Free Republic

When the Trump administration swept into the Department of Justice on Jan. 20, it moved swiftly to purge, demote, transfer and otherwise sideline career lawyers not perceived to be team players or sufficiently committed to the MAGA legal agenda. [snip] Inside, nearly a dozen of the government's most seasoned civil rights, environmental and national security lawyers have been reconstituted as members of a newly created group called the Sanctuary Cities task force. At first glance, the job seemed promising — a legal strike team that would sue municipalities the administration claimed were facilitating the violation of immigration laws, a task...

It was supposed to be a routine appearance, a visit from the commander in chief to rally the troops, boost morale and celebrate the Army's 250th-birthday week, which culminates with a Washington, D.C., parade slated for Saturday. Instead, what unfolded Tuesday at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, bore little resemblance to the customary visit from a president and defense secretary. There, President Donald Trump unleashed a speech laced with partisan invective, goading jeers from a crowd of soldiers positioned behind his podium -- blurring the long-standing and sacrosanct line between the military and partisan politics. As Trump viciously attacked his perceived...

When immigration agents pulled up outside a Los Angeles car wash on a quiet Sunday afternoon, it sparked instant chaos. Some customers at the Westchester Hand Wash, which sits in the centre of a busy shopping area just blocks from the city's airport, froze as the officers in olive-green uniforms approached, CCTV footage obtained by the BBC shows. Two employees who spotted them ducked behind a luxury SUV they were wiping down with a rag. Another worker halfway through cleaning the back window of a car looked up. Then all at once they scattered and ran, some jumping over a...

During an appearance on CNN on Monday, former Univision anchor Maria Elena Salinas expressed her disapproval of the Trump administration for its handling of deportations in California. While making her point, she told “NewsNight” viewers that California was once part of Mexico, adding that all of the Southwest was “Mexico.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump made no secret of his willingness to exert a maximalist approach to enforcing immigration laws and keeping order as he campaigned to return to the White House. The fulfillment of that pledge is now on full display in Los Angeles. The president has put hundreds of National Guard troops on the streets to quell protests over his administration’s immigration raids, a deployment that state and city officials say has only inflamed tensions. Trump called up the California National Guard over the objections of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom — the first time in 60 years a...

Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” while insisting to “keep it peaceful,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) called for more protests around the country as rioting is underway in Los Angeles tied to the Trump administration’s deportation effort. The Connecticut Democrat lawmaker argued President Donald Trump was inciting behavior so he could invoke the Insurrection Act. “I mean, my first message is to keep it peaceful,” Murphy declared. “I mean, obviously, this is a moment where we have to be on the streets all over the country to protest what’s happening to our immigrant community, but more broadly, to protest what’s happening...

The situation has all the elements that the president seeks: a showdown with a top political rival in a deep blue state over an issue core to his agenda.It is the fight President Trump had been waiting for, a showdown with a top political rival in a deep blue state over an issue core to his political agenda.In bypassing the authority of Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a Democrat, to call in the National Guard to quell protests in the Los Angeles area over his administration’s efforts to deport more migrants, Mr. Trump is now pushing the boundaries of presidential...

Monday on CNN’s “Inside Politics,” host Dana Bash said President Donald Trump was acting as the “arsonist” by sending the National Guard to Los Angeles. Reporter Manu Raju said, “Just to get the point of how much Donald Trump wants this fight, I mean, he’s been posting and talking about it pretty much nonstop over the weekend, including just moments ago saying if we had not done this, send the National Guard in Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated. Now, I’m not quite sure if that’s exactly the case of what people are saying on the ground here. But...

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...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Around 300 National Guard troops arrived in Los Angeles early Sunday on orders from President Donald Trump, staging outside a federal complex that remained largely quiet and without major protests following two days of clashes with immigration authorities.The deployment appeared to be the first time in decades that a state’s national guard was activated without a request from its governor, a significant escalation against those who have sought to hinder the administration’s mass deportation efforts. On Sunday morning, some of the troops were stationed outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, dressed in tactical...

