Free Republic

Senior White House aide Kellyanne Conway on Friday railed against Democrats criticizing the GOP plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare, suggesting they failed to put in the same effort during the 2014 Veterans Affairs wait-list scandal. "Where the hell were those Democrats – excuse me – when veterans were dying waiting for care?" Conway said on Fox News. "I didn't see them coming on TV with hosts that just sat there listening to them and their screed when there were veterans dying for care and deserve better." Scandal erupted in the Veterans Health Administration in 2014 amid revelations of negligence...

Hillary Clinton has decided she doesn’t have to run for president again to defeat Donald Trump. Barely six months after the 2016 Election came to a stunning conclusion, Clinton will reportedly launch Onward Together, a political advocacy group squarely focused on putting a stop to President Trump’s agenda. And, according to Politico, the group could be officially launching very soon. And if that name sounds familiar, that’s because it’s very close to Clinton’s former campaign slogan, “Stronger Together.” The group will reportedly pull on a team of longtime Clinton donors and advisors to help fund other groups and initiatives around...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A pair of moderate Republicans who'd been holdouts against the GOP health care bill said Wednesday they were now backing the high-profile legislation after winning President Donald Trump's support for their proposal for reviving the languishing measure. The conversions of Reps. Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Billy Long, R-Mo., could breathe new life into the sagging Republican push to deliver their long-standing promise repeal former President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. Upton and others said they believed the House could pass the legislation Thursday....

President Trump on Tuesday took a fresh jab at former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, suggesting in two tweets late Tuesday that his own FBI Director James Comey had intentionally gone easy in his investigation of her emails. "FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds. The phony… ” Trump said in a Twitter post late Tuesday night. "...Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by the Democrats as justification for losing the election. Perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign?" he continued in...

Former House Speaker warns divided GOP may 'need to erase the board and start over again' Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich suggested GOP lawmakers are almost at an impasse in their effort to repeal and replace Obamacare where they “need to erase the board and start over again,” during an interview Wednesday on “The Laura Ingraham Show.” Republican leaders in the House have been furiously attempting to convince skeptical moderates in the caucus to back the latest package to reform the nation’s health care system. Gingrich bemoaned the internal divisions in the GOP that are preventing the Congress from implementing...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Congressional Progressive Caucus, led by Co-Chairs Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), and First Vice Chair Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) along with other Members of the CPC, released the annual People’s Budget today. The Congressional Progressive Caucus’ People’s Budget: A Roadmap for the Resistance reinvests in American families, prioritizing funding for education, health care, jobs, clean air, and water. The People’s Budget puts political and economic power back in the hands of the people. The Executive Summary of The People’s Budget: A Roadmap for the Resistance can be foundhere. The full text can...

Let's face it: The past 100 days have been a disaster ... for Democrats. While much ink has been spilled in the past week assessing President Donald Trump's first 100 days in office, the Democrats' abysmal performance has largely escaped scrutiny. So let's review their record. The Democrats spent much of Trump's first months in office pushing their unfounded narrative of Trump's alleged collusion with Vladimir Putin. But that narrative went up in smoke when Trump launched missile strikes against Putin's Syrian ally, Bashar Assad. Trump not only hit the air base from which Assad allegedly had launched his chemical...

As the Democratic Party rebuilds itself for the 2018 and 2020 elections, Democratic strategists have been preoccupied with a pressing question: why did so many voters who backed Barack Obama in 2012 switch to Donald Trump four years later, and what can be done to win them back? Top Democratic pollsters have conducted private focus groups and polling in an effort to answer that question, and they shared the results with me. One finding from the polling stands out: a shockingly large percentage of these Obama-Trump voters said Democrats’ economic policies will favour the wealthy — twice the percentage that...

Sen John McCain said Sunday that the Trump Administration should consider a preemptive strike on North Korea but should only see it as a last resort. "I think that we have to consider that option as the very last option," the Arizona Republican told CNN on Sunday. McCain asserted that he doesn’t think the president is currently considering a strike on North Korea but that recent rising tension between the two countries could be a Cuban Missile Crisis in slow motion. The senator said that the Chinese could have a key role and “put the breaks on this” but says...

"The stench of failure hangs over [the] White House. The people know it, judging by the opinion polls, Corporate titans know it." The President "seems to concede some major misjudgments. . . . What is lacking is any clear sense of direction." "What we are witnessing," says David Broder, is a "one-year phenomenon" of a president who is "more spectator than leader." As the Middle East is in chaos, the president---photographed in [golf] clothes, [is] heading off for a weekend at [Mar-a-Lago]. At some point down the road, the phasing out of the [Trump] presidency will confront the Republican Party...

