Free Republic

For this week's Big Ideas with Ben Weingarten podcast, I had nationally syndicated radio host, columnist, author of numerous books, teacher, film producer and co-founder of PragerU, Dennis Prager, on the podcast to discuss among other things: How Dennis Prager ended up a conservative as an Ivy League-educated Jewish intellectual from Brooklyn, New York -- contrary to so many of his peers How perceptions of human nature divide Left and Right Whether government has filled the void of religion for the increasingly secular and progressive American coasts How the good intentions that underlie Leftist policy prescriptions lead to horrendous outcomes...

Bannon is moving to Europe to set up The Movement, a populist foundation to rival George Soros and spark a right-wing revolt across the continent. LONDON—Steve Bannon plans to go toe-to-toe with George Soros and spark a right-wing revolution in Europe. Trump’s former White House chief advisor told The Daily Beast that he is setting up a foundation in Europe called The Movement which he hopes will lead a right-wing populist revolt across the continent starting with the European Parliament elections next spring. The non-profit will be a central source of polling, advice on messaging, data targeting, and think-tank research...

For this week's Big Ideas with Ben Weingarten podcast, I had legendary classical liberal legal theorist and longtime professor at University of Chicago Law School and now at NYU Law, Professor Richard Epstein, on the podcast to discuss among other things: The role that Professor Epstein's famous book, "Takings" played in Justice Clarence Thomas' confirmation hearing -- and then-Senator Joe Biden's hectoring Professor Epstein's groundbreaking theories on private property rights, eminent domain and the Takings and Commerce Clauses The practical argument against progressivism Whether we should deconstruct the administrative state, and if so how to do it The danger to...

Writing in the The Weekly Standard, Andy Smarick warns fellow President Trump critics against falling into the seductive trap of weighing Trump's actions piecemeal and missing the cumulative effect of his assault on dignity, if I may paraphrase. Smarick seems concerned that GOP Trump foes are lowering their standards, relaxing their guard, perhaps even slowly warming up to Trump because of policy successes he's accumulating. If you weigh his good and his bad actions and statements on a ledger, you will miss the damage to civil society Trump is surely causing. "In recent months, a consensus has emerged among...

President Donald Trump announced on Monday night his nomination of D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh to succeed Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh, who was included in The Heritage FoundationÂ’s original list of potential Supreme Court nominees, is a very promising choice.The battle lines were already drawn before Trump made his announcement, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., declaring he would not vote for any of the individuals on TrumpÂ’s short list.Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., promised the confirmation vote would happen this fall. Now, the Senate Judiciary Committee will begin the process of reviewing...

Brett Kavanaugh is a fine pick for the Supreme Court. Yes, Amy Coney Barrett might have triggered a clarifying culture war Ragnarök. Yes, at 53, if confirmed, Kavanaugh will probably be on the Court until “only” the 2040s. Yes, some Democrats will point to Kavanaugh’s work with Ken Starr and his role in investigating the suicide of Vince Foster and attempt to demonize him with those long-ago tawdry chapters of presidential history. Yes, Kavanaugh is “establishment” in the sense that he worked on the Florida recount and in the Bush White House. Yes, twelve years on the D.C. Circuit Court...

Political science professor John McAdams is going to be reinstated at Marquette University following a victory at the Wisconsin Supreme Court. He had been suspended by the school for writing a blog post critical of a graduate student. "The undisputed facts show that the University breached its contract with Dr. McAdams when it suspended him for engaging in activity protected by the contract's guarantee of academic freedom," said the opinion written by Justice Daniel Kelly. The state's high court ordered Marquette to "immediately reinstate Dr. McAdams with unimpaired rank, tenure, compensation, and benefits." ( Journal Sentinel ) The case...

SPOKANE — The agenda and many of the schemes of the now-infamous “Deep State” were exposed to a wide audience over the weekend at the Red Pill Expo in Spokane, Washington. Among other presentations, leading experts from across the country highlighted the hidden dangers of vaccines, the assault on gun rights, the climate-change fraud, the plan to undermine private property, the infiltration of Congress by communists, the indoctrination of America's youth at universities, the Deep State's stoking of racial division, the catastrophe facing South African minorities, the destruction of the U.S. Constitution, and much more. Obviously, far-left groups such as...

Democrats and Republicans alike have found something they agree on: Wednesday’s announcement that swing-vote Justice Anthony Kennedy will step down from the Supreme Court sets up a historic, election-year struggle to replace him that could solidify a more conservative Court for a generation.

It’s no secret—conservatives have fallen behind on environmental issues for the past decade. In issues like clean energy and conservation, we have lost sight of the legacy of environmental stewardship left to us by conservative trailblazers like Ronald Reagan. A report from Duke University in 2014 detailed why many conservatives ignore the issue: solution aversion. Solution aversion is the notion that if someone does not like the solution to a problem, they will ignore the problem completely. This can be seen firsthand with conservatives and the environment. Conservatives see green policies as curtailing the rights and values they care about...

