Free Republic

...after being cut from speech line-up and banned from laying a cloth on boxer's coffin during Muslim ceremony -Recep Tayyip Erdogan had specially flown to Louisville, Kentucky, to say farewell to Ali -But the president’s office said Erdogan left the United States for Turkey late Thursday after attending the prayer ceremony -He was due to speak at today's multi-faith service but lost his slot due to 'lack of program space' -Funeral organizers also 'refused to allow Erdogan to lay a cloth from the Kaaba on Ali’s coffin during the Thursday ceremony' -In addition he wanted the head of Turkey's religious...

Democrat vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz’s political journey is rooted in his involvement with a progressive training camp inspired by the radical vision of Paul Wellstone, a professor-turned-politician with close ties to the Democratic Socialists of America and strong influences from Marxist figures and extreme far-left ideologies. Before entering politics, Tim Walz was known as a high school teacher and football coach in Mankato, Minnesota — an outsider who embraced a humble, folksy image. However, his true political foundation began in January 2005 when he attended Camp Wellstone, a training ground for grassroots progressives founded and named in honor of the...

Trump has called Ginsburg an "amazing woman," but some spectators were not happy that he came. Moments after he arrived, booing could be heard from spectators who then briefly chanted, "Vote him out" and "Honour her request."

Rep. Elijah Cummings’s funeral Friday, marked by speeches from Barack Obama, the Clintons, and Cummings’s family, was as much a heartfelt celebration of a man who dedicated his life to public service as it was an indictment of President Donald Trump’s character in office. In his last months, Cummings, who chaired the powerful House Committee on Oversight and Reform — one of the committees carrying out the impeachment inquiry into Trump —became the subject of Trump’s ire. Trump called Cummings a “brutal bully” in July and derided the Congress member’s Baltimore district as the “worst in the USA,” a “rat...

Former President Barack Obama will reportedly speak at the funeral of late Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.). "On Friday, @BarackObama will attend the service for @RepCummings," tweeted Obama spokesperson Katie Hill. She added that Obama "will deliver remarks about the remarkable life and legacy of one of this country’s finest public servants” at the request of Cummings's wife and Maryland Democratic Party Chair Maya Rockeymoore Cummings. SNIP Cummings will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday. The funeral service will be held in his hometown of Baltimore on Friday.

Jewish Home Chairman Naftali Bennett blasted Saturday evening's memorial rally as a "shameful leftist demonstration" after Likud MK Tzachi Hanegbi was roundly booed by the assembled crowd during his address. "The right did not murder Rabin but Yigal Amir," said Bennett. "As a right-wing leader who opposes a Palestinian state, I am tired of the annual false accusations of the left." "Rightists do not need to come to a demonstration whose goal is to denounce the right. The lesson of the extreme left: The right is to blame. My lesson: neither violence nor civil war. Choose," continued Bennett. Minister Gila...

Meghan McCain tore into an absent President Trump at a memorial service for her father, Arizona Sen. John McCain, in Washington on Saturday. “We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness,” McCain, a co-host of “The View,” said at the National Cathedral. “The real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly, nor the opportunistic appropriation of those who lived lives of comfort and privilege.” “He was a great fire who burned bright,” she said in a speech punctuated by sobbing. “A few have resented that fire… but my...

In the Democratic Party’s reckoning following the election of Donald Trump, an unlikely feud has erupted inside an organization at the heart of the progressive movement. Earlier this year, the board of directors of Wellstone Action — an influential training group formed after Sen. Paul Wellstone’s death — dumbfounded Minnesota Democrats when it voted the late senator’s sons off the governing board. The ouster came after the sons, Mark and David Wellstone, raised concerns about overspending in areas of the organization’s budget — and after a dispute over the direction and priorities of the group. -snip - David Wellstone and...

Sen. Al Franken has announced he will resign his seat in the coming weeks. But this isn't the first time Minnesotans have witnessed a shift in that particular seat.  Some political experts even call it cursed. "This is a troubled seat," said David Schultz, a political expert at Hamline University. Schultz said to better understand why, you have to go back more than 40 years.   "It all started in 1976 when then-Senator Walter Mondale resigns to become Vice President of the United States," he said. "It creates a vacancy. Gov. Wendy Anderson wants to become Senator, (so) he resigns as...