President Trump has long mused about using troops to crush violent protests or riots in blue-state cities. He is now moving to do so in Los Angeles.Setting up a rare use of military force on domestic soil, President Trump ordered the Pentagon on Saturday night to send at least 2,000 National Guard troops to respond to protests in Los Angeles set off by his immigration crackdown.Mr. Trump has long mused about using military force on domestic soil to crush violent protests or riots, fight crime and hunt for undocumented migrants — a move that his aides talked him out of...

Legal experts questioned the president’s response to unrest in Los Angeles, saying the military personnel involved will face strict limitations under the law.President Donald Trump’s order to deploy 2,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles is unprecedented, relying on an unorthodox use of a law aimed at quelling serious domestic unrest or an attack on the United States by a foreign power, some legal experts said Sunday.Trump invoked a section of the Armed Forces Act that allows the president to bypass a governor’s authority over the National Guard and call those troops into federal service when he considers it...

ABC News’ senior national correspondent Terry Moran went off on a late-night screed against top White House adviser Stephen Miller along with President on social media — drawing scathing backlash from the Trump administration. Moran, who landed an interview with the president in April, blasted Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, as a man “richly endowed with the capacity for hatred.”z “The thing about Stephen Miller is not that he is the brains behind Trumpism. Yes, he is one of the people who conceptualizes the impulses of the Trumpist movement and translates them into policy. But...

Donald Trump has frequently poured scorn on those who served in the US military. Even though he avoided serving after obtaining a note from a friendly doctor who said he had bone spurs, he famously mocked late Republican John McCain, the 2008 presidential candidate and a prisoner-of-war, saying he preferred people who did not get captured. He would later stun his chief of staff, former Marine General John Kelly, during a visit to France for the centennial anniversary of the end of the First World War, when he allegedly claimed those who gave their lives were “suckers” and “losers”. Now,...

President Donald Trump is free to bar the Associated Press from some White House media events for now, after a U.S. appeals court on Friday paused a lower court ruling mandating that AP journalists be given access. The divided ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit temporarily blocks an order by U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, who ruled on April 8 that the Trump administration must allow AP journalists access to the Oval Office, Air Force One and White House events while the news agency's lawsuit moves forward.

Mistakenly (editorialized opinion) deported Salvadoran native Kilmar Abrego Garcia is on his way back to the United States where he will face criminal charges for allegedly transporting undocumented migrants within the U.S., according to sources familiar with the matter.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Homeland Security official during President Donald Trump’s first administration who authored an anonymous op-ed sharply critical of the president is calling on independent government watchdogs to investigate after Trump ordered the department to look into his government service.Miles Taylor, once chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, warned in an interview with The Associated Press of the far-reaching implications of Trump’s April 9 memorandum, “Addressing Risks Associated with an Egregious Leaker and Disseminator of Falsehoods,” when it comes to suppressing criticism of the president. That memo accused Taylor of concocting stories to sell...

Have you considered that you simply don't hate the press enough? If you think you do, you might find yourself reconsidering after reading this latest story. As RedState reported, a pro-Palestinian terrorist in Colorado threw Molotov cocktails at peaceful marchers as they silently remembered the hostages being held by Hamas. The attack took place in Boulder, injuring at least five people. Police arrested Mohamad Soliman at the scene, with videos showing him shouting "Palestine is free" and "end Zionists" as he attempted to burn innocent people alive. In the aftermath of such an attack, you'd hope that press outlets would...

Moscow’s advantage on the Ukraine battlefield is waning, experts say. But President Donald Trump seems disinclined to ramp up pressure on the Kremlin to engage in ceasefire talks.Russia’s battlefield strength in Ukraine has started to wane and it could run into serious shortages of manpower and weaponry by next year, even as President Donald Trump retreats from pressure on Moscow to end the war, according to senior U.S. and European officials and military experts. In recent days, Trump appears to have abandoned the threat of harsh financial sanctions he repeated as recently as two weeks ago if Moscow doesn’t agree...

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace said Wednesday on “Deadline” that President Donald Trump humiliated the people of the United States during his Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. Wallace said, “Another day for the history books today from Donald J. Trump. An astonishing display from him in the White House today Donald Trump meeting with the president of South Africa and attempting to ambush and humiliate that leader inside the Oval Office. But what he did instead was embarrass and humiliate the people of the United States of America again, in his meeting with President Ramaphosa, Trump peddled...