Free Republic

U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy appeared to be trying to support abortion during his questioning of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch on Wednesday. It may not have been intentional, but the Vermont Democrat’s testimony actually reinforced a pro-life point about how abortion often is used to exploit women. Leahy brought up a personal experience he had before Roe v. Wade with an abortionist who botched a young woman’s abortion and nearly killed her, along with her unborn child. That abortionist, he said, was Nazi-trained. The Washington Examiner reports: He discussed a case in which he, as a state’s attorney in...

The Senate’s most senior Democrat says he probably won’t join his party’s effort to filibuster Judge Neil Gorsuch, in the first major indication that Republicans may not have to resort to the so-called “nuclear option” to fill the empty Supreme Court seat. Senator Patrick Leahy, Vermont Democrat, said he’ll vote against Judge Gorsuch’s nomination, but doesn’t think a filibuster is the right path. “I am not inclined to filibuster, even though I’m not inclined to vote for him,” Leahy told the Vermont Digger on Sunday.

Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy struggled to pin down Judge Neil Gorsuch Tuesday on President Trump's controversial travel ban, as the Supreme Court nominee smoothly sidestepped questions relating to the policy currently on hold by the courts. Gorsuch instead directed the contentious cross-examination into more general terrain where Gorsuch could advocate for religious liberty, without commenting on the specifics of the case. “I will apply the law,” Gorsuch vowed, during the second day of his Senate confirmation hearing. Leahy initially had tried to get the 10th Circuit Court judge to comment on the notion of a “religious litmus test for entry...

Thursday, March 16, 2017 The Leahy Rules for Supreme Court Confirmation Mean Gorsuch Must Be Confirmed In preparation for the Gorsuch hearing next week, we thought we would mention some of the Democrat Rules for confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice from their most senior member. The Leahy Rule (Part 1) on the President’s power to pick a Supreme Court Justice. And I think as members of the [Judiciary] Committee, we should respect the mandate the president has earned. The president had told us in 1980 and 1984 he would appoint judges of his philosophy. He was given a mandate...

The Democratic side of Congress is almost certainly going to look a little different after the midterm elections this year, as a result of the success of women and minority candidates in primary contests. Race by race, they've begun to make inroads into the traditional white and male establishment of national politics. The victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the Democratic primary against New York Rep. Joe Crowley -- a ten-term incumbent and the fourth highest-ranking Democrat in the House -- has been a beacon for other outsider progressive women and minorities trying to defeat entrenched Washington incumbents. **SNIP** Massachusetts' 7th...

The Democratic makeover is in full swing. **SNIP** Those tensions could come to a head if Pelosi struggles to be elected speaker. Even if she wins, it could be difficult for her to preside over a more liberal caucus. James, of the Collective PAC, said that's exactly the idea. "The status quo to me doesn't mean getting rid of people who have been in office a long time," she said. "It means you can't have the same mentality, you can't have the same goals. You can't have the same playbook. You've got to switch it up."

Sen. Bernie Sanders' criticism of Amazon peaked Wednesday as he and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., introduced legislation to tax corporations for every dollar that their low-wage workers receive in government health-care benefits or food stamps. The bill, pointedly called the Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies, or BEZOS, Act, is aimed at shaming companies like Amazon and Walmart, whose workers rely on public assistance. For months, Sanders has targeted Amazon, juxtaposing the wealth of CEO Jeff Bezos with reports that Amazon warehouse workers are paid less than industry averages and rely on food stamps. Bezos is the richest man...

Anti-Semitic Islamist activist, Linda Sarsour, was in fine form at ISNA, warning Muslims that if they weren't fighting Israel, they were complicit. She warned them against even daring to "humanize" Israelis, as Steve Emerson reports at The Algemeiner. Her tone often was not aimed at inspiring Muslims to be more politically active, as much as it was to shame them for not doing so. If they aren’t sufficiently engaged in advocating for the Palestinian cause, she said, “you as an American Muslim are complicit in the occupation of Palestinians, in the murder of Palestinian protesters. So when we start debating...

Vermont is widely known to be among the safest states in the union, but when it comes to gun violence new research shows that the Green Mountain state is safer than previously thought. I conducted independent research using news articles and obituaries to dig deeper into the Vermont Public Radio “Gunshots” series. The research demonstrates the inaccuracy of common interpretations of the VPR gun homicide figures. It also calls into question some of the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting statistics, which form the basis of a vast body of policy studies and statistical analyses. The cumulative effect of these findings is...

To say that Social Security has issues would be a bit of an understatement. The latest Social Security Board of Trustees report, released in early June, suggests that the program will have higher expenditures than revenue collected this year for the first time since 1982. Although this net cash outflow will begin relatively small, with just $1.7 billion and $0.2 billion expected to flow out of the program's $2.9 trillion in asset reserves in 2018 and 2019, respectively, it'll ramp up with each successive year afterward. By 2034, Social Security's $2.9 trillion in excess cash could be completely gone. If...

