Free Republic

President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign is preparing an early focus on Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, states that were instrumental to his improbable 2016 victory but where his support has softened, two campaign advisers said. The decision to accelerate campaign organising and eventually get the Republican president to make trips to the three states is a recognition that Trump’s path to re-election in 2020 will need to repeat some of the successes he had in 2016. Advisers also see a need to bolster Trump’s support in Florida, a battleground state he considers his second home but where opinion polls show him...

Billionaire former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz says he can’t run for president as a Democrat because he doesn’t like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal to slap a 70-percent marginal tax rate on income above $10 million. Schultz revealed Sunday that he’s “seriously considering” running for president as an independent. In an interview with CNBC Monday night, he shed some light on why he feels he would not run as a Democrat: Because he could end up having to argue for massive taxes on the super-rich like himself. “I respect the Democratic Party. I no longer feel affiliated because I don't know...

On Sunday, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz told 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley that he is seriously considering a run for president in 2020. Not everyone was pleased. Shortly after he took to the stage for a talk at a Barnes & Noble in Manhattan on Monday, Schultz was heckled. “I am seriously considering running for president as a centrist independent,” Schultz said during the discussion, echoing his remarks on 60 Minutes. “And I wanted to clarify the word independent, which I view merely as a designation on the ballot.”...

Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) hasn’t taken office yet, but she’s already looking to take out fellow Democrat Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), according to a report Tuesday. Ocasio-Cortez, who shocked the political world when she defeated veteran Queens Rep. Joseph Crowley, said last month she’d support challenges to Democrats who are not as left-leaning as their constituents. Politico reported that she’s recruited an African-American woman to challenge Jeffries in 2020. A source told the news website that running a primary rival to Jeffries, who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens, was the “highest priority” for Ocasio-Cortez. Jeffries was recently elected the...

The House Democratic Women's Working Group is inviting female members of both parties to wear white to President Donald Trump's State of the Union address next week as a symbol of solidarity. "Wearing suffragette white is a respectful message of solidarity with women across the country, and a declaration that we will not go back on our hard-earned rights," Rep. Lois Frankel of Florida, the chair of the working group, told CNN. Frankel pointed out there have never been as many Democratic women serving in Congress as there are today. In 2017, the same group coordinated Democratic women wearing white...

One of the country's most popular Republican governors on Thursday called for an independent investigation into the allegations made against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and said the Senate should hold off on a vote. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker made the comments as Professor Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Kavanaugh sexually and physically assaulted here. "The accusations brought against Judge Kavanaugh are sickening and deserve an independent investigation," Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker tweeted. "There should be no vote in the Senate." Baker, who faces re-election this November, is one of only a few Republican governors,...

If you're one of the many American progressives cheering on the performance of your new political rock star, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, look around: Many of the people cheering with you are Republicans. Ocasio-Cortez's 14-point victory over 10-term incumbent Democrat Joe Crowley was certainly impressive. Her performance since then? Not so much. The GOP have branded her a gaffe machine, Democrats on Capitol Hill her urging her "to do things differently," and her stumbling media appearances have sparked references to the "P" word: "Palin." Yes, it's that bad. There's a lot to like about the bold, outspoken battler from the Bronx who,...

Media outlets this week are all over a new Pew study that finds, the headlines promise, that President Trump's support is not quite as broad and not quite as happy as his stunningly stable approval rating might suggest. But what's striking from the numbers, at least as far as I can see, is not how much support Trump has lost but how, given the daily barrage of tweets and countertweets; ugly chants and ugly corruption trials (his campaign chairman); intense criticism in the media; all-out war in Congress; and foreign policy flubs and domestic failures, much remains firm, and how...

A voice crying in the wilderness is supposed to be ignored, not rewarded with accolades and growing influence. Bernie Sanders is the prophet with honor in his own party. The former socialist gadfly is now the socialist trendsetter. At the moment, he has to be counted among the most successful ideological leaders in a generation in terms of moving the terms of the American political debate and putting previously discounted ideas on the agenda. This doesn’t mean that he’ll be the next Democratic nominee for president, or even run. It doesn’t mean that his ideas are good (I personally consider...

Democrats seem to agree: A job guarantee will be part of the 2020 election debate. What they don't yet agree on is what a "job guarantee" is. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is working on a full blown national bill to enshrine the right to a job. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) has a bill that would essentially run a test pilot of Sanders' program. The Congressional Full Employment Caucus has been pushing yet another national job guarantee bill, with some differences from Sanders' plan, for years. Finally, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) just introduced his own bill, which would subsidize more private...

