Free Republic

FORT WORTH — Leah Payne headed downtown Monday, hoping to send a message to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. She and about a dozen others gathered outside the hotel where he was scheduled to speak, carrying signs that protested the potential confirmation of Betsy DeVos to lead the Department of Education and noted that “Fort Worth Democratic women won’t back down.” Payne didn’t know if Cruz would see them, but she hoped the protest sent a message to someone. Cruz got the message. And even though he was in a hurry to catch a plane back to Washington, D.C., he walked...

Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison once accused Jewish people of oppressing “minorities all over the world,” Ellison’s former college classmate revealed in an interview. Mother Jones interviewed former classmate Michael Olenick who worked as the opinions editor at the University of Minnesota’s student newspaper, The Minnesota Daily. Olenick said that Ellison, who went by Keith Hakim at the time, argued that “white Jews” were routinely oppressing minority groups. “European white Jews are trying to oppress minorities all over the world,” Olenick remembers Ellison arguing. “Keith would go on all the time about ‘Jewish slave traders,'” according to the Mother Jones...

Ted Cruz on Wednesday called Democrats "the party of the Ku Klux Klan," slamming senators in the minority as "foaming at the mouth" for stalling confirmation of President Donald Trump's Cabinet nominees. The Texas GOP senator sounded off against Democrats after Elizabeth Warren was formally silenced on a party-line vote for reading a 1986 letter by Coretta Scott King that criticized attorney general nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions' civil rights record. The "most racist" southerners "who imposed segregation, who imposed Jim Crow laws, who founded the Klan" were Democrats, Cruz charged in an interview with Fox News. "The Klan was founded...

They hate you. Leftists don’t merely disagree with you. They don’t merely feel you are misguided. They don’t think you are merely wrong. They hate you. They want you enslaved and obedient, if not dead. Once you get that, everything that is happening now will make sense. And you will understand what you need to be ready to do. You are normal, and therefore a heretic. You refuse to bow to their idols, to subscribe to their twisted catechisms, to praise their false gods. This is unforgivable. You must burn. Crazy talk? Just ask them. Go ahead. Go on social...

George Santayana was an immigrant. Born in Spain in 1863, he moved to Boston in 1869 with his mother and siblings. He would eventually attend Harvard College, and then become a professor of philosophy there where he instructed such historic figures as T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost and Gertrude Stein. As a philosopher, Santayana was one among many. But when it comes to his aphorisms, he was unparalleled. His most famous, of course, concerns history: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” He also had this gem: “Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has warned Democrats they need to "take a chill pill" and realize that they are not going to take back national power anytime soon. "It ain't gonna happen in 2018," Emanuel said Monday at Stanford's Graduate School of Business in California. "Take a chill pill, man. You gotta be in this for the long haul." As he did last month at an event in Washington, D.C., the mayor expanded on what he believes is the road map back to power for his party — putting moderate candidates such as veterans, football players, sheriffs and business people up...

The former Presidential candidate used her first public comments since Trump's inauguration to stress women have a vital role in the future of America Hillary Clinton is back - and she has a message for Donald Trump . In her first public comments since the inauguration, former democratic presidential nominee said women have a vital role in the future of America. In a message at the opening of 'The 2017 MAKERS Conference', Clinton said: "Despite all the challenges we face I remain convinced that yes the future is female. "Just look at the amazing energy we saw last month as...

By one measure, Wisconsin was the most important state in the nation in November. According to FiveThirtyEight’s tipping-point calculation, it was the state that put Donald Trump over the top to 270 electoral votes and the White House. (Or at least arguably it did: Pennsylvania has a competing tipping-point claim.1 ) So here’s an interesting question: How many times did Hillary Clinton visit Wisconsin during the general election? The answer: Zip, zilch, nada. She didn’t set foot in the Badger State after losing the Democratic primary there to Sen. Bernie Sanders in April.2 So, case closed, right? Clinton had an...

The price of entry for the 2020 presidential primary is ferocious opposition to the president. The Democratic base is so roiled and enraged after only two weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency that a take-no-prisoners posture toward the White House is emerging as the price of entry for the 2020 primary. An election that could have focused on economic inequality and the excesses of Wall Street — the issues that animate the left’s leading tribunes, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — is already shaping up as a contest about the intensity of the resistance to Trump. “In almost 20 years of...

But if they get it, will they know what to do with it? As the Democratic Party struggles to regain its footing following its disastrous November election, one vestige of the 2016 campaign has taken on much importance: Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' email list. Sanders, who raised $218 million online from a record 2.8 million donors, rewrote the rules of email fundraising during his campaign by relentlessly courting small-dollar contributors. For many of those donors, Sanders was the first Democratic presidential candidate they had supported—or the first politician they had ever helped. In an interview with the Huffington Post in...