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ✔ @Ocasio2018 US House candidate, NY-14 Out here in Corona, Queens with @JumaaneWilliams organizing the kids 💪🏽💜 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic candidate for Congress in New York, is telling kids they need to help “fight” against Trump. You can see the video, which Ocasio-Cortez posted to her website on Sunday night, here. The clip shows Ocasio Cortez with Jumaane Williams, a New York City council member who is running on Cynthia Nixon’s ticketa to be lieutenant governor of New York. Ocasio Cortez and Williams were in a park in Corona, Queens, talking to a group of kids. Ocasio...

Sunday, Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), the GOP Florida gubernatorial nominee, discussed his Democratic opponent Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum and predicted the far-left candidate for governor would turn the Sunshine State into Venezuela if elected. “This Andrew Gillum, he is on the far-left socialist fringe. He’s a Bernie Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez-type of candidate. He wants to raise taxes in Florida 40 percent, he wants a single-payer healthcare system in Florida, which would bankrupt the state, he wants to abolish ICE and doesn’t believe in doing any type of immigration enforcement,” DeSantis told New York AM 970 radio “The Cats Roundtable” host John...

Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum (D) said Sunday that he would increase taxes on corporations in the state to help fund his plan to provide Medicare for all. Gillum was pressed on CNN's "State of the Union" about his pledge to provide medical care for everyone in his state, including how he would pay for it. "I don’t buy that," Gillum said when asked if higher taxes are a prerequisite of Medicare for all. "I will absolutely not raise taxes on everyday working Floridians."

New York Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez mocked the GOP on Thursday for “corny” attacks against Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) that invoked his former band. The Texas Republican Party took a shot at O’Rourke’s 1990s punk band called Foss on Twitter this week after he refused to debate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), whose seat O'Rourke is running for, by tweeting, "Maybe Beto can’t debate Ted Cruz because he already had plans." “Why is the GOP so corny?” Ocasio-Cortez asked on Thursday.

The New York Post mocked Meghan McCain as “The Meg” on its Sunday cover after she used the opportunity of her father’s funeral to attack President Trump. “The Meg” is a reference to a plus-sized shark in the late-summer hit movie The Meg, starring Jason Staham. The New York Post cover is just one part of a brewing backlash against McCain and the overall funeral service for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), which turned into an unseemly partisan rally Saturday with speakers like former Presidents Barack Obama and even George W. Bush trashing President Trump, who Sen. McCain refused to invite...

Disgraced former state Sen. Hiram Monserrate won’t take no for an answer. The felon is running for office again — this time for a Democratic district leader’s post in East Elmhurst, Queens, the lowest rung on the ladder. Monserrate lost a comeback bid for a City Council seat last year when he was defeated by Francisco Moya. But he still received 44 percent of the vote in that contest and retains a loyal following on his East Elmhurst-Corona turf.

Phil Bredesen, the health insurance executive turned governor, had an antidote to contain the spiraling costs of the state’s Medicaid program – disenroll elderly, sick and disabled Tennesseans from TennCare. According to Gordon Bonnyman, co-founder of the Tennessee Justice Center, two years into Bredesen’s first term as governor, “[a]pproximately 200,000 of [TennCare’s] costliest patients lost their coverage over a four-month period in late 2005.” Bonnyman characterized this group as the “sickest subgroup of the TennCare population.” The TNReport calculated that by the time Bredesen left office in 2011, approximately 350,000 Tennesseans were cut from TennCare which included an estimated 100,000...

A series of four anti-gun bills were approved late this week and are heading to Gov. Jerry Brown for signature. The measures — Assembly Bill 2888 and Senate Bills 221, 1100, and 1177 — passed the state legislature and now head to the state’s Democratic governor for further consideration. AB 2888 would expand who can file for one of California’s Gun Violence Restraining Orders, adding coworkers, employers, and school employees to the list that currently includes family members and police. Such orders, largely pioneered by the state, have been derided as “turn in your neighbor” laws as they allow for...

On 'The Jimmy Dore Show' Ron Placone, Stef Zamorano, and Jimmy Dore discuss an NBC News article which gleefully reported that the conviction of Paul Manafort for tax fraud was the first successful "public test" of Robert Mueller's investigation. "The problem with this is, you can't charge the sitting president with a crime, and Trump will never be impeached," Dore said. "Get that out of your head, that will never happen. Well, maybe if they found collusion, like if there was evidence of him being a Manchurian candidate to help Russia at the expense of the U.S., then maybe, maybe,...

Tuesday’s primaries show there’s no doubt the Democratic Party is lurching to the left. The last time Florida Democrats won the state’s governorship was in 1994. With GOP Gov. Rick Scott leaving office to run for U.S. Senate, Democratic Party leaders were determined to nominate a candidate who could appeal to centrists. They recruited former U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham, the daughter of a popular former governor and U.S. senator, who had won support from business in the past. But in a major upset, Graham lost the gubernatorial primary to Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who had the endorsement of Bernie Sanders...