Free Republic

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, in an interview Sunday morning, spoke out forcefully against violence, but also called the federal government’s response “unneccessary.” She called the administration’s actions “posturing” and “completely disruptive to a city that has already gone through so much.” She also condemned violence, saying people who engaged in it or vandalism should be “arrested and held accountable to the full extent of the law.” “The protest that happened last night in L.A. was relatively minor,” she added, and “to say that the city is out of control, I don’t know what city they are talking about.” Demonstrations...

According to a leaked government document reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, a “large-scale” immigration enforcement action is planned for later this month in Los Angeles. The action is reported to involve law enforcement officials from multiple federal agencies. The Los Angeles Times reviewed a federal government document and spoke with an anonymous source not authorized to talk to the media regarding a planned immigration enforcement operation planned for later this month. The enforcement action is reportedly being headed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

NEW YORK — President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced Friday in his felony hush money case, but the judge declined to impose any punishment, an outcome that cements his conviction but frees him to return to the White House unencumbered by the threat of a jail term or a fine.Trump’s sentence of an unconditional discharge caps a norm-smashing case that saw the former and future president charged with 34 felonies, put on trial for almost two months and convicted on every count. Yet, the legal detour — and sordid details aired in court of a plot to bury affair allegations —...

NEW YORK — The immigration officers sat in their vehicles before dawn near a two-story building. A New York subway line rumbled overhead. After about two hours, an officer’s voice crackled over the radio. “I think that’s Tango,” he said, using a term for a target. “Gray hoodie. Backpack. Walking quickly.” The officers surrounded and handcuffed a 23-year-old man from Ecuador who had been convicted of sexually assaulting a minor. Kenneth Genalo, head of Enforcement and Removal Operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New York, said a popular misconception is that officers can sweep into a community and pick...

WASHINGTON — The fate of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet is still unclear after Republican senators spent much of December carefully dodging questions about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ’s views on vaccines, accusations of sexual misconduct against Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard’s 2017 meeting with then-President Bashar Assad of Syria. While some GOP senators have indicated they are all-in on Trump’s picks, others have for now withheld support, especially on some of his more controversial nominees. The dynamic is injecting uncertainty into the process as Republicans prepare to take the Senate majority in January with a four-seat margin and as Trump...

Hello and happy Tuesday. There are 62 days until President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in, and today we’re talking about keeping things normal. Normal, of course, is subjective. As anyone who’s getting ready to attend a Thanksgiving dinner knows, often families can’t even agree on what normal looks like. My own Ohio grandmother used to make lobster in aspic for our special meal. Her Depression-era upbringing made her believe it was the height of fancy-pantsy, but it still gives me nightmares. When it comes to Trump’s Cabinet picks, most of them so far are anything but ordinary. “Normally, you let...

Good morning. It is Wednesday, Sept. 18. Here’s what’s happening in Opinion.Over the weekend Donald Trump was the apparent target of a second assassination attempt as he played golf at his West Palm Beach, Fla., club. Who knows what might have happened had the Secret Service not spotted the suspected gunman hanging out at the edge of the course before he could take a shot or even get a line of sight.Unsurprisingly, Trump and his allies immediately put the blame for the incident on Democrats since they will not stop talking about what might happen if a self-proclaimed wannabe dictator...

Kamala Harris. Donald Trump. Gish Gallop. All three are expected at Tuesday’s presidential debate, even if most of America is unfamiliar with one name in that lineup. GG, as I’ve now come to call it, is a shell game/debate tactic that takes its name from Duane Gish, a prominent figure in the creationist movement who deployed dubious arguments, selective factoids, and rapid-fire lies to overwhelm his opponents in public discussions about the theory of evolution. The disinformation technique, coined Gish Gallop in 1994 by the National Center for Science Education’s founding director Eugenie Scott, is essentially the art of burying...

No matter the outcome of the November elections, it is urgent that there be a widespread recognition that American democracy is in danger and that reforms are essential. No form of government lasts forever, and it would be foolhardy to believe that the United States cannot fall prey to the forces that have ended democracies in many other countries.

To say this year’s Republican presidential ticket does not know how to talk to or about women, or figure out what matters to them, would be the understatement of the century. And I sure hope they keep it up. It’s all mind-boggling, from nominee Donald Trump’s racist, sexist ramblings about Vice President Kamala Harris to the, ah, unusual views of his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, on parenthood. Now the hapless pair are digging in deeper as they try to cope with the post-Roe vs. Wade world — the one brought about by Trump’s Supreme Court appointees and...