Free Republic

Senate Republicans are facing major new issues with their domestic policy megabill after the chamber’s parliamentarian advised senators that several provisions they are counting on to reap hundreds of billions of dollars in budget savings won’t be able to pass along party lines. Those include major pieces of Medicaid policy, including a politically explosive plan to hold down Medicaid costs by cracking down on a state provider tax — a provision that is expected to have a nine-figure impact on the bill. Republicans now will have to try to rewrite major sections of their Finance bill or potentially leave out...

A federal appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s request that it halt the next steps Judge Paula Xinis is seeking to take in the case concerning a migrant who was wrongly deported to El Salvador, with a strident warning about the rule of law and the possibility the dispute presented an “incipient crisis.” The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals said in its seven-page ruling Thursday that the Trump administration’s assertions in the case “should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.” The unanimous ruling...

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Trump DOJ’s effort to block Judge Xinis’ order requiring the US government to “facilitate” the return of alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia. A three-judge panel: Harvie Wilkinson (Reagan), Robert King (Clinton), and Stephanie Thacker (Obama) issued the order. Judge Wilkinson, the Reagan appointee, repeatedly referred to Abrego Garcia as a “resident” even though he’s an illegal alien. Kilmar Abrego Garcia is an El Salvadorian national who was illegally residing in Maryland. In 2019, an immigration judge ordered Abrego Garcia, an alleged member of the dangerous MS-13 gang, removed from the...

CBS All Access’s The Good Fight will explore Donald Trump’s impeachment in an upcoming episode. Rather than having the traditional CBS executive Q&A, at which Reporters Who Cover Television take turns excoriating the network for lack of diversity, the network held one of the most interesting panels of this TCA to date, in which various showrunners took questions about politics and social issues on television. The Good Fight stole the show when EP Robert King told TV critics at TCA on Saturday about an upcoming episode in which the DNC seeks guidance from series’ law firm about the legal case...