Democrats don’t know how long they’ll be able to keep up the pace of protests against President Donald Trump — and they’re worried Trump and his team are counting on them to run out of energy before the White House does. Two weeks into the Trump administration, party leaders have already reached a frantic, fevered pitch, throwing around talk of constitutional crisis and raising the specter of impeachment. “The thing that we don’t want to do is anesthetize the public with dozens and dozens of press conferences and marquee events,” said Seattle Mayor Ed Murray. “Then it’ll just become background...

DETROIT (CNN) - Gobsmacked by their base's ferocious rejection of Donald Trump's presidency, the candidates to chair the Democratic Party scrambled Saturday to show how devoted they are to the cause. Former Labor Secretary Tom Perez bragged to the Democratic National Committee's "future forum" about racing to airport protests in Houston and then San Francisco. Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, made sure everyone knew he was the only one to skip David Brock's donor summit to participate in the Women's March in Washington. Put him in charge, Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison pledged, and "We will be asking...

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders asked President Trump’s education secretary candidate, Betsy DeVos, whether she would have got the job if her family had not donated $200m to the Republican party. Sanders’ demeaning question was followed with questions promoting his “free college” initiative. “My question is, and I don’t want to be rude, but do you think if you were not a multi-billionaire, if your family had not made hundreds of millions of dollars of contributions to the Republican party that you would be sitting here today?” “Senator, as a matter of fact, I do think there would be that possibility....

We're just over two weeks into the Donald Trump administration. So far, the President of the United States has: lied about the size of his inauguration crowd, summoned the director of the National Park Service and pressured him to produce photographs to prove that the attendance was less than sparsely attended, reportedly threatened to send troops into Mexico to take care of 'bad hombres' and hung up on the Australian prime minister. In between, he's gagged scientists at federal agencies from communicating with the public, signed an executive order barring refugees from Muslim-majority country that has been celebrated by jihadist...

Once again, there's evidence suggesting traditional polls aren't accurately measuring support for the president and his policies. Just how popular is Donald Trump? Two weeks into the new president’s term, it’s a matter of some dispute. Traditional phone polls that use live interviewers — including some of the most trusted polls in politics and media — report limited support for Trump and the controversial executive orders he’s signed. But automated phone and Internet-based surveys tell a different story. Once the element of anonymity is added, the president’s approval ratings suddenly look a lot better. It’s reigniting the campaign debate over...

Former Vice President Walter Mondale is endorsing Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison to become the next Democratic National Committee chair. The move gives the two top contenders to helm the party -- Ellison and former Labor Secretary Tom Perez -- one vice presidential endorsement each, after Joe Biden backed Perez earlier this week. It comes as Democrats head to Detroit for their third of four "future forums" Saturday, where candidates for party leadership lay out their visions, before the DNC's 447 voting members select their new chair in a late-February meeting in Atlanta. "Keith was a Minnesota star in the state...

A quote that caught my eye from RCP’s analysis of the inevitable confirmation of Neil Gorsuch. The potential political downside could be much greater for the Democratic Party with Gorsuch than it ultimately was for the GOP with Garland — leaving reason to doubt that Democrats would fully obstruct the nominee rather than seek a more favorable fight elsewhere. “I think it’s likely he’ll be confirmed,” said one Democratic Senate campaign operative, “and there will be a larger fight on the next one.” His credentials are impeccable and his character, by seemingly all accounts, is perfectly suited to the job....

Beware anyone who tells you that there is an obvious play for Senate Democrats in handling Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court. There is no such play. There is barely any play at all. It is an awful situation, because being in the minority is awful, and if they botch their next move, it could be more awful still. The most viscerally satisfying play for Senate Democrats would be to disengage completely. As Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer put it, “I encourage my Senate colleagues to give Neil Gorsuch the same courtesy Senate Republicans gave Merrick Garland.” But it...

BERKELEY, Calif. (KGO) -- President Trump is striking a different tone in a tweet Friday following this week's violent protest in Berkeley. He said, "Professional anarchists, thugs and paid protesters are proving the point of the millions of people who voted to make America great again!" On Thursday, the president slammed UC Berkeley in a tweet for the protest and threatened to pull federal funding to the nation's top public university. There were three arrests during Wednesday's protest. Campus police say none were students. One person was arrested for blocking officers trying to break up the skirmish. The two others...

The House Democrats' campaign arm on Thursday announced it has begun hiring staffers in 20 targeted districts held by Republicans in an effort to reclaim the majority in 2018. “The launch of our ‘March into ‘18’ accountability project comes at a time of excitement and opportunity for Democrats,” Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's chairman, said in a statement. “The organic strength of the women’s marches, Affordable Care Act rallies, and protests across the country provides further evidence that Democrats are on offense this cycle — and the DCCC is ready to capture that energy,” he...