Free Republic

Talk about your America-hating media members. On the final episode of the syndicated Chris Matthews Show Sunday, Andrew Sullivan actually said that - to laughter from many in the studio - “with any luck,” America won’t be a superpower in 20 years (video follows with transcript and commentary):Andrew Sullivan: ‘With Any Luck’ America Won’t Be a Superpower in 20 Years CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Andrew, are we going to be - being we Americans, you included - are we going to be the great, are we still going to use that word superpower? I don't even like it very much. The...

Rand Paul is the most interesting contender for the Republican nomination. And when I say interesting, I mean that in the broadest sense. A case in point: Last week, the Kentucky senator hit some turbulence when the Washington Free Beacon reported that Jack Hunter, Paul’s aide and the co-author of his book, The Tea Party Goes to Washington, was once the Southern Avenger. Who’s that? Starting in the 1990s, as a radio shock-jock, Hunter would wear a wrestling mask made from a Confederate flag, while making jokes about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and having the South re-secede. “Although Lincoln’s...

FRANKFORT — Kentucky Democratic Party Chairman Dan Logsdon called on U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Wednesday to condemn U.S. Sen. Rand Paul's hiring of a staffer with a history of making controversial comments about race. Washington Free Beacon, a conservative online publication, reported Tuesday that Paul staffer Jack Hunter is a former talk-radio host who called himself the "Southern Avenger" and is a former member of the League of the South, a group that advocates Southern secession. "Senator McConnell likes Republicans to call him leader, and he has made himself heard on every issue he deems of consequence, real...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., defended a Senate aide who once espoused pro-secession and neo-Confederate views, calling him “incredibly talented” during an interview with the Huffington Post. The Washington Free Beacon Tuesday reported that Jack Hunter, who serves as social media director for Paul, once worked as a radio shock jock for two different stations in Charleston, S.C., advocating for secession and the Confederacy. Hunter, who helped write Paul’s book “The Tea Party Goes to Washington,” called himself the “Southern Avenger” and wore a Confederate flag mask at public appearances. “People are calling him a white supremacist,” Paul said in an...

Modest spending cuts that were put into place March 1 due to sequestration have mostly failed to result in the economic doom predicted by Keynesians. Now the defense industry is working to undo those cuts. Jeremy Herb of The Hill has reported on lobbying industries going up to Capitol Hill, redoubling their efforts to restore budget cuts: Cord Sterling, vice president of legislative affairs for the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), said his group is working to articulate the damage from the cuts that are now beginning to take hold. They remain hopeful that a fix is on the horizon. ......

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama was interrupted three times by a woman who shouted about drones and detainees in Cuba as he delivered a speech on national security. The woman was identified as Medea Benjamin from the anti-war group Code Pink. Benjamin yelled from behind a bank of cameras before security removed her from the hall at National Defense University in Washington.

Peter Weller on Star Trek, Getting His Ph.D., and Defending J.J. Abrams by Bilge Ebiri If you saw Star Trek Into Darkness this weekend and couldn't quite place Peter Weller, the actor playing Starfleet Admiral Marcus, allow us to refresh your memory: Weller starred in two of the biggest cult films of the eighties, Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai and RoboCop, as well as in David Cronenberg’s adaptation of William S. Burroughs's The Naked Lunch. He's also had supporting parts on 24, Dexter, Fringe, and House. And if that weren’t enough, the man is currently finishing up a Ph.D. in art...

Libertarian activist and radio host Adam Kokesh is hoping to get 1,000 people to march on Washington on July 4 — armed with loaded rifles. The plan, launched with a Facebook group today, is to gather on the Virginia side of the Potomac, where gun laws are lax, and then march across the bridge with loaded rifles slung over their shoulders into the District, where openly carrying weapons is generally prohibited. “This will be a non-violent event,” the Facebook group warns, “unless the government chooses to make it violent.” Already, over 200 people have said they’ll attend the march. Here’s...

Although real-life circumstances of late may prove more illuminating to them than any words could be, students at Hilo High School will receive a presentation from peace activist Jim Albertini on 'participating in a democracy'

Obama’s Amazing AchievementsHis military intervention prompted some stunning reversals. By bombing Libya, President Obama has accomplished some things once thought absolutely impossible in America:(a) War-mongering liberals: Liberals are now chest-thumping about military “progress” in Libya. Even liberal television and radio commentators cite ingenious reasons why an optional, preemptive American intervention in an oil-producing Arab country, without prior congressional approval or majority public support — and at a time of soaring deficits — is well worth supporting, in a sort of “my president, right or wrong,” fashion. Apparently, liberal foreign policy is returning to the pre-Vietnam days of the hawkish “best...

