Free Republic

Under the unusual circumstances surrounding his selection, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh should have agreed to recuse himself from deciding cases involving the investigation of President Trump. The reason Kavanaugh asserted at his confirmation hearing for refusing to make such a pledge — that it would violate the imperative of judicial independence — is entirely unconvincing. In turn, senators should decline to approve Kavanaugh’s nomination unless he does so. And, since that’s not likely to happen, in the event that a case involving the Trump investigation were to come before a Justice Kavanaugh, he should not participate — for his...

I love Lindsay Graham. The witty South Carolina senator, who's usually more entertaining than most comedians, has been one of the highlights of the otherwise depressing televised Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Graham put it perfectly Thursday morning. He said some people had been coming up to him and asking if this week's ugly display of disruptions, rude moronic outbursts from the gallery and Democrat grandstanding had become a circus. "I'm here to defend circuses," Graham said, pointing out that it was safe for parents to take their kids to the circus but not to...

iring picked up in August and so did worker pay -- registering the fastest wage growth since 2009 in an encouraging sign that wages may finally be moving higher after years of sluggish gains. August was the 95th straight month the U.S. economy added jobs, with a robust 201,000 job gains, the Labor Department reported Friday, while wages for U.S. workers grew at 2.9 percent in the past year. The national unemployment rate remained at 3.9 percent, one of the lowest levels in half a century. The higher pay is a sign that businesses are having to compete hard for...

When delusions and fantasies are substitutes for reporting. How did the Washington Post cover the end of America's UNRWA Funding?Here’s how: The United States will no longer contribute to the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees, the State Department announced Friday [August 31], amid widespread Palestinian outrage charging that the decision violates international law and will aggravate an already dire humanitarian situation, particularly in Gaza. The Washington Post should explain to readers, if it can, what “international law” the “Palestinians” claim has been violated. I do not think there is any. Contributions to UNRWA are voluntary. In any case,...

Officials from the Trump administration reportedly contacted a Yale University psychiatrist last year because President Trump was "scaring" them. Dr. Bandy Lee told Salon and the New York Daily News on Thursday that two White House officials flagged Trump's behavior last October. "[They] said that Trump was 'scaring' them, that he was 'unraveling,'" Lee, who wrote the book "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,” told Salon. ADVERTISEMENT "Not wishing to confuse the role I chose, as an educator of the public, and a potential treatment role, I referred them to the...

“We’re doing a great job,” said President Trump yesterday in a surprise endorsement of his own success. “The poll numbers are through the roof. Our poll numbers are great. And guess what? Nobody is going to come close to beating me in 2020 because of what we’ve done.” Though Trump can always be counted on to testify to his unblemished record of winning, it was odd he chose to focus on poll numbers right at the moment, because one place they are not going is “through the roof.” In fact, Trump’s numbers are dropping to near the lowest point of...

It’s day two of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. Democrats are still annoying. The protesters are still unhinged. And everyone on the Left cannot seem to grasp what is reality: Brett Kavanaugh is going to be confirmed. Conservatives will have a 5-4 majority on the Court. You’ve lost. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) performed a great show, wanting to release confidential documents relating to racial profiling during Kavanaugh’s time in the Bush administration. He said he was willing to be expelled for releasing this document, which by the way, was already cleared for release by the committee and the Bush team....

First lady Melania gave a rare outspoken criticism Thursday by calling out the White House official who attacked President Trump anonymously in print, accusing the person of subversion. Her statement addressed the anonymous writer of the New York Times op-ed directly: “You are not protecting this country, you are sabotaging it with your cowardly actions.” She criticized the media’s use of anonymous sources. “If a person is bold enough to accuse people of negative actions, they have a responsibility to publicly stand by their words and people have the right to be able to defend themselves,” Mrs. Trump said in...

On NBC’s Thursday morning broadcast of the “Today” show, former CIA director John Brennan repeatedly praised the unknown author of the New York Times’s recent anti-Trump op-ed as a supreme example of “courageous” American patriotism. While admitting that the anonymous writer was committing “active insubordination” with the piece, Brennan justified his or her actions by claiming that because Trump is too “unfit” to be President, the writer is admirably trying to “prevent disasters” in the future. “I think there are two major takeaways,” Brennan told “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie in relation to the op-ed. “One is, what the author...

On a week when Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation or Bob Woodward's book were seen ahead of time as the two big stories that would consume media coverage, along came an anonymous source, a senior administration official, to the New York Times with a scathing op-ed on President Trump that has Washington and the press (again) aflutter with talk of this being THE moment that changes everything. Let's first unpack who, at least in general terms, the source of the column is ... a column that includes describing the president’s leadership style as "impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective," among other...

