Free Republic

An image was brought to my attention regarding Rustic Lodge and a sign stating, “Thanks Joe! Let’s Go Brandon!” It is disheartening to see such a display on a business that has been supported by Democratic patrons for decades through weddings, celebrations and, of course, Democratic banquets. This year, we chose Rustic Lodge as the venue for our fall banquet to show support to a business in its final days after years of hosting our banquets in the past. The owner didn’t seem to have an issue with what Democrats were doing then. The owner also didn’t have an issue...

The stubborn fact that male and female each have an objective nature will ultimately be the end of contemporary gender theory, and it looks like the lesbians are the canary in that coal mine.“[L]esbian as a category” is vanishing, warns lesbian journalist Katie Herzog over at Andrew Sullivan’s Weekly Dish. She laments that being an out and proud lesbian is no longer cool and notes how women who like women are increasingly “coming out as nonbinary or as men” instead.Herzog noted this just days before “Juno” and “The Umbrella Academy” star Ellen Page announced on December 1 that she is...

President Donald Trump on Tuesday wrongly claimed that shoppers need to show photo identification to buy groceries and accused Democrats of obstructing his agenda and his Supreme Court nominee during a raucous rally aimed at bolstering two Florida Republicans ahead of the state's primary. Trump, addressing thousands of supporters in one of the nation's top electoral battlegrounds, also mounted a rigorous defense of his trade agenda, accusing China and others of having "targeted our farmers." "Not good, not nice," he told the crowd as tensions with China continue to escalate, adding: "You know what our farmers are saying? 'It's OK,...

Washington (CNN) -- President Donald Trump's latest gambit to choke off the flow of information for past spy chiefs who have criticized him is a disturbing move that again exposes an imperious streak out of place in American democracy. The President's threat to rip security clearances from some of the nation's most decorated former intelligence officials may turn out to be a classic Trumpian distraction play that whips up a media storm and drowns out stories that are damaging to the White House. But the idea that it is being seriously contemplated will send a chilling effect throughout Washington. The...

Democrats who drafted a bill to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] suddenly announced Thursday night that they would vote against it if the legislation went to the floor, after House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told Fox News he intended to call their bluff. "We know Speaker [Paul] Ryan is not serious about passing our 'Establishing a Humane Immigration Enforcement System Act,' so members of Congress, advocacy groups, and impacted communities will not engage in this political stunt," Reps. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Adriano Espaillat of New York told The Hill and other news outlets....

Yes, it’s hard to imagine wanting to watch 11/8/16 today. The film, a sweeping survey documentary created and produced by Jeff Deutchman, follows 16 Americans from across the country on election day of 2016: a Sikh New York cabdriver, a “Dreamer” in San Jose, a Massachusetts dad in a MAGA hat, a West Virginia coal miner and his family, the assistant managing politics editor at the Los Angeles Times. They vote, go to work and look somewhat relieved, no matter who they voted for. The campaign season had been soiling and protracted, and at long last everything would be returning...

Hillary Clinton’s book is a pensive exercise to make sense of something Americans haven’t been able to understand either — why she lost the presidential race Book: What Happened Author: Hillary Rodham Clinton Publication: Simon & Schuster Pages: 464 Price: Rs 699 For many, in America and around the world, almost as astonishing as the fact that Donald Trump is now occupying the White House, is the fact that Hillary Clinton is not. Mrs Clinton herself does not quite understand that deplorable fact. Her memoirs are a thoughtful and candid attempt to understand what to her is still almost incomprehensible....

Michigan resident Robert Ritchie—known to fans as that Cicero of shitty country-rap, Kid Rock—has fired back at watchdog groups suggesting that his near-constant comments about running for office might actually make him subject to the U.S.A.’s electioneering laws. Faced with accusations that selling signs with slogans like “Kid Rock For Senate ’18" makes him a candidate—and thus beholden to the Federal Election Campaign Act, which requires candidates to track and report donations and campaign contributions—Ritchie fired back with the same sort of measured response that the Michigan electorate can probably hope to see from him if they get blazed out...

The MTV Video Music Awards are always a big night for pop music, but were also dominated by political statements at a fiery show in Los Angeles. Artists spoke out against white supremacy and urged suicide awareness during the awards on Sunday night. Transgender military personnel attended, days after President Donald Trump signed a directive to ban them. Kendrick Lamar was the night's big winner, picking up six awards including video of the year for HUMBLE. The video, directed by Dave Meyers, takes a wry look at the rapper's growing fame and sees him dressing up as a pope and...

