Free Republic

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid faces a tough task as his conference transitions to the Senate minority next year. The Nevada Democrat is leading a divided party smarting from a midterm election that saw Senate Democrats lose eight seats. It includes a number of centrists who could be eager to cut deals with the new GOP majority, particularly after watching several centrist incumbents fall in the 2014 midterms. But Reid must also lead liberals hoping to give Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who many Democrats viewed as an obstructionist over the last several years, a taste of his own...

WASHINGTON—It used to be that Democrats would mutter under their breath about President Barack Obama and the White House. Now, with the midterm elections behind them, some leading members of the president’s own party are airing their frustrations with little restraint and charting their own course. In speeches, negotiations and congressional hearings, several high-profile Democrats are disregarding the White House in ways large and small. The White House has responded with an extraordinary veto threat while Obama has made a round of calls to liberal Democrats urging them to stand up against their own leadership.

President Obama has a tough decision to make on the timing of an executive order to freeze deportations of illegal immigrants. Senate Democrats want him to wait to give them time to pass an omnibus spending bill and other legislative priorities in the lame-duck session that is just now ramping up. But delaying the action, even for a few weeks, could make Obama look weak and inflame immigration advocates who are already furious with him for holding back until after the midterm elections. “You have growing anxiety amongst the immigrant community that’s losing faith that the president is going to...

Warren was honored Sunday by the ACLU in Beverly Hills along with Participant's Jim Berk, Cyndi Lauper and Cameron Strang Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, regarded by many progressive Democrats as their party's alternative to Hillary Clinton, told attendees at an ACLU gala in Beverly Hills on Sunday that "economic opportunity is slipping further and further out of reach" for average Americans. She said bluntly: "We have to face it: The game is rigged in Congress."

**SNIP** At that point, the liberal host held little back in showing her disapproval for Democrats falling remarkably short at the state level: Complete Republican legislative control in 30 states and we've only got 50 states. Elections, consequences. Democrats, do you guys have a catch-up plan for the states here or what? Because the trend here is obliterating. Earlier, Maddow erroneously put the measly number of state legislatures run by Democrats at eight – “Oregon, California, Hawaii, Illinois, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware” when it’s really nine as Maryland’s legislatures remains controlled by Democrats (but will have a Republican Governor...

A Hartford judge has decided to extend voting hours to 8:30 p.m. at two city polls hampered by delays and missing registration lists early Tuesday morning.

If the Senate goes Republican on Tuesday, a majority of Democrats will get their first taste of life in the minority. Only 17 Democrats who could serve in the next Senate were in office eight years ago, the last time the GOP held the levers of power.

FULL TITLE - NC Board of Elections Investigating Allegations of Campaign Worker Assisting Illegal Immigrant to Vote The North Carolina State Board of Elections has opened an investigation into the allegation of voter fraud from the North Carolina Republican Party in the wake of an activist video purporting to show campaign workers assisting an illegal immigrant to vote. “We have folks who are investigating it. We actually have one of our people going down to Charlotte today to look into this matter more fully,” Josh Lawson, a State Board of Elections spokesman, said in an interview Friday with Breitbart News....

TIME FOR EVERY DEMOCRAT TO PANIC! The New York Times’ Nate Cohn says, In Iowa, the overall early vote is nearly tied in a state where Democrats usually fare well in the early vote. . . . The challenge for Democrats will be making sure that their voters from 2010 ultimately turn out: 42 percent of the Iowa voters who requested but have not returned their absentee ballots are registered Democrats; just 28 percent are registered Republicans. The last two polls in Colorado had Cory Gardner ahead, and the GOP advantage in the early vote is three times what the...

Gov. Steve Beshear is planning to do his best Publishers Clearing House impression as he heads to western Kentucky Wednesday to deliver oversized checks and make state transportation and other project announcements along side three incumbent House Democrats who face tough re-election fights on Nov. 4. Beshear will join Rep. Jim Glenn, D-Owensboro, at noon in Owensboro Wednesday to announce a County Agriculture Investment Program for Daviess County, Green River Area Beef Improvement Group, the governor’s office announced late Tuesday. Other local legislators will also be on hand, including Republican Sen. Joe Bowen and Democratic Rep. Tommy Thompson. Glenn is...

