Free Republic

Embracing gun control has always been a toxic issue for Democrats.  It has played well deep in their darkests bases, like New York City and the District of Columbia, where ignorance about guns and gun law is pervasive and cherished.  On the national stage, they have been careful to approach it sideways, with code words like “gun safety” and “common sense”.   In 1994, when Bill Clinton pushed it the hardest on the national stage, the Democrats suffered one of their most emphatic defeats; the Republican revolution of 1994.  President Clinton even acknowledged that his gun control push was a...

Europe, whose economic struggles have grown that much greater with recent problems in crucial markets like China and Russia, is rushing to do business with a newly accessible and eager, if still problematic, partner: Iran. With the lifting of sanctions after its nuclear deal with the West, Tehran has gone shopping this week, bringing its checkbook and a long list of items it had been unable to acquire for years. Despite lingering animosities and the United States' designation of Iran as a sponsor of terrorist groups, European governments and corporations have made it clear that economic opportunity is going to...

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh said Wednesday that Trump's popularity is evidence that "nationalism and populism have overtaken conservatism" in the Republican Party "The Trump triumph - the Trump coalition - is exposing the fact that it isn't conservative orthodoxy, or conservatism or any of the hard work of the conservative elite," explained Limbaugh, "that is causing people to be conservative." LIMBAUGH: It's something really simple... They're fed up with the modern day Democratic Party... The Republican Party establishment does not understand this. They do not know who their conservative voters are. They've over-estimated their conservatism... They're not liberals. They're...

Bernie Sanders is no one's idea of a camera-ready presidential candidate. He's a "democratic socialist" running against an icon of the Democratic establishment. (And as satisfying as anti-establishment sentiment may feel for some right now -- the establishment is still pretty damn important.) His white hair is kind of wild, he's awkward, doesn't smile much, he hunches over and waves his arms when he speaks. He campaigns in rolled-up shirtsleeves and has pens in his shirt pocket. When it comes down to it, his radical policy positions and general cranky-grandpa vibe don't exactly scream "President of the United States."

1) "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." -- Margaret Thatcher 2) "It is the common error of Socialists to overlook the natural indolence of mankind; their tendency to be passive, to be the slaves of habit, to persist indefinitely in a course once chosen. Let them once attain any state of existence which they consider tolerable, and the danger to be apprehended is that they will thenceforth stagnate; will not exert themselves to improve, and by letting their faculties rust, will lose even the energy required to preserve them from deterioration. Competition...

Washington (CNN)--A sense of anxiety is cascading through Hillary Clinton's campaign, with an increasing sense of urgency the primary fight with Bernie Sanders is far more of a threat than once imagined, unlikely to be extinguished after the first contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. Clinton has gone from all but ignoring Sanders to fiercely engaging him in recent days, a reflection of public and private polling that points to a race that is uncomfortably competitive for the Democratic front-runner. She openly questions his electability and argues that he is out of step with the party on guns and other...

Characterizing Wall Street as an industry run on "greed, fraud, dishonesty and arrogance," Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders pledged to break up the country's biggest financial firms within a year and limit banking fees placed on consumers, should he become president, in a fiery speech on Tuesday. He coupled that promise, delivered in front of a raucous crowd just a few subway stops from Wall Street, with a series of attacks on rival Hillary Clinton, arguing her personal and political ties make her unable to truly take on the financial industry. "To those on Wall Street who may be listening...

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) says that America has practiced the free market system over the last 40 years and "that it doesn't work." Johnson made the comments while speaking on the House floor Thursday against the Sunshine For Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act. The bill aims at making the government give public notice when entering into legal negotiations that may result in new regulations. ...

Politics: The trouble that Hillary Clinton had distinguishing a Democrat from a socialist during an MSNBC interview was understandable. It´s like describing the difference between a dog and a canine. At the tail end of a series of beach-ball-soft questions, "Hardball" host Chris Matthews asked Clinton: "Now, Bernie (Sanders) calls himself a socialist. ... You´re a Democrat. ... What´s the difference between a socialist and a Democrat?" Clinton: "Well, I can tell you what I am. I am a progressive Democrat." Matthews: "How is that different than a socialist?" Clinton: Hamana, hamana, mumble, mumble, "we have got to get all...