For the Edge, the election of Trump caused them to see a parallel between the world they wrote about 30 years ago and the world today. “That record was written in the mid-’80s, during the Reagan-Thatcher era of British and U.S. politics,” he added. “It was a period when there was a lot of unrest. Thatcher was in the throes of trying to put down the miners’ strike; there was all kinds of shenanigans going on in Central America.

One of 2016’s most spectacular examples of government dysfunction was the U.S. Senate’s outrageous refusal to consider President Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. That dereliction of duty by the Republican majority not only denied a sitting president his constitutional prerogative to fill vacancies in the court (so that the appointment would go instead to a hoped-for Republican successor). It also prevented the court from resolving a handful of cases because of a 4-4 split and probably discouraged the justices from accepting other cases because of the possibility of a...

<p>Yet the Washington Redskins didn’t travel their 22-player starting lineup for their preseason finale Wednesday night against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Former NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers threw only nine passes this preseason, and defending league rushing champion Adrian Peterson did not take a single hand-off.</p>

Calling the Colorado Republican Party’s decision not to hold a primary popular vote a scandal, talk-radio host Michael Savage declared Sen. Ted Cruz should disavow the move and call for a vote. “What just happened in Colorado should, frankly, disqualify Cruz, who claims to be a constitutional conservative,” Savage told his listeners Monday. Savage is a strong supporter of GOP front-runner Donald Trump, who has been a regular guest on “The Savage Nation.” (full article at link)

Twitter users are writing #TedCruzCampaignSlogans to "help" the first major candidate with his campaign -- Hey even though it's from a leftwing site. It rocks.

Spouting off to an empty chair at the 2012 Republican National Convention, Clint Eastwood looked as if he were slipping into doddering dementia, but he’s shrewder and more focused than ever in his Iraq War picture American Sniper. It’s a cracker­jack piece of filmmaking, a declaration that he’s not yet ready to be classified as an Old Master, that he can out-Bigelow Kathryn Bigelow. Morally, though, he has regressed from the heights of Letters From Iwo Jima (2006). In more ways than one, the Iraq occupation is seen through the sight of a high-powered rifle. The movie is scandalously blinkered....

The Obamas talked with People magazine about dealing with their "own racist experiences," as the magazine described. Michelle Obama told one story that recently took place, even as she was first lady of the United States. "I tell this story – I mean, even as the first lady – during that wonderfully publicized trip I took to Target, not highly disguised, the only person who came up to me in the store was a woman who asked me to help her take something off a shelf. Because she didn't see me as the first lady, she saw me as someone...

White people and nonblack people of color have the luxury of treating these cases as injustices. For them, it is moralistic. For us, it's about survival. A conversation about race.JUDNICK: I feel like this is just an extension of the our “favorite” iMessage topic but in the light of the recent grand jury events with Mike Brown and Eric Garner (not to mention the promise of more to come with Tamir Rice and the others they’ve shot to death) I’ve been reminding friends that they do not have to answer to white people about their feelings. RAWIYA: Unlike many people,...

With the midterm elections approaching, Texas senator Ted Cruz penned an editorial in USA Today this week detailing what he’d like a potential Republican-controlled Congress to prioritize in 2015. As you might expect, the list is full of Tea Party staples: repealing Obamacare, cutting taxes, and slashing funding for federal programs. What makes Cruz’s list of Congressional priorities interesting is that it essentially previews what a Cruz 2016 presidential campaign agenda might look like–and it’s not pretty. As Ted Cruz’s multiple trips to Iowa have suggested, Texas’ junior senator is all-but-confirmed to be running for president in 2016. Though his...

U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., claims liberals are waging a "war on whites." If so, Barack Obama must be at war with himself. That's how goofy Brooks' logic sounds. But he's not nuts. It is an old reflex, when cornered in politics, to lash back with the same charge others have leveled at you — or, put another way, to project your own flaws onto other people. What's sad about Brooks' claim is his feeble attempt to play the white victim card, plucking the strings of white nationalism, just to have his way with the nation's immigration policy.

On Hannity, Sarah Palin claimed to have a list of 25 impeachable offenses, and that Democrats also want to impeach President Obama. After six years of attacking President Obama in hopes of being noticed, Ms. Palin is rather disgruntled. So like all relentlessly rejected stalkers, she’s upped the ante in a desperate bid for attention. Now she wants him impeached. That will teach mean old Mr. President to ignore Sarah Palin from Alaska Arizona. On Hannity, Palin claimed that Obama is a lawless and imperial president. She said it was time for a little less talk and a lot more...