Free Republic

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) is known for her vapidity. She’s a social media diva who sprinkles platitudes between earnest and detailed expositions of her latest makeup hacks. Her fans lap up her pablum the same way they fawn after and devour the crumbs other glitterati brush from their tables. She’s a Tesla-driving, new money elite who panders to low-income minorities, twisting their pain, frustration, and grief into adulation and political power—oh, and she plays a congresswoman on the side, representing New York’s 14th congressional district. AOC is truly a sign of our times, shallow, greedy, and desperately ignorant. But last Thursday,...

The archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, has announced he will no longer allow Speaker Nancy Pelosi to receive Communion because of her refusal to adhere to Catholic doctrine on unborn human life. This continues a battle between Catholic politicians who claim fealty to their church - but not to one of its central tenets - and some of their church's leadership. Pelosi, who invokes her faith when it comes to "climate change," recently claimed Catholic opinion about abortion goes back only a few hundred years and theologians have been divided over many centuries. This brought a rebuke from several...

Many conservatives lately have turned their ire towards big tech companies. Much of that emanates from both real and perceived bias exhibited by some of these companies towards right-leaning organizations and individuals. These are real grievances that ought to be discussed and resolved in the free market. Unfortunately, too many conservative lawmakers have turned their attention towards European-style antitrust legislation as a means of punishing big tech companies and forcing favorable outcomes for conservatives online. This approach will backfire spectacularly. One such piece of legislation is the American Innovation and Choice Online (AICO) Act. The bill would initiate antitrust proceedings...

For half a decade now, America's media elite have been obsessed with former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party's conversion to Trumpism. Press and TV are daily consumed with his actions and prospects and the future of the party he captured in 2016. Perhaps it is time to consider the prospects of President Joe Biden and the political future of his embattled presidency. What are the odds that Biden, like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama before him, will run again in 2024, win reelection, serve out a second term and transfer his office to the 47th president on Jan....

As resident Joe Biden returns from a nearly meaningless trip to Korea and Japan, it's apparent everyone he addressed on his trip opposed the vicious genocide Vladimir Putin's Russian troops are perpetrating in Ukraine. If "mainstream media" reports are true, there were no questions about genocidal violence here in the United States. But Roe v. Wade really is about genocide. Should federal government agencies and courts decide how and/or when the life of a child should be "terminated"? Or should this matter be determined at the state and/or local level? These questions have created far greater controversy here in the...

United States Federal law 18 US Code 1503 in summary reads "whoever corruptly or by threats or force… endeavors to influence, intimidate, or impede any grand or petit juror, or officer in or of any court of the United States… in the discharge of his duty… influences, obstructs, or impedes, or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede the due administration of justice shall be punished." On May 2, a draft opinion leaked from the United States Supreme Court in an unprecedented breach of etiquette. It appears from that draft Roe v. Wade will likely be reversed, and the topic of...

In this administration, it's always someone else's fault. Inflation is now the No. 1 concern of voters, so the White House first blamed COVID. Then Donald Trump's tax cuts. Then Vladimir Putin. Then meatpackers and the poultry industry, Big Oil and pharmaceutical companies. Now, Democrats have identified a new inflation scapegoat: plastic. Visa, Mastercard, American Express and other credit cards hidden away in your wallet. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) has had it out for credit cards for almost two decades, even though over that period, credit cards, which were once reserved for the rich, are now nearly ubiquitous in our...

FANNETTSBURG, Pennsylvania -- The first time I accidentally stumbled onto the cracked Back Road street sign in this Franklin County unincorporated town years ago, while covering the 2012 presidential race between then-President Barack Obama and Sen. Mitt Romney, I knew I had to turn onto it even though I had no idea where it led. It was impulsive but proved helpful in taking my reporting in a different direction, to understand what voters were thinking. It helped me understand, with all of the potential of flipping this state red, why voters were using their energy and dissatisfaction with Obama to...

If an American president has ever given as mendacious, anti-American and hate-filled a speech as resident Joe Biden did in Buffalo, New York, last week, I am not familiar with it. Nor are you. Biden used the terrible mass shooting of black people in a Buffalo grocery store to smear America, divide Americans and foment race-based hatred. A decent man would have given an entirely different speech. A decent man would have gone to Buffalo and said something like this: "My fellow Americans, what happened here in Buffalo was pure evil. Let there be no equivocating about this moral fact....

A liberal bragging about winning a journalism award is a lot like someone bragging about having sex at a brothel: once you pay, that’s what is supposed to happen. If you’re a liberal “journalist,” collecting Lucite bricks of varying shapes with your name laser etched in it is a full-time job. No profession awards itself more worthless prizes, with the possible exception of Hollywood. But the reality is journalists are less like the guy who brags about the prostitute and more like the actual prostitute. A prime example of this is CNN’s John Harwood. You almost have to feel bad...

