifiably out of their minds. They’d have to be in order to come up with some of the dumbest, tone-deaf, inappropriate, uninteresting, and pointless BS they put on the air. Like holding a “town hall” meeting with a gay man, hosted by...

Mayor Pete Buttigieg expressed his dissatisfaction with the concept of carrying a gun after serving in Afghanistan. “Over time, I realized having a gun made me feel smaller, not bigger,” he said during a conversation about guns with a BuzzFeed reporter as part of his bus tour in Iowa. The mayor was asked about his feelings on guns as a veteran who served in Afghanistan in the Navy Reserves but apparently did not engage in combat. Earlier in September, Buttigieg criticized men who had their “sense of manhood wrapped up in owning a gun.” “[I]f it gets to where your...

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Friday’s LGBTQ Presidential Forum had the feeling of a home game for Pete Buttigieg, who was introduced as “a member of our community” to a rousing standing ovation. But that enthusiasm for Buttigieg has not guaranteed him a lock on this voting bloc in Iowa. Buttigieg covered topics including learning “the hard way” about “discrimination” when he came out — like the first time he saw his mayoral office’s annual blood drive on his schedule, Buttigieg said, and soon realized, “I can’t be part of it.” Yet some activists in Iowa said that Buttigieg had not...

Mayor Pete Buttigieg criticized some gun owners on Friday, suggesting it was sad that their “sense of manhood” depended on owning a gun. In an interview with TMZ Live on Friday, Buttigieg was asked about the Twitter feud between former Congressman Beto O’Rourke and Texas Republican Representative Briscoe Cain. After O’Rourke told gun owners that “Hell, yes, we’re gonna take your AR-15″ during the Democrat debate on Thursday, Cain dared Beto O’Rourke on Twitter to come and take his AR-15. Buttigieg agreed with O’Rourke that Cain’s comment on Twitter was a “death threat,” and the South Bend mayor admonished Cain...

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg suggested Friday that unborn babies can be aborted up until they draw their first breath, saying parts of the Bible mention “how life begins with breath.” The South Bend, Indiana, mayor spoke with “The Breakfast Club” on Friday morning about his comprehensive Douglass Plan, his thoughts on whether America is ready for a gay president, and whether black voters should vote for him. Buttigieg discussed how the Bible talks about life beginning with breath, and suggested this would be one way to determine when life began in relation to abortion debates. WATCH: **video on link**...

Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, moderates who project themselves as pragmatic collaborators, are taking a no-compromise approach on the overhaul of the nation’s gun laws after the latest mass shooting. Campaigning separately in eastern Iowa on Monday, the former vice president and the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, say the minimum provisions include universal background checks, a ban on military-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition, and red flag laws to allow officials to confiscate firearms from dangerous people. Biden told reporters before a Labor Day picnic in Cedar Rapids that inaction from President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans...

This weekend during an interview KTLA 5’s John Fenoglio, 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful South Bend, IN Mayor Pete Buttigieg said President Donald Trump’s behavior had become “criminal.” When asked about reports that Trump told officials he would pardon them if they broke the law to build the border wall, Buttigieg said, “This is criminal. To encourage someone to commit a crime and say it will be ok because you will pardon them is that really what this has come to? Is that how naked the criminal behavior of this presidency has become?”

PROVINCETOWN, Mass. — Presidential hopeful and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg — who has made history as the first openly gay presidential candidate — hosted a town hall-style meeting and attended a private fundraiser in Provincetown, Mass., known as one of the gayest ZIP codes in America. And the importance of the moment was not lost on the many LGBTQ fans who showed up to give him a hero’s welcome. “In my lifetime — as someone in his 50s who came out at 18 — I never thought I’d see a viable, openly gay presidential candidate,” Jay Coburn, who...

MAD Magazine will cease publication later this year, according to reports. Blogger Jedidiah Leland reportedly discovered the news after a MAD editor confessed to the magazine's doom in a Facebook group, and shortly thereafter, cartoonist Ruben Bolling seemed to confirm the report on Twitter. Of course, Bolling is not a MAD cartoonist (although he did have work published in it in 2005), so he may have been simply responding to the growing volume of responses to the Leland report. The 2017 reorganization and subsequent 2018 reboot both struggled with finding an identity for MAD in an increasingly satire-saturated world. Between...

