Free Republic

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on “Fox & Friends” on Monday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., “believe they can blackmail the president into accepting really dumb ideas.” Gingrich, who is in Italy with his wife, the ambassador to the Vatican, spoke after Senate Democrats blocked a GOP-backed $1.4 trillion coronavirus rescue package, sowing fresh doubt the parties can forge an agreement as the nation descends into economic disaster amid the coronavirus pandemic. On Sunday, when Pelosi was asked if people should be concerned the rescue package won't pass by Monday, she said...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., blasted the coronavirus response during her first virtual town hall Saturday, and ticked off a list of new priorities including universal basic income, student reimbursements and expanded health care. The Bronx progressive voted early Saturday morning for the new bipartisan House legislation to offer paid sick days, expanded food assistance, emergency paid family leave and free coronavirus tests because it signified progress. "It is a step forward, but it is completely insufficient," Ocasio-Cortez said Saturday during a video conference with her constituents on the pandemic response and the 2020 Census. Ocasio-Cortez called for working families to...

Just in time for Joe Biden's Super Tuesday II victory dance, a new Gallup poll shows that both President Trump and congressional Republicans have sharply risen in voter estimation the wake of the Democrats' failed impeachment stunt. WASHINGTON, D.C. -- More Americans approve of the job congressional Republicans are doing than of congressional Democrats' performance -- 40% vs. 35%. The rating for Republicans in Congress has risen six percentage points since late October, before the impeachment of President Donald Trump in the U.S. House of Representatives. Over the same period, congressional Democrats' approval rating has edged down three points and...

With the Capitol consumed by anxiety over the coronavirus, Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) rose in a closed-door caucus meeting Tuesday and told his Democratic colleagues they should leave Washington and return home to their districts, where they would be safer. Speaker Nancy Pelosi immediately quashed the idea, according to multiple sources in the room. “We are the captains of the ship. We are the last to leave,” she told her caucus, borrowing a line uttered moments earlier by Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), a Navy veteran. The California Democrat and her leadership team have been feeling pressure from Nadler and...

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy boldly predicted Friday that Democrats will lose the majority in the House of Representatives this cycle with Bernie Sanders at the top of their ticket, saying the party has “surrendered to the socialists.” In an interview with Fox News on the sidelines of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside Washington, McCarthy weighed in on the warnings from within the Democratic Party that a Sanders nomination could endanger their hold on the House under Nancy Pelosi. McCarthy would be in line for the speakership should the chamber flip — and he eagerly played up those...

Rep. Ilhan Omar, whose family secrets are more closely guarded than the president's nuclear codes, will apparently go to extraordinary lengths to keep the truth about her marriages from the national press and her constituents. The Daily Mail reports that someone has finally come forward to confirm what others -- including PJ Media's own David Steinberg -- have been reporting for years: that Omar married her brother in order to pull a scam on immigration authorities. It's complicated, but the bottom line is that someone who knows is talking on the record. Abdihakim Osman is the first person to go...

If you were wondering how Nancy Pelosi has been handling the events of the past few months, it's safe to say she's not taking it well. She's been keeping a low profile after making a spectacle of herself at the 2020 State of the Union address, but over the weekend she gave an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour that must be seen to be believed. If reality won't do what Nancy wants, she'll just deny it's happening to her. ~snip~ Amanpour: What about, though, the fact that the president seems liberated? And this is about Democratic politics, so I'm not...

Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib's snowflake side came out last Tuesday, when she was forced to flee the president's State of the Union address at the sound of Justice Brett Kavanaugh's name. Fortunately, Tlaib managed to find a safe space in front of MSNBC cameras, where she explained her walkout to Rachel Maddow : Even the mention of Brett Kavanaugh for me is a trigger[.] ... Just as a woman in America, the fact that he rightfully was accused and having an incredibly strong woman come for the public and the world and tell her story of sexual assault by this...

Democrats took the first step to repeal President Trump’s expanding travel bans Wednesday at a House Judiciary Committee session that devolved into a debate on whether the restrictions amount to a Muslim ban and whether it’s OK to call Trump “occasionally honest.” In a sometimes-testy committee markup, Democrats passed the “No Ban Act” to repeal Trump’s bans that apply to foreign nationals from seven countries – with an additional six countries on deck later this month. While the measure is unlikely to advance in the GOP-controlled Senate, Democrats panned the restrictions as a cruel Muslim ban that has torn thousands...