President Obama needs to shake up his White House staff to give new life to his presidency, top Democratic strategists and former White House veterans say. They argue Obama needs an infusion of talent if he hopes to recover over his final two years in office. One prominent party strategist said Obama “should take a flamethrower to his office.” “He needs dramatic change — it’s not even a debatable point,” the strategist said. “The general consensus that the president is surrounded by people who do him more harm than good because they are more focused on pleasing him than they...

NEW YORK (AP) — Less than a month away from the midterm elections, President Barack Obama's campaign schedule is getting off to a late start. Even while he raises money for Democrats this week from coast to coast, Obama will steer clear of any public campaign events with Democratic candidates, which would hand Republicans easy opportunities to saddle their opponents with Obama's own political baggage. The White House says Obama will start appearing with candidates as early as next week, but as of yet, no events have been announced. Obama headed first on Tuesday to New York, where police shut...

As Democrats seek to turn Texas blue, it seems they are employing a little Bolivian white to assist them in this goal. In yet another disturbing example of Democrat Party malfeasance,  Texas Democratic Party power-broker Francisco Garcia was indicted for allegedly buying votes by providing cocaine to voters in an attempt to sway control of a local School Board. Garcia, a long-time San Antonio Democrat leader was campaign manager for four candidates in the Donna School Board race of 2012, and per the indictment, offered voters in the most lower-income, minority district the option of taking $10 cash or a small vial...

Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, is putting the finishing touches on his supposed “investigation” of the IRS scandal that will, in essence, be a press release for the IRS and the administration, a reliable source tells me. The Michigan Democrat apparently dismisses all of the allegations made over the targeting of tea party and other conservative organizations and instead attacks the Office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, which revealed the scandal when it issued its May 2013 report about the “inappropriate criteria” used to “identify tax-exempt applications for review.”

Once again, our Chicago-style Attorney General has proven that corruption is the basic foundation upon which the modern Democrat Party is built. Eric Holder, the nationÂ’s top extortionist officer, has been running around the financial sector suing banks for anything (and everything) he can get away with. Ally Bank paid millions for alleged racist lending practices (an allegation the DOJ made without ever looking at loan portfolios), JP Morgan has shelled out billions for various anti-Obama comments regulatory infractions, and Bank of America just paid a $16.6 billion fine for their government-mandated role in the financial crises of 2008.Aside from...

I received this email this morning Cherrio, I'm begging We’re running out of people to email you, Cherrio. In the last two days, you should have received an email from: -- President Obama -- Nancy Pelosi -- Debbie Wasserman Schultz That's how important this is! Democrats are getting massively outspent by Republican groups. And we're fighting desperately to turn it around. We need 61,037 more donations in the next 48 hours if we want any shot at giving President Obama a Democratic House for his final two years. xxx xxxx Answered President Obama's call-to-action? NO DONATION We're begging ya, Cherri....

I’m a Democrat. I’ve been a Democrat my entire life. I used to utter those two sentences with pride and would shout them from the highest rooftops. Now, I’m almost embarrassed to say those words. I almost can’t articulate my political affiliation in public (or on the radio) without immediately offering an apology and an explanation. How did I get here?

Top House Dem exempted light rail project benefitting mega-donor from cost-effectiveness regulations, then secured federal subsidies A top House Democrat to whom billionaire liberal Tom Steyer has donated campaign funds steered more than a billion dollars to an infrastructure project that benefitted his hedge fund. That hedge fund, Farallon Capital Management, bought up large plots of real estate in San Francisco’s burgeoning Mission Bay neighborhood in 2004. The area is now booming and Farallon has sold most of its property there. Steyer, who founded and led Farallon until late 2012, has used his fortune to elect Democratic senators and governors....

“No political appointees in an Obama-Biden administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years,” read one of the president’s many broken promises from the 2008 campaign. “And no political appointee will be able to lobby the executive branch after leaving government service during the remainder of the administration.” “I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over,” Obama said in 2007 according to a post on Change.gov which is, gallingly, still live. “I have done...

Facing an increasingly hostile political landscape, Democrats are turning an old adage upside down; asking voters to believe what the candidates say, not what they do. In districts across the country, Democrats are campaigning on tax cuts, balanced budgets and rolling back harmful regulations. This pivot away from the national Democrat party isn't just on fiscal issues. With more conservative positions on guns, fracking and coal, for example, Democrat candidates, effectively, are practically carving out their own third party. Last year, Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis filibustered her way into liberal, feminist rock-stardom with an 11-hour stand against legislation restricting...