Free Republic

By shifting the spectrum of debate, here's how America's rightward march has been normalized throughout history. From Nixon to Reagan to Gingrich to Bush to Paul Ryan and Chris Christie today, leaders who’ve shifted America to the right have been aided by moderating misrepresentations. In the case of Reagan, it was not just the man, but conservatism itself that received the flattering reinterpretation. That was a difference that mattered; it goes to the heart of why Reagan is the American right’s touchstone. But the more general process of misrepresenting and reinterpreting increasingly radical ideological figures as if they were normal,...

As 2014 midterms approach, some Democrats are running-not walking-away from Obamacare....coming out of the woodwork to voice opposition. •39th President Jimmy Carter: "His major accomplishment was Obamacare, and the implementation of it now is questionable at best." •Barney Frank, former Massachusetts Congressman: "I think we paid a terrible price for health care." •Former Democratic Presidential candidate, Howard Dean, a doctor: "The Affordable Care Act's Rate-Setting Won't Work." Obamacare was primarily designed to decrease the number of uninsured Americans and reduce healthcare costs. But experts say it will have the exact opposite effect. What started as a promise to insure 40...

(Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear agency said on Thursday it had seen releases of steam and water indicating that North Korea may be seeking to restart a reactor that experts say would be capable of making plutonium for atomic bombs.

A video has been released by the North Korean government showing detained American veteran Merrill Newman, 85, admitting to being 'guilty' of crimes including killing innocent civilians when he was a soldier in the Korean War. Newman, who has not been heard from since he was detained on October 26, is seen reading a four-page hand-scribbled letter on camera in an undisclosed location in the video released on Saturday. The veteran from California looks uneasy in the video, and with shaking hands apologizes for what he supposedly did 60 years ago. ‘I realize that I cannot be forgiven for my...

Five days after Jason Carter jumped into the Georgia governor’s race, his grandfather, former President Jimmy Carter, delivered a speech urging a ban on the death penalty. Within hours, the newly minted candidate felt compelled to issue a retort: while he loves his grandfather, he told a reporter, “I believe in the death penalty for heinous crimes, and that won’t change when I’m governor.” The episode spoke to the benefit and potential burden of the Carter surname for the upstart Democratic state senator, who is waging a long-shot bid to unseat first-term Republican Gov. Nathan Deal. Practically everyone in the...

Looters: Venezuelan troops storm a local electronics retailer in the name of enforcing "fair prices," brazenly blaming the private sector for state policies. Sounds familiar — and not just because it's a communist takeover. With municipal elections just around the corner on Dec. 8, it's no surprise to see Venezuela's failing socialist government turning to pork-barrel handouts to lure voters — as it always has. Shovel the goodies to the red-shirted low-information voters and gain just enough votes in upcoming elections to claim a dictatorship is really a democracy. Not coincidentally, President Nicolas Maduro declared that Venezuela would celebrate the...

On Friday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) went on the Tonight Show and said Ronald Reagan would feel at home in today's conservative movement, comparing the grassroots revolution that has powered his rise with that of the 1970s that Reagan led.  When host Jay Leno suggested Reagan would not fit in today's conservative movement, Cruz said, "I don't think that's right at all."Cruz told Leno that "Reagan led a grassroots revolution," and the country's economic situation now is awfully like the late 1970s when there was "economic stagnation" and people were "hurting because government policies under Jimmy Carter weren't working."He noted...

Jimmy Carter, the man considered by Republicans and Democrats alike as the most incompetent U.S. president in modern history, made comments that sure sounded like he called President Barack Obama incompetent over his handling of the Affordable Care Act. But if it helps, he did it in a nice way. Carter made the observation during an interview this week with Parade Magazine. “He’s done the best he could under the circumstances,” Carter said of Obama. “His major accomplishment was Obamacare, and the implementation of it now is questionable at best.”

