Free Republic

President Trump hinted Tuesday at a rally in Mississippi that Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., could have a drinking habit. The president told the crowd that they should do an online search for “Patrick Leahy dash drink.” . . . “‘How dare you have a beer when you’re in high school?’” Trump said in a mocking tone toward the Democrats who questioned Kavanaugh.

During an interview with Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy on Tuesday, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell fretted that the seventh FBI background check into Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was too restricted. Her hyperventilating over the issue got to a point where she suggested that the Bureau should actually investigate Kavanaugh for being “rude” to Democrats.

...But some seem to welcome a slide in that direction. “Tell me again why we shouldn’t confront Republicans where they eat, where they sleep, and where they work until they stop being complicit in the destruction of our democracy,” tweeted Ian Millhiser, justice editor at ThinkProgress. “Because it is both wrong & supremely dangerous,” replied Georgetown Law professor Randy Barnett. “When one side denies the legitimacy of good faith disagreement over policy — as well as over constitutional principle — the other side will eventually reciprocate. Neither a constitutional republic nor a democracy can survive that.” Princeton’s much-admired political theorist...

Former President Barack Obama on Monday endorsed dozens of Democrats in races across the country, including liberal darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her New York House race. Obama had left Ocasio-Cortez off his initial round of 81 endorsements over the summer, prompting speculation over why the ex-president had seemingly snubbed the Democratic socialist candidate who defeated House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., in the primary and whose big-government views align with those of Sen. Bernie Sanders. However, on Monday, Obama included her name on the list of 260 endorsed candidates for governor, U.S. Senate, U.S. House and state legislatures.

I know there are more important things going on, but I was fascinated with this photo of Christine, nee David, Hallquist campaigning for governor of Vermont.h/t CoolbrewI found it perplexing on several levels. First, call me old fashioned, but I’m still wondering why a 60 year old man with a family would decide it would be in his best interest to “transition” to the opposite sex. Unless you’ve ever been married to a Kardashian, in which case I think the answer is obvious. But “Dave” never was. In fact he has a wife, 3 children and 2 grandchildren and was...

A series of newsreel shorts show President Calvin Coolidge and his family on vacation at the Coolidge Homestead in Plymouth Notch, Vermont in the summer of 1924. (appx 13 minutes)

A candidate for the New York state Senate Tuesday accused a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of sexual assault, amid fears that she would be “outed” by a news story concerning the incident. Julia Salazar, a 27-year-old Democratic Socialist looking to unseat Brooklyn state Sen. Martin Dilan in Thursday's Democratic primary, said in a statement on Twitter that she came forward about the alleged assault after being contacted by a reporter from the conservative website The Daily Caller.

A Hispanic principal is systematically booting white, Jewish and older teachers from his Midtown high school, current and former staffers allege in lawsuits. “I think he hates us,’’ Peter Cohn, a former teacher at the HS of Art and Design, said of the school’s principal, Manuel Ureña. A Manhattan federal suit filed by teacher Todd Young claims Ureña, who is of Dominican heritage, initiated a mass faculty replacement at the school after being appointed principal in 2016. Young’s suit accuses Ureña of trumping up disciplinary and performance complaints against teachers to clear them out. “Since Principal Ureña has arrived at...

President Barack Obama made a stunning policy shift on Friday, endorsing "Medicare-for-all" -- a single-payer health system -- for the nation. Most Democrats contending for the 2020 presidential nomination, and many Dems vying for Congressional seats this fall, are backing it, too. But beware. They're pulling a bait-and-switch. The phrase "Medicare-for-all" sounds as American as apple pie. A new Reuters poll shows 70 percent of Americans respond to it favorably. That's because the public isn't getting the truth about what it means. The actual plan these Democrats are pushing doesn't look anything like Medicare. They're slapping the Medicare label on...

It’s four more days until the big Democratic primary in New York, and gubernatorial candidate (and actress) Cynthia Nixon is pulling out all the stops. In an interview this week, she returned to one of the favorite talking points of Democratic socialists these days, Medicare for all. Speaking with the New York Daily News, Nixon was adamant that lawmakers should move forward and pass “her plan” rather than listening to Governor Andrew Cuomo who has managed to resist the idea so far. And how will New York pay for this massive show of generosity to its residents? Nixon openly...

The disgraced former Queens Library chief who once built a smoking deck for himself with taxpayer funds could pull down as much as $7,500 a week at a Long Island school district where he’s in charge of the very budget that pays him.

