Free Republic

Sen. Tom Cotton sparred with Attorney General Merrick Garland and called for his resignation during an intense exchange at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday. The back-and-forth concerned a memo that Garland issued on October 4... ..."This is shameful. This testimony, your directive, your performance is shameful. Thank God you are not on the Supreme Court," Cotton said, referring to Garland's 2016 nomination for the bench by former President Barack Obama....

Ted Cruz dismantled Democrat’s insinuations on Barr’s character while laying out the time line of the Mueller Report release

(CNN)Senate Republicans and Democrats are split over whether they can tell the press and public what they learn from deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at a highly-anticipated briefing Thursday afternoon on how and why former FBI Director James Comey and was fired. Republicans insist the briefing, which will be held in a secure room known as a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIFF, will be classified and therefore anything senators learn in it must be kept secret. That is upsetting Democrats, who demanded the briefing after Comey's surprise firing by President Donald Trump last week, and who say they want...

Incoming Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) says his party will target eight of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks in an attempt to draw out the confirmation process, according to the Washington Post . Schumer told Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that Democrats will target Trump’s picks to head the State, Justice and Education departments, as well as the Office of Management and Budget. “Any attempt by Republicans to have a series of rushed, truncated hearings before Inauguration Day and before the Congress and public have adequate information on all of them is something Democrats will vehemently resist," Schumer...

Sure, Chuck Hagel might have been a bumbling, stumbling mess at his confirmation hearing yesterday. But the real story was how awful were the Republicans who questioned him. That was the collective judgment of today's Morning Joe panel. For example, so contemptuous was Joe Scarborough of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, that the Morning Joe host announced that he would not even mention him by name. "Clown show" was the panel's operative phrase for the Republican performance. Andrea Mitchell, Mika Brzezinski, Mike Barnicle et al. joined in the Republican roasting. View the video here.

After Senate Hearings, Pro-Lifers Say Reject Pro-Abortion Elena Kagan Washington, DC -- Now that the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of pro-abortion Supreme Court selection Elena Kagan have concluded, pro-life organizations say the panel should reject Kagan's nomination. They say she has been exposed as a hardcore pro-abortion activist. http://LifeNews.com/nat6493.html

Suppose that the federal government, in its infinite wisdom, decided that it would deal with the obesity crisis and improve the health and welfare of the American people -- by mandating that every American eat three helpings of vegetables and three helpings of fruit every day. Anyone caught failing to eat the required food would be subject to a fine or tax. Would such a law be constitutional? Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) put that question to Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan this week. Kagan, the US solicitor general, couldn't answer. In fact, she implied that under the court's "expansive" view...

Presidents are always in need of enemies. Obama has the Tea Party movement, and Wall Street – and he is using Wall Street, namely Goldman, as a paper tiger to help build support for financial reform.While they still have total control of Washington, the Obama administration and congressional Democrats have been working feverishly to pass a financial regulatory reform bill that would give the federal government expanded powers over Wall Street. At the same time, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has launched an investigation into Goldman Sachs and one of its vice presidents for defrauding investors by misstating and...

The Senate’s inquiry into the Christmas Day attempted terrorist attack, did not bear much fruit for anyone looking for answers. Even more disturbing is the fact that the hearings offered no level of comfort that after a year on the job (more for some), our top terror officials are still in the dark. On the question of who authorized the civilian arrest of Abdul Farouk Abdulmutalla, each witness (FBI director Robert Mueller, National Counterterrorism Center director Michael Leiter, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano) said they did not know. When asked if they were...

The Senate’s inquiry into the Christmas Day attempted terrorist attack, did not bear much fruit for anyone looking for answers. Even more disturbing is the fact that the hearings offered no level of comfort that after a year on the job (more for some), our top terror officials are still in the dark.

