Free Republic

Leaders of the Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM) — which openly calls for the Lone Star State to secede from the United States and become an independent nation again — appear to have surpassed the threshold to put a secession ballot initiative on the 2024 Republican primary ballot this March..

President Joe Biden on Thursday defended his administration’s decision to waive 26 federal laws in South Texas to allow for construction of roughly 20 miles of additional border wall, saying he had no choice but to use the Trump-era funding for the barrier to stop illegal migration from Mexico. Asked if he thought such walls work, he said flatly, “No.” The new construction was announced in June, but the funds were appropriated in 2019 before the Democratic president took office. Biden said he tried to get lawmakers to redirect the money but Congress refused, and the law requires the funding...

"Progressives have called for Breyer to step down so Biden could nominate his successor."

Andrew Weissmann, the lead prosecutor for former special counsel Robert Mueller, said Thursday on MSNBC’s “The Last Word” that Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance recently hiring ex-prosecutor Mark Pomerantz to help him investigate former President Donald Trump means “things are heating up.”

Some witnesses and their attorneys assert that Huber’s appointment a year and a half ago was meant to silence Republicans while shielding the Obama administration FBI and Department of Justice officials from true scrutiny. ‘At the time, people wanted a special counsel, but Jeff Sessions announced he brought in Huber and people said, “OK, we got Huber on it,”’ said former Justice Department prosecutor Victoria Toensing. ‘But it was a head fake.’ Toensing now works in private practice and represents a Uranium One whistleblower and FBI informant Doug Campbell. Neither Campbell nor Toensing have been contacted by Huber, despite Campbell’s...

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger came to the late Sen. John McCain's defense after President Trump spent the last week attacking his old critic. Schwarzenegger, 71, the Austrian-born politician who rose to fame with the U.S. by his roles in "Conan the Barbarian" and the "Terminator" movies, said the type of vitriol coming from the president is unbecoming of the office. “[McCain] was just an unbelievable person,” Schwarzenegger told the Atlantic. “So an attack on him is absolutely unacceptable if he’s alive or dead — but even twice as unacceptable since he passed away a few months ago. It doesn’t...

Eric Trump criticized social media platforms, said CNN is hurting the United States and accused the New York Times of “presidential harassment” while talking to “Fox & Friends” Wednesday. “It only goes one way. If you’re on the left you’re totally protected. If you’re on the right they absolutely try to kill you,” Trump said about social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Trump echoed the sentiments of his father, the president, and brother Donald Trump Jr. who have been vocal about bias among social media

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered a searing response Wednesday when asked about Mayor Bill de Blasio’s nascent presidential campaign — as the mayor stood nearby. “I always say when somebody is serious about running, I’ll be serious about commenting on it,” she said. “Well handled,” responded the mayor, trying to play down the slap.

Democratic presidential candidate Kirstin Gillibrand wants to expand Social Security to people living in the United States illegally. "First, we need comprehensive immigration reform," the 2020 hopeful and New York senator said during a campaign stop in Davenport, Iowa. "If you are in this country now you must have the right to pay into Social Security, to pay your taxes, to pay into the local school system and to have a pathway to citizenship. That must happen." Gillibrand's comments are striking given her past as an immigration hawk. In 2009, the New York senator voted to increase funding for ICE...

Every American citizen has the right to ask public policy questions from his lawmakers in the public sphere. Lawmakers also have the right to answer or refuse. Ms. Ilhan Omar is not an exception because she is a Muslim. Our Congress is not a safe zone for Muslims or any other group. Here are my ten questions: 1. Why don't you defend the rights of Muslim women in Somalia and other Muslim-majority countries?

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused President Donald Trump of signaling to white supremacists that he would “look the other way” as they commit acts of violence. After the New Zealand mosque shootings by an self-described white supremacist, a reporter asked Trump if he saw white nationalism as a rising threat around the world. “I don't really. I think it's a small group of people that have very, very serious problems,” Trump replied, before saying he did not at that time know much about the details of the New Zealand attack but that it was "certainly a terrible thing.”