Kavanaugh Will Kill the Constitution The legitimacy of the Supreme Court is on the line. By Paul Krugman Opinion Columnist Sept. 6, 2018 At a fundamental level, the attempt to jam Brett Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court closely resembles the way Republicans passed a tax cut last year. Once again we see a rushed, nakedly partisan process, with G.O.P. leaders withholding much of the information that’s supposed to go into congressional deliberations. Once again the outcome is all too likely to rest on pure tribalism: Unless some Republicans develop a very late case of conscience, they will vote along party...

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, seizing on an explosive op-ed from an anonymous administration official, said Thursday that it's time to use constitutional powers to remove President Donald Trump office if top officials don't think he can do the job. "If senior administration officials think the President of the United States is not able to do his job, then they should invoke the 25th Amendment," Warren told CNN. "The Constitution provides for a procedure whenever the Vice President and senior officials think the President can't do his job. It does not provide that senior officials go around the President -- take...

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) on Thursday called President Trump’s furious reaction to an anonymous administration official's op-ed disparaging him in The New York Times a “manifestation of his instability.” Pelosi said her “first thought” was that Vice President Pence penned the opinion piece, which described efforts among staffers in the Trump administration to push back against the president's instincts. Not long after the op-ed was published Wednesday afternoon, Trump tweeted “Treason?” in all caps. He later demanded the Times identify the piece's author "for National Security purposes." “The president saying it’s treason is, again, a manifestation of his...

President Trump should probably call off the hunt for the “senior official in the…..administration " who the New York Times is claiming wrote a damning op-ed for the newspaper. Apparently the “senior official” claims to be part of a group of White House staff trying to thwart the president’s agenda from within. He also claims they seriously considered trying to depose the president using the 25th amendment of the Constitution. Serious stuff. But President Trump should relax and remember it is the New York Times after all. The paper has a scandalous history of lying about the seniority of officials...

Former Secretary of State John Kerry responded Wednesday night to the explosive New York Times op-ed alleging a “quiet resistance” inside the Trump administration actively working to thwart the president’s agenda. “It scares the hell out of me,” Mr. Kerry told comedian Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show.” “First of all, there is a reassurance,” he added. “It means that for James Buchanan, he’s no longer the worst president.” A senior Trump administration official who was granted anonymity by The Times penned an op-ed Wednesday claiming to be part of a group of individuals “working diligently from within” to sabotage...

Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Michael R. Caputo says he knows who it is. The strategist and WBEN contributor says a woman wrote the scathing Op-Ed piece in the New York Times that has set Washington ablaze. "I know who she is. It's a woman and I'm kind of cautious. My attorney is trying to keep me from saying her name" said Caputo. He thinks it's an administrative coup. "Whenever this person decided to write this Op-Ed, they should have stood up with the courage of their convictions and quit, but unfortunately we have a coward in the administration's senior ranks"...

Collusion? You want to see some collusion? Check out CNN’s Alisyn Camerota this morning. She expressed reluctance in outing the anonymous author of yesterday’s New York Times op-ed. Camerota gave two reasons for her reluctance: [snip] 2. “I also am uncomfortable going too far in trying to out this person who wasn’t, clearly, ready to be outed, because this person argues that they are doing important work inside the White House or inside the administration and therefore doesn’t want to be outed right now.” Let’s break this down. [snip] As to not wanting to out anonymous because “this person argues...

The Washington Post keeps insisting that President Trump lies all the time. When it's the Bezos/Baron social justice tabloid that can't stop lying. Tump suggests protesting should be illegal — Washington Post - Felicia Somnez President Trump has long derided the mainstream media as the “enemy of the people” and lashed out at NFL players for kneeling during the national anthem. On Tuesday, he took his attacks on free speech one step further, Nope. If I were in the fact checking business, this would be deemed highly misleading to extremely deceptive. The Washington Post is mischaracterizing an exchange from Trump's...

Wednesday on the radio, Dan Bongino subbed for LevinTV host Mark Levin and discussed a New York Times op-ed by an anonymous author. The article is purportedly by a “senior official” in the Trump administration who has “vowed to thwart” parts of Trump’s agenda. Bongino called out the unnamed author as a “coward” and a “chump” for resisting Trump, which really means resisting the American voters who put Trump in office. “When you object to the peaceful transition of power, the republic is finished,” Bongino said. “What else is left? Bongino said that the author has a duty to resign...

Earlier this month, during an interview with Politico, Bob Woodward came forward to claim he’d been threatened in an email by a “senior White House official” for daring to reveal certain details about the negotiations over the budget sequester. The White House responded by releasing the email exchange Woodward was referring to, which turned out to be nothing more than a cordial exchange between the reporter and Obama’s economic adviser, Gene Sperling, who was clearly implying nothing more than that Woodward would “regret” taking a position that would soon be shown to be false. A rather trivial scandal, but the...