The Russia conspiracy theory hinges on the single creaky claim that the Democratic National Committee hacks were a Russian plot to elect Trump. The theory and all its illegitimate stepchildren, including Robert Mueller and his infinitely expanding corps of prosecutors, lives or dies by the DNC hacks. Trying to elect Trump by releasing damaging insider information from the DNC never made any sense. The DNC was already a dysfunctional organization that was being run by the Clinton campaign. Undermining its leadership had little impact on the election, but a great deal on control of the DNC. There has never been...

Bernie Sanders’ top operatives formed “Our Revolution” after he lost the 2016 primaries to keep his army organized and motivated — and potentially prepare for another presidential run in 2020. But an extensive review of the Sanders-inspired group depicts an organization in disarray — operating primarily as a promotional vehicle for its leader and sometimes even snubbing candidates aligned with Sanders. Our Revolution has shown no ability to tip a major Democratic election in its favor — despite possessing Sanders’ email list, the envy of the Democratic Party — and can claim no major wins in 2018 as its own....

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Sunday said President Donald Trump and his administration are “heartless” toward immigrants. "I think it is heartless. I think the entire Trump views on immigration is heartless," Sanders said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” . . Last week, chief of staff John Kelly told NPR that “the laws are the laws” and that the technique of separating families who cross the border illegally is one that “no one hopes will be used extensively or for very long.“ Kelly also said during the interview that undocumented immigrants coming to the U.S. “don't...

Senator Bernie Sanders has said it is “likely” he would have beaten Donald Trump in the 2016 election, but that “it doesn’t matter” now that Mr Trump is president. He was speaking on Showtime’s The Circus when he was asked about populism in the US and how Mr Trump had tapped into it to win. “What I recognised was pain. All over this country people are hurting and they are hurting very badly. Trump understood that, by the way, and that's why he said, 'The whole system sucks. I'm going to blow it up,’” Mr Sanders said. Mr Sanders has...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says he boycotted a White House briefing on North Korea because he “did not want to be part of a photo opportunity.” “What I did not want to be is part of a photo opportunity or a political effort on the part of the White House,” Sanders told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Wednesday. In an unusual move, the White House invited all 100 senators to attend the briefing at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Sanders said such briefings are typically held at the Capitol in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) room, which is a specially...

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has some advice to help bridge the current political divide: Don’t make fun of those who voted for Donald Trump. Sanders, who spoke Friday at Boston’s Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, has been vocal about opposing the political views of the current president. But, the former Democratic presidential candidate said he doesn’t want Americans to dislike their fellow countrmen who put Trump in office. “If you sit at home and think, well, Trump won because all the people who voted for him are racist or sexist or homophobes, I think you got...

My latest Counter Propa article explains why Democrats are blaming the wrong person for Trump’s attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act. I’ve been told I speak too often about Hillary Clinton. Let it go, they say. It’s over, she lost. Bernie endorsed Clinton. Let’s unite and defeat Trump. There’s only one problem. When people like Claire McCaskill label Bernie Sanders as “too liberal” and “extreme” to be president, don’t complain when a Republican who’s too conservative and extreme becomes president. The only reason Democrats are obsessed with Russian hacking (NSA has only “moderate confidence” in the narrative, by the...

Two days before the Trump administration rolled out the new version of what critics call a Muslim ban, Vermont Democrats elected the nation's first Muslim state party chairman. Faisal Gill, who was elected Saturday, said the decision of the Democratic State Committee to name him interim chair is a clear rebuke of Trump. "To have a Muslim and immigrant to be the state party chair sends a really strong message to Trump and his type of politics that this is not where the country is at," he told NBC News. The White House released a new executive order Monday restricting...

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders asked President Trump’s education secretary candidate, Betsy DeVos, whether she would have got the job if her family had not donated $200m to the Republican party. Sanders’ demeaning question was followed with questions promoting his “free college” initiative. “My question is, and I don’t want to be rude, but do you think if you were not a multi-billionaire, if your family had not made hundreds of millions of dollars of contributions to the Republican party that you would be sitting here today?” “Senator, as a matter of fact, I do think there would be that possibility....

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Thursday it would be an “outrage” if President-elect Donald Trump followed through with threats to prosecute Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server as secretary of state. “It would be almost beyond comprehension to think that a new president would be involved in the prosecution of his opponent who ended up getting some 2 million more votes than he did,” Sanders told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast. “It would completely divide this country. It would be an outrage,” he said. “I would hope very, very, very much that Mr. Trump...