Free Republic

San Francisco Mayor London Breed says a potential ballot measure to move citywide elections to presidential years is a democratic socialist power grab, and the proposal's author is pushing back. Breed, a Democrat, characterized Supervisor Dean Preston's proposal to hold the next mayor, sheriff, district attorney, city attorney elections and treasurer in 2024 – and every four years after that – rather than in 2023 as Preston and a "group of democratic socialists" deciding "they want to have more control and power of being able to get their people elected." Preston, the board's first democratic socialist supervisor in decades, introduced...

Testifying in 1996 before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on bilingual ballot requirements, Boston University's president John Silber opened with an anecdote about his father, who had immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1903 to work as a sculptor at the St. Louis World's Fair. Looking for a job after the fair ended, Silber's father spotted a sign that said "Undertaker," which he assumed meant the same thing as Unternehmer, the German word for "contractor." So he walked in to apply for work," Silber told the committee, "and was surprised to find himself in a room full of...

A website and eventbrite.com promoted rallies in Washington, DC, and other cities across the country to take place Monday to push for the impeachment of President Donald Trump – but no one showed up for the one at the Capitol.   The website, impeachmentaugust.org, said the protest would take place at 11:00 a.m. at 1st Street SE, which is near the House side of the Capitol. The website states that the protest is supported by several leftist and anti-Trump groups, including Indivisible, MoveOn, Need to Impeach, Stand Up America, March of Truth, By the People, Common Cause, Free Speech for People, Democracy for America, Progressive Democrats of...

Some people will do anything to prevent us from knowing how many non-citizens live in the United States. Count the ACLU and Common Cause among those who will stoop to the lowest of the low to try to persuade one or two swing justices to block the simple question on the Census: Are you a citizen? This time a sleazy drama between an estranged daughter and her deceased father has given the ACLU a final desperate way to bully the Supreme Court into blocking the citizenship question, as well as personally smearing lawyers at the Justice Department. Last year, the...

In order to do anything they can to stop President Trump from winning in 2020, Democrats in the Nevada Senate approved a National Popular Vote bill on a party-line vote, which will get rid of the Electoral College. From the Washington Times: Assembly Bill 186, which passed the Senate on a 12-8 vote, would bring Nevada into the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement between participating states to cast their electoral votes for the winner of the popular vote. If signed as expected by Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, Nevada would become the 16th jurisdiction to join the compact, along...

The Nevada Senate approved Tuesday a National Popular Vote bill on a party-line vote, sending the legislation aimed at upending the Electoral College to the governor. Assembly Bill 186, which passed the Senate on a 12-8 vote, would bring Nevada into the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement between participating states to cast their electoral votes for the winner of the popular vote. If signed as expected by Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, Nevada would become the 16th jurisdiction to join the compact, along with 14 states and the District of Columbia. The compact would take effect after states totaling...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) will hold a hearing Friday to examine a report that allowed two Bush administration officials to escape any formal punishment regarding their role in drafting the legal justification for the harsh interrogations of detainees. Jay Bybee and John Yoo, two former high-level Bush administration officials who drafted the legal basis for the Bush administration’s treatment of overseas terror suspects, escaped any formal punishment in a long-awaited Justice Department report released Friday evening. Leahy also called on federal appeals court judge Bybee to step down from the lifetime appointment over his role in the...

Demonstrators at "progressive" rally in Palm Springs call for Clarence Thomas be hanged, stringed up, tortured, sent back to the fields, etc. "Uncloaking the Kochs" rally sponsored by Common Cause, AFFCE, The Ruckus Society, 350, Greenpeace, Code Pink, the Progessive Democrats of America, and others. Staged outside venue of Koch Brothers conference in Palm Springs.

Hardline To Swallow: Obama’s causes are not common to us by Daniel Clark While pitching his Iranian nuclear deal to an audience at American University, President Obama said, “It’s those hardliners chanting ‘death to America’ who have been most opposed to the deal. They’re making common cause with the Republican Caucus.” The controversy that’s arisen over that remark is curious, considering that the president has all along condemned “hardliners” in both countries for criticizing the agreement. In fact, after Arkansas senator Tom Cotton voiced his objections in an open letter back in early March, Obama said, “I think it’s somewhat...

“Beyoncé could not be a better role model for my girls because she carries herself with such class and poise and has so much talent,” said Michelle in 2012.What Mom wouldn’t want her daughters to do the “slut drop” like Beyoncé? And why not? Beyoncé is everything you’d want in a role model: she’s Black, and she’s rich. Did I mention she was rich? She's a rich girl She don't try to hide it Diamonds on the soles of her shoes Beyoncé's new $312,000 diamond-encrusted stilettoes from the House of Borgezie She’s so rich in fact that even Lady M...