Source: CNN/Screenshot The defeated House impeachment managers held a group therapy session on CNN to vent their frustrations about the Senate finding the president not guilty on the two articles of impeachment against him. The managers shouldn't feel too bad though. Nothingburgers are extremely difficult to prove. All the managers seemed to be in agreement that the president was "not exonerated" by the Senate. In the president's defense, it's hard to exonerate someone of a crime when there was never any specific crime being alleged. The managers also lamented the fact that additional evidence and witnesses – but not...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., proved how divided the state of the union is by the "petty childish behavior" she exhibited after President Trump's address Tuesday night, former House speaker Newt Gingrich said Thursday. Appearing on "Fox & Friends" with hosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, and Brian Kilmeade, Gingrich said he understands where the president is coming from when he snubs Pelosi. "Speaker Pelosi has attacked him for four solid months. She has called him the most vile names possible," he said. "You know, I introduced Bill Clinton four times when I was speaker of the House," Gingrich remarked, referring...

The Democratic scheme to evict President Trump from office, which collapsed Wednesday when a majority of the Senate voted to acquit him of impeachment charges, was an extravagant waste of time. Sadly, amid today’s feverish electoral polemics, rage has replaced reason. Impeachment was always a fatuous and frivolous exercise initiated by House Democrats. Their constitutionally cited grounds were incurably weak and driven by a visceral hostility toward Trump. Democrats who supported Trump’s impeachment and conviction were motivated by an irrational but overwhelming desire to avenge their loss of the presidency in the 2016 election, obscuring their reason and judgment. The...

A third House Democrat announced plans on Monday to boycott President Trump's Tuesday State of the Union address, which will take place a day before the Senate is expected to acquit the president in his impeachment trial. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), who also skipped Trump's previous State of the Union addresses, said that he will not be attending the speech on Tuesday. “I have chosen not to dignify Trump’s parade of lies about health care, his persistent exaggeration, and his personal attacks with my attendance at this year’s State of the Union Address. His appalling performances each day continue to...

Source: Courtesy of Burgess Owens After the Civil War, Union General William T. Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15, which confiscated 400,000 acres of Confederate land from Charleston, South Carolina all the way to the St. John's River in Florida. According to Sherman's order, every newly-freed African American family was to receive 40 acres and later down the line, a mule. Former NFL Raiders' safety Burgess Owens' grandfather was one of those people who received 40 acres and a mule after being freed from slavery. And of the things Owens' family learned early on is that anyone who...

Republicans are fuming over a planned move by Democrats to consider Iran legislation alongside a commemorative coin bill, saying the floor maneuver is designed to prevent changes to the Democratic-backed measures reining in President Trump’s ability to wage war. The legislative maneuver would prevent House Republicans from using a procedural tool to alter the two Iran bills at the eleventh hour since the measures would be tacked on as amendments to the coin bill. GOP lawmakers accused Democrats of attempting to silence them and said the move would set a bad precedent. “If that's the games they're going to play,...

There was an unintended moment of levity during a break at the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump on Tuesday. Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal, one of the designated "spin doctors" sent to the microphones to clean up any damage to the Democrats' message caused by President Trump's impeachment attorneys, dropped an unintentional truth bomb during a media interview. C-SPAN broke away from the proceedings in time to hear Blumenthal say this about the Trump defense lawyers: It was a fact-free summation of a case bereft of evidence – we need the evidence. We need the witnesses and documents... They may...

Rep. Adam B. Schiff is promoting a new anti-Trump witness whose public allegations have been met with vehement denials and at least one lawsuit. Lev Parnas and his attorney have been lobbying to become a star Schiff impeachment witness in a Senate trial as part of the congressman’s drive to remove President Trump from office. Mr. Schiff, California Democrat and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, injected Mr. Parnas last week into the impeachment record. He and other Democrats released two troves of Parnas downloads from his various electronic devices including texts, emails and photos of himself...

Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., one of the seven Democratic impeachment managers prosecuting President Trump before the Senate, accused Trump of attempting to commit bribery in his dealings with Ukraine, but when asked why this was not one of the articles of impeachment, he did not appear to have an explanation. Bribery is one of the specific offenses mentioned in the Constitution’s discussion of impeachment. The House impeached Trump for alleged abuse of power -- itself is not a statutory crime – and obstruction of Congress, but Crow insisted Sunday that the president was still guilty of attempted bribery. “Yeah, specifically...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., seemed giddy Wednesday as she announced the impeachment managers who would go to the Senate and attempt to prosecute a case against President Trump. “He’s been impeached forever,” Pelosi said. “They can never erase that.” However, Pelosi has it exactly backward. The Senate is going to refuse to convict President Trump. He will be exonerated, and she and the Democrats will be condemned by history. The wide repudiation of the House Democratic betrayal of the Constitution is already beginning. As a historian myself, I think it’s important to document these reactions. Consider historian Victor Davis...

The impeachment hoax is big on drama and short on substance. Earlier on Wednesday, Speaker Pelosi lied about what the president said during his July 25th phone call with the leader of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, and then she ripped a line from the mob movie "The Irishman" to vilify the president as some sort of mobster looking to hire a hit man. Later in the day, when the speaker signed two articles of impeachment, she was all smiles as she handed out ceremonial signing pens traditionally used to celebrate landmark policy victories, like President Trump's signing of the Phase One...