Free Republic

At every opportunity, Manchin has sabotaged Democrats’ agenda. What’s going on here? It’s spelled m-o-n-e-y After putting a final spear through the heart of what remained of Biden’s and the Democrat’s domestic agenda, West Virginia’s Democratic senator Joe Manchin now rejects any tax increases on big corporations or the wealthy – until inflation is no longer a problem. This is rich, in every sense of the word. Raising taxes on big American corporations and the wealthy would not fuel inflation. It would slow inflation by reducing demand – and do it in a way that wouldn’t hurt lower-income Americans (such...

Donald Trump formally anoints himself the head of the Republican party at today’s Conservative Political Action Conference. Gilt-y: golden Trump statue pops up at rightwing CPAC summit Read more The Grand Old Party, founded in 1854 in Ripon, Wisconsin, is now dead. What’s left is a dwindling number of elected officials who have stood up to Trump but are now being purged. Even Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell’s popularity has dropped 29 points among Kentucky Republicans since he broke with Trump. In its place is the Trump party, whose major goal is to advance Trump’s big lie that the 2020...

WASHINGTON -- Billionaire Michael Bloomberg is doubling the already massive amount of money he will spend on advertising, an effort to lift his Democratic presidential bid and capitalize on the chaotic outcome of Monday’s Iowa caucuses. “After more than a year of this primary, the field is as unsettled as ever. No one has made the sale or even come close to it,” Bloomberg spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Tuesday. “Meanwhile, Mike is taking the fight to Trump every day, doubling down on the national campaign strategy we’ve been running from the beginning.” An exact dollar figure was not provided, but...

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich warned Sunday that Americans are getting so used to President Donald Trump’s troubling behavior that they fail to see how truly “dangerously unstable” he is. In a column published Sunday in The Guardian, Reich pointed to Trump’s days-long advocacy of his inaccurate weather forecast that said Alabama was threatened by Hurricane Dorian. He even went so far as to promote a map with a circle awkwardly drawn around Alabama to make it look like the state was in the hurricane’s path. “We’ve had presidents trying to cover up a sexual liaison with an...

Political pundit Robert Reichhhh encouraged Congress to consider having Attorney General William Barr arrested if he doesn't cooperate with lawmakers' demands. Barr is scheduled to testify about special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, but the Justice Department and majority party Democrats are grappling over the parameters. Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., has said Barr will be subpoenaed if he doesn't show. In an opinion piece in Newsweek on Tuesday, Reich, who was labor secretary in the Clinton administration, said there should be consequences if Barr refuses to comply with a subpoena. "What could the Committee...

Why did working-class voters choose a selfish, thin-skinned, petulant, lying, narcissistic, boastful megalomaniac for president? With the 2018 midterms around the corner, and prospective Democratic candidates already eyeing the 2020 presidential race, the answer is important because it will influence how Democrats campaign. One explanation focuses on economic hardship. The working class fell for Mr. Trump's economic populism. A competing explanation -- which got a boost this week from a study published by the National Academy of Sciences -- dismisses economic hardship and blames it on whites' fear of losing status to blacks and immigrants. They were attracted to Mr....

Robert Reich wants Americans to be vigilant this July 4 against “exclusive patriotism” that “asserts a unique and superior ‘Americanism.’” (Daily Caller) – Former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration and current University of California Berkeley professor Robert Reich wants Americans to be vigilant this July 4 against “exclusive patriotism” that “asserts a unique and superior ‘Americanism.’” “We hear a lot about patriotism, especially around the Fourth of July. But in 2016, we’re hearing about two very different types of patriotism. One is an inclusive patriotism that binds us together. The other is an exclusive patriotism that keeps others...

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) says women “pay more for everything.” “For we women, it costs more to be a woman. We pay more for everything,” Mikulski said during a rally for the Paycheck Fairness Act. “We continue to have to fight the battle of more expensive, medical care, child care, even dry cleaning. They charge us more to do our blouses than guy’s shirts. We women are tired of being taken to the cleaners. Pass Paycheck Fairness,” Mikulski said. …

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued a regulation on Thursday to stop referring to midget raisins as “midget” after an activist group called the term offensive. The USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) issued the proposed rule, announcing the U.S. “Standards for Grades of Processed Raisins” would eliminate all five times the word midget is used. Midget has long been used to describe the differences in sizes of California raisins.

