Free Republic

In June 2022, the Supreme Court's ruling that the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision establishing a nationwide right to abortion was invalid and that the power to legislate on this issue was reserved to the states. This decision generated a cascade of caterwauling over the "suppression of reproductive rights." Yet, the number of abortions surged to its highest level in a decade during calendar 2023. Dissatisfied that "access to abortion is still not as convenient as it should be," Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), and Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) are seeking federal legislation "that will provide a...

Just when you thought the White House's messaging on the devastating Maui fire couldn't get any worse, Karine Jean-Pierre comes busting through the wall like the Kool-Aid man. Joe Biden had already made a mess of things multiple times by the time the press secretary took the podium. As RedState reported, when asked by reporters on Sunday about the situation in Maui, including the federal government's response, Biden gleefully kept riding his bike while simply saying "We're looking at it." On Monday, he made matters even worse by smiling and shouting "No comment" at reporters when asked about the rising...

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden are "praying" for the victims of the Maui wildfires a day after the president declined to comment on the tragedy. During Monday's press briefing, Jean-Pierre said the president and his wife were sending prayers to the victims of the Maui wildfires that leveled the town of Lahaina. "As the president said last week that he and the first lady are praying for families who are grieving their loved ones and for everyone who has suffered devastating losses of land and property as a result of the...

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre both mispronounced the names of Hawaii’s two Democratic senators and misgendered one of them at a Monday press conference after the island suffered the most devastating US wildfire in more than a century. “Senator Harino [sic], who I said the president spoke to just last night, he thanked the president for the immediate support of federal agencies have delivered for residents of Hawaii,” the Biden administration’s chief spokesperson told reporters, “and so does, has, so has Senator Shorts, Sharts — Schatz.” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), the first female senator from the Aloha State, is...

Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the United States needed to “very much acknowledge” climate change was upon us. Anchor Jake Tapper said, “Experts warn that extreme disasters such as this one are only becoming more common because climate change is fueling stronger storms, hotter temperatures, more widespread droughts. Earlier this week, President Biden incorrectly claimed he had already declared a climate emergency, which would give him additional powers to combat the climate crisis. Given what you’re seeing on the ground, do you want President Biden to actually declare a climate emergency?”

Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI) said Friday on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” that Republican lawmakers exemplified “anti-women fervor.” Anchor Joy Reid said, “The Veterans Administration, I know you sit on the committee that oversees them. They announced they would offer abortions in cases of rape, incest, and when a mother’s life is at risk. Republican lawmakers just this Wednesday reintroduced a resolution to reverse that policy using a process that would force the vote in the Senate even though it is controlled by Democrats. You have them doing that. You have Republicans who have been lying this whole time, McConnell, Mike Rounds,...

One of President Biden’s judicial nominees is stuck in the Senate Judiciary Committee because the judge prosecuted an alleged Chinese spy, prompting at least one Senate Democrat to worry that this prosecution reflected “anti-Asian” racism, three Senate aides told Fox News Digital. Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, is stalling the confirmation process for attorney Casey Arrowood, a former Obama-era prosecutor at the Justice Department and Biden’s nominee for U.S. attorney to the Eastern District of Tennessee, the aides said. Arrowood led the prosecution of a case as part of the Trump-era “China Initiative” at the DOJ, which was disbanded earlier this...

On Wednesday, Hirono spoke on the Senate floor about Sen. Lindsey Graham’s, R-S.C., latest bill proposal to ban abortions after 15 weeks. The bill includes several exceptions, including for rape, incest and when a woman's life is in danger from a pregnancy. It also explicitly bans the prosecution of women seeking abortions. She, along with other Democratic senators, vehemently opposed the legislation for pushing an "extreme MAGA Republican" agenda. "Talk about government overreach. When I hear my colleagues talking about how it should be states’ rights or government should not be telling us what to do, the word ‘hypocrites,’ it...

Democrat extremism in the wake of President Joe Biden’s “Dark MAGA” speech heated up some more on Wednesday when Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) issued a “call to arms” on the Senate floor while debating a national abortion ban. “When I hear my colleagues talking about how, you know, ‘it should be state rights’ or ‘government should not be telling us what to do,’ the word ‘hypocrites,’ it doesn’t even go far enough to call them out on what they’re doing,” said Hirono.

