Free Republic

House Democratic leaders are slamming GOP legislation aimed at discouraging sanctuary cities, characterizing the proposal as "The Donald Trump Act" in a bid to embarrass the Republicans bringing the measure to the floor this week. The proposal, which would withhold federal law enforcement funds for state or local governments that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration agents, comes in response to this month's fatal shooting of Kathryn Steinle along the San Francisco waterfront, allegedly by an illegal immigrant with a long criminal history. The House vote on the Republicans' sanctuary city bill is scheduled for Thursday, and it is expected...

PHOENIX—Bernie Sanders is unaccustomed to being heckled by protesters. The self-identified democratic socialist was caught off guard here Saturday when African-American and Latino activists jeered him at Netroots Nation. Sanders’ inability to control the audience – he tried to shut them up and then he tried to yell over them – underscores his broader struggle to expand his appeal and highlights why his summer surge is unlikely to last. The huge crowds Sanders draws are overwhelmingly white, and polling consistently shows that virtually all of his support comes from whites. After Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two contests on...

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Bernie Sanders told veterans in Iowa Friday that unlike some other politicians, he doesn't pay lip service to their concerns. "It is very easy to raise the flag at a troop deployment, it is very easy for a politician to give a moving speech on Veterans Day," Sanders said. "But it is very hard to go down that long road with the men and women who served and make sure that they continue to get all the benefits, all the healthcare, that they are entitled to for the rest of their lives." The Vermont senator told...

Looks like Martin O'Malley caused an interesting meltdown at Netroots Nation by saying, "All lives matter." My fellow White Progressives, please understand "all lives matter" is received as erasure not inclusion to #BlackLivesMatter. #NN15TownHall If a #BlackLivesMatter usage manual is written, who better to write the instruction book than the white daughter of a rich, white member of Congress?

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the four American hostages being held in Iran should not have been released as a pre-condition to the Iran nuclear deal, but she added that because “we have a nuclear agreement, that a much brighter light is being shone on the prisoners of conscience in Iran.” At a Capitol Hill press conference, CNSNews.com asked Rep. Pelosi, “Do you think the four American hostages being held in Iran should have been released as a pre-condition to any deal made about Iran’s nuclear program?” Pelosi answered, “No, no, it would have been good but it’s...

With Democratic Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) and Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Clybrun called on Congress to expand Brady background checks and vote on the bill Thompson and Peter King (R-N.Y.) introduced earlier this year. The Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act would require background checks for all gun sales to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and people who are mentally ill.

House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) this past week again showed he will punish conservative House members for not supporting deals he strikes with President Obama and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). This does not bode well for the package of immigration bills to be debated on the House floor sometime after the July Fourth recess. House Republicans have been writing and “marking up” more than a dozen immigration bills over the past year, and Republican leaders have been promising a “package of little bills” as an alternative to the “comprehensive” bills favored by the amnesty lobby.

Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the funding arm of the political network backed by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, wants a lot more hard information from the crowded field of presidential contenders before deciding what to do with its considerable resources. The group is pressing every 2016 candidate to detail on the record their plans for economic growth, deficit reduction, entitlement reform, criminal justice and even foreign policy. The tax-exempt entity, a key node in a constellation of conservative entities that aims to spend $889 million before the next White House election, distributed a detailed survey Thursday to...

<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tensions are building inside and outside the white marble facade of the U.S. Supreme Court building as the nine justices prepare to issue major rulings on gay marriage and President Barack Obama's healthcare law by the end of the month.</p>

There’s nothing like a big-money fundraiser for House Democrats to bring President Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi closer together. Mr. Obama and Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, made a show of mending fences Friday night at a fundraiser at the home of billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer overlooking the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco. Friday was their first meeting since Mrs. Pelosi turned against the president last week by leading the opposition that temporarily derailed crucial trade legislation Mr. Obama is seeking. Despite those tensions, Mr. Obama told more than 50 wealthy Democratic donors, who paid up to...