The Federalist senior editor Mollie Hemingway and Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen butted heads during the Special Report “All-Star” panel over President Donald Trump’s response to the anti-Muslim shootings that took place in New Zealand last week. On Friday, President Trump expressed his condolences on Twitter for the 49 people who were shot in mosques by a white nationalist, but later dismissed the idea to reporters that white nationalism was “on the rise.” Thiessen began by calling the efforts made by Democrats and the media to link Trump to the terror attack “absurd,” but insisted that he’s “vulnerable” to such...

resident Donald Trump’s proposed federal budget for 2020 aims to cut all funding for PBS and NPR, along with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The president’s request, unveiled in its entirety on Monday, calls on Congress to kill $435 million in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and $126 million from the NEA. The budget, which will spend $4.7 trillion on mandatory and discretionary programs, would leave just enough money to wind down operations of the CPB and NEA.

President Trump called former Vice President Joe Biden “another low I.Q. individual” for accidentally admitting in a speech on Saturday that he was entering the Democratic presidential race. “Joe Biden got tongue tied over the weekend when he was unable to properly deliver a very simple line about his decision to run for President. Get used to it, another low I.Q. individual!” Trump tweeted Monday. Speaking at a Delaware Democratic Party fundraiser, Biden defended his political stance against critics who say he would be a moderate if he ran among the current crop of Democratic candidates.

Democratic White House hopeful Cory Booker said Sunday night he would reverse President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender individuals serving in the military if elected president. Speaking to a crowd of more than 300 voters in Davenport, the New Jersey senator answered a question posed by a woman who identified herself as transgender about what he would do to protect LGBTQ rights as president. “When I am president of the United States, right away I will end this ridiculous, insulting, un-American ban on transgender Americans serving in the military,” he said to cheers from the crowd.

President Donald Trump targeted both General Motors and an Ohio union official on Sunday over an assembly plant that the automaker closed earlier this month. His tweet amplifies the public pressure on GM to restart operations at the Lordstown, Ohio facility. Trump has frequently used his platform to push companies to take his preferred actions. Earlier this year, he threatened to cut the company's subsidies after it announced plans to slash production at several U.S. plants. On Sunday, Trump said he spoke to GM CEO Mary Barra about the facility and "asked her to sell it or do something quickly."...

Former Vice President Joe Biden told a Delaware audience Saturday he has the "most progressive" record of any Democrat "running" -- or at least considering a run, as Biden isn't yet officially in the race. The apparent slip-up came during a speech to members of the state's Democratic Party, where he argued that recent criticism he'd received from progressives was unfounded. "I'm told I get criticized by the 'New Left,' " Biden told the audience. "I have the most progressive record of anybody running for the ... anybody who would run."

As he had done at several stops in his first campaign trip as a presidential candidate, Beto O’Rourke on Friday climbed atop a counter at a local Iowa business and addressed a small but adoring crowd. People clapped and cheered. Outside, some waited in the cold, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. By that measure, his tour across eastern Iowa last week was largely a success. But by no means was O’Rourke considered a front-runner. And that underscored the challenge he faces as he competes for the 2020 Democratic nomination. O’Rourke, a former three-term U.S. congressman from Texas, became...

Liberal Muslim activist Linda Sarsour tweeted that she is “triggered” by a “hate mob” against Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar that is “now giving condolences” to the Muslim community in the wake of the Christchurch, New Zealand shootings. “I am triggered by those who piled on Representative Ilhan Omar and incited a hate mob against her until she got assassination threats now giving condolences to our community,” Sarsour tweeted Saturday morning. “What we need you to do is reflect on how you contribute to islamophobia and stop doing that.”

Bernie Sanders is “the nutty professor”; Elizabeth Warren is “Pocahontas”; Beto O’Rourke’s hand movements are “crazy”. Donald Trump is already taking pot shots at his potential opponents in the 2020 presidential election, evoking memories of his chaotic 2016 campaign with its raucous rallies and taunting tweets. But something will be different this time. The US president is now backed by a Republican party reshaped in his image, a huge war chest and a newly sophisticated political data operation. Whereas some regard him as an accidental president who fluked his way to the White House in 2016, his lieutenants hope that,...