Free Republic

The Democratic National Committee will choose its next leader on Saturday, and when it does it should choose a leader who will resist the pressure to pursue the wrong white people. Hundreds of articles have been written about the imperative of attracting more support from white working-class voters who supported Barack Obama in 2012 but then bolted to back Donald J. Trump. The far more important — and largely untold — story of the election is that more Obama voters defected to third- and fourth-party candidates than the number who supported Mr. Trump. That is the white flight that should...

MELBOURNE, Fla. — Many of President Trump’s most dedicated supporters — the sort who waited for hours in the Florida sun this weekend for his first post-inauguration campaign rally — say their lives changed on election night. Suddenly they felt like their views were actually respected and in the majority. But less than one month into Trump’s term, many of his supporters say they once again feel under attack — perhaps even more so than before. Those who journeyed to Trump’s Saturday evening event on Florida’s Space Coast said that since the election, they have unfriended some of their liberal...

Democratic lawmakers are openly questioning President Donald Trump’s mental health, and a growing number of them are invoking the 25th Amendment as a springboard to introduce legislation that would allow former presidents and vice presidents to determine if Trump is mentally unfit for office. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), and Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) are among several of these Democrats, according to The Hill. Franken reportedly said “a few” Republican colleagues have expressed concerns to him about Trump’s mental health, and Lieu plans to introduce legislation that would require the presence of a psychiatrist or psychologist in the White House.

Lou Dobbs interviews Representative Chris Collins (R) New York, regarding Obama and Democrats going after Donald Trump.

<p>MADISON -- A new audit shows huge cost overruns at the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, with dozens of projects costing double or triple their original estimates.</p> <p>The Legislative Audit Bureau report finds that estimated costs for 19 major projects completed between 2006 and 2016 were $1.5 billion, double the initial projection. The audit also finds that the estimated costs of 16 ongoing major highway projects have increased by $3.1 billion.</p>

In a move likely to prove even more futile than the repeated GOP Congress' attempts to repeal Obamacare while Obama was president, Senate Democrats have introduced legislation that would negate Trump's executive order to toughen up enforcement against those in the country illegally. The bill's sponsors, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev), Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill) and Sen. Mazie Hironio (Hawaii), characterized the proposed law as a measure "to keep immigrant families intact." Speaking for the trio, Sen. Cortez Masto complained that "the assumption that a deportation program focused on removing those with criminal records is something no one could object...

Washington, DC – Today, Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez (D-IL) issued a statement in response to being excluded from a meeting in the U.S. Capitol with Acting Director Thomas Homan of ICE. Rep. Gutiérrez was asked to leave the meeting by staffers for Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) at the request of Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Speaker Ryan. Several other Members were excluded from the meeting with the ICE official, including Reps. Nanette Barragán (D-CA), Tony Cárdenas (D-CA), Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), Lou Correa (D-CA), Ruben Kihuen (D-NV), Grace Napolitano (D-CA), Norma Torres (D-CA), and Juan Vargas (D-CA). Rep. Gutiérrez was...

In the movie “Thelma and Louise,” a bullied Arkansas housewife and a harried waitress ditch their mundane lives for a road trip in their 1966 Thunderbird convertible. It doesn’t end well. In fact, it doesn’t even start well. Thelma, played by Gina Davis, gets drunk and is sexually assaulted. Louise, played by Susan Sarandon, rescues her. But then the assaulter insults them, so Louise shoots and kills him. Their road trip turns into a getaway. They figure they’ll escape to Mexico, but Louise won’t travel through Texas because she’d once been raped there. They loop north to Arizona by way...

My Democratic Party believes there is man-made climate change. My Democratic Party believes in science. My Democratic Party believes in protecting the environment. On February 17, 2017 two Democratic United States Senators voted for a man who is a climate denier, a science denier and a destroyer of the environment to head The Environmental Protection Agency. For that alone, Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp must be “primaried” in 2018 and we should start finding qualified, principled, Progressive candidates in their states today who can take them on and represent true Democratic values in Congress. I don’t care that West Virginia...

Zac Petkanas thought he was done with politics after the 2016 election. He was ready to move into the private sector -- or maybe chase a dream job in the art world. Then his boss, Hillary Clinton, lost. Within 48 hours -- infuriated by the Cabinet prospects being floated by Donald Trump's transition team, like Wisconsin sheriff David Clarke for homeland security secretary -- Petkanas had decided he couldn't change careers yet. "Tuesday was the election. Wednesday I was sleepless and tired and very sad," he said. "And Thursday I got extremely angry." Petkanas quickly transitioned from Clinton's director of...

The fantasies abound, don’t they? Visions of that day in some not-so-far-off future, where President Donald J. Trump finally pulls some outrageous, undeniably unconstitutional Easy-D, and gets his executive comeuppance. In any number of imaginary, #NotMyPresident fan-fic plotlines, he’ll be charged, tried, and told “You’re fired!” by the required two-thirds majority of the Senate, then deported to Russia, living out his remaining years in a Twitter-less Siberian gulag. (TWEET-AT-LINK) Hey, your Trump impeachment fantasy may be different, of course (and the complicated process of how impeachment actually works can be found in far better detail here) but the outcome is...