LAS VEGAS, Nevada —Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), a 2016 Republican presidential candidate, offered no policy specifics whatsoever in a speech to Freedom Fest

His leftist, politically-correct commentary during Sunday Night Football's halftime confirms his idiocy. He concluded that the name "Redskins" is offensive. No. It's not.NBC's removal of Keith Olbermann from SNF was not enough. Costas now must go.

As of moments ago, Spike Lee’s Kickstarter campaign to raise $1.25 million for his next feature film has raised about $215,000 via more than 1220 donations. The director explains that he needs a public handout.... ... While Lee’s gambit is not a celebrity first (see Braff, Zach and Mars, Veronica), he may be the wealthiest online busker to date, an artist who does not need to seek, Knicks hat-in-hand, other people’s money to produce a new “joint.” Perhaps Lee, 56, might have considered a relatively small loan or mortgage secured by his Manhattan home, a sprawling Spanish Revival mansion that...

Cains Pickles removes a derogatory term from its labels after a mother’s protests. An average day at the grocery store for Rhode Island mom, Michelle Martinka, turned into a moment of activism when she noticed that Cains Pickles, a popular New England brand, produced a line called “Kosher Dill Midgets.” Martinka is the mother of ten-month-old Adelaide, a little girl with a form of dwarfism known as Achondroplasia—and “midget” is a derogatory way of referencing those born with the condition. In response, Martinka waged a peaceful protest, which included the above YouTube video, urging the company to change the name...

Police hunt for men dressed as Oompa-Loompas after attack on 28-year-old as he left kebab house • Man was left with cuts to his face, nose and lip, as well as two black eyes • Police are now hunting the two men dressed as the fictional factory workers Two men dressed as Oompa-Loompas from the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory are being hunted by police after they allegedly attacked a man on a night out. The pair - who had painted orange faces and dyed green hair and were wearing hooped tops like the characters in the 1971...

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) compared companies and workers to a “cage fight” between a “giant” and a “midget” on Wednesday night. By Thursday, he publicly expressed regret to “abnormally small people” for using the “m-word”. Johnson was discussing the right-to-work enacted in Michigan on Wednesday when he said, “What happens when you put in a cage fight a giant in with a midget? Well, the midget will not win the fight, I’m going to tell you that. Why? He just doesn’t carry enough weight to do so.” …

Turns out, the language one uses in speeches on the House floor is no small matter. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) today apologized for using what he terms “the m-word” during a speech the previous evening.

Gunter Grass has criticized Israel's decision to ban him from entering the country, comparing it to actions taken by the former communist East Germany and Myanmar. "I have been prohibited entry to acountry three times," Gunter wrote, referring to similar cases that have occurred with the ex-German Democratic Republic (GDR) and a 1986 attempt to travel to Myanmar, a pre-released copy of Thursday's Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported. In his statement entitled "Then as today- my response to latest decisions," which was published in the same newspaper that debuted his controversial poem, Gunter writes, "In both cases the usual practice in dictatorships...

Since my New Year’s prediction that Obama would select Hillary Clinton for his running mate in 2012 (and Joe Biden would become Secretary of State), I’ve been swamped by requests for my GOP prediction. Here goes. You can forget the caucuses and early primaries. Mitt Romney will be the nominee. Republicans may be stupid but the GOP isn’t about to commit suicide. The other candidates are all weighed down by enough baggage to keep a 747 on the tarmac indefinitely. For his running mate, Romney will choose Marco Rubio, the junior senator from Florida. Why do I say this? First,...

Has there ever been a statement more clearly demonstrating the liberal and union sense of entitlement than “Governor Walker’s Coup D’Etat,” the headline of former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich's latest whine at Talking Points Memo? By describing the vote in Wisconsin as a coup, Reich expresses more perfectly and more completely his side's elitist mentality than any words yet written or spoken. The tone of his rant is a combination of outrage and condescension — like he can’t believe anyone could have the nerve to challenge big labor and get away with it. And it appears Reich really can’t...

In what was apparently a phone prank that has taken place in other parts of the country, a motel guest said someone called his room and told him to smash the things inside in order to free a "midget" trapped next door. Spartanburg County, S.C., sheriff's deputies told WXII sister station WYFF that they were called to a Motel 6 on Sunday night after a guest nearly punched through to the next room with a wrench. A motel worker called deputies after she discovered the man had damaged the television, mirrors, and the wall between rooms, according to a police...