ALAN KEYES — I recently came across an article entitled "The Fourth of July once meant speeches, not fireworks." I thought it would be a thoughtful piece about the reasons why July 4th was once observed as a political memorial day -- i.e., a day on which citizens in the United States remembered the basis for their rights, including the right of self-government. Instead, it turned out to be a denigration of the emphasis on speechifying that was once characteristic of the observance. It sneeringly portrays Fourth of July speeches as boring displays of bombast and verbal fireworks.... (more)

ART MOORE — Democratic activists and lawmakers already are nearly two weeks into their "resistance" of President Trump's nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court to succeed the retiring Anthony Kennedy, and now they have a name and face for their campaign.... (more)

NPR — President Trump has chosen Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative judge from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit – often thought of as the second-most-powerful court in the country – to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court.... (more)

FOX NEWS — Did Judge Brett Kavanaugh write the roadmap for saving ObamaCare? That question has dwelled at the center of passionate debate in the conservative legal community for days as Kavanaugh, a federal appeals judge in the District of Columbia, finds himself as one of President Trump's four finalists for a place on the U.S. Supreme Court.... (more)

POLITICO — After Justice Anthony Kennedy told President Donald Trump he would relinquish his seat on the Supreme Court, the president emerged from his private meeting with the retiring jurist focused on one candidate to name as his successor: Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Kennedy's former law clerk.... (more)

DAILY CALLER — Justice Department documents released on Friday confirm that the DOJ attorney known as Robert Mueller's "pit bull" arranged a meeting with journalists in April 2017 to discuss an investigation into Paul Manafort. The documents show that Andrew Weissmann arranged a meeting with DOJ and FBI officials and four Associated Press reporters on April 11, 2017, just over a month before Mueller was appointed special counsel.... (more)

NEWSMAX — Texas property owners along the border with Mexico are getting notices from the federal government seeking permission to survey their lands for the construction of a possible wall, KENS 5 News reported on Sunday.... (more)

NEWSMAX — Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has labeled Mexico's President-elect Andres Manuel López Obrador a "far-left socialist" whose victory Sunday shows the need for President Donald Trump's wall to be built along the U.S.-Mexico border.... (more)

WASHINGTON EXAMINER — Famed lawyer Alan Dershowitz made a case Sunday for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to recuse himself from the Russia investigation on MSNBC. The Harvard law professor emeritus brought up Rosenstein as a pivot away from a question host Kasie Hunt asked about whether any Supreme Court candidate that President Trump might nominate Monday should recuse him or herself from the Russia inquiry.... (more)

NEWSMAX — Alan Dershowitz said Saturday that he is not a defender of President Donald Trump, but "I'm a supporter of civil liberties" -- and he likened attacks on him to being called "a communist supporter in the 1950s." "I am not a Trump supporter," the Harvard Law School professor emeritus told The New York Times in an interview on Martha's Vineyard. "I'm a supporter of civil liberties.... (more)

THE HILL — Brett Kavanaugh, a top contender to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, is facing pushback from social conservatives who say he's too moderate to occupy a seat that will determine the balance of the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh, a judge on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, is being considered alongside other top candidates like Amy Coney Barrett and Raymond Kethledge, who also serve as federal appeals court judges.... (more)

THE HILL — Amy Coney Barrett has emerged as the favorite candidate for social conservatives in the debate over who President Trump should pick to replace Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Barrett -- a 46-year-old appellate judge -- checks multiple boxes for the right.... (more)

ROBERT KNIGHT — Looking at the current political and cultural climate in Washington, D.C., you might get the idea that the ruling class is in the midst of a conniption fit. Even the walls of the National Cathedral are vibrating with weirdness -- more about that later.... (more)

WORLDNETDAILY — The Home School Legal Defense Association is the premiere advocate for homeschoolers worldwide, lobbying for their rights and representing them in court in the United States and globally. Now, it is sending a message to authorities in New Mexico "in protest of unlawful demands" by encouraging homeschooling families in the state "to disregard official instructions for filing the annual notice of intent."... (more)

WRAL — Democratic senators running for re-election in red states where President Donald Trump remains popular face an agonizing choice over his coming Supreme Court nominee: Vote to confirm the pick and risk demoralizing Democratic voters ahead of the midterm elections, or stick with the party and possibly sacrifice their own seats -- and any chance at a Democratic majority in 2019.... (more)

ANDREW C. MCCARTHY — It was my honor to befriend Judge Robert Bork in the last years of his life. Not surprisingly, I don't find much amusement in the cesspool that judicial-confirmation politics has become since his name became a synonym for slander in 1987 -- a debacle that changed history for the worse in more ways than the woodenly whimsical Anthony Kennedy's assumption of what should have been the Bork seat.... (more)

NEWSMAX — There are many anti-Trump media pundits announcing they're leaving the Republican Party, but nobody really cares, an opinion piece in The Washington Examiner argues Saturday.... (more)

BYRON YORK — There's talk going around Resistance circles that when seven U.S. lawmakers, all Republicans, met with top Russian officials in Moscow over the Fourth of July recess, they didn't even bring up Russia's efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. They also, according to the story, steered clear of other touchy issues like Russia's annexation of Crimea and intervention in Ukraine.... (more)

NEWSMAX — Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who has faced criticism from President Donald Trump and on down since he appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to investigate Russian activities during the 2016 election, appears to be fighting back, Washington insiders are saying.... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — Rep. Devin Nunes is referring 42 Obama administration officials, FBI agents and outside political activists to a House task force for as investigation into how the Obama Justice Department targeted the Donald Trump campaign. If the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and Judiciary Committee agree, their task force would conduct the most extensive probe to date on anti-Trump government operations in 2016.... (more)

WES VERNON — Everywhere you turn, the media, including some of our conservative favorites, are touting Brett Kavanaugh as having the inside track for President Trump's nomination to become the Supreme Court replacement for Anthony Kennedy, who is retiring.... (more)

PETER LEMISKA — Americans are bewildered and deeply troubled by today's dangerous atmosphere of political hatred. They're at a loss to explain why so many are working so hard to destroy the man duly elected to lead the country, why they're so determined to see him fail.... (more)

RICH LOWRY — There are few things more powerful in politics than a dumb idea whose time has come. This accounts for the seemingly inexorable momentum of the rallying cry, "Abolish ICE," which has rapidly gone from fantastical left-wing cause to mainstream Democratic issue embraced by prospective presidential candidates. The great advantage of "Abolish ICE" is precisely its witless simplicity and emotive symbolism removed from any practical considerations of government.... (more)

WORLDNETDAILY — There's a growing list of Democratic politicians and activists who are agitating for the abolishment of ICE, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.... (more)

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON — Key Trump administration officials have been confronted at restaurants. Representative Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) urged protesters to hound Trump officials at restaurants, gas stations, or department stores.... (more)