Free Republic

Ohio Governor John Kasich said Tuesday that we’re in danger of seeing our moral standing in the world eroded, thanks in part to the news that the U.S. would move forward with an arms deal with Saudi Arabia. “I just want to tell you that we're in danger of seeing our moral standing in the world eroded,” said Kasich during an interview Tuesday. “I happened to meet a tremendous prisoner of conscience a man by the name of Anatoly Sharansky who sat in the Soviet gulag for many years and was defiant about his seeking freedom and not caving to...

Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) said he believed conservatives have embraced “tribal identity politics,” in the style of leftist community organizer Saul Alinsky. Host John Dickerson asked, “You’ve seen some President Trump’s rallies, do those rallies accentuate the things that unite us or are they — do they do something very successful in politics which is sow division in the country? Do you see that happening at his rallies? Ryan said, “Sometimes, yeah...

<p>Kasich said, “First of all, the chaos that surrounds Donald Trump has unnerved a lot of people. Suburban women in particular here are the ones that are really turned off. And you add to that the millennials you have it very close.”</p>

A retired Army lieutenant colonel and Fox News contributor quit the network Tuesday, accusing it of fueling paranoia among its audience and serving as a “propaganda machine” for the Trump administration. Retired Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, a “strategic analyst” at Fox News, made the comments in an email to colleagues announcing that he had not renewed his contract, obtained by BuzzFeed. “Four decades ago, I took an oath as a newly commissioned officer. I swore to ‘support and defend the Constitution,’ and that oath did not expire when I took off my uniform. Today, I feel that Fox News is...

President Trump's speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference started out as a relatively tame performance touting signature accomplishments such as tax cuts and judicial nominations, but it took an ugly turn as he moved to the topic of immigration, broadly painting those who come here as a result of the lottery system as "horrendous." The context was that Trump was lambasting Democrats for not agreeing to his terms as part of an immigration deal. Though they're willing to give him funding for the wall, he said, they won't budge on other issues, such as chain migration and ending the...

Guns and I go back a long way. My father was a champion skeet shooter. A picture of him aiming his favorite pump skyward has pride of place in our living room. He owned fine rifles and shotguns, and he valued them. My first experience with pulling a trigger came late, by family standards. I was already 7 or 8 when my dad and “Uncle” George took me out back of Old Lily’s house and handed me a sawed-off shotgun (illegal then and now) kept handy for woodchucks and rattlesnakes. The recoil didn’t knock me off my feet, but my...

A bipartisan pair of senators are urging President Trump to not allow a GOP memo accusing the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI of abusing their power to be publicly released. GOP Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) and Democratic Sen. Christopher Coons (Del.) — both members of the Judiciary Committee — said Trump "should heed the warnings" from the DOJ and FBI, where top officials have taken issue with the forthcoming report. "The president’s apparent willingness to release this memo risks undermining U.S. intelligence-gathering efforts, politicizing Congress’ oversight role, and eroding confidence in our institutions of government," the senators said in...

It appears that Russia is leading the way towards a much-needed rejection of "religious freedom" in the West: Source from NRO: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/446966/russia-jehovahs-witnesses-ban-continues-putin-religious-persecution Russia’s crackdown on religious activity took a major step forward this week as the Justice Ministry banned Jehovah’s Witnesses. Russia has steadily curtailed rights to evangelize in recent years, but this move signals their commitment to aggressively policing private religious activity. The Russian supreme court ruled that Jehovah’s Witnesses amount to an “extremist group,” and therefore the government is shutting down their headquarters and local chapters, seizing their property, and banning them from meeting. Vladimir Putin’s campaign...

McKinney police arrested an orthopedic surgeon on suspicion that he sexually assaulted two female patients while they were under his care. Dr. Donald Okechukwu Ozumba, 44, faces two charges of sexual assault, according to court records. McKinney police arrested him Friday and booked him at the Collin County Jail, where his bail was set at $50,000. He was released Sunday. Donald Ozumba Donald Ozumba Police said the offenses happened at OSSM Orthopedics in the 8000 block of State Highway 121 in McKinney. Ozumba couldn't be reached for comment Monday. One of the women went to his office last week...

