Free Republic

For all the controversy surrounding Rush Limbaugh, most Americans don’t really understand who and what he is. And most conservatives – who rightly embrace Limbaugh’s strength and clarity – don’t seem to understand why it’s become a problem that they’ve given over the leadership of their movement to him. It was 20 years ago that Detroit’s then-News Talk Radio, AM 1270 WXYT, made the controversial announcement that it was replacing the Dr. Leonard Portner Show during the noon hour to start carrying some national guy. The first time I heard the announcement, it sounded like they said his name was...

Contrary to popular opinion, the key line in understanding the movie Forrest Gump was not “life is like a box of chocolates.” It was “stupid is as stupid does.” For a stupid person, Forrest lived pretty smart. The so-called intelligent people around him? Not so much. And if you want to understand the ongoing fiscal soap opera that is Uncle Sam, you need to grasp a derivative concept – “stupid is as stupid taxes.” And on that score, the Obama Administration is getting off to a less than stellar start, IQ-wise. Stupid tax move number one: Turning the Internal Revenue...

Giving away money is hard to do. Just ask President-elect Barack Obama. The government has innumerable ways to collect money from the populace and none to give it back, except through tax rebates. Now the president-elect is proposing a “green” way to put money in our pockets. There are those around Obama who believe – as maybe he does himself – jobs can be provided and the world's energy balance can be shifted through public financing of green energy projects. Green to them probably means wind and solar, and possibly ethanol and biodiesel. Of the whole panoply of green energy...

These are not bright times for the few remaining conservatives in Washington. Blinded by his unquenchable thirst for an unfilibuster-able 60 senators whom he can control, Majority Leader Harry Reid is flip-flopping around, refusing to seat a legally qualified appointed replacement from Illinois while simultaneously trying to quick-march into a seat a legally unqualified election thief from Minnesota.

When I was six, my dad said he’d give me five dollars if I could eat a flyer made of thick paper, which I did. I crumpled it up into little pieces and did it over the span of about an hour. My dad was rather horrified, but to his credit, the man paid up. He also wisely refrained from making loose bets with me in the future. I spent the money I earned, along with my weekly allowance, on baseball cards. This was wise, because I had no expenses, and baseball cards are really not a bad investment. One...

I have no idea if Sarah Palin ever wants to run for president or make another appearance on the national political stage. I suspect she’s not sure herself. But every time she opens her mouth, she gets judged by just about everyone under the assumption that she a) certainly intends to run for president; b) must be choosing her words for the purpose of positioning herself to run for president; and c) is doing so badly. So went much of the analysis – from left and right alike – of the Alaska governor’s recent sit-down with friendly interviewer John Ziegler....

Despite its evident failure, we still hear that cliché of a Middle East peace strategy promulgated by pundits and politicians: Land for Peace. This discredited peace policy should have long ago been relegated to the garbage dump of terrible ideas. Sadly, it has persisted. But with the current predicament in the Holy Land, is it too much to ask those who cling to the Land for Peace mantra – like little children cling to their favorite stuffed animals – to now concede that this tired slogan has been once and for all incinerated in the fires of Gaza? To understand...

Most Americans are raised by the government. They are usually raised for more than 12 years in public schools that they are forced to pay for, and, for the financially restricted, forced to attend. Even if they are lucky enough to have a choice in education, they grow up bombarded by pervasive laws – and not just the necessary types that regulate traffic and criminal activity, but the types that ban certain “unhealthy” cooking, prohibit smoking on private property and order the use of helmets and seatbelts. It is therefore not surprising that many – too many – Americans reach...

A great economic stimulus proposal by Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas has gotten lost in the midst of bailout mania, spending madness, political scandals and the media’s pom-pom parade for President-elect Barack Obama. It’s called a tax holiday. Rep. Gohmert has introduced legislation (H.R. 7309) that would suspend all federal income tax on wages earned and FICA withholding for two straight months. According to American Solutions, headed by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, it would cost less than the remaining $350 billion in already authorized bailout funds. More importantly, the tax holiday would be a direct stimulus to...

Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-Illinois) made a brilliant move appointing Mr. Roland Burris, who is black, to President-elect Barack Obama’s vacated U.S. Senate seat. I say brilliant not because Mr. Burris is an honorable public servant, but because his appointment is an attempt by Blagojevich to influence black jurors in his upcoming federal trial. Having been involved in many high-profile federal cases, and having observed a number of others, I strongly suspect that Blagojevich’s criminal defense attorney, Ed Genson, suggested that the governor hurry up and exercise his state constitutional authority and appoint a black person to Obama’s Senate seat before...

