Free Republic

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus, suggested Friday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., hurt the progressive cause when she downplayed the influence of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and other freshman lawmakers. Pelosi told The New York Times last week that Ocasio-Cortez and Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., "have their public whatever and their Twitter world, but they didn’t have any following. They’re four people, and that’s how many votes they got.” “I don’t think those comments were helpful to a broader picture of how we build progressive power...

Climate isn't the same as weather -- unless, of course, weather happens to be politically useful. In that case, weather portends climate apocalypse. So warns Elizabeth Warren as she surveyed Iowan rainstorms, which she claims, like tornadoes and floods, are more frequent and severe. "Different parts of the country deal with different climate issues," Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-Malthusia, cautioned as she too warned of extreme tornadoes. "But ALL of these threats will be increasing in intensity as climate crisis grows and we fail to act appropriately." Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., recently sent a fundraising email warning Democrats that climate change was...

Democrats will introduce legislation to mandate zero-emissions vehicles make up all new car sales by 2040. The bill is co-sponsored by three Democrats running for president in 2020 who support the Green New Deal. The internal combustion engine has long been a target for environmentalists. Democrats will introduce legislation to completely phase out the use of gasoline-powered cars by mandating that only zero-emissions vehicles can be sold by 2040. “When I take a lungful of air in this moment, it has 30 percent more carbon in it than when I was born,” Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, the bill’s main sponsor...

Terrorists need their guns more than their victims need surgeries. In 2002, Shmuel Waldman, an American from New Jersey, was shot while boarding a bus in Israel. The terrorist attack killed 2 people and left 40 injured. Among that 40 was Shmuel whose leg was blown apart, forcing him to undergo multiple surgical procedures, and leaving him suffering from PTSD. The terrorist who shot him was Said Ramadan, a “police officer” working for the terrorists who run the Palestinian Authority. The attack had been planned by senior Palestinian Authority officials and the Palestinian Authority viewed Ramadan as a hero. Waldman...

The US Department of Agriculture bought dozens of cats from Chinese meat markets, butchered the felines — and then fed their parts to healthy kittens at a Maryland lab for twisted experiments, according to a disturbing new watchdog report. The experiments, which took place as recently as 2015, were aimed at studying toxoplasmosis, a common parasitic infection that causes food-borne illness.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers will introduce legislation Thursday to prevent the Department of Agriculture from continuing deadly experiments on kittens. "The USDA's decision to slaughter kittens after they are used in research is an archaic practice and horrific treatment, and we need to end it," Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., the Senate bill's lead sponsor, said in a statement to NBC News. The agency has been breeding kittens in Beltsville, Maryland, and infecting them with a parasite that can cause toxoplasmosis, a food-borne illness. Scientists harvest the parasites from their stool for two to three weeks, and then euthanize and...

March 14, 2019 (Family Research Council) — What do cats have that newborn babies don't? Democrats' support. In one of the sickest ironies no one is talking about, Senate liberals picked this moment — 17 days after they voted to kill America's perfectly healthy infants — to fight for the humane treatment of kittens. Maybe the DNC's strategists are out to lunch, or maybe the Left really is this shameless, but I can't wait to see some of these politicians standing on debate platforms next year telling the American people that when it comes to protecting living things: We chose...

The Senate is set to escalate a long simmering fight over President Trump's judicial nominees. Republicans are poised to confirm a pick for the influential circuit courts next week without the support of either of the nominee's home-state senators—a first for the Trump era. Eric Miller is the first appeals judge to get a vote on the Senate floor this year, and the 31st of Trump’s presidency. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) set up an initial vote on his Ninth Circuit nomination for Monday evening. “The judicial train is running in the committee and it will soon hit the floor,”...

NEWS FROM THE UNITED STATES SENATE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 4, 2019 Udall, Heinrich, Senate Democrats Introduce Bill to Prevent President From Using Emergency Declaration to Raid Funds for Border Wall RAIDER Act of 2019 stops President Trump from bypassing Congress and raiding as much as $35 billion from military construction and disaster response funds for land acquisition or construction of his wall WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), along with U.S. Senators Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Dianne Feinstein...

Speaking from the Senate floor on Tuesday, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D.-Ore.) told President Donald Trump that he has “a dark and evil heart.” “You, Mr. President, have created a crisis, a humanitarian crisis,” Merkley said. “The arrivals on the border are not the crisis; it is your hardened heart, your dark and evil heart, your war on children; the deliberate strategy of inflicting trauma on children in order to send a message of deterrence, a political message of deterrence,” he said. Merkley also said Trump had created “internment camps” for children. …

Congressional Democrats are ditching House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s ardent opposition to any barrier or wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, as the partial government shutdown continues and President Donald Trump takes his case directly to the border itself. ““If we have a partial wall, if we have fencing, if we have technology used to keep our border safe, all of that is fine,” Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-IL), the chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), said on CNN. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) also backed a barrier along the U.S. border with Mexico....

