Free Republic

President Trump’s tariff spree is, we gather, being met with a wave of regrets on Capitol Hill. The poor dears. The Framers, in their wisdom, delegated solely to Congress the authority to lay and collect tariffs.* Yet after the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930, the solons let this power slip out of their hands. Congress passed a series of laws giving the president the ability to impose tariffs, largely at his discretion. Now some legislators want to reclaim their power. A bill pushed by Senator Grassley, Politico reports, would require the president “to notify Congress within 48 hours” of setting...

Thanks to the New York Times, we now know the dreaded torture methods the sadistic CIA used on captured Al Qaeda big shots shortly after the 9/11 attack. I warn you: Reading this column any further will subject you to unvarnished brutality. According to a front-page article in the Times on Sunday, Sept. 10, Pakistani authorities captured Abu Zubaydah, Al Qaeda's personnel director, a few months after the terror attack five years ago. Zubaydah, wounded in the confrontation, was turned over to American authorities and whisked away to Bangkok, Thailand, where FBI interrogators began questioning him. According to unnamed sources...