Free Republic

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Speaking on Fox News recently, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer proposed what, to many, might have sounded like a rather novel compromise on the minimum wage. His idea? We should have two of them, a higher minimum for "breadwinners," and a lower minimum for everybody else. Here was Krauthammer's thinking, paraphrased. It might be hard to feed a whole household on $7.25 an hour. But raising the minimum is most likely to hurt teenagers and minorities who rely on low-paid, entry-level jobs to get a foothold in the working world. So how do you lend a hand to hard-pressed families without...

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Look, at every level, every number that you get on this is either inflated or deceptive. As we just heard from Steve [Hayes], the number of enrollees are not enrollees. It's people who put stuff in their shopping cart. Amazon would never call it a sale until you get a sale. And they don't know how many have made the sale. And that's because what they call euphemistically, the back-end, which is the cash register of the whole system, is not working. The idea that you have to hand-match people who paid a premium with the insurers isn't...

For all the gnashing of teeth over the lack of comity and civility in Washington, the real problem is not etiquette but the breakdown of political norms, legislative and constitutional. Such as the one just spectacularly blown up in the Senate... The violence to political norms here consisted in how that change was executed. By brute force — a near party-line vote of 52 to 48 . This was a disgraceful violation of more than two centuries of precedent. If a bare majority can change the fundamental rules that govern an institution, then there are no rules. Senate rules today...

Charles Krauthammer says he believes President Barack Obama’s deal with Iran is “the worst deal since Munich.” “This is a sham from beginning to end. It’s the worst deal since Munich,” Krauthammer said on Fox News “Special Report” on Monday. “It’s really hard to watch the president and the secretary of state and not think how they cannot be embarrassed by this deal.” The Munich Agreement of 1938 between Hitler and major European powers expanded Germany’s borders. Today, the failed negotiation is widely considered an act of appeasement.

He will discuss his new book, Things That Matter, which is a collection of his writings. (click link above for webcast)

Every disaster has its moment of clarity. Physicist Richard Feynman dunks an O-ring into ice water and everyone understands instantly why the shuttle Challenger exploded. This week, the Obamacare O-ring froze for all the world to see: Hundreds of thousands of cancellation letters went out to people who had been assured a dozen times by the president that “If you like your health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health-care plan. Period.” The cancellations lay bare three pillars of Obamacare: (a) mendacity, (b) paternalism and (c) subterfuge.

Now that the “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” lie has been thoroughly exposed, ObamaCare defenders have taken to arguing that what replaces the millions of cancelled plans will be much better for people than what they chose before. Essentially, this argument presumes that a centrally-planned, one-size-fits-all insurance profile works better for Americans than their own choices for coverage in the marketplace. Charles Krauthammer deconstructs the arrogance of this argument and explains why it fails every time it’s tried (via RCP): Krauthammer: Jay Carney Is Saying "You're Too Stupid To Understand What You Want" It’s precisely...

In a clear attempt to woo largely establishment conservative commentators who have loudly opposed the GOP’s current government shutdown strategy, President Obama held an off-the-record meeting with the Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer, the Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul Gigot, National Review’s Washington editor Robert Costa, syndicated columnist and former CNN co-host Kathleen Parker, and Byron York of the Washington Examiner.

Tonight on Special Report with Bret Baier both Tucker Carlson and Charles Krauthammer were excoriating Cruz over the issue of Obamacare defunding.  That's fine.If you think he's wrong or foolish or whatever, make the case.But as part of their arguments each brought up that Cruz was born in Canada.  Carlson mentioning that there were questions as to whether Cruz could be president and Krauthammer joking that Cruz could be Prime Minister of Canada.What did that have to do with anything?  The topic was defunding Obamacare and Senate strategy. .@TuckerCarlson @krauthammer What does Cruz being born in Canada have 2 do w...

In the liberal remake of “Casablanca,” the police captain comes upon the scene of the shooting and orders his men to “round up the usual weapons.” It’s always the weapon and never the shooter. Twelve people are murdered in a rampage at the Washington Navy Yard, and before sundown Sen. Dianne Feinstein has called for yet another debate on gun violence. Major opprobrium is heaped on the AR-15, the semiautomatic used in the Newtown massacre.