Speaking to a ballroom filled with Christian conservatives Thursday, 2016 presidential candidate Ted Cruz reflected on seven of the biggest victories for faith and families achieved since Donald Trump took over the White House in January 2017. During a luncheon kicking off the annual Road to Majority Conference hosted by the influential social conservative advocacy group Faith & Freedom Coalition, the Texas senator celebrated the conservative political accomplishments of the last year and a half. Cruz, who was the last Republican standing in Trump's way before Trump clinched the Republican nomination in 2016, has played a large role in the...

I share some of the sentiments of Jay Nordlinger’s Corner post expressing confidence that some day in the future there may be hope for California conservatism. That’s why I continue to live in the house that I grew up in, despite vast changes in the nature of the rural community I was born into. But I would take sharp issue with Jay’s statement that current critics of the direction of the state are somehow either prejudicial or dispirited: A lot of us conservatives have long written it off. California is too changed: too brown, too illegal, too bloated, too listless....

After eight years of budget cutting, Britain is looking less like the rest of Europe and more like the United States, with a shrinking welfare state and spreading poverty. PRESCOT, England — A walk through this modest town in the northwest of England amounts to a tour of the casualties of Britain’s age of austerity. The old library building has been sold and refashioned into a glass-fronted luxury home. The leisure center has been razed, eliminating the public swimming pool. The local museum has receded into town history. The police station has been shuttered. Now, as the local government desperately...

If you love the United States Constitution, then by definition you love government. That's what the Constitution does. It creates a government. What we as Tea Partiers do not love is progressivism or any other movement and/or ideology that seeks to pervert the Constitution and build government that will control every aspect of our lives. Loving government doesn't mean loving big government. We do not love big out of control bloated disrespectful government. But anti-government means anarchy, and Tea Partiers are not anarchists. Anarchists do not love the United States Constitution. This is ground where we cannot under any circumstances...

Conservative syndicated columnist George Will wrote this week that Vice President Mike Pence has “become America’s most repulsive public figure.” Why does Will think Pence deserves this absurd slur? Apparently, the columnist has found the vice president guilty of the heinous crime of being a decent man.

You are driving through downtown, and you see a homeless woman standing on the corner. You think, "I hope she is getting some help." You drive on. There are two sources for help for that homeless woman: charity and welfare. Let's examine them, how they work, and their effects on her and the rest of us. First, charity. There are many charitable organizations in every locality, taking voluntary donations from private citizens, churches, and businesses and aiding people in need. But let's look at charity on a more personal level. Let's say you, sitting in your car observing the homeless...

Conservatives are keeping quiet about their beliefs. The dominant force in America and many other Western countries today is fear of the Left.This is a result of the fact that the most dynamic religion of the past 100 years has been neither Christianity nor Islam. It has been leftism. Whoever does not recognize this does not understand the contemporary world. Leftism — in its incarnations, such as Marxism, Communism, and socialism; expressed through egalitarianism, environmentalism, and feminism; in its denigration of capitalism and Western civilization, especially America and Israel; in its supplanting of Christianity and Judaism; through its influence on...

< snip of beginning> Goldberg’s answer is so simple it seems too easy, and yet so difficult it seems unachievable. We need to teach and experience gratitude for what we have been given, which means reacquainting ourselves with the philosophical and scientific roots of the Miracle and then passing them on to our posterity. So much is arrayed against this effort, and yet we Americans, we tribal Americans, do long to belong to the American tribe. In his pathbreaking book, Goldberg makes it clear all we need do to find our place is to understand that we are the beneficiaries...

Ok, I have to admit that he fooled me too.Liberal coffee and beverage corporation Starbucks has had a really, really tough week by anyone’s standards. The firestorm after the arrest of two black loiterers at a Philadelphia store led to the usual weeping and gnashing of teeth by racial grievance mongers who quickly bullied the chain into announcing a shutdown of around 8,000 of their stores for mandatory racial bias training.A viral video by a black man who goes by the handle Hotep Jesus made the rounds in which the man – whose real name is Bryan Sharpe –...

Fifty years separate us, now, from 1968 and the two momentous legacies of the then soon to ending failed presidency of Lyndon Johnson: The declaring of war on America’s supposed domestic ills in the form of the “Great Society” programs, and the aggressive military intervention in a real war in Vietnam. Both of these “wars” reflected the arrogance and hubris of the social engineer who believes that he has the power and ability to remake and direct society in his own preferred image. The Vietnam War still leaves a searing memory of a military conflict ten thousand miles away from...