Free Republic

In February of 2003, then-aspiring Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean got applause at a Democratic National Committee meeting when he argued that “white folks in the South who drive pickup trucks with Confederate flag decals on the back ought to be voting with us.” More than a decade later, in the wake of the violent white supremacist rally surrounding a statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia, last wekend and President Trump’s full-throated defense of Confederate monuments, the politics have changed. What used to be a series of low-key, local fights has turned into a party-defining wedge issue with...

It has long been said that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result. Such a strategy never worked out well in Wile E. Coyote’s endless pursuit of the Roadrunner, and it is still very unlikely to do so in the mainstream news media’s quixotic quest to bring down Donald Trump (after having gleefully given him billions in free advertising just over a year ago). This week, after Trump’s bonkers press conference — which would have been great had he been a television guest on Fox News, but performed...

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is endorsing a resolution from House Democrats to censure President Trump after his response to the violent events in Charlottesville, Virginia. Reps. Jerry Nadler of New York, Bonnie Watson of New Jersey and Pramila Jayapal of Washington on Wednesday introduced the first censure resolution against the president. The censure movement came a day before Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tennessee, announced he plans to introduce articles of impeachment against the president. "The president's repulsive defense of white supremacists demands that Congress act to defend our American values," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said in a...

ATLANTA (AP) — President Donald Trump’s widely criticized response to white supremacist violence in Virginia has left Democrats in a quandary: how to seize the moral high ground without getting sucked into a politically perilous culture war. Democrats have denounced Trump for blaming “both sides” for deadly protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, and, more recently, for defending Confederate monuments. But the party faces a complex task: While addressing race and history in ways that reflect the party’s values, Democrats also need to focus on issues like jobs and the economy that resonate with a wider range of voters, including white independents,...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo.— A Missouri lawmaker who temporarily posted a Facebook comment expressing hope that President Donald Trump would be assassinated could face an effort to remove her from office. Gov. Eric Greitens and Lt. Gov. Mike Parson, both Republicans, said on Friday that state senators should oust Democratic Sen. Maria Chapelle-Nadal, who has continued to reject calls for her resignation. "If she will not resign, the Senate can vote to remove her. I believe they should," Greitens said in a written statement....

Your daily reminder via Survey Monkey and Axios that virtually all issues are partisan now. Since our national future of Antifa reds slugging it out with alt-right brownshirts in running street battles looks increasingly assured, we might as well start tracking reaction polls like this: Watching media coverage, you’d think Trump is nearly alone in believing “both sides” share fault for the Charlottesville violence. Turns out, most Republicans have his back… Far more blame “the far right groups” for Charlottesville (46%) than “the counter-protesters” (9%), but a remarkable 40% concur with Trump’s assertion that both were equally responsible. “Beneath the...

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and other prominent Republicans have faulted President Donald Trump’s response to the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., but there was little criticism — and even some praise — for Trump’s handling of the issue when more than 400 activists, donors and candidates gathered Thursday for a GOP dinner outside Boca Raton. There has been some “chaos and turmoil” of late, Palm Beach County Republican Chairman Michael Barnett acknowledged to the crowd at the party’s annual Lobsterfest event at the Polo Club. But, Barnett added, “God is on his throne, Republicans are in charge and...

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. (AP) - House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said the departure of White House adviser Steve Bannon is "welcome news," but she is calling on President Donald Trump to fire additional staff. Pelosi said in a statement that Bannon's departure "doesn't disguise where President Trump himself stands on white supremacists and the bigoted beliefs they advance." Trump has said "both sides" are to blame for the clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, between white supremacists and counter-protesters last weekend. One woman protesting the far-right extremist groups died when a car drove into a crowd.....

Mitt Romney called on President Donald Trump Friday to apologize for his comments about Charlottesville, Virginia, saying the President’s remarks this week “caused racists to rejoice.” “The potential consequences are severe in the extreme,” Romney wrote in a Facebook post. “Accordingly, the president must take remedial action in the extreme. He should address the American people, acknowledge that he was wrong, apologize.” He said that Trump’s remarks — in which he blamed “both sides” for inciting violence, an equivocation between neo-Nazis and those protesting them — had a hurtful impact on the nation. “Whether he intended to or not, what...

Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher met with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who the congressman said denied that Russia was involved in sending him emails from the Democratic National Committee. WikiLeaks published emails from the Democratic National Committee, which led to the resignation of DNC Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. “He reaffirmed his aggressive denial that the Russians had anything to do with the hacking of the DNC during the election," Rohrabacher said of Assange, the Orange County Register reported. Rohrabacher’s statements come despite the fact that U.S. intelligence authorities have said with “high confidence” that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential...