The State Department Swamp was partially drained today. Secretary of State Tillerson fired Clinton’s rogue, self-described Shadow Government. trump-welcomes-tillersonMaking good on a Trump campaign promise, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson drained the Clinton swamp snakes, aka Obama administration holdovers. Thus the personnel responsible for the corrupt handling of Clinton’s emails and the Benghazi cover-up have left the building. Lurking in the Shadows In the Clinton State Department, a rogue shadow government existed in secret from the 7th floor. These policy makers publicly boasted about their secretive operations. And you can bet that some of them have been responsible for much...

Who Really Rules The United States? by Tyler Durden Feb 17, 2017 10:30 PM 0 SHARES Submitted by Matthew Continetti via FreeBeacon.com,How bureaucrats are fighting the voters for control of our countryDonald Trump was elected president last November by winning 306 electoral votes. He pledged to "drain the swamp" in Washington, D.C., to overturn the system of politics that had left the nation's capital and major financial and tech centers flourishing but large swaths of the country mired in stagnation and decay. "What truly matters," he said in his Inaugural Address, "is not which party controls our government, but whether...

Following yesterday's "Day Without Immigrants Boycott" in which immigrants all around the country were encourged to skip work/school, shut down their businesses and/or boycott restaurants and retail stores, America's disaffected, millennial youth have decided that they too would like to participate in an anti-Trump protest whereby they could exercise their skills in extreme laziness while also extending their 3-day weekend to 4 days...BONUS! Deemed the "Strike4Democrary", anti-Trump protesters took to the streets all around the country today to demand that Trump "STOP attacking and victimizing women, Muslims, immigrants, racial and ethnic groups, the LGBTQ+ community, working families, journalists, and all...

The Great Wailing by Tyler Durden Feb 17, 2017 9:40 PM 0 SHARES Authored by Bonner & Partners' Bill Bonner, annotated by Acting-Man's Pater Tenebrarum,Regret and Suffering BALTIMORE – Victoribus spolia…So far, the most satisfying thing about the Trump win has been the howls and whines coming from the establishment. Each appointment – some good, some bad from our perspective – has brought forth such heavy lamentations. Oh no! Alaric the Visigoth is here! Hide the women and children! And don’t forget the vestal virgins, if you can find any… You’d think Washington had been invaded by Goths, now raping the vestal virgins...

The chairman of the House Democratic Caucus said Friday that reports that the Trump administration had considered deploying tens of thousands of National Guard troops to apprehend undocumented immigrants were “outrageous” and “very reminiscent of what led up to World War II.” Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) made the statement in an interview for C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” program shortly after the Associated Press broke news of the draft Department of Homeland Security memo. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the memo was “not a White House document” and that “there is no effort at all to round up, to utilize the...

I need to get something off of my chest. I talked to an old friend today. Had not talked to her in years. The subject of the election and politics came up and I informed her that I was an ardent Tea Party supporter. I am a true believer in the Tea Party and its stated mission and endorsement of a smaller less powerful federal government that adheres and limits itself to the powers granted to it by our constitution. Back to the conversation and here is where it got ugly fast. Her response to my admitted preference for the...

Donald J. Trump redrew the electoral map with his rousing economic nationalism and evocation of a lost industrial age. It was a message that drew many union members to his cause. And now it is upending the alliances and tactics of the labor movement itself. In early November, workers at the Momentive chemical plant in upstate New York went on strike to beat back pension and health care concessions. By January, the workers were invoking some of Mr. Trump’s populist campaign themes — but with a twist. They planned to picket outside the Manhattan home of the billionaire Stephen A....

MASON CITY - More than 20 people carrying signs stating "Love Trumps Hate," "Black Lives Matter" and "Where's Canada's Wall?" gathered in Central Park late Friday afternoon. "This is what Democracy looks like!" they chanted. Those who were at the protest against President Donald Trump, organized by the community action group Where Do We Go From Here and the Fourth District Green Party Chapter, also carried signs in support of protecting the environment. One sign stated, "I've Seen Better Cabinets at IKEA." After walking around the sidewalks on the perimeter of the park, protesters lined up along Washington Avenue. Some...

The Second American Civil War is gradually coalescing into an observable phenomenon. The lines are being drawn and people are taking sides in noticeable ways. As it now stands, we have something of a "cold war" going on as it once existed between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Espionage, intelligence breaches, clandestine black bag operations, fifth column saboteurs, and the like. But important questions remain: As the war continues, how will the conflict evolve? Will it escalate? If so, what will be the flashpoint that puts it in full motion? Will it turn into a full-fledged armed conflict? As...