**SNIP** But with at least two more hearings on the horizon, Democratic lawmakers are unsure what action they should take next to try to stop Trump, a hugely popular Republican who has survived repeated scandals, including two impeachments, and is considered a top 2024 presidential contender despite the legal clouds surrounding him. Their options to lock him out of the Oval Office are unprecedented and fraught. They could try to impeach Trump for the third time and get the deadlocked Senate to convict him, which then would open the door to another simple majority vote as specified under the Constitution...

On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The ReidOut,” Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) stated that Republicans on the Judiciary Committee attacked Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson for being “a black woman representing poor people” and that these statements, along with criticism of her record on sex crimes could be called “dog whistles.” Hirono said that Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has voted to confirm judges with similar sentencing records to Jackson’s and “that’s why I brought it up, and that’s why I asked Judge Jackson, do you think that these judges who have been sentencing along the...

With the hearings going on as we speak, we have to go back to this because it hurts. It’s physically painful to watch. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) tried to be a good liberal soldier and return fire against the GOP attacks against Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson (KBJ). The problem is that the grenade she wanted to lob into the Republican camp blew up in her face. Is this bad staffing? Is this plain stupidity? Is this a classic case of a liberal ignoring or not knowing news that goes against his or her worldview? Maybe it’s a combination of both....

On his MSNBC show Sunday morning, after playing a clip of Tucker Carlson calling for the release of the LSAT (Law School Admission Test) score of Ketanji Brown Jackson, Biden's Supreme Court justice nominee, Jonathan Capehart said to his liberal Democrat guest: "Senator Hirono, I'm not going to curse because it's Sunday and I'd get fired. Can you talk about why what Tucker Carlson just said is so repugnant?" Hirono failed to answer Capehart's question. She didn't/couldn't venture anything as to why it was "repugnant" to ask for Brown Jackson's LSAT score. The most she could muster was to suggest...

On Friday’s “CNN Newsroom,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) argued that inflation is due to the pandemic and supply chain issues, “none of which the Republicans choose to do anything about except to blame Joe Biden.” And that companies “could give up some of their unearned profits to help the American people.” Host Ana Cabrera asked, “Americans aren’t happy with the economy right now. I don’t need to tell you that. But they’re blaming Democrats. If things like inflation are still high come November, how do you argue to keep Democrats in the majority?”

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii is urging her Republican colleagues to be "open-minded" when it comes to President Biden's Supreme Court nominee. Following the official announcement of Justice Stephen Breyer's retirement on Thursday, Hirono appeared on CNN and praised Biden's vow to nominate a Black woman to the highest court in the land, calling the pick "so important" since she will "reflect the diversity of the court," which she suggested did not reflect the "diversity" of the country in various 6-3 rulings.

On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Beat,” Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) said she wants Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s replacement to be someone “who will consider the impact, the effects of whatever decision-making is on people in our country so that they are not making decisions just based on” the law.

Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI) said Thursday on CNN’s “Newsroom” that the Republican Party is attempting to stop “Black people, Chicanos, Asian-American people from voting.” Hirono said, “What I’m seeing are voter suppression bills being enacted by state legislatures across the country, so that is a direct threat to our democracy. Voter suppression bills by the hundreds. So you have a state like Georgia where they’re trying to take over the election board. They already have, where you can’t give water or food to people standing in line for hours, where you have one voter who can challenge another voter, and...

On Saturday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Velshi,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) said she agrees with the notion that people don’t care about gas prices if they can’t afford child care so they can work. Guest host Maria Teresa Kumar said, “One of the things that we saw was a historic infrastructure bill that passed that’s going to alleviate, not just our roads and clean water, but has implications for a brighter future when it comes to climate energy and so on and so forth. However, now, the second part of this plan, the human infrastructure, the one that will build back...

A run-of-the-mill Senate Judiciary Committee hearing became bad-tempered Wednesday, with Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) accusing Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) of “mansplaining” after he referenced her in a question to a nominee about the doctrine of judicial originalism. During the hearing to consider U.S. District Judge Gustavo Gelpi’s nomination to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, Cruz told the nominee that Hirono had stated “that you refused to commit to originalism because originalism would prevent [case] outcomes that she supports … she doesn’t want judges who will follow the original understanding of the Constitution.”

On Thursday’s broadcast of Comedy Central’s “Daily Show,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) admitted that she supported preserving the filibuster in the past, but she “learned from” how Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) conducted himself when he was in the majority “and also that the filibuster is a vestige of the Jim Crow days.”