Free Republic

It’s no secret that Democratic primary voters prize fall “electability.” But for all the clamor about progressive versus moderate choices, the obstacles to pulling voters toward Democrats -- particularly in the battleground states -- could prove more cultural than ideological. Last summer, Senator Elizabeth Warren electrified huge crowds at rallies in Seattle, Austin and New York. The events had one thing in common besides her populist pitch for “big structural change.” At each stop, her trademark selfie lines were less than a mile from a Whole Foods Market, a Lululemon Athletica and an Urban Outfitters. These high-end retailers and brands,...

Rep. Elaine Luria is the kind of up-and-comer the Democratic Party would like to keep in Congress. But the former Navy commander with a moderate bearing, who flipped a coastal Virginia House seat in 2018, said she's afraid that will be far more difficult if her party nominates Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for president. “When I talk to people across our district, they are very pragmatic, middle of the road,” said Luria, who has endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden. “They don’t want free everything for everyone, or policy positions that are unrealistic.”

There are certain issues that you’d expect to be top-of-mind for older Americans, whether it be Social Security, Medicare, or scams that target seniors. But as I traveled through my district this year and held workshops for seniors across Maryland, there was one topic that I was surprised came up again and again: loneliness. The crisis of social isolation and loneliness currently affects almost half of our population, and seniors are front and center. In 2018, a national poll revealed that nearly half of all Americans suffer from social isolation and chronic loneliness. That’s almost 164 million people – across...

In 1981, Philadelphia Police Officer Danny Faulkner was murdered by Mumia Abu-Jamal.[1] A racially diverse jury convicted Jamal of first-degree murder and sentenced him to death. Since then, he has pursued endless appeals in state and federal courts. Although his death sentence was overturned on a technicality, his conviction has been repeatedly affirmed. Throughout this lengthy process, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was zealously represented by three previous district attorneys. But now the defense of Abu-Jamal’s conviction is in the hands of District Attorney Larry Krasner, the self-styled “public defender with power,” who during his short time in office has established...

Republicans gathered at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday to cheer on their conservative heroes. But they also had an opportunity to shame GOP politicians they deemed not pro-Trump enough, casting ballots for the “phoniest ‘conservative’ lawmaker.” Next to a stuffed donkey with a fake elephant’s snout, attendees voted for the likes of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who led the ballot count as of Thursday afternoon. One prominent GOP Trump critic wasn’t an option, though—because everybody already knew he’d win in a landslide.

Trump to do Fox News town hall in Pennsylvania next week © Getty Images President Trump will field questions from voters at a Fox News town hall event in Scranton, Pa., next week, the network announced Friday. The Thursday event will be moderated by anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. It will mark a rare foray into such a setting for Trump — his first time holding a town hall with voters since his 2016 campaign. The appearance at the Scranton Cultural Center will also mark the first time Trump will take questions from Baier and MacCallum since interviews with...

Country music legend Garth Brooks posted a picture of himself in a "Sanders" jersey after his packed show Saturday night in Detroit, which created a bit of misguided outrage and confusion online. Brooks wore the No. 20 jersey of former Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders – a football legend in the city and NFL Hall of Famer – which caused some of his Instagram followers to mistakenly attack him for being a Bernie Sanders supporter.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is trailing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in her home state of Massachusetts, according to a new poll of likely Democratic presidential primary voters in the Bay State. 25 percent of respondents said they supported the Vermont senator, while 17 percent said they supported Warren, according to the WBUR poll. Former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg came in third place with 14 percent support, while former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg garnered 13 percent. Nine percent of respondents said they supported former Vice President Joe Biden. The most recent RealClearPolitics polling average shows Sanders leading...

Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Thomas Paine. Click puzzle (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. Thomas Paine is one of America's Founding Fathers and preeminent political writer whose writings inspired tenets of the U.S. Constitution, as well as the narrow and fundamental pathway for proper governance. All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidental spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To solve the puzzle: Enter the letters in the top half (letter...

President Trump is threatening to blow up an extension of expiring intelligence programs as he backchannels with a cadre of top allies who want to use the bill to reform a shadowy surveillance court. Congress has approximately 10 working days to reauthorize three expiring provisions of the USA Freedom Act, a 2015 bill that overhauled the country’s surveillance laws, with Attorney General William Barr and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) backing a “clean” extension. But Trump threw a grenade into those already fragile plans Thursday, when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told reporters that the president supports his effort to...