Sometimes the news is what didn’t happen. It is worth noting, then, that Joan Wile and her cadre of graying activists did not stand curbside on Fifth Avenue late Wednesday afternoon in protest against America’s wars. In mid-November, after an almost-unbroken run of Wednesday vigils going back nearly nine years, this group, known as Grandmothers Against the War, decided to call it a day. What had gotten them started, the war in Iraq, was over. While the other war, in Afghanistan, does go on, it draws ever scanter attention. That was the case even in the presidential campaign. (Headline in...

The late George McGovern is best known for his disastrous 1972 campaign for the presidency which was built around his opposition to American intervention in Vietnam. Less well known was his proposal for a military intervention just six years later.

Exclusive: Joseph Farah admits how much his youth matched that of Barack Obama I have a confession to make. It might help explain why I fear a second term of Barack Obama so much. I understand what Obama is and what he is doing because I was once like him: I am a former communist. As a youth growing up during the Vietnam War, I was influenced by some of the more extreme, anti-American opposition to that conflict and began to identify with the enemy. I became convinced the U.S. epitomized all that was evil in the world. During high...

RALEIGH -- In an odd political bedfellows moment, three North Carolina congressmen - two progressive Democrats and one religious-right Republican - joined forces Monday to urge the Obama administration to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan. At an anti-war town hall meeting in the Legislative Building, Republican U.S. Rep. Walter Jones and Democratic U.S. Reps.David Price and Brad Miller sought to keep the pressure on the administration to end the American combat operations by the middle of 2013. "Our concern is that too many times, administrations will say that the date for coming home is a year from now, 18 months...

Why Israel Must Not Attack Iran By Ari Bussel There are two ways to fight an enemy’s military superiority: brut force or ingenuity. Modern Israel, the infant country, had neither the means nor the power against her Arab neighbors that sought her destruction. Greatly outnumbered, she survived against all odds. What was the secret to her success? She was driven to survive, and that was stronger than her enemies’ will to destroy her. Her enemies heard they were winning, even before the fighting started: The Egyptian army walking onto Tel Aviv, and the Jews surrendering. The Jews, however, had no...

Labor Raid: The FBI raids the Chicago home of a local union leader looking for terrorist connections as the union's former chief is investigated for corruption. Why are we not surprised? Thuggery and corruption are not quite synonyms for unionism, but it gets very close when you consider the Service Employees International Union, formerly led by Andy Stern. From being involved in fraudulent voter registration in Texas to beating up Tea Party activists outside town hall meetings in Missouri, SEIU's reputation is well-established. Now we can possibly add a linkage to terrorism. On Friday, the FBI searched eight addresses in...

The former U.N. weapons inspector convicted in an online sex sting has been sentenced to 1½ to 5½ years in state prison. Following his sentencing in Monroe County Court on Wednesday afternoon, Scott Ritter was led out in handcuffs and sent to Monroe County Correctional Facility, where he will remain until it is determined which state prison he will serve his sentence at.

Anti-war protesters plan to storm the inside and outside of the Hart Senate Office Building at 11:30 a.m. today, with the intent of causing enough havoc to shut business down. David Swanson, one of the original organizers of the October 2011/Stop the Machine protests — which is distinct from the Occupy D.C. protests in McPherson Square — explained the plan to an assembled crowd of less than 100, mainly elderly and middle-aged protesters in Freedom Square Tuesday morning. Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/11/anti-war-protesters-plan-to-storm-hart-senate-office-building-at-1130-a-m/#ixzz1aU9McCBe

Seasonal anti-interventionist, Sheryl Crow, has lost her antiwar T-shirts. Or she is making hypocrisy – not war. Curiously, the singer-songwriter supported Bill Clinton when he “dispatched the military overseas forty-four times during his eight years” – a modern record, according to historian Thomas Woods. Crow also traveled with Hillary and the comedian Sinbad to the Balkans. Bill Clinton’s anti-Serb campaigns were legendary. Yet, in 2003, Crow mysteriously advocated pacifism, pleading with Bush 43 to appease Saddam Hussein, because interventionism was evil. To make her point, she strutted around in her “War Is Not The Answer” T-shirt, at The American Music...

This is my first post at Freepers. (so if I'm doing it wrong, I'm sure several thousand of you will tell me so, LOL) Where is all of the Left's Astro Turf money going, since they quit funding the Anti-War protestors? Where have the professional hacks gone? Code Pink, ANSWER, and even ELF and the likes of them? Were they just told to 'shut up and sit down' by Soros after the current Administration took over the wars? As usual, not a peep from the MSM, to include FOX on this.