Free Republic

California Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer should be applauded for his powerful efforts to support progressive causes and candidates and to strongly resist the egregious wrongs being done by President Trump. However, this week, Steyer went much too far by writing a letter demanding that Democrats running in the 2018 midterm elections make the impeachment of President Trump a central issue in their campaigns. Yes, as Steyer correctly charges, Trump creates a clear and present danger to the core values and institutions of the republic. But no, making impeachment a defining issue in the 2018 campaign is not a smart move...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) celebrated “National Coming Out Day” today by releasing a statement accusing President Donald Trump’s administration of engaging in a "malicious" campaign against LGBTs. “Sadly, we celebrate this day while the Trump Administration engages in a mean-spirited and malicious campaign against LGBT Americans,” Pelosi said in her official “National Coming Out Day” statement. “The White House’s ‘License to Discriminate’ guidelines are the latest assault on the rights of the LGBT community and open the floodgates to cruel, immoral discrimination against vulnerable Americans.” The “License to Discriminate” guidelines Pelosi refers to are presumably the guidelines on...

President Donald Trump laid out his immigration principles for Capitol Hill on Sunday — a list of hardline policies that could seriously complicate the prospects of striking a deal with Democrats over the future of hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants. “The priority for Congress ought to be to save American lives, protect American jobs and improve the well-being of American communities. These reforms accomplish that,” a senior administration official told reporters on Sunday night. “They live up to the president’s campaign commitment to have an immigration system that puts the needs of hardworking Americans first.” The broad parameters...

President Trump’s legislative affairs team met with a small group of House lawmakers at the White House on Thursday morning to discuss the administration’s plan for rebuilding U.S. infrastructure. Two Democrats and three Republicans attended the meeting, including two members who sit on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The panel is expected to be a key player in Trump’s $1 trillion rebuilding proposal, which has yet to be released. The administration is also hosting an infrastructure briefing Thursday evening with state transportation officials, industry groups, union representative and other stakeholders. The event will be lead by Transportation Deputy Secretary Jeffrey...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Reuters) - A two-term Cambridge, Massachusetts, city councilor and founder of an activist group that trains Muslim-Americans to run for office launched a campaign for U.S. Congress on Sunday that could make him the third Muslim in the chamber. Nadeem Mazen, 34, was set to declare his run as a Democrat for a district northwest of Boston, a seat that comes open next year as 71-year-old Representative Niki Tsongas opts not to seek a sixth term in office. The state’s best-known Muslim elected official, Mazen plans to focus his campaign on economic issues. His attempt to jump from...

Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA) on Wednesday harshly criticized Donald Trump, writing a letter to express his “utter disgust” with how the president has handled race relations in the United States. In an acerbic letter to Trump, Richmond—who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC)—slammed the president’s attack on NFL players, his “use of profane, sexually derogatory language in addressing American citizens” and his employment of “racist dog whistles” in everyday speech. “I write today to express my utter disgust with your handling of race relations in America in general and, more specifically, your calculated, divisive response to nationwide demonstrations against police...

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) kneeled on the House floor Monday night to show solidarity with NFL players defying President Trump to protest police brutality. Jackson Lee, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, blasted Trump for attacking NFL players who kneel during the national anthem at games to draw attention to the treatment of African Americans by law enforcement. Then she took a knee herself. "I kneel in honor of them. I kneel in front of the flag and on this floor," Jackson Lee declared. "I kneel in honor of the First Amendment. I kneel because the flag is...

Weiner cannot be incarcerated for long enough to punish him for what he's done. Former Congressman Anthony Weiner (D – HELL), was sentenced to 21 months in prison for sexting an underage teen and asking her to perform sexual acts on Skype and Snapchat. The New York Daily News published a fairly arresting courtroom sketch of his sentencing: While “crying and grabbing tissue after tissue,” Weiner asked for probation for his crimes. From the NYDN: “I victimized a young person who deserved better,” Weiner said in court. “I am not asking that I be trusted … I ask you for...

Sen. Thom Tillis will introduce his “conservative Dream Act” on Monday that would provide a pathway to citizenship for as many as 2.5 million young undocumented immigrants, but one that is long and involves “extreme vetting.” The North Carolina Republican and cosponsor James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, will pitch the plan as “merit-based” relief that must be earned — and, critically, not “amnesty,” according to Republican talking points obtained by McClatchy. But unlike other merit-based immigration proposals that limit new immigrants from entering the country based on their job skills, this proposal would limit who can remain in the country...

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) is calling for President Trump to preemptively strike North Korea. Hunter on Thursday warned that North Korea could have a nuclear missile aimed at naval bases in the U.S., including San Diego. “Why would they not aim here, at Hawaii, Guam, our major naval bases?” Hunter said, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. “The question is, do you wait for one of those? Or two? Do you preemptively strike them? And that’s what the president has to wrestle with. I would preemptively strike them. You could call it declaring war, call it whatever you want.” Hunter...

Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland will be the keynote speaker at an upcoming event organized by a group called Duty to Warn. Duty to Warn has called for President Trump’s removal from office under the 25th Amendment on the grounds that he is not psychologically fit to serve. From the Hill: Raskin is expected to discuss legislation he introduced earlier this year to establish an Oversight Commission on Presidential Capacity that can determine if the president is incapacitated. His bill currently has 31 co-sponsors, all of whom are Democrats. Under the Constitution’s 25th Amendment, the vice president and a majority...

Democratic Rep. John Lewis said Thursday he sometimes feels like “taking a bullwhip” to people in order to make them care about civil rights. “It doesn’t matter whether they’re black, or white, Latino, Asian-American or Native American. When you see something that’s not right, not fair, not just, you have an obligation to do something, to say something. They’re just too darn quiet. I really wanna use some other words sometimes,” Lewis told the audience of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Town Hall on Civil Rights in Washington, D.C. (VIDEO-AT-LINK) “I believe in the philosophy and the discipline of nonviolence,...

Watching this, I keep thinking of that Hillary clip from 2014 that made the rounds a few weeks ago in which she said “Just because your child gets across the border, that doesn’t mean the child gets to stay.” Conservatives pointed to that as proof that even the reigning Democratic nominee opposes a DREAM amnesty, but huffy lefties complained that Clinton was being taken out of context. She was referring to children who had *recently* crossed the border, they said, not to children who were brought here years ago and had built a life in America. Obviously Democrats don’t support...

Three Democratic members of Congress have been arrested on disorderly conduct charges at a protest outside Trump Tower. U.S. Reps. Raul Grijalva, of Arizona; Luis Gutierrez, of Illinois; and Adriano Espaillat, of New York, were among a small group of demonstrators who sat down in the street on New York’s Fifth Avenue on Tuesday and refused to move. The lawmakers were handcuffed and led away. Police say they were issued desk appearance tickets and released. The protesters were demanding that Congress pass legislation protecting thousands of young immigrants from deportation.....

House Speaker Paul Ryan said during a Friday interview Democrats will “have to stomach” the fact that President Donald Trump will advance immigration reform. Ryan spoke with WISN’s Vicki McKenna at length about immigration and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. “They’ll have to stomach the fact that yes, this president will be successful in doing something that hasn’t been done for years, which is advancing some immigration reform, advancing security, advancing enforcement, and advancing a law that fixes the DACA problem so these kids don’t get kicked out,” Ryan said. “That would be a victory for this...

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said Friday that the GOP, Democratic Party and the first lady "can't trust" President Trump, during a month when the president is increasingly crossing party lines to work with Democrats on key legislation. "Democrats can't trust Trump, Republicans can't trust Trump, and Melania can't trust Trump," Waters said in a tweet. (TWEET-AT-LINK) Trump met this week with Democratic congressional leaders Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) for dinner at the White House where they discussed possible protections for participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and border security actions. The president later objected...

The House GOP's staunchest opponent of illegal immigration said President Trump is now at risk of losing his base of supporters after supposedly cutting a deal to legalize more than 800,000 young people who arrived in the United States illegally as children. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said he stands by a Wednesday night tweet that proclaimed Trump's base "is blown up, destroyed, irreparable, and disillusioned beyond repair," after he dined with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. The two Democrats left the White House proclaiming they had reached a deal with Trump on...

President Donald Trump said on Thursday he was close to a deal with Democratic congressional leaders on protections for illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children, a development that alarmed some of his conservative supporters. Trump, who met with the top Democrats in the Senate and House of Representatives, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, at the White House on Wednesday evening, said any final agreement must include significant measures to protect border security. The Republican president added that funding for his planned wall along the U.S.-Mexican border - a centerpiece of his 2016 presidential campaign - would "come...

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said Democrats might be resisting Republican efforts to get information about a dossier on President Donald Trump because they are worried it might contain falsehoods. Democrats have claimed that Gowdy and other Republicans want to help the president by discrediting the dossier, according to Gowdy in an interview with The Daily Caller. "I don't know why anyone — from (California Democratic Rep.) Adam Schiff, to Vanity Fair, to Rachel Maddow — would not be curious whether or not the world's premier law enforcement agency relied upon a dossier in connection with an investigation without vetting it,"...

Leading anti-Trump “resistance” group Refuse Fascism has condemned House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other critics of Antifa, saying they are abetting the “fascism” of the Trump administration. The resistance group issued a statement Saturday declaring its support for Antifa and hammering its critics, even as Pelosi and others on the left attempt to distance themselves from Antifa, the violent far-left movement that federal authorities have said is engaging in domestic terror activity. Refuse Fascism specifically noted Pelosi’s criticisms of Antifa, before attacking all critics of Antifa as siding with “fascism.” The statement was titled “Shameful, Dangerous, Wrong Attacks on...