Free Republic

In perhaps the single most astounding passage of her campaign memoir What Happened, Hillary Clinton reveals a campaign proposal she formulated with staffers but never actually released: a universal basic income for Americans, funded by carbon and financial transaction taxes. "I wanted very much to convey a commitment to trying to figure ways to raise incomes," she said in an interview with Vox's Ezra Klein. "The Alaska model where they write a check to every single Alaskan every year based on a formula about the oil and gas revenues was really intriguing to me.” Here’s the relevant passage of the...

Arguably, the only thing better than Maxine Waters’ skewering of White House weasel and Treasury Department Secretary Steve Mnuchin was the song it inspired—a gospel spin on Waters’ infamous remarks, performed by Broadway actor Mykal Kilgore that immediately went viral. It turns out that New York City’s first lady, Chirlane McCray, is also a fan of the song and its message. This past Sunday, which was World Suicide Prevention Day, McCray used the concept of “reclaiming my time” to urge viewers to take better care of their mental health. (TWEET-AT-LINK) In the public service announcement, McCray appeared opposite Kilgore, who’s...

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...

The former U.S. Secretary of State also said she's “done with being a candidate.” Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton said Sunday that racial grievances had a significant influence on the 2016 presidential election and continue to be stoked by U.S. President Donald Trump. “He was quite successful in referencing a nostalgia that would give hope, comfort, settle grievances for millions of people who were upset about gains that were made by others,” Clinton said on CBS’s Sunday Morning ahead of the Tuesday release of her campaign memoir, What Happened. Host Jane Pauley replied, “What you’re saying is millions of...

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on Sunday said he can’t guess why some fellow Republicans deny the scientific consensus that climate change exists and is affected by human activity. “I don’t know because I can’t divine their motives,” McCain said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “There is things happening with the climate in the world that is unprecedented,” he added. “We have to understand that the climate may be changing and we can take commonsense measures which will not harm the American people.” McCain also said an agreement President Donald Trump came to with Democrats for a short-term increase in...

Since Trump’s taken over the White House, Republicans have fought tooth and nail to keep the Democratic agenda alive. Witness: Obamacare. Where’s the repeal? Oh yes, that’s right. There is no repeal. So goes the fight with the border wall — nothing, nada, except headlines like this one, from Politico in July: “House Republicans seek to dodge border wall vote.”

Republican Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner rejected Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel’s call for a bill of rights for immigrants Wednesday, claiming that only Congress could pass such a law. Emmanuel called for the bill of rights after declaring Chicago a “Trump-free zone” Tuesday in response to President Donald Trump’s announcement that he was ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the Chicago Tribune reported. While Rauner denied Emmanuel’s request, the governor was not opposed to further protections for illegal immigrants. Instead, he called on Congress to take action. “I do not believe this challenge for these children can be...

Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton gave a stern and straightforward response during a 2014 CNN interview about how she thought the country’s immigration laws should be executed, particularly when it came to children of undocumented immigrants, according to Mediaite. In the exchange with CNN host and reporter Christiane Amanpour, Clinton was not speaking specifically about “dreamers,” children who were brought to the United States by their parents and until recently have been allowed to remain and work in the country, but children who were coming along borders on their own. “We have to send a clear message, just because...

Next week, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders will introduce his long-awaited single-payer health care bill with a cadre of the Democratic 2020 prospects expected to sign on as co-sponsors. Not long afterward, Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, another potential 2020 candidate, will propose an alternative: Allowing individuals and businesses to buy into Medicare. Both ideas have, at times, been labeled "Medicare for all." But their differences also offer a glimpse at what's likely to be a defining debate within the Democratic Party in its next nominating contest: A full shift to a government health insurance system versus a partial step away from...

Conspicuously good numbers for a president whom Democrats despise and whose job approval has been stuck in the high 30s/low 40s for months. It’s hard to imagine Dems ever coming around on Trump, especially when so many view his victory as illegitimate due to Russiagate, but between the good vibes over his storm handling and his sudden outreach to Schumer and Pelosi, there may be some Strange New Respect in opinions about him soon. Of course, if things go to hell in Florida when Hurricane Irma hits, all bets are off. The President gets especially good ratings when it comes...

