Free Republic

Like other remaining Democratic candidates around the country, U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu knows she must increase her support among black and white females to emerge victorious on Dec. 6. That’s why Norma Jane Sabiston, Kristin Palmer, Angele Wilson and others are again reaching out to 5,000 key women supporters statewide to build Mary’s Army, highly committed grassroots warriors who will knock doors and work phones non-stop for the next three weeks. Armed with pink t-shirts and lists of likely voters, these women clearly understand the campaign’s success rests largely on their ability to persuade voters one person at a time....

After the GOP’s 2014 midterm election triumph, Republicans are still celebrating that the good guys (and girls) won and our nation has been saved. Finally, the American people wised up and threw the bums out. Six years after the election of Barack Obama, the midterm tsunami over the bluest of blue states filled Republicans with “hope and change,” mixed with heaps of vindication. And after winning control of Capitol Hill, Republicans hope that bold actions and good governance will follow over the next two years and will motivate a majority of 2016 voters to send a Republican candidate to the...

The party’s economic populism doesn’t reach that far.The Democratic Party styles itself a fighter for the working class. But a substantial part of that class—the white part—wants nothing to do with it. If we count the white working class as whites without college degrees, then congressional Democrats lost them by 30 points in last week’s elections, contributing to losses in states as diverse as Iowa, Maine, Colorado, North Carolina, and Florida. But then none of this is new. Democrats lost working class whites by a similar margin in 2010, with almost identical results: A wipeout of Senate seats, House districts,...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday unveiled data showing that many Americans with health insurance bought under the Affordable Care Act could face substantial price increases next year — in some cases as much as 20 percent — unless they switch plans. The data became available just hours before the health insurance marketplace was to open to buyers seeking insurance for 2015. An analysis of the data by The New York Times suggests that although consumers will often be able to find new health plans with prices comparable to those they now pay, the situation varies greatly from state...

Seven years ago I was talking to a longtime Democratic operative on Capitol Hill about a politician who was in trouble. The pol was likely finished, he said. I was surprised. Can’t he change things and dig himself out? No. “People do what they know how to do.” Politicians don’t have a vast repertoire. When they get in a jam they just do what they’ve always done, even if it’s not working anymore. This came to mind when contemplating President Obama. After a devastating election, he is presenting himself as if he won. The people were not saying no to...

Do you remember the Louisiana Senate runoff election of December 1996? Conservative Woody Jenkins sure does. He was the Republican Senate candidate who got mugged out of a Senate seat by Mary Landrieu. Flashback to 18 years ago — reporting in the December 23, 1996, and February 10, 1997, issues of National Review — Rich Lowry tells the story of how Mary Landrieu won ‘The Big Sleazy’ Senate runoff election of 1996. Now just 2 1/2 weeks away from the the 2014 Louisiana Senate runoff, Lowry’s investigative reports from nearly two decades ago are a sober reminder of what can...

On Friday, an overwhelming majority of House members passed legislation sponsored by Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) which approved construction of the long-delayed Keystone XL Pipeline. By 252 to 161, the House opted to send the measure to the U.S. Senate, where it will face a vote from the upper chamber next week which could, for the first time, force the president to determine whether to approve or veto the oil transit route. 31 Democratic representatives voted with every Republican member of Congress save Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI), who voted present, to approve construction of the pipeline. It is an...

A Republican congressman known as a pit bull in Washington said Thursday that he doesn't support the idea of impeachment proceedings against President Obama because winning that fight would elevate the vice president to the Oval Office. 'Have you met Joe Biden?' South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy asked during a Fox News Channel interview. Impeachment talk has swirled around Washington since the president announced that an executive order overhauling America's immigration system is imminent. But some in the GOP see Biden as Obama's hedge against removal from office, since much of his public exposure has come in conjunction with a...

I suppose part of the not-breaking news here is that Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth (D – Illinois 8th) is pregnant. She is expecting in the near future, and her doctor has advised her not to travel in the final weeks of her pregnancy. Unfortunately, that meant that she would miss some key Democrat caucus votes as they settle on their new leadership for the next term. In order to get around this problem, she asked to be allowed to vote by proxy. As National Journal notes with great umbrage, the answer was no. Rep. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who is expecting...

Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) is crosswise with President Obama over the proper sequence of events regarding amnesty for illegal immigrants. “I have implored the President to forestall taking any executive action to legalize these undocumented residents until after we get Republican cooperation on next year's budget,” Reid said. “My advice has been to get the money first. Then he can do whatever he wants on amnesty. There'd be no way the GOP could stop him.” Reid complained that “all my sensible arguments seem to be falling on deaf ears. The President says he doesn't need Congress to...