In Federalist # 48, James Madison talked about the importance of separation of powers: It is agreed on all sides, that the powers properly belonging to one of the departments ought not to be directly and completely administered by either of the other departments. It is equally evident, that none of them ought to possess, directly or indirectly, an overruling influence over the others, in the administration of their respective powers. It will not be denied, that power is of an encroaching nature, and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it. After discriminating,...

Is anyone else sick and tired of listening to Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee cower in the face of Sonia Sotomayor's sex and ethnicity? Reports out of Washington describe the Republican Senators tiptoeing ever so gingerly around Sotomayor so as not to alienate the female and Hispanic vote. What's worse, the embarrassing sideshow includes the kind of pathetic pandering many Americans have come to expect at these empty political charades. Senator Jon Kyl, R-Arizona, for example said he expected every American to be "proud that a Hispanic woman has been nominated to sit on the Supreme Court."...

Asked repeatedly yesterday what "conditions" he is looking for to begin substantial U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq after this summer's scheduled drawdown, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus said he will know them when he sees them. For frustrated lawmakers, it was not enough. "A year ago, the president said we couldn't withdraw because there was too much violence," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). "Now he says we can't afford to withdraw because violence is down." Asked Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.): "Where do we go from here?" Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said: "I think people want a sense of what...

Didn't see one and we need one.

(2007-10-06) — According a newly-leaked top-secret document published in The New York Times ‘Classified’ section today, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has employed controversial methods to extract information from terror suspects, including threats to put the detainee in front of a Senate committee for further interrogation. If true, it means that U.S. agents may be using a technique “tantamount to torture,” an unnamed source told the Times. “I’ve seen those Senate hearings on TV,” the source said. “I’d rather be waterboarded, slapped about the head and assaulted with high-volume Britney Spears music while confined to a meat locker.” President Bush...

"In 1985, led by Tipper Gore, the Parents Music Resource Center compiled a list of offensive rock songs - the so-called “filthy fifteen." The PMRC then sent the list to music industry execs, demanding both a rating system for lyrics and the application of warning labels - deemed “Tipper Stickers” by some - on albums." Now Al contracts with one of the so-called "filthy fifteen" to headline his Live Earth event!

WASHINGTON - A south Texas rancher, Texas sheriffs, an Arizona district attorney and other law enforcement representatives urged Senate committee members Wednesday to heed their warning: The porous southern border of the United States is a national security risk. Witnesses told Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, chairman of the Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship subcommittee, at a hearing on border violence that without cooperation from Mexico, combined with federal support from the United States, the situation at the border will continue to deteriorate. Cornyn focused the hearing on recent reports of Mexican military incursions into the United States, increasing border violence...

I was never a secret that the act was structured with a general distrust that the states would establish adequate regulatory programs without the specificity written into the law. In fact, in the legislative history report of the act, the committee explains why it needed specificity. [snip] Many of my friends in the states had difficulty living with this concept and had hoped that each state could individually interpret the federal law with it own regulations, rather than use our federal regulations, which were intended to assure some measure of general uniformity among the states. This controversy subsequently resulted in...

US senators demand oil execs re-testify, under oath Nov 16 6:44 PM US/Eastern Email this story Senate Democrats demanded that oil company executives who testified last week about skyrocketing energy prices reappear before lawmakers and testify under oath, after news reports raised questions about the truthfulness of their testimony. Leading oil company executives long have denied taking part in a secretive energy task force run in 2001 by Vice President Dick Cheney, but White House records obtained by The Washington Post refuted that, according to the daily's editions on Wednesday. The ad hoc group was tasked with helping develop a...

Using Foreign Law Is The Real Supreme Court Test By Kevin Fobbs The Supreme Court may not continue to be the supreme court of the land if the judicial philosophy of Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer of using foreign law rulings in adjudicating American cases is permitted to become standard practice by the justices. Even as the confirmation battle rages over the US Senate hearing for D.C. Federal Appeals Court Judge John Robert's bid to become the next chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, there is another more pressing battle in our nation's capitol. Unfortunately...