Free Republic

The battle of the Democrat money men running for president is playing out in high-roller Las Vegas as billionaire Mike Bloomberg replaces billionaire Tom Steyer on the debate stage Wednesday night. Steyer did not meet the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) threshold by the Tuesday midnight deadline. And while voters can cast their ballot for Steyer in Nevada, Bloomberg’s name is not one of the candidates on it. Steyer, who took part in the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth debates is not happy about the development, Politico reports: Steyer’s campaign has cried foul at his likely exclusion, arguing that his...

President Trump’s reelection campaign announced it is taking out a full-page advertisement in the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Wednesday, the same day Democrats will be squaring off in Nevada’s primary debate. The ad, which is running in Nevada’s largest newspaper based on circulation, will slam Democrats for “big government socialism” that it says will “kill Nevada jobs.” The color ad will also highlight job creation and dropping unemployment during Trump's tenure, declaring that “President Trump’s fighting for the economy.” “Nevada voters should know that it doesn’t matter which Democrat becomes their party’s nominee, because the big government socialist agenda will...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - President Donald Trump began a four-day Western swing on Tuesday with a fundraiser in Los Angeles, the first stop on a trip aimed at making himself a distraction as Democratic presidential candidates focus on the Nevada caucuses. Buoyed by his acquittal in the U.S. Senate impeachment trial, Trump has campaign rallies planned in Phoenix on Wednesday, Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Thursday and Las Vegas on Friday. All the events are aimed at providing a competing message to the Democrats.

Socialist 2020 Democrat presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders compares voting for him to voting for Nelson Mandela in apartheid-era South Africa, during a campaign rally in Reno, Nevada on 2/18/2020. ...

The Bernie Sanders campaign sent information to voters that included propaganda imagery from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party. A man pictured in the Sanders campaign leaflet sent to Nevada voters by mail ahead of the state's Feb. 22 Democratic caucuses wears a black shirt with white lettering saying, "SI SI SI" (translating to "YES YES YES"), and a white face under his tan suit jacket. The image is a recreation of propaganda that pictured a large Mussolini stone face on the facade of the National Fascist Party headquarters in Rome, the Palazzo Braschi. Similar shirts and clothing with...

“Landslide” is a relative term, of course. Bernie’s not going to get so much as 50 percent of the vote in Nevada.But given the photo finish in Iowa and the surprisingly tight margin in New Hampshire, a comfortable win would be impressive and potentially game-changing depending upon just how comfortable it is. Nevada’s apt to be the last state that’s hotly contested by the big four that have dominated the top tier for the past year. Warren will likely be done after the vote and Buttigieg and Klobuchar may be relegated to de facto also-ran status after their moment...

A bad month for Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts keeps getting worse. She finished in a respectable third place in the Iowa caucuses, but a results-tallying meltdown muddled what could have been a good evening. New Hampshire was better at logistics but worse for her candidacy, considering she ended up closer to candidates who dropped out after the primary than those who finished on top. Her staff members and plenty of allies argue that as a result, she is being ignored by the news media and some voters during a pivotal moment in the primary, and she is at risk...

When we looked at the new DNC debate qualification rules yesterday, the only outstanding question was whether Michael Bloomberg would get the last poll he needed to make it onto the stage or if we’d just wind up with the same five candidates we saw last time. That question was answered last night when a new Marist poll saw Mayor “Throw Them Up Against the Wall” surging to 19 percent nationally, pulling into second place behind Bernie Sanders. That was the fourth poll in the past month showing Bloomberg in double digits, leading to the Nevada debate invitation since...

The Nevada State Democratic Party plans to use a Google calculator uploaded to iPads to help tally voting results in the upcoming Nevada caucuses, a top party official announced Thursday. Party Executive Director Alana Mounce sent a memo explaining that the calculator will be loaded onto 2,000 iPads purchased by the Nevada State Democratic Party, with the iPads then distributed to precinct chairs. Mounce wrote that the party “consulted with a team of independent security and technical experts to create a simple, user-friendly calculator,” and that the calculator will only be used by “trained precinct chairs and accessed through a...

LAS VEGAS - With the Nevada caucuses days away, campaign officials and Democratic activists are increasingly alarmed that they might prove a debacle as damaging as the vote in Iowa, further setting the party back in its urgent effort to coalesce around a nominee to take on President Donald Trump. Campaigns said they still have not gotten the party to offer even a basic explanation of how key parts of the process will work. Volunteers are reporting problems with the technology that's been deployed at the last minute to make the vote count smoother. And experts are raising serious questions...

