Free Republic

We're now in uncharted, historic waters: President Biden — backed by first lady Jill Biden and his convicted son, Hunter, who's serving as de facto gatekeeper for longtime friends — says that nothing, besides an act of God, will persuade him to quit his re-election campaign.But outside Biden's protective bubble, a fast-growing number of Democrats are praying for —and plotting — a more earthly intervention. They want everyone from the Obamas to congressional leaders to beg Biden to drop out by this Friday. Why it matters: Biden and his Democratic critics share one common passion — the intensity, certainty and...

If former President Trump wins in November, top supporters will push him to investigate, prosecute — and even try to imprison — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), who won Trump's conviction in the hush-money case. "Of course [Bragg] should be — and will be — jailed," Steve Bannon, one of the top voices of the MAGA movement, told us — saying for the record what many Trump supporters are privately plotting. Why it matters: This column has reported extensively about all the norms Trump plans to shatter if returned to the White House. Nowhere would that be truer than...

Joy Behar told her co-hosts Monday on ABC’s “The View” that Presidents’ Day should not honor “losers” like former presidents Donald Trump and Richard Nixon. Co-host Whoopi Goldberg said, “Today is Presidents’ Day, but not everybody is on board with it. There’s an op-ed calling to take it off the calendar, claiming that most people aren’t even sure what they’re celebrating. It used to honor Presidents Washington and Lincoln, but it expanded to all presidents depending on what state you’re in.”

Politico argued on Monday that President’s Day should be canceled for including former President Donald Trump in the holiday. In an article titled, “It’s Time To Cancel Presidents Day,” the publication made the case that President’s Day is not woke enough, and that it “does a disservice to history” and “is less a show of genuine respect for American history than an insult to it.”

It drives the media, Democrats and more than half of America mad, but President Trump's unorthodox, jam-your-opponent style can be effective. What he's done: He erased NAFTA, as a word, and replaced the trade pact with a different name (the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA) and better terms for America. Sure, he infuriated Canada and Justin Trudeau, but he delivered the goods. (And helped some farm-state candidates just before midterms.) Show less His tax cut, jammed through last year, continues to juice a red hot economy that has consumers confident, stocks soaring, joblessness sinking. His wild, improvisational press conferences and...

NBC boosts Axios out of the gate By Erik Wemple January 24, 2017 Start-up news site Axios, like all start-ups, begins life with a name-recognition deficit. The term itself is Greek for “worthy” and thus could describe a number of industries, including, say, an organic juice bar and dry-salt-therapy provider” in Tallahassee, Fla. Around these parts, however, Axios gains recognition from its co-founders, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen — the Politico mainstays who upended the way that Beltway journalism is practiced. One of Politico’s most resounding lessons — and one that VandeHei, Allen and former Politico executive Kim Kingsley willed...

Remember Wendy Davis? She was the Texas Democrat who became an MSM darling for her filibuster against a state law restricting abortions. Davis exploited her 15-minutes of fame by running for Governor of Texas in 2014. But despite the backing of an adoring press, Davis got demolished, losing by more than 20 points to Greg Abbott. For the record, my home county of Hood showed its scorn by awarding Davis all of . . . 18.9% of the vote. So when on today’s Morning Joe, Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei claimed that Hillary Clinton is so far ahead that she has...

Members of the Morning Joe panel tried their best to block and tackle for Hillary given the revelation that the person who set up her server has been granted immunity. Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey said the most troubling issue is the way things got from the SIPRnet--a Pentagon system used for exchanging Secret information--to Hillary's server. Mukasey explained that someone must have taken something off SIPRnet and either transcribed it or summarized it and then put it on her server. Politico's Jim VandeHei suggested hopefully that if charges are brought it would be against the "staffers" who did that,...

Politico is about to lose three of its most powerful and longtime leaders. Jim VandeHei, the co-founder and CEO of Politico; Mike Allen, author of the influential Politico Playbook; and Kim Kingsley, the company's chief operating officer will all leave the company later this year, sources with knowledge of the situation told CNNMoney on Thursday. Both VandeHei and Allen are expected to stay through the 2016 election. The exact date of Kingsley's departure is unknown. Politico is expected to release a memo regarding the news tonight, the sources said. VandeHei, Allen and Kingsley are three of Politico's most influential and...

Jim VandeHei sees dead people. On today's Morning Joe, the Politico honcho agreed with Joe Scarborough's suggestion that Chris Christie is like Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense: [politically] dead but doesn't know it. Ironically, Scarborough distanced himself from his own suggestion, twice saying that he didn't believe it. But when he asked his guest if the characterization was fair, Vandehei replied "I think it is. At best he's a live man stumbling." View the video here.

Pincus: Woodward 'Asked Me to Keep Him Out' of Plame Reporting By Joe Strupp Published: November 16, 2005 12:45 PM ET NEW YORK Walter Pincus, the longtime Washington Post reporter and one of several journalists who testified in the Valerie Plame case, said he believed as far back as 2003 that Bob Woodward had some involvement in the case but he did not pursue the information because Woodward asked him not to. "He asked me to keep him out of the reporting and I agreed to do that," Pincus said today. His comments followed a Post story today about Woodward's...

Barack Obama, to hear his advisers tell it, has finally found The One he has been looking for: John McCain. “We have been looking literally for years for someone we can cut deals with, and finally someone has stepped up,” a White House official said. West Wing aides say they now talk with McCain roughly every other day. McCain, to hear fellow Republicans tell it, has finally found The Two he has needed to make such conversations worth the bother: Sen. Chuck Schumer, a Democrat who can actually get things done in the Senate, and Denis McDonough, a White House...

“Now the money sucks for two reasons,” Boehner said in a Politico interview. “People are mad at the president; they are mad at the party. And then [there is] this whole immigration fight. People just turned off the spigot.” Boehner has undertaken a study, consulting corporate image experts, to “re-brand” the party. But so far, no big ideas have emerged. Some of his own colleagues regard Boehner as more of a transitional figure, between the Gingrich-DeLay era (in truth, both men drove Boehner to distraction) and the next generation of leadership.