Free Republic

Pete Buttigieg. Wes Moore. Gavin Newsom. Gretchen Whitmer. Stephen A. Smith!!!???!!??Since the November election, the ESPN commentator has been bashing Democratic leadership for losing to Donald Trump and floating himself as a potential 2028 candidate and savior for the party and the country. And Smith’s dalliance with politics isn’t one-sided. Pod Save America, Fox News, CNN, ABC News, the New Yorker and other major outlets have sought out Smith for his first takes on immigration, tariffs and other issues.President Stephen A. Smith? Has everyone gone crazy? Not completely. Many nonpartisan pundits and Democrats themselves think the party needs a leader...

Many rank-and-file Democrats are furious with party leaders in Washington for their lackluster response to the Trump administration. But they might be complaining about the wrong Democrats. Governors, attorneys general and other state-level Democratic officials should play leading roles in the fight against President Donald Trump because they have more formal powers than congressional Democrats to restrain him and can implement alternative policies that will help the party win elections over the long term. That’s the argument of Democratic strategists Arkadi Gerney and Sarah Knight — and they are correct. Last May, Gerney and Knight sent a 178-page report to...

The recent passage of a law in Alabama that essentially bans all abortions in the state resulted in a barrage of coverage of other abortion restrictions being adopted in conservative areas this year. But as FiveThirtyEight illustrated in a story last week, this is not a new trend — Republican-controlled states have been chipping away at abortion access since the 2010 elections, which swept the GOP into power in state legislatures and governors’ mansions across the country.

President Trump has declared a national emergency in order to pay for physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, but will Congress block it? That’s a long shot — but we can’t rule it out either. Here’s the basic process, as the New York Times explained in an article after Trump’s declaration. Congress can take up a resolution to end a presidential national emergency declaration. If such a resolution passes in one chamber, the other must bring it up for a vote within 18 days. If the resolution passes both chambers and the president vetoes it, a two-thirds majority in Congress...

Donald Trump, as many people on the left and even some on the right agree, is undoubtedly and intentionally making controversial remarks on cultural, racial and religious issues. But what's emerged as the more complicated question is whether Trump's supporters agree with all of his remarks. Are at least some of Trump's backers, as many liberals argue, racist or intolerant? In interviews, Trump supporters often say they like the mogul's blunt approach, that he "tells it like it is," without always detailing what "it is" that Trump is explaining so clearly. In some ways, the Trump question is an extension...

In Rebuke of Tennessee Governor, Koch Group Shows Its Power "In December, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, a Republican, got the deal he wanted from the Obama administration: Tennessee would accept more than $1 billion in federal funding to expand Medicaid, as allowed for in the Affordable Care Act, but Obama aides would allow Haslam to essentially write staunchly conservative ideas into the program's rules for the state. He dubbed the reformed Medicaid program "Insure Tennessee." But the state's chapter of Americans for Prosperity, the national conservative group whose foundation is chaired by controversial billionaire David Koch, argued Haslam was just...

A usual round of media self-criticism turned into a schoolyard brawl last week, as editors, reporters and bloggers traded insults over a front-page article in The Washington Post, all at the very online water cooler where they usually get their news about the industry. The Post article, which ran on Nov. 29, was about rumors of Barack Obama’s ties to the Muslim world. snip Then things got really ugly. On Dec. 10, Chris Daly, a Boston University journalism professor, posted an entry on his blog that turned the debate over the merits of the article’s reporting into a debate over...