Beto O’Rourke takes part in a televised town hall on LGBTQ issues in Los Angeles, Calif. October 10, 2019. (Mike Blake/Reuters) Billed an “equality” town hall, the CNN event was anything but. LGBT activists gathered last week for CNN’s “Equality” town hall with the Democratic presidential candidates. The advocates present were, in the words of

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard at the Presidential Gun Sense Forum in Des Moines, Iowa, August 10, 2019. (Gage Skidmore) Long-shot presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard (D., Hawaii), confirmed her participation in Tuesday’s Democratic debate on Twitter Monday, after threatening last week to boycott the event entirely over concern that “the DNC and corporate media are rigging the

Democratic 2020 presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke takes part in a televised town hall on CNN dedicated to LGBTQ issues in Los Angeles, Calif., October 10, 2019. (REUTERS/Mike Blake) Beto O’Rourke’s position on religious liberty isn’t uncommon. During CNN’s Equality Town Hall last week, Don Lemon asked O’Rourke, “Do you think religious institutions like colleges, churches,

Pete Buttigieg and husband Chasten attend a rally in South Bend, Ind., April 14, 2019. (John Gress/Reuters) Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg’s husband will head out on a three-day European tour to raise money for the campaign next week, according to NBC. Under U.S. campaign finance law, campaigns cannot raise money from foreign nationals, but

Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at CUNY in New York, City, July 11, 2019. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters) Former vice president Joe Biden on Tuesday released a sweeping plan to reform the U.S. criminal-justice system, in an effort to quiet criticisms of his role in tightening crime laws decades ago as a senator, which critics say contributed to

Sen. Kamala Harris talks with MSNBC host Chris Matthews after the second night of the first Democratic presidential candidates debate in Miami, Fla., June 27, 2019. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters) On today’s Three Martini Lunch podcast, Greg and I discussed Representative Tulsi Gabbard declaring that “Kamala Harris is not qualified to serve as commander in chief.” Allahpundit

The U.S. Capitol building at sunrise, Washington, D.C., November 6, 2018. (Jim Bourg/Reuters) An Athenian-style democracy was not only not what the Framers wanted but what they elaborately warned about and guarded against. A cliché that is getting up off its diapered bottom, flexing its fat little legs and taking its first wobbly trial steps

Joe Biden speaks at an event at Iowa Wesleyan University in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, June 11, 2019. (Jordan Gale/Reuters) Last October, Joe Biden traveled to the University of Buffalo and delivered a half-hour speech, took questions from the audience for 45 minutes, and signed books. He offered the assembled audience bits of wisdom, such as,

Former Texas state Senator Wendy Davis during the “Politicon” convention in Pasadena, Calif., June 25, 2016. (Patrick T. Fallon/Reuters) Before there was Beto O’Rourke there was Wendy Davis, the great Democratic hope who just might finally turn Texas blue. One big difference between the two Democrats is that O’Rourke actually came close to winning: He

Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during the second night of the first Democratic presidential candidates debate in Miami, Fla., June 27, 2019. (Mike Segar/Reuters) Unionized campaign staffers working for Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) are engaged in a dispute with management over the candidate’s alleged failure to live up to his socialist ideals. The field organizers

Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton welcomes former vice president Joe Biden in Scranton, Penn., August 15, 2016. (Charles Mostoller/Reuters) How confident should the Joe Biden team be right now? Think about all of the factors that contributed to Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016. She was a figure who had been around a long time,

Former Vice President Joe Biden gestures during the second night of the first Democratic presidential candidates debate in Miami, Fla., June 27, 2019. (Mike Segar/Reuters) Making the click-through worthwhile: Joe Biden receives a golden opportunity to tarnish Kamala Harris’s reputation, CNN lays out the debate lineup, our reviewers debate whether the remake of The Lion

Joe Biden speaks at the “We Decide: 2020 Election Membership Forum” in Columbia, S.C., June 22, 2019. (Leah Millis/Reuters) Former vice president Joe Biden warned the audience gathered at an AARP forum in Iowa on Monday that the Medicare for All plan championed by his more-progressive rivals would fundamentally change the quality of health-care coverage

Former Vice President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington, D.C., March 30, 2016 (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) On Sunday, the New York Times ran an interesting op-ed by Michael Wear, who directed faith outreach for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign and served as an adviser in the Obama White House. In

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters at the White House, June 18, 2019. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) Trouncing outlier GOP candidates would help, not hurt, his reelection chances. On Tuesday, former South Carolina governor and congressman Mark Sanford told Charleston’s Post and Courier that he’s seriously considering a primary run against Trump. While no one in his

