Free Republic

President Trump said it is “very bothersome” that the man investigating possible ties between his presidential campaign and Russia is good friends with ousted FBI director James Comey. The president was asked in an interview to be broadcast Friday morning on “Fox and Friends” whether special counsel Robert Mueller should step down because of his relationship with Comey. “We’re going to have to see,” Trump replied.

I’ve been a journalist for a long time. Long enough to know that it wasn’t always like this. There was a time not so long ago when journalists were trusted and admired. We were generally seen as trying to report the news in a fair and straightforward manner. Today, all that has changed. For that, we can blame the 2016 election or, more accurately, how some news organizations chose to cover it.

One of our categories here at Legal Insurrection is “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Over at Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski provides a prime example of the malady. We noted yesterday how Mika was pushing poor Jon Meacham into drawing parallels between President Trump, the Nazis, and North Korea. Brzezinski ratcheted things up a notch this morning, suddenly blurting out that it “feels like a dictatorship developing.” Joe Scarborough tried to talk his partner off the ledge, saying “that’s an inside voice saying what you just said. You want to be like Greta. Greta pulls back before she says things like that.” View...

Sen. Bernie Sanders said Thursday he agreed with Democratic congressman Tim Ryan's claim that the Democratic brand is worse than President Donald Trump's in some parts of the country. "I speak as the longest serving independent in American congressional history, the Democratic brand is pretty bad," Sanders told CNN's Anderson Cooper on "AC360." (snip) Democrats need to "make it clear to working people of this country that the Democratic Party is on their side," Sanders exclaimed. "The Democrats need a progressive agenda. They need to rebuild the party in states they have ignored for decades, where they have almost no...

As bad as it looks, the atmosphere on college campuses in the United States is ripe for change. The willingness of parents to fork over significant portions of their families’ wealth and income to subsidize the indoctrination of their children with ideologies, attitudes and behaviors that render them unfit for the responsibilities of adulthood is evaporating — and fast. And when it comes to the ideologues who want to shut down free speech on college campuses — and the administrators who coddle them — the willingness of students to shoulder student loans for the privilege of being shouted down and...

The victory of Republican Karen Handel in the special election in Georgia's 6th Congressional District on Tuesday has discouraged Democrats and encouraged Republicans. Democrat Jon Ossoff won 48.1 percent in the special election's first round April 18, and Democrats had high hopes that they could take this House seat from the Republicans. But even with $30 million spent -- in what became the most expensive House race ever -- and with a turnout of 260,000 (more than the 210,000 who voted in the 2014 midterm), Ossoff won exactly 48.1 percent again. Not quite enough. Georgia's 6th District was significant because...

Furious at their loss in yet another Trump-era special election, Democrats are calling for the head of . . . House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. It’s understandable: Republican ads in Georgia painted the Democrat, Jon Ossoff, as sure to be a Pelosi pawn — a charge that has scored for the GOP in race after race over the last decade. New York’s own Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-Nassau) is far from alone in saying, “It’s time for Nancy Pelosi to go, and the entire leadership team.” And Rice backed Pelosi in last year’s leadership fight. The challenger, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), is even...

Democrats keep puzzling about why they are losing so many elections, but they do not seem to want to hear the answer that so many people are giving: abortion. Ad Row 1 Not in use Pro-life advocates — Republican, Democrat, independent and otherwise – have been shouting out this answer repeatedly for years, but the words seem to fall on deaf ears. The abortion industry has embedded itself deeply into the Democratic Party, and many voters have turned away because they cannot stomach the party’s new taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand up until birth platform. Just a small minority of voters hold such...

A total of 30 Republican members of Congress have either been attacked or revealed that they were the victim of a death threat since the beginning of May. May 8: Wendi Wright, 35, was arrested after stalking Rep. David Kustoff (Tenn.) and trying to run him off the road. After pulling over, Wright "began to scream and strike the windows on Kustoff's car and even reached inside the vehicle." May 9: Virginia Rep. Tom Garrett needed heavy security at a town hall after receiving a series of death threats in May that police "deemed to be credible and real." {..snip..}

70% of the general public agrees that news organizations are subject to partisan agendas! The rise of fake news, a growing multitude of media sources, and an increasingly polarized nation have Americans learning to take their headlines with a grain of salt. New YouGov research shows that most Americans (70%) agree that news organizations report stories in a light that’s partial to who owns them. It’s interesting to note that the two prevailing political parties perceive media bias to varying degrees. About one in two Democrats (52%) believe that news media is influenced by funding while a drastically greater number...