Elizabeth Warren - 42% Bernie Sanders - 25% Hillary Clinton - 24% Robert Reich - 3% Joe Biden - 2%

There were 60 Democrats in the Senate on Christmas Eve 2009, when they voted in lockstep to pass the Affordable Care Act. Soon there will be 46 Democrats in the Senate, or perhaps 47, if Sen. Mary Landrieu manages to eke out a win in Louisiana. In plain numbers, the post-Obamacare trajectory has not been good for Senate Democrats. The 46 or 47 Democrats in the next Senate are a bit different from the group that passed Obamacare. Sixteen of them took office after the Affordable Care Act was signed into law. They never had to vote for it and...

Usually presidential campaigns don’t have infighting and meltdowns until at least a few weeks after the campaign officially begins. Hillary Clinton’s throngs of potential consultants and officials couldn’t wait a few weeks to begin jockeying for power in the Great Coronation March (New And Improved Edition). According to ABC News, someone on the inside of a private listserv has leaked e-mails in an attempt to kneecap two other potential campaign leaders: For the past five years, a prominent Democratic operative who is a leading contender to manage a Hillary Clinton presidential campaign has maintained a private email listserv for...

The Democratic dream of “turning Texas blue” dissolved on Nov. 4. The left had elevated Wendy Davis, an obscure state senator, to superstar status after she delivered an emotional 11-hour panegyric to abortion. She was expected to ride her celebrity status and the “war on women” into the executive mansion in Austin. She had only to defeat a Republican white man. It didn’t quite work out that way, drawing just 38.9 percent of the vote. From the top of the ballot on down, the wreckage from the Democratic effort was strewn across the state from Texarkana westward to El Paso....

Prof. Gruber’s admission that passage of Obamacare depended on the “stupidity” of the American public should come as no surprise to anyone; the man should be applauded for his candor. Examining the answers to the following questions would suggest that he was and is absolutely right. It is the dependency on the existence of these people that have kept the Democrat party in power; it is their base, it is to whom they appeal and the rest of us, while living in this country, simply pay the price for their voting habits . So: (1) how did “hope and change”...

If Bernie Sanders has his way, “Democracy Day” will be the crowning holiday of America’s dystopian future. Imagine: Everyone in slab-gray uni-gender tunics and biodegradable Crocs, all lined up in perfect uniformity to cast a legally mandated vote for the single party that remains. Democracy! Pharrell’s “Happy” will play over loudspeakers in the background. On loop. To the country’s credit, a future in which Americans submit en masse to the shame of Crocs is unlikely. But Vermont senator Bernie Sanders is proposing, in the wake of November’s midterm-election turnout numbers, a new federal holiday: Election Day, or, as he would...

Rep. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who is expecting a baby in December, is being denied a request to vote by proxy in the House Democratic Caucus leadership and committee member elections next week—even though her doctor advises she can't travel to Washington in the late stages of her pregnancy. The Iraq War veteran, who lost both legs when her helicopter was shot down in 2004, made the request in a letter to fellow Democrats. Her letter was read during a closed-door Democratic Caucus meeting on Thursday. But objections were raised, and the request was denied, with opponents including Democratic Steering...

Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Clinton? Gradually it is sinking in to Official Washington that the 2014 election could very well do to Democrats what the 1930 election did to Republicans: make them irrelevant for at least a generation. In 1930, the first election after the Stock Market Crash saw Republicans go from a 270-164 majority in the House to a minority, albeit by one seat. In the next three elections, Republicans would continue to lose until there were only 88 Republicans in the House after the 1936 election. The Depression wiped out two-thirds of the House...

I grew up in a Democratic family. I have been a registered Democrat since age 18, a Democratic candidate for statewide office in Colorado and a party precinct captain in that caucus state. I’ve volunteered for numerous Democratic candidates and contributed to party causes and campaigns. The 2014 election results were extremely disappointing for me, but hardly a surprise. I voted for Barack Obama in 2008, then lost my job in the Great Recession. I was lucky; my brother lost his job and his house. I survived on part-time jobs while paying out-of-pocket for my health insurance. I voted for...

WASHINGTON—The Justice Department is scooping up data from thousands of cellphones through fake communications towers deployed on airplanes, a high-tech hunt for criminal suspects that is snagging a large number of innocent Americans, according to people familiar with the operations. The U.S. Marshals Service program, which became fully functional around 2007, operates Cessna aircraft from at least five metropolitan-area airports, with a flying range covering most of the U.S. population, according to people familiar with the program. Planes are equipped with devices—some known as “dirtboxes” to law-enforcement officials because of the initials of the Boeing Co. unit that produces them—which...