Free Republic

The campaign against the president’s zealots will be a major test of strength for civil rights and abortion rights groups. A new Democratic lion is needed Republican president who is eager to build a clear, conservative majority on the United States supreme court – and too sure of his political ground – overreaches. He picks a rightwing zealot for the open seat created by the retirement of a justice. At stake in the subsequent political battle over his nomination is the constitutional right of American women to have an abortion. This was the Washington drama that unfolded in 1987 –...

Deputy Attorney General might want to plug the leaks in his own office before he keeps trumpeting how he is reforming the corrupt FBI. A high-ranking Justice Department official with a pristine record of divulging Intel gems now says Rosenstein privately fumes at the likes of Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes, Mark Meadows and other GOP Congressman who have been relentlessly pressuring Rosenstein to produce internal documents related to many facets of FBI corruption. “Rosenstein and his people have no respect for Congress, especially GOP,” the Justice source confirmed. “Most of the GOP go along quietly because they know Rosenstein will...

n February 1960, four black students walked into Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina, sat down at the lunch counter, and attempted to order coffee. As the segregated establishment catered to whites only, nobody would serve them. Waitresses ignored their attempts to get their attention and place orders. Other (white) patrons either ignored them as well or made it clear by word and deed that they should move on. Those four students never got served that day. But they returned the following day with hundreds of compatriots. From Greensboro, their protest spread across the South. Black would-be patrons were harassed, verbally...

When President Trump tweeted “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!” the media quickly went ballistic. Wolf Blitzer, speaking on behalf of CNN, replied: “A lot of his supporters believe that we are the enemy of the American people, and that is really an awful situation. We are not the enemy of the American people. We love the American people.” The media loves the American people? The media may love some Americans, but certainly not Trump voters. How else to explain the increasing frequency with...

Last year, the white nationalist Richard Spencer was kicked out of his Virginia gym after another member confronted him and called him a Nazi. This incident did not generate a national round of hand-wringing about the death of tolerance, perhaps because most people tacitly agree that it’s O.K. to shun professional racists. It’s a little more complicated when the professional racist is the president of the United States. The norms of our political life require a degree of bipartisan forbearance. But treating members of Donald Trump’s administration as ordinary public officials rather than pariahs does more to normalize bigotry than...

An intern for Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan (N.H.) was suspended for a week for shouting an expletive at President Trump while he visited the Capitol last week. The intern will have restricted access to the Capitol moving forward, Aaron Jacobs, director of communications for Hassan, told The Hill in a statement. “We are aware of the situation and have taken disciplinary action, including a one-week suspension and revoking her Congressional intern ID badge (thereby restricting her access to the Capitol), in response to her breach of office policies regarding respectful and appropriate conduct. We also facilitated contact with Capitol Police,"...

The New Yorker published a story today titled, “How Social-Media Trolls Turned U.C. Berkeley Into a Free-Speech Circus.” Most of the content is about the battles over free-speech at Berkeley last year, starting with Milo Yiannopolis. Author Andrew Marantz asks law professor Erwin Chemerinsky about the limits of speech and gets an answer he apparently doesn’t like: Voltaire, anti-Semite and sage of the Enlightenment, is credited with the aphorism “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Chemerinsky, arguably the foremost First Amendment scholar in the country, believes, in the...

1 1/2 min video at link. Fmr. Gov. Mike Huckabee (Screenshot) The owner of the Virginia restaurant that banned his daughter, White House Press Sec. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, organized a mob and followed her family to their next restaurant where they yelled and screamed at them, Former Governor Mike Huckabee said Monday. While national media have reported Sarah Sanders’ ouster from the restaurant on Friday, “There’s a part of that story that has not been told,” Mike Huckabee told radio host Laura Ingraham on Monday: “Once Sarah and her family left – of course Sarah was asked to please vacate...

Scott Adams: "...they're coming for Trump supporters next."

Maxine Waters wants more people to harass Trump administration officials in public spaces. The California Congresswoman went on a shouting rampage during a toy drive outside the Wilshire Federal Building on Saturday. After claiming Trump is”sacrificing our children,” referring to the illegal immigrant kids separated from their “parents” near the border, Waters again called for the president’s impeachment, triggering loud applause from the baying mob. “History will record while he tried to step on all of us, we kicked him in his rear and step on him,” she yelled, whipping up the crowd. “If you think we’re rallying now, you...