Free Republic

The issue of gay rights and recognition and acceptance of the LGBTQ community has moved at warp speed—in political terms anyway—this past decade. “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage,” said the candidate Barack Obama in 2008. At Thursday night’s nationally televised forum on LGBTQ rights, candidate Beto O’Rourke showed how far, and how quickly, the Democratic Party has moved. The former Texas congressman caused quite a stir when he said he would support revoking the tax-exempt status of religious institutions—colleges, churches, and charities—if they opposed same-sex marriage. (snip)...

Anyone wondering why religious people still support Donald Trump, despite his flaws, need only watch a recording of the Democrats’ fanatical LGBTQ town hall last week. From Elizabeth Warren mocking religious males as incapable of finding a wife to Beto O’Rourke’s promise to strip tax benefits from religious institutions, or Cory Booker’s assertion that Catholics use religion to justify discrimination, you see the ugly face of militant secularism and coercion. It is frightening that every one of the nine Democratic candidates who took part in the CNN event has signed up to extreme policies that attack religious liberty and radically...

(CNN) — Tuesday night's CNN/The New York Times debate stage will feature a record 12 candidates. It could be the last debate appearance for up to 33% of them. Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke are all in deep danger of not making November's debate. That means Tuesday may be the last chance fo those four to give their campaigns a realistic chance to have a measure of success. Fundraising and polling qualification thresholds have been bumped up once again for November's debate. Jumping...

Mike Bloomberg has indicated to associates in recent weeks that Joe Biden’s recent struggles are making him rethink his decision to stay out of the 2020 Democratic primary, according to people familiar with the discussions. “Bloomberg is in if Biden is out,” says one source. Biden has not indicated any desire to drop out any time soon. Bloomberg could be in for a showdown with Elizabeth Warren, whether he runs or not, as he has been one of her biggest critics on the Democratic side. “I think it’s something he wants. He has not been shy about that,” one of...

He says this will include historically black colleges and mosques Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke doubled down on his proposal to revoke the tax-exempt status of religious institutions that do not support same-sex marriage. The former Texas congressman reiterated his support for punitive tax measures against churches or affiliated services that believe marriage is between a man and a woman, a position he introduced at CNN's Equality Town Hall on Thursday evening. NBC host Geoff Bennett asked O'Rourke how he would implement this plan given that the government "can't just dole out punishments on theological grounds." "You are free to...

The latest polling data from Morning Consult show former vice president Joe Biden climbing back into a stable lead in the Democratic presidential primary, after several weeks of running alongside Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren. Among Democratic-primary voters surveyed over the past week, 33 percent say they support Biden compared to just 21 percent who support Warren. Still in third place, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders comes in close behind Warren with 19 percent support. When asked who their second choice in the field would be, respondents who selected Sanders as their first choice preferred Biden to Warren as their next best...

Frustrated liberals have been asking for the last four years what it’s going to take for President Trump’s supporters to abandon him. Because, like, don’t they know he’s about to be impeached!? New York Times columnist David Brooks attempted to answer the question last week by imagining a conversation with someone he simply referred to as “Flyover Man,” because apparently he didn’t know a single real Trump supporter. It never seems to occur to liberals that perhaps the real problem isn’t that a lot of people continue supporting the president even though he can be strange, vulgar, and sometimes even...

Democratic candidates gathered in Sin City and went all in on gun control. Granted, it wasn’t hard to do when the event was sponsored by gun control groups Giffords and March for Our Lives and the table dealer was a left wing cable news network that didn’t even gamble their own ratings by putting it on their network. They live-streamed on the web instead.If you missed it, I don’t blame you. Still, there’s some big election-year ideas they’re betting on.BansThe field split on outright confiscation. They must have noticed that U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) isn’t at the table anymore...

During the MSNBC / Gabby Giffords / March for Our Lives gun control forum in Las Vegas, Democrat presidential hopeful Joe Biden contended that it is time to use lawsuits to rein in gun manufacturers. Biden stressed that if he were granted a “wish list” for gun control, the first thing he would do is repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (2005). That Act protects gun manufacturers from lawsuits tied to firearms that were legally manufactured and legally sold. He said, “No other outfit in history has gotten this kind of protection,” and he claimed the suits...

Democratic presidential candidates have begun to turn their attention toward one another instead of focusing their ire exclusively on President Trump, says Jesse Watters. One notable case is that of former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, whose demand for a mandatory firearm buyback program appears to have "tanked" his candidacy, Watters insisted Thursday on "The Five."

Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro on Thursday released an economic plan that includes higher taxes on the wealthy and tax relief for low- and middle-class people. The rollout of Castro's economic plan comes as the former Housing and Urban Development secretary is trying to qualify for September’s third round of Democratic presidential debates in Houston. Castro needs to reach 2 percent in one more poll in order to qualify. Castro said on a call with reporters from the early voting state of Iowa that he’s confident he’ll make the debate stage next month, saying he’s been spending time in early...

The October debate, hosted by CNN and the New York Times, is set for a single night on Oct. 15, the Democratic National Committee told the presidential campaigns Friday. "To address several inquiries we have received, we are writing to let you know that, pending a final decision after the certification deadline, it is the intention of the DNC and our media partners to hold the October debate over one night," the DNC wrote in a memo obtained by ABC News. **SNIP** Twelve candidates are currently qualified for the upcoming matchup, according to an ABC News analysis: Former Vice President...

In the midst of all the impeachment crap -and let us not mince words, it is all crap - New York Democratic Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced a package of six bills as part of what she calls "A Just Society." This is her latest attempt to turn the United States into a socialist nation since the Green New Deal really has not gone anywhere, aside from the fantasies of eco-fundamentalist freaks rife with delusional climate anxiety. The key promises of this "Just Society" is your right to not to be fat and have perfect mental health, illegal immigrants receiving...

Jay Inslee would be disappointed. It seems just as soon as the Washington governor abandoned the 2020 election, the Democratic Party abandoned his climate change agenda. At a Democratic National Committee meeting in San Francisco over the weekend, party leadership voted down a plan to hold a climate-centered presidential debate. As you can see, climate activists were bitter - and vocal - about it. Party delegates voted 222 to 137 against allowing candidates to participate in a debate dedicated to the topic, after a heated floor fight interrupted by protesters chanting “We can’t wait!” and “Failure of leadership!” The bitter...

White House hopeful Julián Castro called on House Democrats to impeach President Trump after reports surfaced that he urged the Ukrainian president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, his chief political rival in the 2020 race. “You cannot sit by as the highest officeholder in the land flagrantly violates the law and violates every norm of a healthy democracy that we have, because it’s setting a terrible standard for people in the future. We can never normalize this,” Castro said on the campaign trail. “He needs to be impeached. I love these House Democrats—my brother is one of them,...

Marijuana would not only be legalized under a plan proposed on Thursday by Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke, but cannabis tax revenue would be used to directly repay formerly incarcerated people through a new "Drug War Justice Grant" program. Unlike other contenders who have come around to supporting marijuana legalization in just the past couple of years, the former Texas congressman has long called for ending prohibition—and his new plan in many respects goes further than those rolled out by other campaigns. While rival candidates have proposed funding programs to begin repairing the harms of the war on drugs through...

As you’ll see, O’Rourke has no answer to this perfectly predictable question except to mumble something about weapons of war. But why should we focus on weapons of war, asks Columbine survivor Evan Todd, when they’re responsible for only a fraction of all gun violence? The Columbine massacre itself wasn’t carried out with assault rifles, he notes. Ed sent me a spreadsheet in which he ran through the FBI’s most recent statistics for murder by firearms and found 10,982 in total in 2017, of which exactly 403 were committed with rifles — a rate of 3.67 percent. There were many...

Stop being so transparent about your desire to confiscate guns, Beto. All you do is help the Republicans. That was the concern of CNN's Chris Cillizza on Friday in "Beto O'Rourke just did Republicans a massive favor on guns." According to Cillizza, O'Rourke by announcing that he wants gun confiscation, is validating what conservatives have been claiming has been the true goal of Democrats and the left. This has Cillizza frustrated especially when looking at the 2020 election and how it provides ammunition (pun intended) to the Republicans about the ultimate goal of Democrats.

Former Texas congressman Beto O'Rourke says he'd put former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams in charge of combating voter suppression if elected president. Speaking to supporters in Fort Worth on Friday, O'Rourke said he had a conversation on the subject with the rising star in the Democratic Party. "I called her to thank her for all the work that she's doing on voting rights. And making sure that every person in this country can vote. And that every vote counts in this country," O'Rourke said. "We talked about how in our states of the former Confederacy, really ever since the...

In our political debates over gun policies, those who favor increased regulations and restrictions on firearms often claim that they're only asking for widely-supported, modest changes in the law. We're not coming for your guns, they promise; we're only looking to make a few 'common sense' alterations to the status quo. They cite polling that favors their position, and they ridicule as paranoid those Second Amendment supporters who warn about a so-called slippery slope. But emboldened leftist Democrats have been vindicating many conservatives' worst fears in recent days, with two answers at last Thursday's presidential debate standing out on this...