WASHINGTON -- Beto O'Rourke tried it. Kamala Harris tried it. Cory Booker tried it. And one by one, they all flamed out. Now, Elizabeth Warren is pitching herself as the Democratic candidate who can unify the party's progressive and moderate wings, a play that could lead her down the same bridge to nowhere, unless her message can quickly find some resonance. The Massachusetts senator has pleaded with voters not to pick a divisive nominee who risks paving the way for President Donald Trump's re-election, telling a devoted crowd of supporters Tuesday in Manchester, New Hampshire, that she was Democrats' "best...

Having discredited itself with utter (and very public) incompetence in tallying up the Iowa caucuses, the Democrats are reportedly on the verge of another disaster in Nevada. Politico headlines, ‘A complete disaster’: Fears grow over potential Nevada caucus malfunction  Anxiety is rising over the possibility of another tech-induced meltdown at the Nevada Democratic caucuses on Saturday. In interviews, three caucus volunteers described serious concerns about rushed preparations for the Feb. 22 election, including insufficient training for a newly-adopted electronic vote-tally system and confusing instructions on how to administer the caucuses. There are also unanswered questions about the security of...

Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate and voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams hit the nail on the head, telling voters not to let two small, virtually all-white states tell them whom to pick as the Democratic presidential nominee: ‘We need a more representative sample’ — Exclusive: @staceyabrams believes that our Iowa and New Hampshire first primary system is silencing voters of color She makes the logical case that only 65 delegates have been selected (distributed rather evenly among several candidates) — out of a grand total of 1,991 who would need to be pledged to win the nomination on the first ballot....

The Iowa and New Hampshire results have begun to clarify the choices Democratic voters will have in picking their candidate to face President Trump in November.....The biggest loser has been former Vice President Joe Biden. As in his first two runs for the presidency (both of which he ended early), Biden once again proved he is not an effective campaigner....The polls in South Carolina already show substantial slippage for Biden. If the intervening Nevada caucus becomes yet another defeat (and the evidence so far leans toward Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and maybe Sen....

With their center’s collapse, Democrats’ only hope of reconstituting it is by redefining the center. As the Democratic primary race moves leftward, the definitions of their candidates are moving right. It resembles a play in which we are expected to accept that the same actors have become different characters simply because of a costume change. When the 2020 Democratic field was taking shape a year ago, its spread was straightforward. Former Vice President Joe Biden was the establishment anchor, in a center-left, front-runner position. A couple of candidates were to his right – Montana Gov. Steve Bullock and former Rep....

Well, this should make for some good talking points against Sen. Bernie Sanders’ agenda to transform America into a socialist utopia. The Vermont senator is running on one of the most radical agendas in recent memory. It’s decidedly left-wing. Its supporters are decidedly left-wing. The energy that is has channeled has forced the Democratic Party to lurch to the left, much to the annoyance of the establishment. You see that with the Democratic National Committee pretty much changing the rules so that former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg can be on stage. Sanders supporters will only see this as yet...

LAS VEGAS — Senator Bernie Sanders is a longtime supporter of “Medicare for all.” “I wrote the damn bill,” he said on a debate stage last summer, and his support for universal health care has helped propel him to the front of the 2020 Democratic field. But in Nevada, where the race heads next, his signature policy is a liability with the largest labor union in the state. And the union has enthusiastic allies in Mr. Sanders’s opponents. On Friday morning, moments after Senator Amy Klobuchar finished a tour of the health care facility run by the culinary workers’ union,...

Things are getting testy out in Nevada as we crash headlong toward caucus day. And with Joe Biden seeing his previous lead in the polls slipping away to Bernie Sanders, he has to find a way to draw a distinction and deflate some of the Democratic Socialist’s momentum. That means breaking out the oppo folder and finding some of Bernie’s old votes to throw in his face. This weekend Uncle Joe reached all the way back to 2005 when Sanders was still in the House of Representatives, bringing up his vote in favor of the Protection of Lawful Commerce...

The Bureau of Land Management has announced plans to fund 11,000 miles (17,703 kilometers) of strategic fuel breaks in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada and Utah in an effort to help control wildfires. The fuel breaks are intended to prop up fire mitigation efforts and help protect firefighters, communities and natural resources, The Oregonian reported Saturday. According to the BLM, wildfires are becoming bigger and more frequent across the Great Basin states. Between 2009 and 2018, more than 13.5 million acres of BLM land burned in the project area.

If Democrats hope to narrow the field in their presidential primary, they’ll have to look past Nevada’s caucuses. With a week to go — and with early voting set to start today — six candidates now poll in double digits in the latest Review-Journal/AARP survey. Bernie Sanders leads with 25%, but Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren are not far behind, with Tom Steyer, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar all getting 10% or more as well.Anyone else see the train wreck coming? Sanders led the pack with 25 percent of respondents expressing support, followed by former Vice President Joe Biden...