Free Republic

* Co-founder of the Institute for Policy Studies * Was associated with the Students for a Democratic Society in the 1960s Marcus Raskin was born April 30, 1934 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the second son of Russian Jewish immigrants. At age 16, he left home to study piano at New York’s Juilliard School. In 1954 Raskin graduated from the University of Chicago with a BA in liberal arts, and three years later he earned a JD from the University of Chicago Law School. In 1958 he moved to Washington, D.C. to serve as legislative counsel to a group of Democratic congressmen....

Rep. Jamie Raskin threatened foreign leaders who “facilitated authoritarianism in our country” by currying favor with President Trump on issues like deportation — saying that Democrats will not “look kindly” on his supporters when they “come back to power.” Referencing El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele specifically, Raskin (D-Md.), 62, suggested that Dems should keep score of foreign leaders who brownnose Trump, 78, during his second term. “Implicit in it should be the idea that if and when we come back to power — and we will — we are not going to look kindly upon people who … facilitated authoritarianism...

Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) claimed Wednesday on CNN’s “News Central” ” that U.S. District Judge James Boasberg was a “great judicial hero” for finding probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt for disobeying his order to halt deportations. Raskin said, “Judge Boasberg goes to great pains to restate the precedent going back to 1967, Walker vs. Birmingham, holding that you’ve got to comply with a court order, even if you know, they were in the wrong court, even if for some reason there’s a change. Look, Judge Boasberg, who was a President Bush appointee when he originally...

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin is demanding the return of the Venezuelan gangsters to the United States. In an obvious of how little Democrats care about protecting America’s borders, Raskin said during a hearing that the hundreds of Venezuelan gangsters deported from the U.S. to a prison in El Salvador should be returned immediately. “I call on my colleagues to demand that the Trump Administration comply with all judicial orders while appealing whichever ones they want to appeal, and to demand the return of people unlawfully taken to El Salvador on that so-called plane full of ‘gang bangers,’” Raskin said at...

HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — In one week’s time, Gov. Ned Lamont went from vetoing nearly $3 million in funding for nonprofit organizations to signing a revised bill that provided the exact same funding – only by a slightly different mechanism.The $3 million in funding that the governor vetoed and then ultimately signed will go to an array of nonprofit organizations including Planned Parenthood, various LGBTQ+ groups around the state and agencies providing services for immigrants and refugees.

If you want to seize private data from the people and conduct a political hatchet job, call Elon Musk and his night crew of juvenile computer hackers.

Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) claimed Thursday on CNN’s “The Situation Room” that the Republican Party has become the “corruption party” with Elon Musk being the leading agent. Raskin said, “Whoever is left within the vague hemisphere of Trump world who believes in the rule of law will not be able to last because they put corruption first. They are the corruption party at this point. You know, they wiped out the inspectors general. They fired 17 of them illegally without notifying Congress. They have to come to us 30 days before they have to specifically set forth the rationale for...

Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) claimed Friday on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” that Elon Musk and President Donald Trump were conducting a “rapidly expanding and accelerating coup.” Raskin said, “If the courts move with dispatch, they might be able to prevent a lot of damage from being inflicted. But nobody should normalize what’s going on here. We’ve got the wealthiest man in the world who cannot be president because he was born in apartheid South Africa and then made his way to Canada and then to America because he can’t be president, except if he can buy himself a de facto presidency...

Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) claimed Sunday on MSNBC’s “Inside” that “nobody in the civil service can be fired because of political reasons.” Raskin said, “The attack on the FBI is extraordinary because for decades it really has been an apolitical operation. There are Republicans who work there, Independents, Democrats. They’ve served all administrations. and now, just because they were assigned to work on the most massive attack on the U.S. Capitol in American history and to prosecute cop assaulters they’re being fired or they’re being investigated. So there’s this mass purge taking place, obviously, coming from the top. What their...

On Monday’s broadcast of ABC’s “GMA3,” Newark Mayor Ras Baraka stated that ICE is engaging in “this witch hunt for people who they say may be murderers or rapists or criminals. I don’t know how you determine a criminal simply by looking at them or somebody that’s undocumented simply by looking at them, particularly in a place like Newark, New Jersey, where there’s high levels of diversity, of people from different parts of the world here.” Baraka stated, “Well, so three undocumented folks were detained, taken away by [ICE]. But there [was] a whole store full of other folks who...

