Free Republic

[snip] Victoria, a 2-year-old rat, sniffs for TNT, sticking her nose high in the air to indicate she's found some. She works her way down a 10-meter line with a handler on either end, and is able to detect the presence of TNT at a distance of approximately half a yard. [Yes, the article is from 2015]

Despite Jerry Brown using "goon squads" to intimidate voters, and angry Democratic Party leaders verbally assaulting signature gatherers, organizers of the effort to recall California state Sen. Josh Newman (D-Orange County) gathered 85,000 signatures in support of a recall election. Sensing Newman's vulnerability, legislators changed the recall rules ex post facto (which will assuredly be legally challenged by recall supporters), and now Democrats are stepping up their attacks on people who organize dissent in the state. College students. Or, more specifically, three College Republicans who volunteered as signature gatherers. That's right. The California Democratic Party is suing them, accusing...

Twenty-four House Democrats are now backing the bill. A Democratic congressman has introduced legislation aimed at creating a congressional oversight commission that could declare President Donald Trump incapacitated, prompting his removal from office under the 25th Amendment of the United States Constitution. Twenty-four House Democrats support the bill, which was introduced by Rep. Jamie Raskin, D. Md., including the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich. Former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.,has co-sponsored the bill.

Democrats' decisive Tuesday night loss in Georgia's special election -- a race into which they poured tens of millions of dollars to make it the most expensive House race in U.S. history -- is leaving Democrats to strategize a path forward for the 2018 midterm elections. But Handel's win only buys some breathing room, as Russia investigations, White House intrigue and policy disagreements on Capitol Hill continue to stall the GOP agenda in Washington.

Politico has a pretty stunning quote about House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) from a fellow House Democrat, following Tuesday's big Georgia special-election loss: “I think you’d have to be an idiot to think we could win the House with Pelosi at the top,” said Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Texas), who supported Pelosi in her last leadership race. “Nancy Pelosi is not the only reason that Ossoff lost. But she certainly is one of the reasons.” Yikes. That's a brand of criticism you don't even generally see from any fellow Democrats — much less ones who voted for Pelosi for leader....

I think I know the exact moment “the resistance” came to a crushing end. No, it wasn’t Tuesday night’s loss in Georgia’s congressional race, when Democrat Jon Ossoff — described as a “near ideal candidate” — was steamrolled by Karen Handel, a frumpy, charisma-less Republican running in a district where President Trump barely squeaked out a win in 2016. And no, it wasn’t when Bernie Sanders, the leader-in-exile of “the resistance,” attacked a nameless bureaucrat at a Senate confirmation hearing for believing as a Christian that eternal salvation can only be obtained through Jesus Christ. It happened the day Hillary...

It was supposed to be the race that would give Democrats their groove back, a chance to claim blue turf inside red territory and signal the political perils of Trumpism in districts across the country. The Democratic Party's all-in approach to Jon Ossoff's candidacy backfired so badly that the big winner was the man who was the target of all the organizing energy on the left. President Trump capped the night declaring outright victory not just in this election but for the slate of contests held in the Trump era. Ossoff became a vessel for national anger at Trump and...

Democrats scrambled to regroup on Wednesday after a disappointing special election defeat in Georgia, with lawmakers, activists and labor leaders speaking out in public and private to demand a more forceful economic message heading into the 2018 elections. Among Democrats in Washington, the setback in Georgia revived or deepened a host of existing grievances about the party, accentuating tensions between moderate lawmakers and liberal activists and prompting some Democrats to question the leadership and political strategy of Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader. But the overarching theme among Democrats was a sense of sharp urgency about crafting a positive agenda...

Democrats just can’t seem to win an election in the Trump era. With last night’s losses in Georgia and South Carolina, Democratic House candidates are zero-for-four in special elections against Republicans this year. It’s easy to look at this pattern and think that Democrats are doing something fundamentally wrong — that they can’t close the deal with voters and are destined to keep coming up short in next year’s midterms. But if that’s the easy conclusion, it’s also the wrong one. Politically, Democrats are doing fine for a party out of power. It obviously would have been better to have...

As battered Democrats assess their loss in Tuesday’s Georgia House race, they are finding that the path out of the wilderness which they had hoped had been carved by voter discontent with President Trump is full of tricky obstacles. The loss in Georgia was bitter, after Democrats, in the most expensive House race ever, invested tens of millions of dollars in a political newcomer and millennial, Jon Ossoff. Finger-pointing was immediate. Blame fell on House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, on the cautious neophyte candidate. The complaints about muddled strategy by the party were exacerbated...