The Congressional Black Caucus will hold a meeting next week to discuss whether to call for the impeachment of President Donald Trump. Following Trump’s response to deadly violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last month, the CBC chairman, Representative Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, said the 49-member caucus would have a discussion on Trump’s possible impeachment when Congress reconvened after the August recess. Those talks will take place next Wednesday, a CBC staffer confirmed to Newsweek on Thursday. While it was initially anticipated that the discussions would happen at this week’s meeting, relief efforts following Hurricane Harvey and...

Democrats have been bashing President Trump's every move since long before he stepped into the Oval Office. But this week something strange happened: Democratic leadership cut a sweeping deal with the president, spoke openly about their phone conversations with him, and made multiple visits to the White House. Although most Democrats in Washington are still celebrating that Trump sided with their leadership Wednesday on a deal to fund the government, provide hurricane relief funds, and raise the debt ceiling, the new — and seemingly sudden — productive relationship with the president is making some Democratic lawmakers and activists uncomfortable. Some...

The Democratic nominee regrets not going on the attack more during the campaign—and wondered whether Trump really would ‘lock her up,’ she writes in her new book, ‘What Happened.’ When FBI Director James Comey said on July 5, 2016, that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring a criminal case against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server but that her behavior was “extremely careless,” the candidate was particularly bothered by the second part of his statement. “My first instinct was that my campaign should hit back hard and explain to the public that Comey had badly overstepped his...

DACA has brought hundreds of thousands of young people out of the shadows -- allowing them to live without fear, go to school, work, and contribute to America in countless other ways. These young people's dreams are part of the American Dream. And they make it more real for all of us. Today's decision by the White House to terminate DACA -- and that is effectively what it attempts to do -- will crush their dreams and weaken the American Dream for the rest of us. It's wrong because it's bad policy that solves no pressing problem and raises new...

I am shaking with frustration at the lack of a coherent, national strategy to defeat Donald Trump. I’m surrounded by liberal and progressive echo chambers that are deaf to the reality that we’re facing. If you think Trump is seconds away from impeachment or implosion, let me ask you this: When is the last time you watched Fox News? Try Sean Hannity or Fox & Friends, not Shepard Smith or Chris Wallace. Or when is the last time you looked at Breitbart News? How about the last time you watched Trump or somebody from his administration speaking more than five...

Leave it to the donkey party to act an ass and see an opportunity dangled before it and stupidly squander time debating whether or not an obvious winning strategy is worth pursuing. Politico reports that Democrats are torn over how to handle what happened in Charlottesville, Va., the debate over Confederate monuments in general and the larger issues of racial tensions that each speaks to. Apparently, while some want to actively push for votes on hate crimes and combating domestic terrorism, strategists stress that Democrats “should be careful about how deeply they wade into a fraught debate over identity politics—particularly...

Center-left think tank Third Way on Tuesday urged the Democratic Party to rebrand itself as “the jobs party” in a report that warns of the risks of adopting the policies and rhetoric of the far left. Landing as the left wing of the party claims ascendancy, the report wades into some of the philosophical disagreements now dividing the party, which is further from power than it has been in decades. Based on extensive, three-day online focus groups with battleground-state voters, the publication aims to diagnose Democrats’ current problem. But it also knocks the kind of economic populism often pushed by...

DACA, the “mini-DREAM Act” enacted by executive order under President Obama, is about to be killed by President Trump. Politico reports: President Donald Trump has decided to end the Obama-era program that grants work permits to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children, according to two sources familiar with his thinking. Senior White House aides huddled Sunday afternoon to discuss the rollout of a decision likely to ignite a political firestorm — and fulfill one of the president’s core campaign promises. The administration’s deliberations on the issue have been fluid and fast moving, and the president has faced...

Former President Barack Obama plans to speak out if President Trump announces his intent to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Trump on Tuesday is expected to declare he will end DACA, a program Obama created unilaterally that protects certain immigrants who were brought illegally to the U.S. as children and gives them work permits. The president will delay the termination of DACA for six months, according to multiple reports, to give Congress time to devise a legislative solution to protect the 800,000 or so illegal immigrants who benefit from the program. Obama said before he left office...