Mayor Pete Buttigieg doesn’t believe he’ll be the first gay president if elected in 2020. “I would imagine we’ve probably had excellent presidents who were gay — we just didn’t know which ones,” he told “Axios on HBO.” “I mean, statistically, it’s almost certain.” Asked if he possibly knew which commander-in-chief was playing for the other team, the Democratic hopeful said: “My gaydar even doesn’t work that well in the present, let alone retroactively. But one can only assume that’s the case.”

South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg said on Saturday that there were so many Democrats in the race, they “might as well carpool.” Buttigieg was speaking at an education-focused meet-and-greet on the back porch of a home in Des Moines, Iowa, as he and much of the nearly two dozen Democratic presidential candidates swarmed the state, whose caucuses top the 2020 primary calendar. Buttigieg offered a unifying tone at the event, saying he did not view the massive field “as having opponents so much as competitors.” “You would be surprised how often we are in dialogue with each other,” Buttigieg...

Democratic 2020 presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg, in an interview that aired Sunday, said President Trump had slandered American troops by considering pardoning servicemen accused of war crimes -- and said the proposal threatened to undermine the country’s “legal and moral” foundations. “When you serve, you are agreeing to serve the Constitution and uphold the law and, frankly, his idea that being sent to fight makes you automatically into some kind of war criminal is a slander against veterans that could come only from somebody who never served,” the South Bend, Ind., mayor said on ABC News’ “This Week.” Buttigieg, an...

President Trump on Sunday criticized Fox News, accusing the network of "wasting airtime" over its coverage of South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and other Democratic 2020 contenders. "Hard to believe that @FoxNews is wasting airtime on Mayor Pete, as Chris Wallace likes to call him," he wrote, referring to Buttigieg and the Fox News host. Fox News is scheduled to host a town hall with Buttigieg on Sunday night. Trump: "They forgot the people who got them there. Chris Wallace said, 'I actually think, whether you like his opinions or not, that Mayor Pete has a lot of substance...fascinating...

CHICAGO — Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg on Friday accused Vice President Mike Pence of advancing “homophobic policies,” saying that while he doesn’t know whether Pence is truly homophobic, his policies are “hurting other people” just the same. “I don’t know what’s in his heart,” Buttigieg told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in an interview airing Friday. But, he added, “if you’re in public office and you advance homophobic policies, on some level it doesn’t matter whether you do that out of political calculation or whether you do it out of sincere belief.” “The problem is, it’s hurting other people,”...

Mad Magazine is hitting back at Pete Buttigieg after the 2020 Democratic hopeful inadvertently insulted the publication while responding to a diss from President Trump. “Who’s Pete Buttigieg? Must be a generational thing,” the magazine wrote in a tweet, directly referencing the 37-year-old South Bend, Ind. mayor’s comments about them. The humor rag was responding to Buttigieg’s statement that, “I guess it’s just a generational thing. I didn’t get the reference,” when asked about President Trump’s first nickname for the rising Democratic star: Alfred E. Neuman. Alfred E. Neuman has been the gap-toothed, big-eared mascot gracing the magazine’s cover for...

As more Democrats throw their hat into the ring of 2020 hopefuls, President Donald Trump is getting more and more creative with his opponents’ nicknames. However, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg was admittedly scratching his head at his given nickname as he became “Alfred E. Neuman” in a Trump interview with Politico. Alfred E. Neuman is the freckled, red-haired boy mascot of MAD magazine. When asked about the interview, the 37-year-old told reporters that he had to Google the reference. “I guess it’s a generational thing. I didn’t get the reference,” Buttigieg said.

Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner Presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump deliver remarks at the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in New York City.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich has introduced a bill that would require cell phones to warn consumers how much radiation is coming from their phones, saying that until science can disprove a link to cancer, the public should be told more information. His bill, the Cell Phone Right to Know Act, would also demand a study of cell phones and health, looking at a broad array of signals that smart phones now send out, ranging from the phone to bluetooth to WiFi. "Consumers have a right to know the radiation levels of cell phones and whether they are buying the phone with...

I am pleased to announce the formation of Kucinich Action, a new organization dedicated to empowering individuals to engage with the political process. With this new organization, we endeavor to build a powerful grassroots movement to return the power to the people in our political system. Kucinich Action is a natural evolution of what our movement has been doing: standing up, speaking out, acting on our beliefs, and changing the outcome on behalf of the people. We will also empower individuals with the skills to participate and engage in the process of government decision making at all levels. With this...