Free Republic

ATLANTA (AP) — The billionaire heir and the former bartender.Many Democrats have been in and out of the spotlight as the party looks for effective counters to President Donald Trump and his second administration. But two disparate figures, Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, have seen their national profiles rise by delivering messages that excite a demoralized and fractured party. The governor, a 60-year-old heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune, and the congresswoman, the 35-year-old with working-class roots, both won their first elections in 2018. Both have urged mass resistance and accused their party...

PAINTSVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Janet Lynn Stumbo leaned on her cane and surveyed the two dozen or so voters who had convened in a small Appalachian town to meet with the chair of the Kentucky Democratic Party.A former Kentucky Supreme Court justice, the 70-year-old Stumbo said the event was “the biggest Democratic gathering I have ever seen in Johnson County,” an enclave where Republican Donald Trump got 85% of the presidential vote last November.Paintsville, the county seat, was the latest stop on the state party’s “Rural Listening Tour,” a periodic effort to visit overwhelmingly white, culturally conservative towns of the...

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump’s second inaugural address featured similar themes to his first: a sweeping indictment of the country he inherits and grand promises to fix its problems. Eight years ago, Trump described “American carnage” and promised to end it immediately. On Monday, he declared that the country’s “decline” will end immediately, ushering in “the golden age of America.” Trump added a long list of policies that sounded more like a State of the Union speech than an Inauguration Day speech. But the broad themes were fundamentally Trumpian, setting himself up as a national savior

ATLANTA (AP) — After losing the White House and both houses of Congress, Democrats are grappling with how to handle transgender politics and policy following a campaign that featured withering and often misleading GOP attacks on the issue. There is plenty of second-guessing after President-elect Donald Trump anchored his victory over Vice President Kamala Harris with sweeping promises on the economy and immigration. But Democrats also will not soon forget the punchline in anti-transgender Trump ads that became ubiquitous by Election Day: “Kamala is for they/them; President Trump is for you.”

ATLANTA (AP) — Jimmy Carter is sometimes called a better former president than he was president. Nodding to Carter’s decades of work as a globe-trotting humanitarian but with a glaring reminder of his landslide defeat in 1980, the backhanded compliment rankles Carter allies and, they say, the former president himself. Yet now, 40 years removed from the White House, the most famous resident of Plains, Georgia, is riding a new wave of attention as biographers, filmmakers, climate activists and Carter’s fellow Democrats push to recast his presidential legacy, even as Republicans sometimes try to remind voters of the volatile economy...

ATLANTA (AP) — President Donald Trump fruitlessly pressed Georgia's governor on Saturday to call a special legislative session aimed at subverting the presidential election results in that state as Trump’s fixation with his defeat overshadowed his party's campaign to save its majority in the Senate. Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp spoke by phone hours before Trump was to appear at a rally in Valdosta, Georgia, where Republicans hoped the president would dedicate his energy to imploring their supporters to vote in two runoff elections Jan. 5. But it remained an open question whether his first postelection political rally would...

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Joe Biden was uncharacteristically tight-lipped on Tuesday about the final stretch of his search for a vice president. But the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee seemed prepared to talk about at least one leading contender: California Sen. Kamala Harris. As he took questions from reporters on Tuesday, Biden held notes that were captured by an Associated Press photographer. Harris’ name was scrawled across the top, followed by five talking points. “Do not hold grudges.” “Campaigned with me & Jill.” “Talented.” “Great help to campaign.” “Great respect for her.”

The record unemployment rate reported on Friday captured the pain of a nation where tens of millions of jobs suddenly vanished, devastating the economy and forcing President Trump to overcome historic headwinds to win a second term. Months ago, Trump planned to campaign for reelection on the back of a robust economy, now a distant memory after more than 20 million jobs were lost in April, leading to an unemployment rate of 14.7%, the highest since the Great Depression. There's no parallel in U.S. history for the suddenness or severity of the economic collapse. The president is now tasked with...

Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, moderates who project themselves as pragmatic collaborators, are taking a no-compromise approach on the overhaul of the nation’s gun laws after the latest mass shooting. Campaigning separately in eastern Iowa on Monday, the former vice president and the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, say the minimum provisions include universal background checks, a ban on military-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition, and red flag laws to allow officials to confiscate firearms from dangerous people. Biden told reporters before a Labor Day picnic in Cedar Rapids that inaction from President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — In a barn down a gravel road in Iowa,Joe Biden tore into President Donald Trump’s moral character,declaring in one of the fiercest speeches of his campaign that the words of the American president matter.

The Democratic makeover is in full swing. **SNIP** Those tensions could come to a head if Pelosi struggles to be elected speaker. Even if she wins, it could be difficult for her to preside over a more liberal caucus. James, of the Collective PAC, said that's exactly the idea. "The status quo to me doesn't mean getting rid of people who have been in office a long time," she said. "It means you can't have the same mentality, you can't have the same goals. You can't have the same playbook. You've got to switch it up."