Gosh. Why is this question so hard to answer? You may recall that, a few months ago, Chris Matthews made waves by asking DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz a very simple question: “What’s the difference between a Democrat and a Socialist? After all, Bernie Sanders is a proud socialist and Dems like to claim that label doesn’t apply to them. Wasserman Schultz, unsurprisingly, couldn’t answer the question. Apparently she found it difficult to outline a difference where none exists.

ccording to the transcript of Donald Trump's interview with Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes, Mr. Trump favors a single payer health care plan in certain situations. During the interview, Pelley asked Mr. Trump what his plan was to replace Obamacare would look like. Mr. Trump responded, saying "I am going to take care of everybody. I don’t care if it costs me votes or not. Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now." When Pelley pressed Mr. Trump further about who would pay for this coverage, Mr. Trump said "the government’s gonna pay...

Preposterous. They’re nothing alike. Sanders is an unorthodox Democrat who supports universal health care and trade protectionism but also tighter borders and stronger gun rights than most liberals do. Trump, on the other hand, is … wait a sec. Hmmm. Where was I going with this again? The strangest thing: I've met a number of Trump rally attendees who say their top two are Trump and Sanders. Seriously. Or in reverse.— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) December 28, 2015 We’re in a weird place when Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz are both competing to be the second choice of another guy’s base,...

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said Sunday he thinks he can persuade supporters of Republican front-runner Donald Trump to back him in the 2016 race. Mr. Sanders, an Independent senator from Vermont, said on CBS that his message about economic inequality can appeal to Trump backers who are angry about lower wages and job losses. "Many of Trump's supporters are working class people and they are angry," Mr. Sanders said. "What Trump has done successfully, I would say, is take that anger, take that anxiety about terrorism and say to a lot of people in this country, look, the reason...

In his Christmas Eve homily Thursday, Pope Francis noted the simplicity of Jesus' birth as he rebuked what he called societies' intoxication with consumerism, pleasure, abundance and wealth.

To have a self-acclaimed socialist in the Senate of a nation that spent two generations fighting against it is a surprise, but to have one running to be the leader of the free world is a real wake up call as to how far removed this last generation has drifted from the truth of the abject failure of socialism and what an unworkable system it really is. Socialism is a philosophy, a utopian ideal that has only ever worked in small groups of like-minded people, religious groups, communes or such, that have made the decision to devote themselves, their affluence...

A centralized socialist government always blamed their disastrous and ever-failing economic policies on greedy capitalists and on business “profiteers.” Socialists eventually ran out of other people’s money and wealth Venezuelans rejected socialism. They’ve run out of other people’s money; the long lines to buy basic food and toilet paper did not help either. The mainstream media has glossed over this massive defeat of President Nicolas Maduro’s socialism. In a great St. Nick gift, his opposition took back control of the National Assembly in a landslide election on December 6, 2015. According to the National Electoral Council, the Democratic Unity coalition...

I just returned from the grocery store. While waiting in line, as usual, I checked out the tabloid headlines. One particular headline, from The Globe I believe, caught my immediate attention. It read: IMPEACH OBAMA: He’s a disgrace. No thinking person could be opposed to such a thing. It would make for the ultimate national Christmas stocking-stuffer. On the way home, however, I asked myself, “Would impeaching Obama really change anything, I mean, fundamentally and systemically? And the answer was unequivocally, “No.” Even if you impeached Obama, John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and Harry Reid, it wouldn’t...

What is it about worn-out socialist "worker paradises" like the old Soviet Union and Cuba that bring out the romantic in American radical politicians? After Vermont senator Bernie Sanders announced his run for president, Britain’s Guardian newspaper pawed through old archives in his home town of Burlington, Vermont where he served as mayor in the 1980s. They discovered that Sanders really did practice the socialist solidarity he preached about rhetorically. During Bernie's mayoral tenure, Burlington formed an alliance with the Soviet city of Yaroslavl, 160 miles northeast of Moscow. When in 1988 he married his wife, Jane, the mayor decided...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 (UPI) The Internet cooled off last year with the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Now, in the name of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) many are heating up by chowing down on hot peppers and chugging Tabasco sauce. The "Feel The Bern Challenge" asks Sanders supporters to make videos of themselves eating jalapeños, taking shots of hot sauce, or otherwise working up a sweat and then battle through the burn to explain why they support the Socialist senator from Vermont in his run for the Democratic nomination for president.

"Why deny it?" Asked during a presidential forum on Thursday to address critics who point out that he is, like Barack Obama, a first term U.S. senator with no foreign policy experience, Ted Cruz explained that he could do so in two ways.The rising GOP primary candidate first noted that he finds it odd when reporters bring up his supposed similarity to Obama as though it is a negative. "When the media asks, 'Gosh, aren't you like Barack Obama?' My reaction to reports is, 'I thought you thought that was a good thing,'" he said. "Last I checked he won...