Free Republic

On Monday, the Supreme Court heard challenges to the draconian Texas anti-choice law, a proceeding that might well be the first tolling of the death knell for the reproductive freedom that ensued after the Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade. This is undoubtedly a momentous bit of business, especially in the context of how we came to this 6-3 conservative majority on the high bench. However, on Friday, when very few people were watching, the Court took another action that is equally terrifying. Remember when Steve Bannon was yammering about destroying “the administrative state”? Members of the Supreme Court do.

Of all the predictable political responses to the mass murder in Orlando, the immediate impulse of non-Trumpian Republicans to dive for the handiest authoritarian solution is the most predictable of all. Here, among the Fox News electric teevee machine mannequins, is He, Trump's future Attorney General, explaining why the Bill of Rights now has to stop at only two amendments, and the first one doesn't count. Via Mediate: "There's no minister, there's no rabbi in this city — nor are there some imams — that object to having police officers in their congregation," he argued. "In fact, they want them...

Holy hell, even I didn't know that He, Trump was dumb enough to cancel the credentials of The Washington Post. But Tiger Beat On The Potomac was all over it. "Based on the incredibly inaccurate coverage and reporting of the record setting Trump campaign, we are hereby revoking the press credentials of the phony and dishonest Washington Post," Trump posted on Facebook. Trump had posted to Facebook nearly 20 minutes earlier "to show you how dishonest the phony Washington Post is." "I am no fan of President Obama, but to show you how dishonest the phony Washington Post is, they...

One is theater. The other is terrifyingly real.​ FLINT, MICHIGAN--This is something that He, Trump said on Saturday night. I mention it because I think it marks a severe downturn in He, Trump's campaign. He prospered as a vulgar talking yam. Then, he became the most boring person on earth--the endless bore in the clubhouse bar who talks you through his entire round. "I hit a ball 280 yards. Stand up! Do I hit good? Do I hit it long? Is Trump strong? I simply held up the hands. They're fairly large, actually." First of all, I don't believe He,...

Ammon Bundy emerged from a small brick building at the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge shortly after 11am. He wouldn't say how many protestors were present at the site of the occupied federal complex, but fewer than 20 people were visible Sunday afternoon. The leader of the occupation spoke in cool, calm tones as he explained why and other self-described militiamen broke into and took over the complex Saturday...... Protestor LaVoy Finicum, an Arizona rancher, said they're being careful not to damage the buildings or property. He claimed the protestors accessed the buildings after they found a set...

"If three years ago any person had told me that at this day, I should see such a formidable rebellion against the laws & constitutions of our own making as now appears I should have thought him a bedlamite—a fit subject for a mad house." —George Washington to Henry Knox, on the subject of Shays Rebellion, February 3, 1787 You have to give Captain Daniel Shays this: When he launched his armed sedition against lawful authority, he at least was invited in. Overnight on Saturday, in an obscure corner of the Oregon wilderness, and contrary to the law, and in...

The symptoms of the prion disease are beginning to become so obvious that even some of our more prominent pundits are beginning to notice them. For example, even former Karl Rove life-coach Ron Fournier has noticed the severe lack of Abraham Lincolns in the current GOP presidential candidates. And noted climate-denialist and baseball drone George Effing Will has staked out the bold position that many of these candidates have gone so far around the bend that they've crossed some kind of termination barrier. It is, therefore, especially disheartening that Cruz, who clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist and who is...

Molly Ball of The Atlantic is a very good political reporter. (For example, she's exactly right about the pipe dream that wrecking the economy will wring the crazee out of the Republican House.) The only advantage I have is that I'm a lot older than she is, and I've seen enough to know that her piece over the weekend about the intellectual decline of the Heritage Foundation is a little thin on historical memory. To be sure, ever since Jim DeMint took over, Heritage has been less obviously about "ideas" -- and we'll get to those in a minute --...

Seriously. And don't act as if you haven't wondered. Because if we ask nothing else about our presidents, we should ask if they're madmen. What if he's crazy? Do we trust him, even though he's not talking amiably to the empty air? Are we comfortable having him around, even though he's the only one not playing with his toes in the punch bowl? Do we just ignore him, over there in the corner of the room, talking about the fact that there's not enough food, and that the sink in the kitchen is backing up, and that the fire in...