Free Republic

A … bunch of years ago … a whole bunch … the guys from England – they were great guys, these guys – they came from England and they made this country. They made it. From the ground up. And the country was conceived in liberty. As it should be. I love liberty. I was elected on liberty. And I’m going to restore it. I’m going to make liberty great again. And it was also dedicated to the idea that all men are created equal. Men and women. I did better than any other Republican with women. Three to one....

Even the joyless Scrooges on the Left enjoy the Christmas season, although few would recognize that there's any religious significance to it. And as we all know, part of the Christmas spirit comes from the well-worn carols we hear every year at this time. Liberals, ever reluctant to share in anyone's happiness but always eager to spread their unique brand of misery, have adopted some of our beloved carols to their own uses. Here is a partial list: It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Kwanzaa God Rest Ye, Fairy Gentlemen O Artificial Holiday Tree Made Entirely of Recycled Post-consumer...

It is no surprise, at least to conservatives, that the recent Wikileaks emails have revealed the collusion and moral turpitude behind the Democrats’ smiling façade. Among other things, they expose a chilling incest between leftists in the political sphere and their comrades in the press. The fact that an increasingly radical political party has nestled into intimacy with the so-called watchdogs of our public domain should be one of the breaking news events of this still-young century. Instead, what we’ve witnessed is an echoing, empty silence, interspersed occasionally with an embarrassing level of deflection, deception, and legerdemain. The absence of...

The latest feeble, desperate ploy by Democrats to deflect fallout from the Wikileaks emails is that they are the fruits of a plot by Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and space aliens to tarnish the otherwise sterling character of Hillary Clinton. They’ve even put the Keystone Bureau of Investigation on the case to track down the hacker who has kneecapped the normally shameless DNC. (That would be the same FBI that declined to prosecute Hillary Clinton when her careless treatment of state secrets did not rise to the level of an indictable offense.) Of course, the conspiracy meme is nothing more...

Just a bittersweet vanity thread announcing that my 18-year-old son left today for Air Force Basic Training. This is a boy -- a man now -- who has gone through a lot in his short life. A few years ago, he turned it around and started on a rigorous road of introspection and self-improvement. And it worked. This is finishing school for him. He has been training to be an Air Force Combat Controller for the last 18 months. Today, he stopped being ours and became the property of this country. He will do it proud.

I doubt I have to remind everyone that Hollywood's annual orgy of self-congratulation is Sunday (a day of self-worship), or that Hollywood has firmly established itself as an enemy of morality, conservatism, and America. I urge all FReepers to tune out this disgusting spectacle and find something else to do (don't you have a lint trap that needs cleaning?). I suspect most of you won't watch anyway, but for those who think it's a harmless diversion, please consider that passive acceptance is active support. Do not fall prey to the glitter and allure of the cults of personality. There is...

Listen my children and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year. He said to his friend, "If the British march By land or sea from the town to-night, Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch Of the North Church tower as a signal light,-- One if by land, and two if by sea; And I on the opposite shore will be, Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every Middlesex village and farm, For the...

The smaller-government Right is reeling from Wednesday's Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of the health care "reform" law derisively known as Obamacare. But conservatives shouldn't be too surprised by the ambush sprung on them by the high court. In fact, the ruling points out a fundamental weakness in the conservative strategy. The problem is, we relied on the Court to do the work of the Legislature. The abomination of Obamacare never should have passed through Congress. The Court never should have had to rule on its constitutionality because it never should have become law in the first place. Chief...

Just passed by a large anti-Obamacare rally at Government Center in downtown Minneapolis. Looked like 250 - 300 people there, all well behaved but vehement in their opposition to this unconstitutional infringement on our liberties. Turnout was easily five to ten times the maximum any of the OWS rallies drew.

With the recent exposure of damning emails among the Climate Research Unit staff at the University of East Anglia, the world now knows what many global warming skeptics have suspected all along: the fix is in. Over years of “research,” facts were omitted, others were exaggerated. Methodologies were adopted that understated the decline in global temperatures, while those that indicated rising temperatures were given prominent place. Even in the most sacred precincts of science, Truth was made whore to politics. And in the end, the entire notion of man-made climate change is justifiably suspect. But has that malfeasance shamed the...

Frustrated by the brutality of serial murders, many states have resurrected their death penalty statutes, or have enacted newer, more precise legislation that puts particularly heinous criminals at risk of execution. The Left, ever the champion of the undeserving, has, predictably, assailed the death penalty as state-sanctioned murder. A due regard for the gravity of the sentence impels us to examine its moral underpinnings, and derive a valid benefit from an act most distasteful to our Judeo-Christian ethic. The death penalty has often been accused of diminishing the value of life. That is partially correct. It sends a clear signal...

