Free Republic

It looks like Washington D.C. residents are taking Rep. Maxine Water’s advice and confronting members of the Trump administration as they go about their lives in public places. The latest incident occurred Monday in a D.C. restaurant and the target was the EPA’s Scott Pruitt. Bonus points for having a 2-year-old toddler in tow as she confronted him.Kristin Mink, a teacher, was having lunch with her toddler when she noticed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Scott Pruitt three tables over. Taking a page out of the social justice warrior’s playbook, she “had to say something”, so she did. To...

A secret memo marked “URGENT” detailed how the House Democratic Caucus’s server went “missing” soon after it became evidence in a cybersecurity probe. The secret memo also said more than “40 House offices may have been victims of IT security violations.” In the memo, Congress’s top law enforcement official, Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving, along with Chief Administrative Officer Phil Kiko, wrote, “We have concluded that the employees [Democratic systems administrator Imran Awan and his family] are an ongoing and serious risk to the House of Representatives, possibly threatening the integrity of our information systems ... shortly after an IG report came...

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) interviewed with President Trump about the looming Supreme Court vacancy, the senator’s communications director confirmed Tuesday. Conn Carroll tweeted confirmation of a Deseret News story that said Lee met with Trump on Monday about the opening that will be created by Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement at the end of the month. Lee, who has expressed interest in the high court in the past, told the news outlet that he spoke with Trump about the position, but did not offer further details. The senator indicated again last week he's open to being nominated as a Supreme Court...

The extent to which Roe v. Wade has come to dominate American politics can be found in the anguished cries that followed the announcement of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s retirement from the Supreme Court. There are other issues that people care about, but Roe forms the centerpiece of any discussion about what a post-Kennedy court might look like. I am myself uneasily pro-choice. Moreover, just a few days ago, I argued that the increasingly bitter judicial wars tearing apart today’s politics can only be ended with more judicial deference to legislatures and to precedent. It stands to reason that I...

Amul Thapar: Trump Country's Perfect SCOTUS Choice President Trump — already a conservative hero for appointing Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court and for his swift remaking of the federal appellate courts — can again make history by choosing Judge Amul Thapar of Kentucky to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. Thapar, the son of Indian immigrants who came to America legally, is the product of public schools in Toledo, Ohio. He was the first ever judge of South Asian descent appointed to the federal bench and would be the first person of any Asian heritage appointed to the Supreme...

<p>ABC News’ Brian Ross — who was suspended last year as chief investigative correspondent for a faulty report on Michael Flynn — is leaving the network, Page Six has exclusively learned.</p> <p>ABC suspended Ross last December for a month without pay for a botched report on ousted White House national security adviser Flynn that reported President Trump directed Flynn to make contact with Russian officials. The mistake even sent stocks tumbling, and ABC issued an apology saying: “We deeply regret and apologize for the serious error.”</p>

A week ago this was recognized as a fringe idea even among staunch Democrats, the fringiest fringe around, but then something happened: One Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shocked the Democrat establishment by defeating the favored 20-year incumbent, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), in last Tuesday’s Democrat primary in New York’s 14th district. She ran, in part, on abolishing ICE, so now this has become the “[n]ew rallying call for 2020 Democrats,” as the AP put it. Now, I really shouldn’t say this — I mean, I really shouldn’t. I want nothing more than for the Democrats to continue marching toward...

The Capitals have already expressed some interest in visiting the White House as the NHL's newest Stanley Cup champions, but at least one of their players won't be making the trip. During the Stanley Cup Final, Caps forward Devante Smith-Pelly, who is one of the NHL's few black players, said that he would likely skip a trip to the White House thanks to his distaste for Donald Trump and the things the president has said in the past. Nearly a week after winning the Cup, Smith-Pelly stood his ground on the matter.

See if you can spot the problem in this NBC News report. This is the headline: Trump admin ran ‘pilot program’ for separating migrant families in 2017 This is the subhead: TRENDING: WaPo to Dems: You know who to blame for your SCOTUS predicament, right? The numbers show the government was separating migrant kids from their parents back in 2016 and 2017. Do you see the problem yet? It’s in the main body of the report too, emphases mine: The government was separating migrant parents from their kids for months prior to the official introduction of zero tolerance, running what...

As scores of young people crowded into a hearing room in the Wilson Building on Wednesday, D.C. Council members saw the future of D.C. politics. “There are multiple future council members and a future mayor in this room,” said D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6). But before they run for office, Allen wants to make them voters. A bill he introduced in April would do just that, lowering the voting age to 16. If passed, the bill would enfranchise up to 10,600 16- and 17-year-olds, according to Census Bureau data. It would also be historic. The nation’s capital would...