Beto O’Rourke speaks with supporters and staff in Independence, Iowa, July 4, 2019. (Brenna Norman/Reuters) Robert Francis O’Rourke is white. He’s very sorry. Robert Francis O’Rourke is white. If it’s any consolation, he’s very sorry about that. “Beto” has been running from his Irish ancestry for some time now. Long before the Left fell headlong

Political correctness kills art, rendering it bland. Which is why it was encouraging when Hollywood A-lister Scarlett Johansson said that — as an actress — she should be able to play “any person, or any tree, or any animal.” No doubt Johansson would make a very sexy tree, and a very bold badger … Read More

Representative Mark Sanford (R, S.C.) on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., December 2, 2014. (Jim Bourg/Reuters) Mark Sanford, the former South Carolina congressman who lost his seat to a Trump-backed primary challenger last year, is strongly considering a primary challenge of his own against the president. Sanford told the Post and Courier that he will take

New Jersey senator Cory Booker speaks at Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant in Los Angeles, Calif., April 22, 2019. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters) The second-quarter fundraising reports for the Democratic presidential candidates are in, and if your name isn’t Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders or Kamala Harris, you’re in trouble. The writing is on the

Joe Biden greets audience members during a campaign stop in Londonderry, N.H., July 13, 2019. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) The evidence continues to mount that the first Democratic debate was a wake-up call for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. Brian Schwartz of CNBC reports that Team Biden hired Democratic fixer Michael Sheehan for “strategic consulting” on the day

Mark Sanford (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) Any GOP presidential primary challenge against Donald Trump is going to be the longest of long shots. From 2015 to today, Republicans who didn’t like Trump largely stopped thinking of themselves as Republicans, and the Republicans who remain are largely supportive, with the percentage expressing approval usually in the eighties. There

Beto O’Rourke speaks at the first Democratic presidential debate in Miami, Fla., June 26, 2019. (Mike Segar/Reuters) Beto O’Rourke’s announcement that he was “recently given documents showing that both Amy and I are descended from people who owned slaves” illuminates a great deal about presidential campaigning in 2019. O’Rourke feels the country must know about

Joe Biden speaks with supporters in Marshalltown, Iowa, July 4, 2019. (Gage Skidmore) Jack Crowe reported earlier this morning on former vice president Joe Biden’s health-care plan, which would expand the Affordable Care Act by adding a public option. This distinguishes Biden from the field of politicians vying for the Democratic presidential nomination, as most primary

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Michael Bennet (D., Colo.) speaks in Washington, D.C., April 10, 2019. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters) The Colorado senator checks a requisite number of progressive boxes but avoids the extremes. Washington — With a disgust commensurate with the fact, Michael Bennet, the Colorado Democrat, says that during 40 percent of his ten Senate years

Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at CUNY in New York, City, July 11, 2019. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters) For the average American, a million here, a million there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money. The American middle class just got a lot richer. Joe Biden, who invariably and tiresomely refers to himself as “Middle-Class

Democratic presidential candidate and Senator Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) campaigns in San Francisco, Calif., June 1, 2019. (Stephen Lam/Reuters) Kamala Harris made her first big splash in the presidential race at the first Democratic debate by suggesting Joe Biden might have been a racist in the 1970s, even though she insisted that she wasn’t saying

Amy McGrath’s travails bring to mind a saying of Fred Barnes’s. If you were a Republican who lost in the wave year of 1994, Barnes once wrote, you’re a political no-hoper. The wind was at your back, and you fell flat on your face. I first came across his quip in an article on Ellen

President Donald Trump listens during a Cabinet meeting in Washington, D.C., January 2, 2019. (Jim Young/Reuters) Is there a shy Trump voter factor the way there used to be “shy Tory factor” in polls? Probably. The final polls in Michigan in 2016 put Hillary Clinton ahead by 4 to 5 percentage points, and Trump won

Former vice president Joe Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders, and Senator Kamala Harris during the second night of the first Democratic presidential candidates’ debate in Miami, Fla., June 27, 2019. (Mike Segar/Reuters) Bill Clinton’s ‘safe, legal, and rare’ feels so long ago. Will any of the 20-plus Democrats running for president support any legal limits on

Perhaps the most historic, in the sense of era-defining, moment in the history of the Academy Awards was that standing ovation Roman Polanski got when he was given Best Director honors in 2003. There they are, leading Hollywood liberals, leaping to their feet to cheer for a man who, at age 43, gave a 13-year-old