Free Republic

House progressives are doing damage control after retreating from a letter that stirred outrage among Democrats by questioning President Biden’s handling of the Russia-Ukraine war two weeks before the midterm elections. The letter, blamed Tuesday on poor staff work, raised questions about the political acumen of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and its leader, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who is eyeing a run at leadership in the next Congress. “The letter was drafted several months ago, but unfortunately was released by staff without vetting. As Chair of the Caucus, I accept responsibility for this,” Jayapal wrote in a Tuesday statement. The...

Californians might be voting with their feet, but there's nowhere they can run and hide if the federal government embraces the same policies.During my recent trip to Phoenix, locals rolled their eyes at all the Californians who are moving there—mostly middle-class residents who are so tired of our state's chronic mismanagement that they're willing to abandon the temperate coast for a parched desert. Note to Californians: It's best to re-register your cars in other states as quickly as possible, to avoid glares from the locals. But while the exodus continues—and California's falling population and outmigration figures reinforce the anecdotal stories—progressives...

In a state where independent voters make up a plurality of the electorate, Colorado Democratic senator Michael Bennet has focused his reelection campaign on appealing to centrist voters. In private, however, he’s reminding left-wing donors at a drag queen-themed fundraiser that he has a "more progressive" record than socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (D., Vt.). "When I say I have a progressive track record, I mean it, I’m more progressive than Bernie Sanders," Bennet said at an Oct. 9 fundraiser featuring Jewish drag queen Laura Menorah. "In terms of our, you know, our tax code because of the profound income inequality...

Progressives are on the quiet hunt for a new generation of leaders, eagerly awaiting the outcome of the midterms to plot their next steps. “We’ve been talking about fresh blood for years,” said one Democratic strategist who reluctantly supported President Biden in the 2020 election. “Years! And every time we go back to the dinosaurs because we say we have nothing better.” Progressives’ two biggest national fixtures — Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — themselves aren’t young and some in the party are ready for a blank canvas in 2024 or beyond, particularly if Biden decides not...

PORTLAND, Ore. — The City of Portland will get more than a million dollars to improve downtown. The federal grant is part of the American Rescue Plan. The city says it will go toward building 32,000 square feet of street plazas. PBOT says they plan to focus on Pride Plaza at Southwest 12th and Harvey Milk. The funds will also create a green space to connect the cart blocks to O’Bryant Square Park.

PORTLAND, Ore. — After moving from Portland's Old Town to downtown, Wyatt Savage was hopeful the level of crime wouldn't be quite so severe. But the owner at Pallet Portland is now considering a move to escape the ongoing challenges. “In three months I’ve had four windows smashed, I’ve had somebody try and rip the front door of our gate off the hinges and it’s just been non-stop," Savage said. "Even if we were all making tons of sales, with the amount of damages happening, you know, 40 thousand dollars in damages in four months is insane. Like, that’s a...

Two of the greatest insights from the philosopher Plato are that societies are structured around symbols of justice and unity. and that societies need stories to function in an orderly way without the chaos of tyranny. For most of American history, those symbols of justice and unity were the Declaration, Constitution, flag, and churches. These symbols combined for a powerful unifying story: the story of American liberty and equality that was also inspiring the advance of liberty and equality around the world. In the maelstrom of the chaos of 24/7 news, societal decay and violence, and media and political platitudes,...

For the left, it's all about changing the entire American 'narrative. Two of the greatest insights from the philosopher Plato are that societies are structured around symbols of justice and unity. and that societies need stories to function in an orderly way without the chaos of tyranny. For most of American history, those symbols of justice and unity were the Declaration, Constitution, flag, and churches. These symbols combined for a powerful unifying story: the story of American liberty and equality that was also inspiring the advance of liberty and equality around the world. In the maelstrom of the chaos of...

Sam Harris deserves our gratitude. With dazzling honesty, the liberal atheist...has said out loud what we all knew but which his ilk have blurred for the past two years: Once you decide Donald Trump is the second coming of Adolf Hitler, then anything is legitimate to stop him — and, yes, everything illegitimate was done to stop him in 2020, and it was “warranted.” Skip It has progressed to the next stage, of stigmatizing and dehumanizing Trump’s supporters.... The dozens of Trump supporters held in a DC jail without trial for months and even years over Jan. 6 offenses, many...

Government says there has been an uptick in handgun purchases since introduction of new gun legislation The federal government plans to fast-track a ban on the import of handguns into the country without the approval of Parliament using a regulatory measure that comes into effect in two weeks, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino announced Friday. The change will last until a permanent freeze is passed in Parliament and comes into force. The government tabled gun control legislation in May that includes a national freeze on the importation, purchase, sale and transfer of handguns in Canada. That law did not pass...