Well, we all know the Republicans want to block the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. The judge has been subjected to a vicious character assassination campaign from the Left. At the 11thhour, sexual misconduct allegations were dropped. There are three allegations that are without evidence or witnesses. The Democrats want an FBI investigation, though they’ve already made up their mind eons ago. Hence, the reason why the GOP never entertained their BS motions for more documents or the initial call for such an investigation. We all knew they would oppose. Then, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) decided to muck up...

Democratic senators are pulling out every stop to block Brett Kavanaugh from joining the Supreme Court. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., says he will seek a federal court injunction to, as Politico described it, “stop a final vote on Brett Kavanaugh, asserting an obstruction of his constitutional duty to advise and consent on nominees.” According to Oregon media, “Merkley asserts he’s not being given adequate time to do his job of reviewing Kavanaugh’s qualifications.” It is true that the Senate received a significant amount of information and material regarding Kavanaugh’s legal career: 10,000 pages of legal opinions, 17,000 pages of speeches...

Dem Senator Jeff Merkley from OR goes on Maddow show, says Trump diverted 10M dollars in emergency funds from FEMA to go TO ICE in order to build detention camps. Maddow claims Homeland Security "confirmed" this story. Problem: It's not true. Homeland Security was contacted and said its BS. FEMA contacted Merkley's office who told them, "It's a TV hit. You take it when you can". Short video.

In a dramatic move Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell withdrew the nomination of President Donald Trump’s pick for the Ninth Circuit, Ryan Bounds, after reports surfaced that his nomination didn’t have enough votes for confirmation. Bounds, an assistant U.S. attorney in Oregon for the last eight years, was the Trump administration’s first nominee to the Ninth Circuit, named in September to replace Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain, for whom Bounds clerked. O’Scannlain took senior status at the end of 2016. Both of Bounds’ home-state senators, Democrats Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, opposed his nomination. They withheld their blue slips for Bounds,...

A Democratic senator who recorded his dramatic, unsuccessful effort to enter a federal immigration facility in Texas on video over the weekend was "irresponsibly spreading blatant lies about routine immigration enforcement," the White House said Monday. And in a separate statement, the Department of Homeland Security seemingly contradicted Sen. Jeff Merkley's suggestion that he was being systematically barred from immigrant detention centers, saying federal officials took extra steps to grant him access to one on Sunday. In footage uploaded to Facebook late Sunday and seen by more than a million viewers, Merkley, D-Ore., approached the Office of Refugee Resettlement facility...

You might call them illegal immigrants. Others like “Dreamers.” But Dem Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon has come up with a new euphemism: “community members.” Interviewed on CNN this morning, Merkley, three times in less than a minute, spoke of “community members” when referring to people in the country illegally. He bemoaned the fact that “more than 100 lose their legal status each day.” Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

Three of President Trump's female accusers spoke with NBC's Megyn Kelly Monday about their experiences, all claiming he took advantage of them sexually. Former beauty pageant contestant Samntha Holvey alleged that Trump made her feel like "a piece of meat," Rachel Crooks, a former receptionist, claimed he forcibly kissed her, and Jessica Leeds, a traveling saleswoman, says he groped and kissed her on an airplane. The White House has dismissed them as "false claims," as Kelly reiterated on her show.These women's stories, however, were enough to convince Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) that the president needs to step down "immediately." Should...

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, posted to Facebook her call on Franken to resign Click here to see the list of Senators calling on Franken to resign. A top Senate Dem says he expects Franken to resign Thursday shortly after Franken’s office said he would be making an announcement Thursday. Democrat Senator Ron Wyden tweeted,”I expect that Senator Franken will announce his resignation tomorrow. It is the right thing to do given this series of serious allegations.”

What a silly thing to say on the eve of Trump making his announcement. Now he has no incentive to choose a seemingly more moderate nominee, like Tom Hardiman, over someone like William Pryor. If it’s true that the filibuster is coming no matter what, then McConnell’s going to have to deploy the nuclear option no matter what — in which case, why not nominate the most hardline judge you can find? With Trump prepared to announce his nominee on Tuesday evening, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said in an interview on Monday morning that he will filibuster any pick that...