Free Republic

A top political columnist for The Washington Post resigned today, accusing Post chief executive and publisher Will Lewis of killing her column that criticized owner Jeff Bezos's drive to overhaul the opinion pages to focus on his libertarian priorities. Post columnist and Associate Editor Ruth Marcus, who has worked at the paper for four decades, says she can no longer stay there. "Jeff's announcement that the opinion section will henceforth not publish views that deviate from the pillars of individual liberties and free markets threatens to break the trust of readers that columnists are writing what they believe, not what...

In yesterday’s post, reviewing a Washington Post op-ed by Ruth Marcus that called efforts by the duly-elected President to direct the bureaucracy to implement his policies a “power grab” and an “onslaught against the government itself,” I described the piece as reflecting “kindergarten-level constitutional analysis.” After all, my 6 year old first-grader grandson is fully capable of reading the first sentence of Article II of the Constitution (“The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America”) and figuring out that this guy is given the sole and full power to direct the executive branch...

Can President Donald Trump be stopped?More precisely, since the Republican-controlled Congress seems more willing to enable than to restrain, to what extent will the legal system be capable of halting his barrage of executive orders and other questionable actions? Can blue states and private plaintiffs fight back with lawsuits — or is the gusher of Trumpian excesses too overwhelming to mount an effective counterattack?And, most critically, are the courts — ultimately the Supreme Court — more inclined to accede to Trump’s inflated conception of presidential authority or to limit his overreach? If they dare to frustrate his will, will Trump...

No president in history has caused more damage to the nation more quickly. As we enter Week 3 of President Donald Trump’s second term, the chaos and disruption of his first look quaint by comparison. The country survived Trump 1. Now, it faces a real threat that the harm he inflicts during his second term will be irreparable. The United States’ standing in the world, its ability to keep the country safe, the federal government’s fundamental capacity to operate effectively — all of these will take years to repair, if that can be achieved at all.This column will concentrate on...

Hugh Hewitt Schools Jonathan Capehart on What it Means to be a Real Journalist

Hugh Hewitt, an establishment media conservative commentator, abruptly departed a live episode Thursday of Washington Post Live’s First Look after its host berated him for recapping election integrity initiatives that were held up in court. WaPo’s associate editor Jonathan Capehart appeared to be embarrassed by the departure of Hewitt, who called the show “the most unfair election ad I’ve ever been a part of,” implicitly likening it to a campaign ad for Kamala Harris. A recent Gallup poll found Americans’ trust in the media to report current events “fully, accurately and fairly” has plummeted to a record low. Only 31...

Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt resigned from his contributing columnist role at The Washington Post on Friday after storming off the newspaper’s live show over a disagreement with his colleagues. Hewitt’s resignation came after an appearance on “First Look,” the Post’s live show hosted by Jonathan Capehart, alongside Ruth Marcus, an associate editor and columnist at the Post, during a discussion over former President Donald Trump legal efforts in battleground states. “Is it me, or does it seem like, this week, Donald Trump is laying the groundwork for contesting the election by complaining that cheating was taking place in Pennsylvania...

I love The Washington Post, deep in my bones. Last month marked my 40th year of proud work for the institution, in the newsroom and in the Opinions section. I have never been more disappointed in the newspaper than I am today, with the tragically flawed decision not to make an endorsement in the presidential race.At a moment when The Post should have been stepping forward to sound the clarion call about the multiple dangers that Donald Trump poses to the nation and the world, it has chosen instead to pull back. That is the wrong choice at the worst...

Well, the lefties can stop freaking out over delays in ruling on Donald Trump's presidential immunity claims, delaying the Trump trial they think will get Biden re-elected. The appeals court ruled against Trump on Tuesday. His appeals will continue.But Washington Post columnist and associate editor Ruth Marcus let the cat out of the bag on their hopes for lawfare to ruin Trump's campaign. The very title of her opinion piece on Friday admits to that, "Slowpoke federal appeals court puts 2024 election in jeopardy."The theme of her frantic diatribe is that the orderly appeals process of how the justice system...

With the U.S. Supreme Court hearing arguments about the legality of federal vaccine mandates, a certain Covid Karen at the Washington Post is really irked about something vaguely related: Masks. The deputy editorial page editor and longtime columnist for said periodical, Ruth Marcus, went postal because Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch was not wearing a mask while hearing oral arguments on this matter. Marcus let the world know how upset she was with Gorsuch's maskless heresy on Monday by screeching to the world with this fiery op-ed, "Where was Justice Neil Gorsuch’s mask?"

Under the unusual circumstances surrounding his selection, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh should have agreed to recuse himself from deciding cases involving the investigation of President Trump. The reason Kavanaugh asserted at his confirmation hearing for refusing to make such a pledge — that it would violate the imperative of judicial independence — is entirely unconvincing. In turn, senators should decline to approve Kavanaugh’s nomination unless he does so. And, since that’s not likely to happen, in the event that a case involving the Trump investigation were to come before a Justice Kavanaugh, he should not participate — for his...