Voters are still critical of the news coverage President Trump is getting and continue to believe most reporters are out to get him. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that only 34% of Likely U.S. Voters rate the media coverage of the president as good or excellent. Forty-four percent (44%) describe the coverage of Trump as poor. Both findings are up slightly from January just before Trump took office and are consistent with views of the media coverage of last year's Clinton. vs. Trump presidential campaign. (To see survey question wording, click here.) Fifty percent (50%)...

Two new polls demonstrate an ongoing, deepening distrust of the so-called “objective” news media, especially among Republicans. A new Rasmussen Reports poll published on Thursday found 76 percent of Republicans and 51 percent of voters not affiliated with either major political party believe most reporters are biased against the president, a view shared by only 24 percent of Democrats. Sixty-eight percent of GOP voters and a plurality (45 percent) of unaffiliateds think the media coverage of Trump is poor, but 49 percent of Democrats rate it as good or excellent.” The skepticism is growing deeper: “Fifty percent think most reporters...

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said Thursday he'll push to increase defense spending by $37 billion more than the Trump administration proposed to pay for more troops and new weapons. Speaking to reporters, Rep. Mac Thornberry said he'll seek $640 billion for the Defense Department in the 2018 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. His comments came a day after his GOP colleagues on the House Budget Committee agreed on a fiscal outline that would provide the military with about $20 billion less. Thornberry said he'd be willing to agree to a lower number if he can...

Further illustrating the blatant collusion between the Democratic Party and the news media, MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) spent Wednesday night predicting that history will look back on the Trump era and conclude the liberal media were “the heroes” who stood for decency and truth. Matthews swooned to Jeremy Peters of The New York Times that “one thing that is important from your end from The New York Times and the other great papers of the country is the public knew” nothing about the supposed Russia-Trump team ties since the Trump administration wouldn’t admit...

Before explaining I must state this is written with a servant’s heart. It is not my intention to debate the arguments or merit of legislation, only to point out the logical pathway if people hang tough, support President Trump and stay out of the traps laid by special interests (and their special-interest paid troll army). (snip) ♦Unions don’t want health insurance back in/on their liabilities. ♦U.S. CoC Multinational Corporations (Wall Street) don’t want the liability of worker health insurance back on their ledgers. ♦Big Pharma does not want limits to how much they can charge (profits) and they want a...

Earlier today, Senate Republicans finally revealed their secret health care bill. And to say the reception was tepid would be kind. Besides the expected heavy criticism from Democrats — including former President Barack Obama — a number of GOP senators expressed their opposition. A group of four Senate Republicans has already come out to say they are currently a “no” on the bill, effectively killing it where it stands. Now, you can add another to the list. During an appearance on MSNBC’s MTP Daily, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) explained that she just couldn’t support a bill that would end up...

The president’s more sober-minded critics now want him to stop tweeting, as if that’ll get them off the hook for what they started. There is room for legitimate discussion about whether Mr. Trump’s tactics are optimal, but only those who truly believe that he is stark, raving mad could conceive that he would be speaking and tweeting about illegal surveillance, fake news, malicious media and partisan harassment, if none of it were happening. The sane and civilized Trump-skeptics, such as Charles Krauthammer and Peggy Noonan, have no faith that there is any scandal lurking in the president’s closet and just...

(CNN)The House intelligence committee next week plans to interview John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign chairman whose hacked email account became central to Russian meddling in the US election last year, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. Podesta will be one of the committee's first major witnesses to meet with the panel behind closed doors as it tries to determine the extent of the Russian involvement in last year's campaign and whether any of President Donald Trump's associates coordinated with the Russians. The committee sent out requests to interview six witnesses this week, sources said, with Podesta expected...

Nearly 30 percent of the illegal immigrant children the U.S. is holding in its dormitories have ties to criminal gangs, the government revealed Wednesday, suggesting that the Obama-era surge of Central Americans has fed the country’s growing problem with MS-13 and other gangs. Federal officials refused even to guess at the true scope of the problem, telling the Senate Judiciary Committee that they can give only small snapshots of what they see. But they said the devastation on communities across the country is clear: killings and chaos, particularly among other immigrants — both legal and illegal. The Border Patrol identified...

Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of the House plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. This new poll comes as Senate Republicans unveil their own health care legislation on Thursday. While the Senate bill shares some similarities to the House version, it also contains differences. ....Just 16 percent of adults believe that House health care bill is a good idea, versus 48 percent who say it's a bad idea.