Conservatives say outside group is an arm of House Speaker Boehner http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/07/01/conservatives-say-outside-group-is-arm-of-house-speaker/29572077/

Will the Left circle its wagons around the Clintons, or ride off into the sunset without them? The Clinton Foundation announced this week that they would conduct a voluntary internal audit after the exposure of their failure to properly declare millions of dollars from foreign governments to the IRS. A leading progressive group, Common Cause, says that’s not good enough (via Instapundit and the Washington Examiner): Citing concerns about potential conflicts of interest and the influence of hidden overseas donors, Common Cause called on presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Clinton Foundation today to commission an independent and...

The financial issues plaguing Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign have become too much even for liberal groups, and now Common Cause is calling for an independent audit of donations to the Clinton Foundation. Amid suggestions that foreign governments donated to the foundation in hopes of getting special treatment from President Obama's State Department when Clinton was his top diplomat, the group on Friday said a "thorough review" is needed. "Six years ago, at Mrs. Clinton's confirmation hearing for her appointment as secretary of state, then-Sen. Dick Lugar observed that 'that foreign governments and entities may perceive the Clinton Foundation as a...

Another Presidents Day, like the presidents it was meant to honor, has come and gone and nobody remembers what it was all about, beyond another three-day weekend for federal employees and a little hype to sell automobiles and snake oil. Presidents Day replaces holidays to mark the birthdays of Washington and Lincoln, and now, presumably, the catchall honor is extended to William Henry Harrison, Chester Alan Arthur and Millard Fillmore as well. When we observed George Washington's actual birthday (Feb. 22), schoolchildren talked about him as the "Father of Our Country." We traded stories, some of them myths, like Parson...

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are among the 15 wealthiest members of Congress, according to a new survey. The annual rankings by Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, showed the two San Francisco Democrats have a combined worth of at least $68 million, and potentially much more. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, tops the list with a minimum net worth of $306 million, roughly 4,000 times greater than the average American household. His wife, Linda, is the daughter of Lowry Mays, founder and CEO of Clear Channel Communications. No. 3 on the list, Rep. Darrell Issa,...

GOP Lawmakers Call for Probe Into Possible 'Threats' Against Thomas, Scalia Published March 03, 2011 | FoxNews.com Several Republican members of Congress are calling on Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate possible "threats" against conservative Supreme Court justices, claiming the advocacy group Common Cause is providing a platform for inflammatory rhetoric. The congressmen, in a draft letter to Holder that has not yet been sent, allege that rallies held by the organization appear to "incite violence and encourage racial slurs," with Justice Antonin Scalia, Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Virginia being the targets. The letter cited a newspaper report...

Liberals renewed their criticism of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Monday in response to a speech Thomas gave over the weekend in which he said he and his tea party activist wife Virginia “believe in the same things” and dismissed their critics as “bent on undermining” the court. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) said it was Thomas’s speech that “undermines confidence in our highest court.” Bob Edgar, a former Democratic congressman and president of the left-leaning watchdog group Common Cause, said the speech did little to assuage concerns his group has raised about Thomas’s impartiality and said that his group’s...

RANCHO MIRAGE, California (Reuters) – About 1,000 chanting protesters rallied on Sunday outside a California resort where conservative lawmakers and business executives met for a political strategy session hosted by billionaires Charles and David Koch. About two dozen police officers in riot gear lined up in front of the Rancho Las Palmas Resort & Spa in the upscale desert town of Rancho Mirage to keep the protesters away from the gated entrance. ... Another group, some dressed in hazardous material suits, tried to encircle the resort with yellow caution tape in a symbolic effort to "quarantine" the meeting, but they...

Virginia Thomas earned over $680,000 from conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation over 5 years, a group says. But the Supreme Court justice did not include it on financial disclosure forms. Reporting from Washington — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to report his wife's income from a conservative think tank on financial disclosure forms for at least five years, the watchdog group Common Cause said Friday. Between 2003 and 2007, Virginia Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, earned $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, according to a Common Cause review of the foundation's IRS records. Thomas failed to note the income...

Liberal nonprofit Common Cause is asking the Department of Justice to investigate Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia in relation to the Citzens United Supreme Court case, arguing that their decision in the case raised "serious questions about the impartiality of" both justices. "It appears both justices have participated in political strategy sessions, perhaps while the case was pending, with corporate leaders whose political aims were advanced by the decision," writes Common Cause President and CEO Bob Edgar in a petition to the Justice Department filed this week. The organization contends that the justices should have recused themselves from the...