<p>The Suspect Left, always quick to undermine America’s successes, didn’t take long to minimize the death of Abu al-Zarqawi at the hands of allied troops. Zarqawi and seven of his henchmen were killed by half a ton of explosives at a dubiously named safe house near Baghdad, culminating an intense, months-long manhunt involving dozens of units from all allied sectors and a progression that reads like a Ken Follett novel. With Zarqawi dies the twisted zeal responsible for the beheading of Daniel Berg, other predations that defy the name of civilization, and a large portion of the partisan strife that threatens the stability of the nascent Iraqi government.</p>

Last week, in a village not far from Lahore, Pakistan, Shehzad Tanweer was memorialized for his role in the July 7 bombings in London. The village, home to Tanweer’s ancestors, swelled that day, as thousands came to pay their respects to a man they dubbed “a hero of Islam.” Tanweer’s bomb at London’s Aldgate Station killed seven people and injured dozens more. Simultaneous explosions elsewhere in downtown London killed 45 others. Defenders of Islam are fond of reminding Westerners that the mad bombers are not acting on behalf of Islam, and represent a twisted faction of extremists bent on random...

In the Looking Glass world of journalism, it’s not unusual for an editor to have a file of obituaries on hand for people who aren’t even dead yet. The obits are written months, even years in advance for people who seem to have a looming date with the Reaper, but whose mortality has not yet expired. To save time during the frantic scramble that inevitably follows a famous death, news folks keep a bio updated, ready at a moment’s notice. The dinosaurs in the old-fashioned media would do well to dust off their own obits, because the recent Newsweek disaster...

Dan Rather retires on Wednesday. Across the country, champagne is already chilling. It is the end to a ugly, saga of bias, discrimination, and utter lies against the right. For half a century, Dan Rather has been as welcome in conservative camps as a flyspeck on a wedding cake. He will not be missed. But the old-line media will not mute his passing. It will be lauded as the zenith of a long and noble career, a fitting end for a man who gave so much in the service of Truth. Rather will be lionized by people as corrupt and...

The water hadn’t receded from the beaches in Sri Lanka before some trash-talking UN crony was lamenting the inadequacy of the United States’ response to the recent tsunami. Early Monday, United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland accused the United States of being “stingy” with its relief effort. Egeland later backed away from his complaint, but not before earning the ire of many Americans who immediately volunteered time and money to the relief campaign. The United States government pledged an initial contribution of $15 million. No word yet on how much individual citizens have contributed to the pool, but traditionally,...

In a world besotted by toxic moral equivalence, it actually makes sense to equate the treatment of Iraqi prisoners with the brutality suffered at the hands of Saddam Hussein, or, as some have suggested, the Gestapo torturers of the Third Reich. But aside from its inflammatory properties, such a comparison has little use as a diagnostic tool or a logical yardstick for measuring the degree of the offense, at least anywhere in the real world. These incidents, we’re led to believe, recall the tyranny of Saddam’s regime, and tarnish the moral credibility of the allied mission in Iraq. As though...

Seems half the world is enraged at the recent revelation that some Iraqi prisoners of war were “abused." And the other half is apologizing for it. But before we beat our breasts and rend our robes, let’s take a calmer look at exactly what happened. The charges are that, on a handful of occasions, Iraqi detainees were stripped naked and photographed in degrading positions. Apparently this is an offense of some magnitude in the sexually convoluted world of Islam, and a cultural breach of unimagined proportion. I guess the protocol with filthy, half-mad religious zealots captured by your soldiers is...

So one of Janet Jackson’s puppies slipped the leash during Sunday night’s big Super Bowl halftime show. Offensive? Sure. Tacky? Of course. But there’s nothing surprising about any of that. Tacky, tawdry, crassly sexual - those are modern-day show biz’s trademarks. Complaining about a loose booby during a hip-hop pop-slop halftime show is like complaining that the floor at the car wash is wet. MTV-style “music” is nothing but soft-core porn these days. Why would the Super Bowl be any different? And spare me the anguish expressed on behalf of “the children.” First of all, it’s not children making a...

The Iraqi information organ Al-Jizzrag today announced that, in order to direct all of its resources to “repelling the infidel invaders who are slaughtering our citizens, including women, children, fluffy bunny rabbits, and little harp seals with their liquid, pathos-oozing eyes,” Iraqi National Broadcasting is reducing its programming lineup to only the top ten shows currently airing. Those programs will be: 10. The Saddam Family 9. Replace the Nation 8. Who Wants to Bury a Billionaire? 7. Outlaw & Disorder 6. Meet the Oppressed 5. Grisly Saddam 4. Hairy King Live 3. This Old Palace 2. Archie’s Bunker And the...