Everyone who works for President Trump: Quit now. Save your souls. Save your honor, such as it is. Save your reputation, such as it remains. Russia attacked our democracy. Trump has demonstrated repeatedly, and did so again with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, that he doesn’t care and won’t defend his country. If you work for this man and you call yourself a patriot, it is time for you to go. This may sound excessive, even irresponsible. Indeed, for months I have agonized over the question of public service in the age of Trump.

When a liberal WaPo columnist urges red-state Dem senators to confirm President Trump's Supreme Court pick, you know the fight is over . . . On this evening's Hardball, liberal, pro-choice, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus urged red-state Dem senators to vote to confirm President Trump's SCOTUS nominee. Marcus said it would be a "suicide mission" for red-state Dems to vote Trump's pick. That's how you know confirmation is a done deal. Marcus said she'd be "stunned" if any Republican senator, including pro-choicers like Collins or Murkowski voted against Trump's pick. Continued Marcus: "why would Democrats in those red states go...

Washington Post deputy editorial page editor, Ruth Marcus, penned an op-ed yesterday defending the “right” to selectively kill babies inside the mother’s womb who have been diagnosed with Down syndrome. The piece is filled superfluous nonsense that matters neither here, nor there in the main point of her argument. Marcus is not defending killing babies due to perceived disabilities, but rather asserting her belief that a woman should be able to kill the baby inside her womb at anytime and for whatever reason, without question. “There is a new push in antiabortion circles to pass state laws aimed at barring women...

To paraphrase the immortal words of Daniel Simpson "D-Day" Day, the war's over -- Donald Trump dropped the big one. At least Ruth Marcus thinks so when it comes to the Battle of the Sexes between Trump and Hillary Clinton. Marcus argues that while Trump personifies vulgarity, he has the edge over Hillary when it comes to attacks on women. Trump just makes sexist statements, Marcus argues, but Hillary's husband Bill preys on them: *snip* Marcus calls this playing "the Bill card," and it's been a long time coming. Hillary attacked Bernie Sanders for his supposed sexism earlier in the...

"I can't believe I'm saying this. But I might prefer President Trump," writes liberal columnist Ruth Marcus for the Washington Post in a piece declaring Texas Senator Ted Cruz "more dangerous" than the real estate mogul. Marcus argues that Trump would be far more likely to cut deals with Democrats "on taxes, on funding Planned Parenthood, on implementing Obamacare, you name it." Cruz, by contrast, would die hard on such issues.Marcus offers an enlightening glimpse into the fears of the political establishment. Of particular note is this unexpected benefit of Trump's candidacy: ... Trump's ascendancy and the outrageousness of his...

"....The current effort to demonize Planned Parenthood feels different. This is, literally, a manufactured issue, cobbled together from doctored videotapes and overheated accusations. The organization's activities have been so mischaracterized, and the practice of providing fetal tissue so overblown and so manipulated by lawmakers and politicians, that blame for the ensuing violence falls more heavily on them. This argument, I concede, rests on a potentially slippery and subjective slope. Holding advocates responsible for such unintended consequences risks dampening speech. Second, conservatives have blamed Black Lives Matter protesters for inspiring the killing of police officers; what makes my critique fair and...

Ruth Marcus has come close to blaming Republicans for the Colorado Springs shootings. Appearing on Jose Diaz-Balart's MSNBC show today, Washington Post columnist Marcus said that "the Republican candidates . . . have been part of the inflamed and inflammatory rhetoric about Planned Parenthood, about the sale of baby parts, about dismembering live babies . . . I think it's a fair conclusion, especially based on his . . . alleged mentioning of 'no more baby parts,' that this kind of rhetoric helped create this environment." Really? Is there no room for people--without being accused of inflaming people to commit...

Fiorina on Clinton in 2008: “She was a great candidate. She has helped millions of women all over this country. Women of any political party owe a debt of gratitude to Hillary Clinton and I will bet that every woman up here agrees with me.” Over the weekend, the Washington Post Ruth Marcus wrote in a column that Fiorina told her in May of 2008 that if she wasn’t backing Sen. John McCain, she would have backed Clinton. A Fiorina spokeswoman said that Fiorina couldn’t remember the exchange and was probably talking about who she would back in the 2008...

In 2010, the then-GOP Senate nominee went all middle-school-cafeteria on her Democratic opponent’s hairdo. “God, what is that hair? Sooo yesterday,” Fiorina, already miked up, commented, quoting an aide’s assessment. Two years earlier, in the makeup room at ABC’s “This Week” with me, Fiorina said something that, at the time, was mildly interesting, but is now revelatory. It was May 2008, close to the end of the long primary battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and we were discussing the two Democratic contenders. At which point Fiorina, then a campaign surrogate for presumptive GOP nominee John McCain, offered some...