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta admitted earlier this month that he had been wrong in his opposition to medical marijuana during the rollout for his documentary "Weed." Gupta reported on research that demonstrated the proven benefits of marijuana in treating neuropathic pain. Medical marijuana was the only drug that helped a 5-year-old girl with Dravet syndrome live without constant seizures. It calmed the constant hiccuping of a 19-year-old. Israelis use it to treat Parkinson's disease and other ailments. Gupta took on the federal government's classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug, which has no accepted medical use but has a...

Egypt today is a zero-sum game. We’d have preferred there be a democratic alternative. Unfortunately, there is none. The choice is binary: the country will be ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood or by the military. Perhaps it didn’t have to be this way. Perhaps the military should have waited three years for the intensely unpopular Mohamed Morsi to be voted out of office. But Gen.Abdel Fatah al-Sissi seems to have calculated that he didn’t have three years, that by then there would be no elections — as in Gaza, where the Palestinian wing of the Brotherhood, Hamas, elected in 2006,...

The Republican party is split, but it should promote debate, not despair. By Charles Krauthammer A combination of early presidential maneuvering and internal policy debate is feeding yet another iteration of that media perennial: the great Republican crackup. This time it’s tea-party insurgents versus get-along establishment fogies fighting principally over two things: (a) national security and (b) Obamacare.

Like Detroit, things that can’t go on forever don’t. By Charles Krauthammer If there’s an iron rule in economics, it is Stein’s Law (named after Herb, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers): “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” Detroit, for example, can no longer go on borrowing, spending, raising taxes, and dangerously cutting such essential services as street lighting and police protection. So it stops. It goes bust.

(CNSNews.com) - Political commentator Charles Krauthammer said the record of outgoing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was that "the underwear didn't explode." When discussing the announcement of Napolitano’s resignation on Special Report with Bret Baier on Fox News on Friday, political analyst for Fox News Juan Williams offered a defense for her tenure: “Can I just offer one contrary note, which is under her tenure we've had no attacks, we've been safe as Americans— "Fort Hood," Bret Baier interrupted. "We've had no attacks--I mean she has managed this, to me, very well,” Williams said. “They're now looking at...

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on Friday once again demonstrated how liberal media members often make statements about issues they know nothing about. On this occasion, it was NPR's Nina Totenberg making unfounded claims about past Israel peace offers on PBS's Inside Washington that led Krauthammer to scold, "You’re simply factually wrong" (video follows with transcript and commentary): Krauthammer Schools Totenberg on Israeli Peace Offers: ‘You Are Simply Factually Wrong’ NINA TOTENBERG, NPR: There also has to be lines that make sense for the Palestinian state, and, you know, I can’t argue this with Charles with the same kind of detail...

Over the weekend, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer spoke at the National Review Institute Summit in Washington, D.C. During a question-and-answer session, he was asked if he thought President Barack Obama would attempt to hand-pick his successor in order to help guide the country down a path to “socialism.” ... Krauthammer said it was less important whether Obama chose his successesor and more crucial what kind of groundwork he would lay for him or her ... Krauthammer urged conservatives to make a case for liberty and its benefits in order to defeat the President’s agenda ...

Krauthammer on an apology: CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: I have no apology to make because I've just explained why I did, as a result of the information that I received. And I would say that perhaps the State Department, if not apologize, ought to explain why it withheld information and why a lot of it mitigated what we now are hearing might have been a more serious set of circumstances. But we still don't know what she was suffering [from] in those two weeks.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: It's possible that this is a prelude to a challenge, Thursday, to Boehner's leadership by Eric Cantor. I think it would be quite naked to do it at this late hour as a result of a split over the vote. Look, there are a lot of conservatives in the Republican caucus in the House who hate the bill, and for good reason. This is a complete surrender on everything. The ratio of tax hikes to spending cuts is 40:1 rather than 1:1, or 1:2 or 1:3. So, it was a complete rout by the Democrats. So it's understandable....

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: I found it astonishing. Here he is -- coming out to speak to the nation at a crucial moment -- in very delicate negotiations and he comes out there with incredible arrogance. He ridicules the Congress, he spikes the football on the Republicans. He rubs in the fact that they were resisting a raise in rates and he made them do it. And of course, as always, he places himself hovering benignly at an Olympian level above the fray, where the children are playing in the sand box and he's asking that everybody be reasonable as if he...