San Francisco Mayor London Breed says a potential ballot measure to move citywide elections to presidential years is a democratic socialist power grab, and the proposal's author is pushing back. Breed, a Democrat, characterized Supervisor Dean Preston's proposal to hold the next mayor, sheriff, district attorney, city attorney elections and treasurer in 2024 – and every four years after that – rather than in 2023 as Preston and a "group of democratic socialists" deciding "they want to have more control and power of being able to get their people elected." Preston, the board's first democratic socialist supervisor in decades, introduced...

Let’s review the news since Friday’s Supreme Court decision – a decision that gave power back to the people to decide what laws should apply when it comes to abortion. Riots. Arson. Calls to assassinate a sitting justice. Threats of violence against anyone who is pro-life. Here’s a small sampling of headlines. Calls for Clarence Thomas’ assassination spread across social media after Roe reversed Christian Clinic Torched Antifa Packed A Flamethrower For Abortion Riot Man arrested for attempted murder of LAPD officers amid Roe v. Wade protests Abortionists go mad, shut down L.A. freeway Pregnancy Center in Virginia Vandalized Someone...

Acceleration, in the power political sense, is one of those concepts that for a long time languished in the ghetto of NRx theorycel circles. However, over the past couple of years, it has broken out into the mainstream and even normies largely understand what it describes now. Much of this is because they’re getting to see it take place in realtime as we watch the Regime continue to start fires everywhere and then spray gasoline on them. The Left in general has been rapidly accelerating the rate at which it foists off ever more radical social changes and political strictures...

A pro-transgender political army of 150 progressive groups is rejecting any compromise with ordinary Americans, just days after Hillary Clinton warned Democrats they are risking a catastrophic political defeat by Donald Trump in 2024. The “Open Letter Supporting the Full Inclusion of Transgender and All LGBTQI+ Youth” was posted on June 22, and it declared: we call for the full inclusion, protection, and celebration of transgender and non-binary youth, including access to extracurricular activities such as athletics and to school facilities, safe and inclusive school environments, accurate and inclusive curriculum, and gender-affirming school health services.

We’ve been hearing an awful lot about “democracy” lately. We keep learning that it can only be promoted through the universal use of unaccountable ballot drop boxes that allow people to vote six or seven times. Congress is currently holding hearings about the grave threat to democracy presented by flyover country types wandering around the Capitol building that their tax dollars pay for. We even overthrew a popularly-elected government in Ukraine in 2014, and are trying to provoke a war with another nuclear-armed nation to keep it in power, all in the name of democracy. Of course, the commonality between...

The less than month-old Disinformation Governance Board established by President Biden has been "put on hold" due to backlash against the idea that the Board reminded too many people of the "Ministry of Truth" in George Orwell's distopian novel 1984. Given the chance to continue on the payroll with no job responsibilities, Nina Jankowicz decided to resign, saying "there's no point in me staying on if I'm not going to be allowed to censor anyone's erroneous statements or beliefs." Presidential Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called this turn of events "tragic. We were putting together the most extensive and comprehensive suppression...

The modern West has come under the sway of a credulous, intellectually-underdeveloped superstition that threatens its continued development and prosperity. This is, of course, woke progressivism. And like most primitive belief systems, progressivism has faith in the power and ability of magic words and fetishes to change or control reality. By fixating upon certain symbols which represent their ideological framework, the modern Left hopes to invest these symbols with the power to alter even the sensible world itself. Ancient man’s discovery of writing provided to him the ability to represent his thoughts symbolically and in a way that preserves and...

Like most people with any shred of decency, I was quite pleased (though also quite surprised) by the recent SCOTUS leak that suggests that the highest court may well overturn Roe v. Wade. If this ends up taking place (and so far, the conservative justices have indicated that the attempted bullying by the Left isn’t working), it’s exciting for a number of reasons. Obviously, the fact that defederalising abortion and placing it back into the purview of the states - where it belongs - will result in many, many little babies’ lives being saved. But what I’d like to discuss...

The past two weeks have been quite an adventure for people who are concerned about the direction which American civil society has been taking recently. The widely reported leak of the Supreme Court’s impending decision in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organisation led to a system-wide meltdown on the Left. Since then, they’ve been “protesting” at the homes (and threatening the safety) of conservative SCOTUS justices, which is a federal crime. Violent left-wing fanatics have been firebombing pro-life HQs and pregnancy centres across the country. More generally, lefties have been making royal nuisances of themselves as they’ve...

Normally it’s prudent to distrust the words that flow from the mouths of progressives. When they decry “voter suppression” what they’re really upset about is voter I.D.’s – linking ballots to real voters, which would frustrate their desire to rig elections. When they become outraged about a Supreme Court opinion on Roe v. Wade, it’s not loss of the ability to abort the unborn that concerns them, since overturning Roe would not outlaw abortion but merely take it out of the hands of 9 appointed lawyers, and put it in the hands of the popularly elected legislatures of the fifty...