Connecticut’s Democrat Governor Ned Lamont is proudly telling illegal migrants to feel free to move to his state as he is also pushing for even more H-1B migrants to take American jobs. “You’re welcome here,” Lamont said in a recent press conference. CT Insider reported: Last week, Lamont said, “My advice is, send your kids to school. My advice is, keep going to church. We don’t collect the immigration status of people who are going to church or kids who are at school. Our cops are busy trying to keep the streets safe, they’re not asking the immigration status of...

[Catholic Caucus] A 'female cardinal' at the head of the Governorate? Francis on Italian TV announces other 'epochal' changes.A female Cardinal? Well, we're getting there... Pope Francis announced that Sister Raffaella Petrini, the current Secretary General of the Governorate of Vatican City State, will assume the role of President starting in March 2025, replacing Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga. However, the Pope's own promulgated rule states that only a Cardinal can be President of the Governate... further amendments may be necessary. "Women handle problems better than men," said the Pope, riding one of the most painful clichés.On Sunday, January 19, 2025,...

Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said Tuesday on CNN’s “OutFront” that President Donald Trump’s pardoning the January 6 protesters was to create a “reserve army of political foot soldiers.” Raskin said, “The question is why? Pardons have generally been used when people are actually innocent or there was some procedural miscarriage of justice. Nobody’s claiming that these people were innocent. We’ve got them on tape, you know, hitting the police officers over the head with pipes and bats and Confederate battle flags and all of that’s been established. Most of them pled guilty. The others have been convicted. There was no...

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a former member of the Jan. 6 committee, sought to distinguish between the pardon he received from former President Biden compared to those President Trump gave to those who stormed the Capitol. Just hours apart, both Biden and Trump issued a number of pardons. An order from Biden gave a preemptive pardon to all nine members of the panel that investigated the attack on the Capitol, while Trump, through a series of pardons and commutations, cleared the slate for the more than 1,500 people being prosecuted for the attack. “Look, the people who were pardoned the...

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said that “billionaire oligarchs like Elon Musk” are people who “love cheap foreign labor and say, let’s open the doors and bring everybody in.” And he thinks Democrats will be able to exploit that division within President-Elect Donald Trump’s coalition between people like him and those in the “nativist” base who disagree with Musk. Raskin stated, “I do think that we’re going to be able to exploit these growing contradictions within the MAGA coalition, especially since Donald Trump cares less and less. So, you’ve got the inflamed, nativist, anti-immigration...

Luigi Nicholas Mangione, the whiz kid Ivy League-educated high school valedictorian accused of the execution-style murder of the CEO of one of the nation's largest healthcare providers, may have spiraled out of control after traumatic back surgery. The procedure, which allegedly left Mangione in significant physical and emotional distress, may have contributed to his deteriorating mental state, a factor authorities are considering as part of their investigation. New York prosecutors have formally accused 26-year-old Mangione, a native of Towson, Maryland, of the fatal shooting of United Healthcare executive Brian Thompson. The incident occurred outside the New York Hilton in midtown...

Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the term “deep State” refers to President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of Kash Patel to head the FBI because his objective is reforming the institution. Guest host Kasie Hunt said, “Do you think there are any issues inside the FBI around politicization, as many who voted for Donald Trump seem to say?” Raskin said, “Well, undoubtedly, if you look at it historically, for example, during the COINTELPRO period the FBI really was weaponized against Doctor King and the Civil Rights Movement and the Peace Movement. There was, you...

A talk by Donald Harris, speaking extemporaneously, albeit from notes, on a complex subject, banks, the IMF, international finance. He makes substantial points, works out reasoning on the fly, cites sources, and is occasionally humorous. Very academic, but there you go. This is a very smart man. Kamala didn't inherit these abilities.

The Atlantic is facing intense scrutiny over a report alleging former President Trump disparaged a slain Mexican-American Army private while he was in office, with some involved with the story declaring it "false" and a "hit piece." Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, began a lengthy report published Tuesday about Trump's interaction with the family of 20-year-old Vanessa Guillén, the daughter of Mexican immigrants who was murdered in April 2020 by a fellow soldier at Fort Hood. After her remains were discovered two months later, Trump consoled Guillén's family at the White House and offered to provide financial assistance to...

Pro-life activist and mother of a young daughter, Bevelyn Beatty Williams, announced on Tuesday that her stay of appeal request has been denied by the judge who sentenced her on charges of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act), and that she is to report to federal prison in Alabama on Thursday. She will be in prison for at least a month as her attorney appeals the decision. “I wanted to give you all an important update,” she wrote. “My legal team worked tirelessly to submit a stay of appeal so I could be home on...