Free Republic

On Saturday, during a campaign speech in Durham, New Hampshire, Donald Trump invoked Vladimir Putin (of all people) as proof that he's being persecuted: "Putin says that Biden's—and this is a quote—politically motivated persecution of his political rival is very good for Russia, because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy." Some commentators see this and other Trump assertions about being persecuted as calculated efforts to fuel his base. But what if Trump really thinks he's being persecuted? What if he has a persecution complex? What if he believes his...

This week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said "the 63% of Americans who disapprove of how President Biden is running the economy are wrong. They personally might not be doing very well, but that is mostly their own fault because those who are working with the President are doing very well. The Bidens have raised themselves out of the working class to become millionaires. Dr. Anthony Fauci has increased his net worth by over $300 million over the past few years." Former Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich seconded Yellen's take, saying "it's a Goldilocks economy. Hourly pay is up by...

Trump has been engaged in a several-years-long attempt to undermine the institutions of the US government and it shows no sign of abatingTrump’s attempted coup against the US continues. We are now in phase three. Phase one was his refusal to concede the loss of the 2020 election and his big lie that the election was “stolen” from him, without any basis in fact. Trump’s actions in phase one were not illegal, but they were immoral. They violated the norms that every president before Trump had dutifully followed. Phase two was his plot to overturn the result of the 2020...

Former Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” that the United States was in a Goldilocks economy, meaning it is not expanding or contracting by too much. Host Joy Reid said, “It seems to me that the more Republicans scream about drag queens and putting PragerU videos instead of real history in schools, it’s an indication to me they want to avoid talking about Bidenomics because Bidenomics is actually working. Is that how you read it?” Reich said, “I think that is exactly right Joy. They are trying to deflect attention from the fact that...

should refuse to place Trump’s name on the 2024 presidential ballot due to his alleged “treason.” Reich made the comments in an op-ed published Monday in The Guardian. Reich argues that Trump is guilty of treason under the 14th amendment because of his claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. The 14th amendment prohibits anyone guilty of insurrection against the United States from serving in public office. “Secretaries of state – who in most cases are in charge of deciding who gets on the ballot – must refuse to place Donald Trump’s name on the 2024 ballot,...

Robert Reich, who served as Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration and is currently a Professor of Public Policy at University of California, Berkley, expressed interest on Tuesday in making the last name of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis an official synonym for "fascist." Reich is not the first left-wing person to dub the governor a fascist. It has become a more common occurrence as DeSantis has increased his national profile, some think with an eye toward running for the presidency in 2024. "The View's" Sunny Hostin previously called DeSantis a "fascist and a bigot," MSNBC host Joy Reid call...

We fool ourselves if we believe that the televised hearings of the January 6 committee are changing the direction of the Republican Party, or that the hearings will end the attempted coup that Trump launched immediately after the 2020 election. The GOP is becoming ever more divorced from reality. Trump’s attempted coup continues unabated. The first three hearings of the House January 6 committee demolished the myths of voter fraud repeated incessantly by Trump and his supporters and amplified by Republicans in Congress. A parade of Republican witnesses -- including his attorney general William Barr, Ivanka Trump, and his own...

Former Democratic Labor Secretary Robert Reich became the latest figure on the left to viciously attack Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., over her filibuster stance, suggesting Senate Democrats should assault her for it. Tonight, Republican senators lined up to shake Kyrsten Sinema's hand," he wrote in a now-deleted tweet on Thursday. "Democratic senators should have given her the backs of their hands."

House Republicans are blaming Democrats for the rise in Chipotle burrito prices. You heard me right. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) issued a statement on Wednesday claiming that Chipotle’s recent decision to raise prices on their burritos and other menu products by about 4% was caused by Democrats. “Democrats’ socialist stimulus bill caused a labor shortage and now burrito lovers everywhere are footing the bill,” said an NRCC spokesman, Mike Berg.

Donald Trump formally anoints himself the head of the Republican party at today’s Conservative Political Action Conference. Gilt-y: golden Trump statue pops up at rightwing CPAC summit Read more The Grand Old Party, founded in 1854 in Ripon, Wisconsin, is now dead. What’s left is a dwindling number of elected officials who have stood up to Trump but are now being purged. Even Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell’s popularity has dropped 29 points among Kentucky Republicans since he broke with Trump. In its place is the Trump party, whose major goal is to advance Trump’s big lie that the 2020...

Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich on Saturday called for the creation of a truth and reconciliation commission to “erase Trump’s lies” and expose those who “enabled” them. “When this nightmare is over, we need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” Reich tweeted. “It would erase Trump’s lies, comfort those who have been harmed by his hatefulness, and name every official, politician, executive, and media mogul whose greed and cowardice enabled this catastrophe.”

Denice Reich, a prominent Denver-area realtor, has been dumped by RE/MAX Alliance after a post on Nextdoor accusing her of removing Black Lives Matters signs from yards in the Hilltop neighborhood. When reached by phone on August 19, Reich, who pronounces her last name "Rich," told Westword that she would send a statement about the situation that afternoon, adding, "We want the truth out, not the bullshit." While no statement has yet arrived, Reich subsequently told Denver7 that she removed two BLM placards, not the six to eight claimed on Nextdoor, because "the signs were as offensive as 'KKK' signs,"...

You’d be forgiven if you hadn’t noticed. His verbal bombshells are louder than ever, but Donald J Trump is no longer president of the United States. By having no constructive response to any of the monumental crises now convulsing America, Trump has abdicated his office. He is not governing. He’s golfing, watching cable TV and tweeting. How has Trump responded to the widespread unrest following the murder in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for minutes as he was handcuffed on the ground?

Robert Reich argued Trump is trying to boost his 2020 chances and “selling out Americans’ health to seal the deal.” Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has broken down what he believes is President Donald Trump’s “lethal four-point plan” to boost his 2020 election chances by reopening the economy “at all costs” amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Clinton-era official explained in a video released on his YouTube channel Tuesday how Trump was trying to “remove income support, so people have no choice but to return to work,” “hide the facts” about testing for the contagion, “push a false narrative about ‘freedom’...

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it sometimes rhymes,” Mark Twain is reputed to have said. My first job after law school was as an attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice. I reported for work September 1974, just weeks after Richard Nixon resigned. In the years leading up to his resignation, Nixon turned the Justice Department and FBI into his personal fiefdom, enlisting his political appointees to reward his friends and penalize his enemies. Reports about how compromised the Justice Department had become generated enough public outrage to force the appointment of the first Watergate special prosecutor, Archibald Cox.

I was part of a Democratic administration that failed to fix a rigged system – I know our current president is a symptom of our disunion, not its only cause [snip] Although Clinton and Obama faced increasingly hostile Republican congresses, they could have rallied the working class and built a coalition to grab back power from the emerging oligarchy. Yet they chose not to. Why? My answer is not just hypothetical, because I directly witnessed much of it: it was because Clinton, Obama and many congressional Democrats sought the votes of the “suburban swing voter” – so-called “soccer moms” in...

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich warned Sunday that Americans are getting so used to President Donald Trump’s troubling behavior that they fail to see how truly “dangerously unstable” he is. In a column published Sunday in The Guardian, Reich pointed to Trump’s days-long advocacy of his inaccurate weather forecast that said Alabama was threatened by Hurricane Dorian. He even went so far as to promote a map with a circle awkwardly drawn around Alabama to make it look like the state was in the hurricane’s path. “We’ve had presidents trying to cover up a sexual liaison with an...

One of my all-time favorite movies is “The Haunting,” legendary director Robert Wise’s black-and-white adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s novella “The Haunting of Hill House.” Highly recommended (stay away from the 1999 remake, though – to call that one “garbage” would be an affront to actual garbage). “The Haunting” is one of the scariest movies you’ll ever see, and yet you never actually **see** anything; it’s entirely psychological. In one of its scenes, the Professor tells another character that a closed mind is the worst possible defense against the supernatural, because upon coming across evidence of the supernatural “that closed mind...

A former U.S. labor secretary who is now a leading economist has called for the annulment of Donald Trump's election victory, calling it 'unconstitutional.' One of the United States’ leading econominsts, who also served in the adinsitrations of three U.S. presidents including a term as Secretary of Labor, called on Saturday for Donald Trump to be removed from office — and for his entire presidency to be declare null and void, as if it never happened. “Impeachment isn’t enough,” wrote Robert Reich, in an article published in Eurasia Review. “It should be annulled.” According to Reich, if Russia investigation Special...

The only way I see the end of Trump is if there’s overwhelming evidence he rigged the 2016 election. In which case impeachment isn’t an adequate remedy. His presidency should be annulled. Let me explain. Many people are convinced we’re already witnessing the beginning of the end of Trump. In their view, bombshell admissions from Trump insiders with immunity from prosecution, combined with whatever evidence Mueller uncovers about Trump’s obstruction of justice and his aide’s collusion with the Russians, will all tip the scales. Democrats will take back the House and begin an impeachment, and the evidence of impeachable offenses...