On Tuesday, The Washington Post published an opinion piece in which former Gawker writer Tom Scocca justified the recent instances of harassment and stalking of White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen as “the right thing to do” in light of the Trump administration’s policy of arresting criminal illegal aliens at the border.The piece, bluntly titled “Chasing White House officials out of restaurants is the right thing to do,” was published as part of the Post’s “PostEverything” initiative. At the time of its launch in May 2014, “Post Everything” editor Adam Kushner described his section of...

MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews said on Wednesday that Democrats shouldn't even take meetings with President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee – who is yet to be named – to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy. "I don't think the Democrats should allow even meetings to occur with Trump's nominee to fill this vacancy by Justice Kennedy," Matthews said. Kennedy announced Wednesday he would retire, giving Trump the opportunity to make two appointments in two years to the nation's highest court. The vacancy sets up a bitter confirmation fight right before the midterm elections, where Republicans only have a single vote majority in...

"The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2018 is 4.5 percent on June 27, down from 4.7 percent on June 19," the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta said in its latest GDPNow report. Key quotes The nowcast of real residential investment growth declined from 2.9 percent to 0.6 percent after the existing-home sales release from the National Association of Realtors on Wednesday, June 20, and the U.S. Census Bureau's releases on new-home sales and costs on Monday, June 25. After this morning's advance releases on durable manufacturing, inventories, and international...

The Supreme Court is expected to end its term on Wednesday with one final major case challenging public sector union fees left to decide. The most anticipated decision of the year came Tuesday, when the court in a 5-4 decision upheld Trump's travel ban. That's led to some speculation that a retirement announcement could happen on Wednesday, though there is no hard evidence one is coming. The speculation for the last year has centered on the court’s swing voter Justice Anthony Kennedy, but some have pondered if Justice Clarence Thomas is actually going to be the one to call it...

Four days after the owner of the Red Hen restaurant stirred national debate by asking White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave her establishment, all the fire and ire of social media was made flesh at the corners of Washington and Randolph streets. The quaint red restaurant, its dirty green awnings made famous by a disapproving tweet Monday from President Trump, was scheduled to open for dinner service at 5 p.m. Protesters began showing up around 3. At first, it was just two guys holding Trump banners, a Confederate flag and a Corey Stewart for U.S. Senate sign....

She wanted to “burn the White House down” and leaked classified information to an inept reporter by hiding it in her pantyhose in an attempt to punish Donald Trump. Instead, Reality Winner will spend 63 months in the Big House after taking a plea deal in Trump’s efforts to crack down on leakers. This morning, the tawdry story of an NSA employee and her not-so-secret affinity for the Iranian regime came to an end with a whimper instead of a bang: See Also: Today’s hot topics: Travel ban, NIFLA, immigration, Arlene’s Flowers, and more! Reality L. Winner, a former Air...

Washington D.C. expressly prohibits their restaurants from discriminating against patrons on the basis of political affiliation.D.C. enacted the Human Rights Act in 1977. The purpose of the Act was to end discrimination in the District. It is the intent of the Council of the District of Columbia, in enacting this chapter, to secure an end in the District of Columbia to discrimination for any reason other than that of individual merit, including, but not limited to, discrimination by reason of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, marital status, personal appearance, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, familial status, family responsibilities,...

A primary for a New York congressional district is the perfect proxy war for Democrats. If you could create the ultimate proxy war for the two camps who have been fighting in the Democratic Party since 2016, it would be the primary contest between Rep. Joe Crowley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York. Crowley is part of the House Democrats’ leadership team, with close ties to Nancy Pelosi and Wall Street. He’s raised more than $3 million this year. He’s toed the party line on progressive policies, even participating in a recent demonstration on family separation, in which he blocked...

June 21, 2018 MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen probably shouldn't have gone to a Mexican restaurant while the government was splitting mostly Latino migrant children from their parents at the southern border. But in all fairness, Stephen Miller did it first. Two days before Nielsen was publicly shamed for the family separation policy, President Trump's senior policy adviser similarly didn't think twice about eating at a Mexican restaurant, the New York Post reports. While protesters didn't flood the restaurant as they did with Nielsen, one customer did jump in. "Hey look guys, whoever thought we'd be in...

Michael Friedman never imagined that naming his restaurant The Red Hen would be so controversial. But when the co-owner of another restaurant named The Red Hen – this one almost 200 miles away in Lexington, Va. – refused to serve White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders on Friday night, it was open season on any eatery with Hen in its name. “It was a bit of an interesting day yesterday,” Friedman told Fox News. “There were so many negative comments floating in on social media and people calling up my restaurants to threaten us.” The foul play began when Sanders...