ADDISON — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said Thursday that cities should not get rid of Confederate statues and monuments in order to "sanitize history." "I don't think we should go through and simply try to erase from history prior chapters, even if they were wrong," Cruz said during a news conference. "But I think that's a decision each community has to make. ... I suspect different communities will approach this decision differently." President Donald Trump said Thursday that he was disappointed with the removal of Confederate monuments, saying on Twitter that the nation's cities were losing some of their beauty.....

Articles Of Impeachment Brought For Third Time Against Republican Donald Trump Polls have now shown a majority of Americans thought the response to the Charlottesville domestic terror attack by Republican Donald Trump was incredibly weak. Despite that reality, Trump has now tripled down on his affinity for the traitorous past of the Confederacy with another early morning Tweet storm in support of the statues representing that ugly history. Now, it appears one Democrat has had enough of the dog whistles and will introduce articles of impeachment against Trump over his continued olive branches to white supremacists. Democrat Steve Cohen of...

A prominent Republican senator delivered a stinging rebuke Thursday of Donald Trump’s short time in office, declaring he has not shown the stability or competence required for an American president to succeed. Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, also said Trump “recently has not demonstrated that he understands the character of this nation.” During comments to local reporters after a speech to the Chattanooga Rotary Club, Corker called for “radical changes” in how the Trump White House operates. His remarks, which were posted on Facebook, came two days after Trump declared at a New York...

Fort Worth Rep. Kay Granger on Wednesday lined up with President Donald Trump, condeming violence coming from “both sides” and raising concerns about a rush to remove Confederate monuments. Speaking with North Texas conservative radio host Mark Davis on Wednesday morning, Granger was asked whether in the wake of clashes between white nationalists and counter-protesters last weekend in Charlottesville, violence perpetrated by left-of-center activists was being ignored. “[W]e need to recognize it and talk about it because it’s on both sides,” said Granger, who said people on both the left and right are guilty of escalating their political activism to...

Fox News Channel is in discussions with the conservative radio host Laura Ingraham that could result in her coming to the 21st Century Fox-owned cable-news network as a regular host, a person familiar with the outlet’s plans confirmed early Tuesday. No deal has been signed, and there is no sense at this time when one might come to fruition, this person said. She already serves as a Fox News contributor.

White House Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon condemned white nationalist "clowns" in an interview Wednesday, but continued to hit Democrats over "identity politics", saying if they talked about race every day he could ensure Republican election victories. “The Democrats, the longer they talk about identity politics, I got ’em," the former head of Breitbart told The American Prospect in an interview. "I want them to talk about racism every day." "If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats,” he added. Bannon's comments came after a white supremacist rally in...

NEW YORK (AP) -- They wash their hands of neo-Nazis and wag their fingers at leftists. They denounce a press corps they see as biased and controversies they view as manufactured. But in the frenzied blame game over the deadly violence at a rally of white supremacists, Donald Trump's loyal base is happy to absolve the president himself. Even as Trump's zig-zag response to the weekend bloodshed in Charlottesville, Virginia, has brought criticism from some Republican lawmakers, many men and women who helped put him in office remain unmoved by the latest uproar. "He has done nothing to turn me...

“The president has been clear on this tragedy,” Mike Pence said at a presser in Chile earlier today, “and so have I.” But with which version of Donald Trump’s comments does the Vice President stand? Pence employs the time-honored political maneuver of answering the question a politician wants to answer, rather than specifically what he was asked: “What happened in Charlottesville was a tragedy, and the president has been clear on this tragedy and so have I,” Pence told reporters on Wednesday. “I spoke at length about this heartbreaking situation on Sunday night in Colombia, and I stand with the...

A group of congressional Democrats wants Congress to officially censure President Trump in the wake of the clashes in Charlottesville sparked by a neo-Nazi and white nationalist rally. Led by Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, a senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, the censure resolution says Mr. Trump did a disservice to the country when he blamed “many sides” for the violence that erupted. The lawmakers, though, go beyond Charlottesville, saying the president “has surrounded himself with, and cultivated the influence of, senior advisors and spokespeople who have long histories of promoting white nationalist, alt-Right, racist and anti-Semitic...

President Donald Trump sparked a barrage of Republican outrage on Tuesday after he blamed “both sides” for the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia — including from House Speaker Paul Ryan. “We must be clear,” Ryan said after Trump’s remarks. “White supremacy is repulsive. This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity.” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said on Twitter, “Mr. President, you can't allow #WhiteSupremacists to share only part of blame.” Added Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.): “This is simple: we must condemn and marginalize white supremacist groups, not encourage and embolden them.” Many other...