Tuesday at the White House press briefing, press secretary Josh Earnest revealed that President Barack Obama has not talked to House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi since last week when she handed him a resounding defeat on his Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal by not supporting a key measure for financial aid to displaced workers. However Earnest said the President has had spoken “on a couple occasions yesterday” with Republican Speaker of the House Rep. John Boehner

The Republican field is crowded, which implies that primary voters have little information about where some of the candidates stand. That is particularly the case this season, with a few relatively unknown contenders who lack legislative experience or a long history of campaign contributions that would allow researchers to precisely identify where they stand on the liberal-to-conservative political dimension.However, one characteristic all candidates share is that they have active and popular Twitter accounts. And as I showed in an article published earlier this year in the journal Political Analysis — now freely available online as an Editors’ Choice article —...

The FBI asked for the public’s help Monday in identifying people who have severed underground fiber-optic cables throughout the Bay Area. Over the past year, vandals have used tools to intentionally cut the cables in Berkeley, Fremont, Alamo, Walnut Creek and San Jose in 10 separate incidents, most of which happened in the middle of the night, said FBI Special Agent Greg Wuthrich. The cost of the damage was not discosed. The FBI is coordinating the investigation, which involves several local law enforcement agencies, Wuthrich said. The cases are not related to a mysterious rifle attack on a Pacific Gas...

Hillary Clinton's Saturday campaign reboot isn't just her first public rally. Coming a day after President Obama suffered an embarrassing legislative defeat, it is a changing of the guard for the Democratic Party. Make no mistake: while House Republicans also voted overwhelmingly against the president on a key trade bill Friday, it was his fellow Democrats who handed him the most stinging rebuke. Just 40 Democrats out of 188 voted with Obama. Nearly 80 percent of House Democrats, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, went against him. A mere two of the 10 Democrats representing Obama's home state of Illinois in...

So who’s waiting in the wings with a humongous bankroll and a proven history of enforcing the type of big-government policies the Democrat faithful love? Click to the next page to find out. …when that time finally comes, and the inevitable euthanasia of Hillary Clinton’s political ambitions finally materializes, it won’t be Sanders who benefits. Nor will the other Lilliputian Democrat hopefuls, like Jim Webb, Lincoln Chaffee or Martin O’Malley. It’s going to be Mike Bloomberg.

In a public rebuke to President Barack Obama, top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi on Friday swung against legislation aimed at making it easier for the president and his successor to negotiate free trade deals. The California Democrat said lawmakers should “slow this down” in hopes of getting stronger protections for U.S. workers and the environment in potential trade pacts, including one with Pacific nations. Pelosi made her position known just prior to separate House votes to reject aid to displaced workers and to give Obama the “fast track” trade negotiating authority he is seeking. “We need to slow this ‘fast...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in a meandering but dramatic floor speech on Friday said she will vote "no" on a measure providing assistance to workers displaced by trade. Pelosi's opposition to the Trade Adjustment Assistance program casts doubt on whether the measure will pass.

“It’s declassified and made public once it’s agreed to,” Ryan said of Obamatrade in Rules Committee testimony on Wednesday during questioning from Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) .

FULL TITLE: PAUL RYAN UNCHAINED: LASHES OUT AT BREITBART, DRUDGE, ‘DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ ON THE INTERNET’ You know you’re losing when you’re reduced to attacking the Internet. House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan is now attacking the Web, proving he shouldn’t be trusted by Republican members of Congress to tell the truth about controversial trade legislation. In an appearance Thursday on Fox and Friends, Ryan criticized Breitbart News and other conservative media including the highly influential Drudge Report, which have revealed the immigration and climate change provisions within President Obama’s trade agenda. “Let’s talk about...

The detachment from reality of that great military strategist, former House Speaker and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, has been well documented, from her defense of ObamaCare and the millions of jobs it would create instantly and that you had to pass to find out what’s in it, to her current fable -- that the rise of the barbaric Islamic State and its victory over Iraqi forces we trained is, as the Democratic mantra now goes, the fault of President George W. Bush in general and Gen. David Petraeus in particular: Reporter: “General Petraeus said last night that we are...