A guy wearing a plaid shirt who made several animated facial expressions during a Trump rally in Montana on Thursday has been identified as Tyler Linfesty, a 17-year-old high school senior.Linfesty was positioned directly behind President Donald Trump and made several facial expressions as Trump spoke, before a staffer asked him to leave."I didn't really have a plan," Tyler told The Billings Gazette. "I was just going to clap for things I agreed with and not clap for things I didn't agree with."Tyler reportedly managed to have his picture taken with Trump while wearing a Democratic Socialists of America...

Ralph Nader: Trump’s Done Some Good, Clinton’s Winning By ‘Dictatorship’ He heaps praise on Bernie Sanders, but won’t reveal how he'll vote in November. By David Catanese | Senior Politics Writer May 13, 2016, at 1:00 p.m. Ralph Nader, the former Green Party presidential candidate and lifelong consumer activist, says Donald Trump's dizzying presidential candidacy hasn't been all bad, while Hillary Clinton is winning the Democratic nomination by "dictatorship." And though he has heaps of praise for Bernie Sanders, Nader still won't say whom he voted for in the 2016 primary or which candidate he plans to cast a ballot...

The Senate's most senior lawmaker said Tuesday he will skip the Israeli prime minister's speech to Congress next month on Iran, calling the invitation by Republicans without White House consultation a "tawdry and high-handed stunt." Related Stories Seven-term Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont joined a half dozen Democrats who have decided to boycott Benjamin Netanyahu's speech, which comes in middle of delicate negotiations involving the United States, Western powers and Iran over its nuclear program. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, invited Netanyahu to address a joint meeting of Congress on March 3. "The unfortunate way that House leaders have unilaterally...

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, predicted on Sunday that if Republicans block President Barack Obama's nomination to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, voters will give Democrats a majority in the Senate in the next election. "I think what we ought to do is nominate somebody," Leahy told Dana Bash on CNN's "State of the Union" show, one day after the death of Scalia at age 79. "If the Republican leadership refuses to even hold a hearing, I think that is going to guarantee they lose control of the Senate, because I...

"Sixteen years ago, a colleague of mine on the staff of Senator Hatch discovered that Democrat staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee had negligently placed their documents on our shared server without protections. I admit that we exploited this to learn simple things about their plans to attack Bush judicial nominees at the behest of the left wing interest groups. I also did pursuant to my duty under the Code of Ethics for Government Service. The documents also revealed unlawful and unethical conduct by Senators. I reported this unethical conduct to the Senate Ethics Committee but never heard back. Among...

Yet another aging Democrat put on a nationally-televised demonstration of the need for Congressional term limits. Watch as 78-year-old Patrick Leahy makes reference to an email that doesn’t actually exist. Senator Leahy attempts to insinuate the email in question was stolen from him SIXTEEN YEARS AGO as nearly everyone in the hearing room, including Leahy’s own staff, look on increasingly confused as to what the senator is talking about. For his part, Judge Kavanaugh shows a remarkable degree of patience while also managing to entrap the senator in his own confused lie. From there a badly beaten Leahy makes a...

Pat Leahy grills Trump judicial nominee: Do you think gay marriage is like marrying bacon? AllahpunditPosted at 5:31 pm on November 15, 2017 This is so pitifully stupid. Either Democrats are desperate for attack lines against Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett, Trump’s nominee for the Fifth Circuit, or Leahy is so out of touch after 42 years in the Senate that he can’t recognize goofball humor when he sees it. Here’s the genesis of Willett’s “controversial” bacon analogy: I could support recognizing a constitutional right to marry bacon. pic.twitter.com/HKPW6tE4H6 — Justice Don Willett (@JusticeWillett) April 30, 2015 If you’re...

The Daily Beast reports that Judge Beryl Howell is the jurist who signed off on Robert Mueller’s request to convene a Washington, D.C. grand jury for the Russia investigation. It also says that, going forward, Howell “will be the umpire-in-chief: deciding whether or not Trump allies’ lawyers can quash subpoenas, and whether or not people like Jared Kushner can invoke what’s known as executive privilege to get out of testifying under oath before Mueller’s grand jury.” Howell won’t have the final say. Her rulings will be subject to appeal and, to the extent they deal with matters like executive privilege,...

Pro-life leaders say his anecdote is about a Nazi-trained abortionist Sen. Patrick Leahy's attempt to defend Roe v. Wade won applause from pro-life activists on Wednesday, who said the anecdote he shared highlighted how safety laws would protect patients. Sen. Leahy (D., Vt.) recounted his experience prosecuting a Nazi-trained doctor who crossed the Canadian border to perform illegal abortions in Vermont to the Judiciary Committee during the third day of Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch's confirmation hearing. Leahy called the incident representative of the "dark days" before the Supreme Court struck down state laws against abortion in the landmark...