Democrats are tired of losing and the accusations are flying. After going all in and coming up short in Georgia's special election Tuesday, Democratic lawmakers and political operatives are venting their frustration at losing every competitive special congressional election so far this year. Many were upset that Democrat Jon Ossoff blunted what was arguably his greatest asset — antipathy toward President Donald Trump — by going relatively easy on the president and avoiding controversy at all cost. Others, however, countered that Ossoff was a fine candidate who was the victim of a party that is too cautious and has lost...

Kathy Griffin accused President Donald Trump and his family of launching a campaign to destroy her life in response to the image she posted earlier this week in which she appeared to be holding the commander-in-chief's severed head. The comedian broke down in tears as she detailed the torrent of abuse she has been receiving online, and the constant death threats which she described as detailed and specific. She stated however that she will not back down from this fight, saying: 'I am not afraid of Donald Trump. He is a bully.' Later in the interview Griffin said that her...

Washington, D.C. – Today, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) called on her colleagues in the Senate to support a special prosecutor to take over the investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia. Sen. Murray has been pushing for an independent investigation for months, but the urgency reached a new level yesterday when President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, the person responsible for the investigation.  Excerpts of Sen. Murray’s speech below: “… what happened yesterday was truly shocking, and this is coming from someone who didn’t think that was possible any more with this President. But if anyone was wavering before,...

A liberal grassroots activist group claims to have raised more than $500,000 in 24 hours to challenge vulnerable Republicans who voted for the GOP's plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare. The group, Swing Left, has been touting its fundraising haul on Twitter as the donations pour in. And it noted in a release that $150,000 of that total was raised in the first hour after the Thursday afternoon vote. Donors gave $100,000 specifically for the eventual Democratic challenger to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), a top Democratic target who voted for the ObamaCare repeal bill.

New York Times columnist Frank Bruni moderates a 'Times Talks' discussion between legendary feminist Camille Paglia and 'Watch What Happens Live' host Andy Cohen about life in the Trump era. Paglia says Bruni's newspaper and the Democratic Party still have "soul searching" left to do about why they called 2016 wrong. "It is incumbent upon the defeated party to pull itself together, or else we're going to get the reelection of the present administration," she said. "I didn't take him seriously at all," she said about the early days of the Trump campaign. "And then, shortly after the very first...

For all the roiling anger and energy at the grass roots, the party still fell short in Georgia and Kansas. And Democratic prospects in upcoming elections aren't promising. As it became clear late Tuesday evening that Jon Ossoff would fall just short of the 50-percent mark in the first round of voting in a suburban Atlanta special election, Democrats back in Washington started leafing through their calendars and asking: When does the winning start? Ossoff’s 'moral victory' — capturing 48 percent of the vote in a conservative-oriented district — was welcome, but after two successive close-but-no-cigar finishes in House special...

Shia LaBeouf got kicked out of an L.A. bowling alley Wednesday night after freaking out on a bartender, calling him a "f***ing racist." Shia was at Pinz in Studio City and according to one eyewitness, he was there for 3 hours pounding back beers. We're told Shia got rowdy in Jerry's Deli, which is connected to Pinz, and got into a verbal altercation when the staff told him to leave. We've obtained additional video that shows Shia was going off about a bartender refusing to serve him french fries. French fries.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) implied during a Wednesday press conference that President Donald Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, has been "complicit" in her father's actions, which the lawmaker described as "not acting in the interest of the American people." Pelosi's remarks came after she was asked about comments Ivanka Trump made during an interview on "CBS This Morning." CBS host Gayle King had asked Trump to address those who say she is "complicit" in her father's White House. "In an interview today, Ivanka Trump said, ‘I don't know what it means to be complicit' and that ‘not to...

California’s governor and legislative leaders on Wednesday proposed raising $52 billion to fix the state’s roads through a big gasoline tax increase, higher car registration fees and a charge on emission-free vehicles. The 10-year plan would boost gasoline excise taxes for the first time in more than two decades, raising them 12 cents per gallon — a 43 percent increase. The tax would rise automatically with inflation. For the first time, owners of zero emission vehicles would pay a $100 annual fee because they use public roads but don’t pay gasoline taxes that fund highway maintenance. The plan also includes...

Dear Donald, We’ve known each other a long time, so I think I can be blunt. You know how you said at campaign rallies that you did not like being identified as a politician? Don’t worry. No one will ever mistake you for a politician. After this past week, they won’t even mistake you for a top-notch negotiator. I was born here. The first image in my memory bank is the Capitol, all lit up at night. And my primary observation about Washington is this: Unless you’re careful, you end up turning into what you started out scorning. And you,...