GENEVA, OHIO — Dennis Dixon didn’t vote for Donald J. Trump. For the first time in his 46 years, the self-described “moderate Midwestern Republican” sat out a presidential election because he was less than thrilled with both major candidates. “I wrote in John Kasich,” he says, with a trace of humor. Dixon stands in the showroom of Griffiths Furniture along West Main Street — a charming business district, its sidewalks decorated with grape-vine etchings to celebrate the produce for which this Ohio wine region is known. He is not one of those voters who doesn’t wish success for the president....

Talk to voters across the country about President Trump's first 100 days in office and a few things become abundantly clear: His supporters — those who turned out in force and voted for him — still overwhelmingly love him. His detractors — and they are many, given that Trump failed to win the popular vote — are still shocked by his election and appalled by his behavior. He has lost support, particularly among moderates and independent voters. That's a big reason that polls give him the lowest approval rating of any modern president this soon after taking office. And, at...

The party has harmed millions of their own former constituents. If they change course, they can reverse their losses The tragedy of the 2016 election is connected closely, at least for me, to the larger tragedy of the industrial midwest. It was in the ruined industrial city of Cleveland that the Republican Party came together in convention last July, and it was the deindustrialized, addiction-harrowed precincts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin that switched sides in November and delivered Donald Trump to the Oval Office. I am a midwesterner too, and I like to think I share the values and...

Ro Khanna has a $1 trillion plan to fatten Americans’ wallets. The newly elected member of Congress, who represents Silicon Valley, has become a loud progressive voice on the Hill during his brief tenure there. The way he sees it, Democrats have failed by not offering families a radical plan to end wage stagnation and bring prosperity to the middle class once again. He is working on a bill he believes will do just that, by boosting the Earned Income Tax Credit to provide as much as $6,000 a year for individuals and $12,000 for families. (That would roughly double...

Georgia Rep. John Lewis will join protesters outside of the National Rifle Association's convention in Atlanta on Saturday. Several hundred gun control advocates are expected to gather ahead of President Trump's speech to the annual convention, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution report. In January, Trump criticized Lewis on Twitter, saying the civil rights icon is "All talk, talk, talk — no action or results." Lewis did not attend the inauguration and said he did not see Trump as a "legitimate president." More than 80,000 people are expected at the NRA convention. Several hundred people have also RSVP'ed to protests organized...

NEW YORK (AP) - President Donald Trump's liaison to the black community, the former "Apprentice" star Omarosa Manigault, says African-American activists aren't trying hard enough to work with the new administration. The White House aide delivered the pointed message in an interview with The Associated Press in advance of an appearance Thursday at the annual convention of an activist organization founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton. "We're here waiting, willing to work with the community," Manigault said when asked about Trump's moves to slash programs that benefit minorities. "This president wants to engage. It's not a one-way street."(continued)

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says he boycotted a White House briefing on North Korea because he “did not want to be part of a photo opportunity.” “What I did not want to be is part of a photo opportunity or a political effort on the part of the White House,” Sanders told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Wednesday. In an unusual move, the White House invited all 100 senators to attend the briefing at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Sanders said such briefings are typically held at the Capitol in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) room, which is a specially...

One hundred days into his presidency, Donald Trump's supporters see a shrewd businessman who has roared into Washington, following through on campaign promises to cut government regulation, secure the border and be a fresh departure from business as usual. But at the same time his backers acknowledge that Trump has had difficulty navigating his way through the quagmire of Congress — facing opposition from Democrats and Republicans — and leaving some signature pledges incomplete. "He's in this to try to make this country a better place, to make things right," said state Rep. Tony D'Amelio of Waterbury, one of the...

Over the past few days, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez have faced criticism for endorsing anti-abortion lawmaker Heath Mello and for suggesting that Democratic legislators don't all need to hold pro-choice views in order to be embraced by their party. And it looks like the backlash from (mostly) women made Perez and Sanders backtrack on reproductive rights being negotiable. On Friday, Perez insisted that all Democratic lawmakers should support pro-choice legislation, and on Saturday, Sanders was joined by Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards at a rally in Las Vegas to discuss reproductive rights. Last week,...

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are both trying to explain their positions on the 1994 crime bill, a touchstone of the tough-on-crime attitudes that are blamed for the mass incarceration of people of color now. TRANSCRIPT: AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: South Carolina holds its Democratic primary tomorrow. And during their events in the state, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have been talking about ways they would change the criminal justice system of today, but they're also being challenged on their positions on the issue as far back as 20 years ago. NPR's Tamara Keith reports. TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hillary Clinton was...