Free Republic

In this first year of his second term, President Donald Trump has claimed broad powers to unilaterally restructure much of how the U.S. government functions. Some of these assertions have gone completely unchallenged. Others have been litigated, and although lower courts have been skeptical of many of these efforts, the Supreme Court has been more approving. Trump has taken as much advantage of his new powers as he plausibly can, prosecuting his political enemies, firing independent agency heads, and dismantling federal agencies almost at a whim. One salient question now is: When and if the Democrats return to power, how...

Democratic operatives launched an initiative in 2022 effectively aimed at dissuading lawyers from taking and aiding clients whose success could potentially diminish leftist political power. Citing the need to "protect democracy," the 65 Project has so far sought to make examples of those attorneys who helped Trump allies and supporters challenge the 2020 election results, despite recognizing that some attorneys may not actually have violated the legal profession's ethical rules. The 65 Project — which made clear in September that it intends to keep hounding conservative lawyers — has not only publicly smeared accomplished attorneys but filed over 85 bar...

Attorney General Merrick Garland is not going to save democracy. Nor is the attorney general of New York, Letitia James; the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg; nor the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis. As the apparent collapse of the New York district attorney’s investigation makes clear, criminal cases are hard to make. Donald Trump, despite his many seemingly criminal acts, is unlikely to ever spend a day in jail. Observers of the Trump malignancy have an unfortunate habit of wish casting—believing that their most optimistic fantasies will become reality. They did this with the Mueller investigation—remember “It’s Mueller Time”?—and...

Russia, China and Iran don’t have a First Amendment, and their governments regularly clamp down on free speech. So why would we want to end American protection of the open Internet and transfer it to Moscow, Beijing and Tehran instead? On Oct. 1, the Obama administration plans to end the U.S. Government contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN. Doing so would kick off a transition that could irreparably harm the open Internet, leading to censorship abroad that could, quite realistically, lead to censorship right here in the United States. Under this transition of Internet...

Wednesdays's senate hearing regarding the Internet Giveaway revealed that ICANN has been not merely dishonest but truth is alien to them. Senator Grassley found no solid reason to believe that our .gov and .mil websites will be left alone. [Which means no website is safe]. That lack of assurance concerns him. According to Paul Rosenzweig [a cyber-war insider and former Homeland Administrator who wrote extensively about freedom-of-speech concerns] the only thing protecting the .mil and .gov websites is empty assurances in letters that have no legal value whatsoever. To put it bluntly: The senator and Rosenzweig both smell a rat....