Police announced Thursday that they've arrested a suspect in connection with the robbery of a 68-year-old man's recyclables in the city's Bayview neighborhood.

On Thursday, Iran’s Ministry of Health announced that thus far, 26 people infected with the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, have died and that there were an additional 245 confirmed cases. The latest victim of the disease is Masoumeh Ebtekar, Iran’s Vice President for Women and Family Affairs. In 1979, she was the spokeswoman for radical Islamic fundamentalists who invaded the American embassy in Tehran and took 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage for 444 days. On Tuesday, Iran’s Deputy Health Minister was quarantined due to infection. Several other Iranian parliamentarians have become infected as well. Globally, the coronavirus has...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it has been alerted to the first manufacturing shortage of an unnamed drug due to the deadly novel coronavirus outbreak that began in China and has now reached the U.S.. FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said the agency has been "closely monitoring" the medical product supply chain "with the expectation" that the outbreak of the novel coronavirus would "likely" have an impact. "A manufacturer has alerted us to a shortage of a human drug that was recently added to the drug shortages list," Hahn said in a statement Thursday night. "The manufacturer just notified...

Drain the swamp, baby, and Make America Great Again and Keep America Great Always!! Prayers up for continuing progress and success. FR is funded solely by contributions made by the liberty loving patriots who love and use it. We are beholden to no political party. No advertisers, no outsiders, no sugar daddies, no corporate string pullers. Definitely no government subsidies or tax breaks. No 501c or other IRS non-profit status. This means no commercial ads. No annoying pop-ups. No ad tracking. No mail campaigns. No spam. No third-parties -- not even the IRS -- trying to control what we do...

SPARTANBURG, South Carolina — You go to a Bernie Sanders rally and expect to find the most fervent supporters of any Democratic candidate by far. I mean devotees—“Berners”—so committed they stage protests outside public officials’ homes in the middle of the night shouting warnings through bullhorns like they did last week in Nevada.But not in upstate South Carolina. At a rally in Spartanburg on the campus of Wofford College Thursday night, a surprising number of attendees weren’t yet sure who they’d vote for in Saturday’s primary election.There was the mixed-race couple and their six-year-old daughter who came to check...

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is ready to get her voice to the masses again, and in the most 2020 way of doing so, she’s looking to podcasts. Her still-untitled show will be co-produced by iHeartMedia, a radio station conglomerate that has leaned heavily into podcasts, and it will be released this spring. Details on the show format weren’t readily available, but Politico suggests it’ll be interviews with “newsmakers.” Apparently both Conan O’Brien, who also makes a podcast with iHeart, and radio legend Howard Stern inspired her decision. Of course, Clinton isn’t the first politician to turn to...

China’s cybersecurity agency is believed to be the latest place in Beijing to be hit by an outbreak of the deadly coronavirus . . . While [the authorities] did not name the work unit, she did give its location – at the same address as the National Computer Network and Information Security Management Centre, China’s top cybersecurity agency . . . [they] said 178 people from the affected work unit had been isolated for medical observation, including 11 who had tested positive for the coronavirus.

For the second consecutive year, a former Notre Dame receiver made the right impressions at the NFL combine. Chase Claypool did not run the fastest of all the receivers in Indianapolis on Thursday, but his 4.42-second 40-yard dash wowed, nonetheless. While six receivers ran faster, highlighted by former Alabama receiver Henry Ruggs’ 4.27-second showing, just one of them was taller than 6-feet and only two weighed more than 200 pounds. Claypool, meanwhile, measured in at 6-foot-4 and 238 pounds.

Democratic candidate Michael Bloomberg has approached former Democratic candidate Andrew Yang about a potential political endorsement, going so far as to raise the possibility of Andrew Yang joining the ticket as vice president, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.  (Via The Wall Street Journal) Michael Bloomberg’s presidential campaign has made overtures to Democrat Andrew Yang, courting the former candidate’s endorsement and floating the possibility of Mr. Yang becoming his running mate, according to two people familiar with the discussions.Aides to the former New York City mayor reached out to discuss ways the two entrepreneurs-turned-politicians could work together as Mr....

"In the United States today, we have more than our share of nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4-H club -- the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history." – Vice-President Spiro Agnew I’ve had it with the nattering nabobs of negativism, and no amount of covfefe will help.Honestly, wishing a pandemic on the country in order to kill our own economy in order to take down a President they don’t like? Who does that? Deranged ideologues, that’s who.While then Vice-President Spiro Agnew gave a series of speeches in 1969 criticizing the media for their negative coverage, the...