The latest chapter in the conflict between the governments of Israel and Palestine is generating loads of media ink – and huge, whopping lies. Here’s a roundup of the top myths related to this war: 1) Israel launched a preemptive war. Congressman and former GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul, suggested to Press TV – the official propaganda arm of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – that Israel’s actions were “preemptive”. His logic: Israel has nukes and Hamas doesn’t, so it’s unfair. Look, a war isn’t automatically “preemptive” just because one party was dumb enough to pick a fight it can’t win....

If you were in so much debt that, even under a best-case scenario, it would take you 200 years to pay it off, you might want to get started, don’t you think? Nah! The incoming administration promises to get around to spending discipline just as soon as it finishes a drunken-sailor spending frenzy like few we have ever seen. Isn’t that reassuring? The U.S. national debt now stands at $10.8 trillion, and President-elect Obama vows to toss another $775 billion on top of that almost as soon as he takes office – to “stimulate” the economy. The dollar amount of...

No building in Moscow says “Soviet Union” so much as the headquarters of Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly. It is more foreboding than the Lubyanka, the former headquarters and torture emporium of the KGB. The romantic charm of the czarist era, epitomized by the Kremlin itself, is wholly absent. Like the state monopoly itself, the structure is gigantic, threatening and very hard to get into. It is set back from the road, and there are layers of security a visitor has to negotiate to see an official. It is easier to get into the Kremlin, No. 10 Downing Street or...

News flash to the six guys running for chairman of the Republican National Committee: Ronald Reagan is dead. The Gipper’s last campaign is now a full generation ago. (I would know. I was chief writer.) News flash two: Your party’s on life support. You got your heads handed to you by a first-term senator who out-messaged you, out-organized you, ran roughshod in your once-red states, stole all your issues and made you come across as a combination of big-business apologists, oil company and lobbyist stooges, tax-hikers, foreign policy Wrong-Way Corrigans and racist, Christian Right kooks. And that was on your...

In the past few days, Israel has moved back into the Gaza strip with ground forces, in order to put a stop to Hamas rocket attacks across the border. This is almost a carbon-copy repeat of what happened in southern Lebanon after Israel pulled out of there, only to be greeted with rocket attacks from Hezbollah into Israel proper. But in that case, Israel did not crush and finish off Hezbollah, thus incurring the morally blind and hypocritical wrath of much of the West while having accomplished nothing substantial in exchange for it. (And arguably making matters worse, if Hezbollah...

When people hear about the U.S. government’s various stimulus packages and bailouts, there are three types of reactions. First, there’s the stupid one, which I’m approximating includes about a quarter of Americans – probably the same quarter that just can’t wait to see that new Van Wilder movie. The reaction goes something like this. “So how much are they sending me this time? I need to know so I can set a date for the party, which will undoubtedly feature massive amounts of alcohol and debauchery.” Actually, only about a quarter of this quarter understands the word “debauchery.” Second, there...

American energy independence may be closer than anyone realizes, and one of the most promising sources is neither wind nor solar nor oil nor coal nor even nuclear – as useful as all of the above may be in their own right. It is biomass, especially bacteria – genetically manipulated to produce hydrocarbon fuels like gasoline and diesel. I wrote about this in May 2008, and in the eight months since then the people involved have made so much progress that a major announcement is scheduled for next week in Washington D.C. My prior column explained the efforts of Tifton,...

January 1 marked the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. In November 2004, I traveled to Havana, Cuba as part of a humanitarian mission to bring much needed medical supplies to the country. Havana was beautiful, its architecture dazzling, but its infrastructure was in a dire state of disrepair. The trip provided a rare glimpse behind communist lines. Cuba remains one of the last relics of a failed ideology. My trip was in many ways a trip back in time. Seeing 1950s era cars buzz through the streets made me feel like I was on the set of a movie....

“Live from Washington! It’s that fun and exciting new game show, Let’s Make a Stimulus Deal! Starring D.C.’s Big Dealer, Harry Reid!” “Thanks, Johnny. Let’s get right to our first contestant. Dressed in driving goggles and long coat for the ultimate road trip, it’s General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner!” “Yep. Drove all the way here again in that overpriced and completely impractical Chevy Volt. It’s the only way my PR people let me go anywhere these days. Gotta stop for Starbucks every 40 minutes to plug the dagnab thing in. You got a bathroom around here?” “We do, but first...

Barack Obama and the media: The marathon make-out session between President Barack Obama and the mainstream media will continue – in Bill Clinton’s former hotel room, better known as the Oval Office. Obama will shrug off any responsibilities that Clinton’s “third term” appointees can’t contend with, and everyone will be expected to understand that it’s still all George W. Bush’s fault. At the end of the year, Obama will emerge as the president who aged the least during his first year in office. Israel and Palestine (featuring Hillary Clinton): It would appear that the world’s most boring and predictable soap...