Kurt Bills' campaign released an online ad Monday, July 30, that mimics nearly shot for shot the landmark 1990 campaign ad entitled "Fast Paced Paul." That offbeat ad introduced Wellstone, then a virtually unknown college professor, to Minnesota voters. Initially seen as a sure loser, Wellstone upset incumbent Republican Rudy Boschwitz that year. Bills -- a high school economics teacher also largely unknown to state voters -- is encouraging a comparison as he challenges the popular and well-funded Democratic incumbent Amy Klobuchar. The version from Bills, "Quick Kurt," can only be viewed online.

Minnesota is confused. Minnesota confuses everyone, if they bother to look. One year it’s a governor who would sooner saw off the arm he uses to cast a fishing rod than raise taxes; the next it’s Al Franken, who would raise taxes to subsidize auto-amputations. (Your body, your choice.) The state that elected Paul Wellstone and Jesse “The Body” Ventura. In 2010, the House and Senate of the local legislature flipped to the GOP; the people also elected a Democrat governor, Mark Dayton, who promptly proposed taxes on the “rich.” He understands what it’s like to struggle, having sold off...

We can deny it all we want, but even Rasmussen has him improving. I cannot stand this administration so I have no objectivity at all. Is this a Tuscon bounce? Is it a product of a Republican house?

The other day outgoing White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told us they were surprised by the applause at the pep rally memorial  service in Tucson. I will say that I read the speech several times and thought that there wouldn’t be a lot of applause if any. I think many of us thought that. But I think there was a celebration, again, of the lives of those who had been impacted. Not just at that grocery store but throughout the country. And I think that, if that is part of the healing process, then that’s a good thing. That’s...

Glenn Beck criticizes Tucson memorial, compares it to Paul Wellstone memorial debacle. A day after the Barack Obama-attended Tucson memorial for the victims of the Jared Loughner killing spree, Glenn Beck has nothing kind to say about the raucous crowd that seemed to think it was at, as Beck put it, a high school pep rally. Beck went on to address the inappropriate and zany behavior of the memorial crowd, comparing them to what occurred at the late Senator Paul Wellstone’s memorial more than eight years ago. At that memorial, opportunistic and exploitative Democrats used what was supposed to be...

For too long Americans have been set one against the other, it is a side affect of a free market society. How can profits be maximized, how can I get the work done for the lowest possible costs. This continually sets one group against the other, especially in the blue collar sectors of America. It has become a part of the American Business model, whether it was indentured servants, slaves picking cotton, sharecroppers, the industrious people that built the railroads or todays migrant workers. As long as we remain divided, fighting for the scraps that America has to offer it...

Richard C. Holbrooke, 69, passed away Monday after doctors conducted the surgery to repair a tear in an artery in his heart. Most recently he served as the President’s point man in the highly volatile Afghan-Pakistani war zone. World leaders today mourn the death of a diplomat who led the end of the Bosnian war on the 15th anniversary of the peace deal he helped design. Deal Maker Of Respect In 1995 Mr Holbrooke seized the opportunity presented by the Bosnian/Croatian military prowess against the Serbs and the Nato decision after the Srebrenica massacre to finally intervene with air attacks....

MSNBC is running LIVE COVERAGE of the Elizabeth Edwards Memorial service, covering it like a STATE FUNERAL! What office did she hold, and why is she deserving of LIVE COVERAGE???

What these sleazebags won't do to pass national health care! Dems today pushed for Obamacare at Teddy Kennedy's funeral. And, they used a child as a prop. They politicized Ted Kennedy's funeral just as they politicized Wellstone's -- before the body was even cold. They even booed Tom DeLay and then-Gov. Jesse Ventura for the horrible crime of paying their respects. This is shameful conduct by shameless people.

While most prominent Republicans stuck Wednesday and Thursday to sober condolences — and several Republican operatives said it was too early to accuse Democrats of politicizing a sad moment — the conservative media, as well as some operatives, has seized on the whiff of politicization of his passing, recalling the bitter charges and countercharges that followed Sen. Paul Wellstone’s (D-Minn.) memorial service in 2002.

Conservatives warn of 'Wellstone effect' By: Ben Smith August 27, 2009 04:32 PM EST Key conservative voices have begun to charge in the day after Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death that Democrats are inappropriately politicizing the senator’s death, his memorial and his legacy. Kennedy was that ultimate political creature, a “lion of the Senate,” and the last son of the archetypal American political family — his passing is inevitably political. In his final days, he focused on a narrow political goal, pleading with state leaders to change state law to posthumously fill his Senate seat with an interim appointee who would...