Free Republic

EXCLUSIVE: Attorney General William Barr on Thursday denied reports that the Department of Justice is seeking new emergency powers for itself amid the coronavirus outbreak that would suspend certain rights in criminal matters and potentially detain people indefinitely without trial, saying, “It's cockamamie nonsense.” "It's a gross mischaracterization," Barr told Fox News during a telephone interview. The Justice Department has faced a backlash from some lawmakers after news reports first surfaced this week saying the department was seeking to suspend certain rights: Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., tweeted, “More power to the so-called Attorney General? PASS.” Some Republicans pushed back...

The Republican plan to start off the first session of the new House of Representatives today with a reading of the United States Constitution is giving the left the fantods -- and with good reason. At Salon, Michael Lind gives us a piece headlined, "Let's stop pretending the Constitution is sacred." Ezra Klein, a Washington Post blogger, told a TV interviewer that the reading as a "gimmick" and suggested the Constitution isn't binding (though he later backpedaled). And David Corn, under the title "The House GOP Weaponizes the Constitution," argues that the Founding Fathers "wouldn't cotton to lawmakers exploiting their...