It was early morning; I was standing in line to drop off laundry before heading to work. A man leaving the store stopped, looked at me, stared and said, “you are an intelligent woman.” I braced myself for what would follow -- and, follow it did. He started mildly enough, but quickly escalated into a January 6 diatribe, and his belief of an absolute intent on that day of Republicans to overthrow the American Government through revolution, which would culminate in the murder of Vice President Pence. Somewhat stunned, and instead of ignoring him which would have been the smart...

Salena’s Zito’s latest analysis for the Washington Examiner (“The conservative populist coalition has grown in Pennsylvania. What that means going forward is important”) correctly describes the trend that has been ongoing in the Keystone State for the past decade. What it misses, though -- and it’s a big miss -- is that Democrats are at it again in the commonwealth’s 2022 midterms elections. They’re tilting the playing field in their favor. This autumn, the “No Questions” mail-in balloting returns have the potential to blunt a favorable GOP trend with a deluge of Democrat ginned up mail-ins, which will impact critical...

As I returned from Ukraine a few days ago after my first post-COVID reporting trip and after a couple days of letting my aging bones resume their proper position after the trauma of 10 hours in an economy-class airline seat, I do believe I have gained some insight into the logistics of this conflict after all. Which I have to say I initially doubted. During those three weeks in Ukraine, I was present for missile attacks in two cities, sat wide-eyed through dozens of artillery barrages, spent hours discussing the war with a wounded Ukrainian soldier on a 17 hour...

The D.C. bureaucracy and specifically the intelligence agencies have long become powers unto themselves, and a threat to our democracy.The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s long history of abusing its power is once again prominent amid the continued expose by Special Counsel John Durham. His prosecution is demonstrating the FBI’s use of its power to deploy federal intelligence assets against political opponents of Democrats. The FBI routinely intervenes in politics, such as when the FBI assisted the Hillary Clinton campaign in painting former President Donald Trump as a Russian intelligence asset, as Durham’s investigation is emphasizing with more evidence. By getting...

A long line of suppressed disclosures has shown that the federal government is indeed spying on Americans, and Congress still hasn’t done anything about it.Facing an increasing backlash against the Biden administration’s Disinformation Governing Board (DGB), Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas promised it would not monitor Americans. It was not enough. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security was forced to put the DGB on “pause,” and its director, Nina Jankowicz, resigned under public pressure. Now DHS says it is “reviewing” the board while “continuing” its “critical work…to address disinformation.” No matter what happens with the board, it is hard to...

Forcing children to sleep and undress next to kids of the opposite sex effectively puts up a ‘Christian kids need not apply’ sign on public recreation activities.This spring I got an email from 4-H, a club I participated in as a child, effectively communicating that my Christian family need not apply to summer camps and other activities sponsored by the quasi-public organization. (County governments often sponsor 4-H activities.) This email was signed by a 4-H staffer who put pronouns in his signature and told me, “Youth are assigned cabins based on gender indicated on the 4-H camp application and registration,”...

Today starts week two in United States v. Sussmann, Special Counsel John Durham’s false statement case against Michael Sussmann. Today starts week two in United States v. Sussmann, Special Counsel John Durham’s false statement case against Michael Sussmann. According to the grand jury indictment, Sussmann lied to former FBI General Counsel James Baker when he told Baker he was not acting on behalf of any client when he provided Baker with data supposedly establishing an Alfa Bank-Trump connection, when in fact Sussmann represented both the Hillary Clinton campaign and Rodney Joffe. After a brief interlude on Friday to accommodate the...

On Friday, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone announced in a letter addressed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that she is not to present herself for Holy Communion. This comes as she professes to be a “devout Catholic” despite her support for abortion, in direct contradiction of teachings of the Catholic Church. As the archbishop said in his announcement, he has made several efforts to steer Pelosi in the right direction before it came to this. Archbishop Cordileone referenced the numerous attempts in tweeting a link to the announcement also pointing to “the grave evil she is perpetrating, the scandal she...

Should the businesses that lobbied for the $1.9 trillion additional spending in COVID-19 relief that set off inflation, have any responsibility for the damage they’ve done? The total amount of spending during COVID-19 ended up close to $7.5 trillion. While former President Donald Trump authorized COVID-19 spending to aid individual Americans as well as businesses, many economists believe it was no longer necessary to continue the aid when Joe Biden took office, the economy had started robustly rebounding. Yet over 180 CEOs signed a letter to Congress in February of last year, right after Biden took office, demanding more money...

The Republican Party has a split personality. On one side are the small donors and committed volunteers who compose the grassroots. These are the people who are real conservatives, engaged and enthusiastic. In recent years, this group has been staunchly in support of President Donald Trump. This is the “MAGA” movement, which wants to “Make America Great Again” and to put “America First.” These activists are the ones who attend Trump rallies and participate on conservative talk radio and contact Congress on critical issues. The other wing of the Republican Party hates these folks. This group is known as the...