More conservative than Reagan And more courageous too. The God-Emperor follows through on one of Ronald Reagan's failed promises: Excerpt from the article at http://www.thewrap.com/trump-budget-killing-funding-pbs-npr-national-endowment-arts-public-broadcasting/ President Donald Trump made good on a long-time conservative goal in his first proposed budget Thursday morning, targeting the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities for complete elimination. Trump’s budget would zero out the $445 million budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a relatively small source of funding for programming and broadcast operations on public TV stations and NPR radio stations nationwide, per the Washington Post....

“Donald Trump is the right's Anthony Weiner,” Beck told Business Insider, adding that “this will only end in epic shame.” “I would hope that conservatives will take a step back and see who they are looking to as their champion,” he said. “For the good of our credibility I would beg people not to defend this or excuse this horrific behavior. If this was said in front of you, what would you say? If your son said this, what would you say? If it was said about your daughter or it was your wife, what would you say?" Beck asked.

<p>CRUZ said it is his "hope" that the Republicans nominate a conservative, SIGNALING THAT THE NOMINEE HAS NOT BEEN DECIDED. "What I hope is that we have a Republican nominee that will actually defend conservative principles," Cruz said.</p> <p>Cruz ... is still working to elect delegates, "even though Donald has the delegates to get the nomination." "One of the reasons that we are continuing to work to elect conservatives to be delegates, ... we intend to do everything we can to fight for conservative principles to prevent Washington forces from watering down the platform."....</p>

Apparently this never got posted here because of the limitations of probation, so here you go: So...here we are...18 years. Mostly good. Clintons a Liar, Dr Raouls costumes, AppyPappy's daughter singing the National Anthem, Kristinns wonderful reporting. The repugnant lies of Classy Green Eyed Blonde and DeepInTheHurtgenForest. The surreal cryptic posts of quidam. The lib trolls like Eschoir. The March for Justice? Heady times. They really were. Fighting against a President who had the gall to look us in the eye and lie to us. But the last 9 months? Absolutely unrecognizable. A lot of great FReepers run off. And...

Glenn Beck: Facebook Made Us Feel More Welcome Than the Republican Party Has Kirsten Salyer @kirstensalyer 3:05 PM ET The conservative pundit discusses the details of his meeting with Mark Zuckerberg

The Republican Party’s attempt to treat Donald Trump as a normal political candidate would be laughable were it not so perilous to the republic. If only he would mouth the party’s “conservative” principles, all would be well. But of course the entire Trump phenomenon has nothing to do with policy or ideology. It has nothing to do with the Republican Party, either, except in its historic role as incubator of this singular threat to our democracy. Trump has transcended the party that produced him. His growing army of supporters no longer cares about the party. Because it did not immediately...

"I have a little announcement to make ... I'm voting for Hillary. I am endorsing Hillary," noted conservative author P.J. O'Rourke said on NPR's Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me. The episode aired over the weekend.

... Trump promises a return to tariffs. He also promises a wall with Mexico, penalties against profitable American companies, skimming foreign remittances, and more. Trump does not mince words, and you have to respect his forthrightness. What each of these solutions has in common is a heavy-handed government that imposes its will at the price of consumer freedom. What right does a White House staffer have to tell you what you can buy and the extra price you have to pay if you choose the wrong product? Your freedom to trade — to buy what you want — is what’s...

I remember grassroots conservatives celebrating when he was elected two years ago because it meant adding another Republican to the Senate who takes his principles seriously. Now here’s Sasse last night reiterating that he takes his principles seriously enough not to vote for a big-government liberal just because he’s the party’s nominee and he’ll be excoriated for it. Oh well. The principled choice is rarely the popular one.

Flogging the straw man. I cannot offer enough praise of Jonah Goldberg as a writer, nor can I recommend his weekly G-File report highly enough. Like most at National Review these days, Goldberg is strident in his opposition to Donald Trump, and he makes some of the most compelling arguments against Trump on a consistent basis. Where Goldberg and I disagree, of course, is not on our candidate of choice (as far as I can tell we’re both for Ted Cruz), but on the question of what to do if Trump does indeed win the nomination. I’ve said, and I’ll...

In an interview with the Today show, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he “absolutely” wants to change the Republican party’s current pro-life platform to promote abortions in cases of rape or incest. The comment is the latest in a long line of comments from Trump upsetting pro-life voters — including multiple remarks praising the Planned Parenthood abortion business, saying abortion laws should not be changed and saying women should be punished for having abortions and flip-flopping hours later. ….. Below is the full text of the current pro-life platform in the Republican Party: THE SANCTITY AND DIGNITY OF HUMAN...