NASA announced a monumental event this month; The renowned spacecraft known as Voyager 1 has exited our solar system.Thirty-six years ago, Voyager 1 departed Cape Canaveral on September 5, 1977 atop of a Titan-Centaur launch vehicle, joining sister ship Voyager 2 which was already en route to Jupiter.Voyager 2 had been hurled into space by her own Titan-Centaur two weeks earlier on August 20, 1977. The twin spacecraft followed complex, pre-programmed orbits on a shared mission of capturing images and data on the solar system’s largest planets.Together, the Voyager spacecrafts executed close-up fly-by visits to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and...

Billed as a game-changer on Syria, the President’s White House address landed with a thud that could be heard as far away as Damascus. Barack Obama has a huge credibility problem on Syria and on foreign policy in general, and Tuesday night’s speech will do nothing to help that. As Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer put it on Fox News, it was “one of the most odd presidential speeches ever delivered,” with no clear-cut strategy laid out, while urging Congress to delay a vote on the use of force against Assad’s regime. In effect, Obama farmed out US foreign policy...

Germany's agressive and reckless expansion of wind and solar power has come with a hefty pricetag for consumers, and the costs often fall disproportionately on the poor. Government advisors are calling for a completely new start. If you want to do something big, you have to start small. That's something German Environment Minister Peter Altmaier knows all too well. The politician, a member of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has put together a manual of practical tips on how everyone can make small, everyday contributions to the shift away from nuclear power and toward green energy. The so-called Energiewende,...

ll happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," thus wrote Leo Tolstoy in this epic novel about faithlessness, Anna Karenina. And so it goes with the presidency of Barack Obama. The mistake many commentators have made was in expecting that the unhappy presidency of Barack Obama would resemble the unhappy presidency of Jimmy Carter, just because they are both liberals. I’m reminded of this as I look at the PMI figures for August. Whereas Carter struggled with high inflation and unemployment, Obama struggles with sluggish economic growth and high employment underutilization. “U.S. manufacturing activity...

The National Salvation Front, a coalition of pro-democratic and secular parties in Egypt, set out its objections to remarks made by President Barack Obama Thursday on the escalating violence in Egypt. Led by Ahmed Said of the Free Egyptians Party, the group issued the following letter: "Like most Egyptians, we listened with attention to your statement on Egypt's latest developments. As representatives of the non-Islamic political forces in Egypt, we believe in the same fundamental values on which the U.S. was founded. Be we also have 7,000 years of civilization and history that give us a special identity that we...

Further evidence is surfacing that, far from having enhanced its reputation in the eyes of the people of Gaza, Hamas has been shown up as brutal thugs to their own people but cowards who run away when confronted by a proper army. The Jerusalem Post reports: From the perspective of the people of Gaza, Hamas simply abandoned the arena and fled into the crowded neighborhoods. Once there, since the second day of the campaign, Hamas fighters have hurriedly shed their uniforms. Many of them simply deserted and returned to their families, taking their guns with them. In some locations, Hamas...

RAMALLAH: After nearly two weeks of showing a united front in the face of Israel’s war in Gaza, some Palestinians are starting to slam Hamas for dragging its feet on a truce as the death toll mounts. With Hamas maintaining a tight grip on the Gaza Strip, most of the critical voices are coming from the rival Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, whose forces the Islamists routed from the coastal enclave in June 2007. Those close to the Fatah party of moderate president Mahmoud Abbas accuse Hamas of trying to extract political gains from the Gaza offensive all the...

A gun battle between Hamas and an Al Qaeda-inspired group that left about 30 dead last week is a sign of a growing movement inside the impoverished territory. RAFAH, GAZA STRIP - Two years after its takeover of the Gaza strip, Hamas has faced down its greatest challenger: A militant, Al Qaeda-inspired organization that says Hamas is not Islamic enough. Last Friday, Hamas forces and the Jund Ansar Allah (Soldier of God) movement fought a day-long gun and artillery battle that killed about 30 in the southern Gaza town of Rafah after the group's spiritual leader, Sheikh Abdel Latif Moussa,...

Barack Obama sacks adviser over talks with Hamas Barack Obama had criticised former President Jimmy Carter for holding direct talks with Hamas Tom Baldwin in Washington One of Barack Obama’s Middle East policy advisers disclosed today that he had held meetings with the militant Palestinian group Hamas - prompting the likely Democratic nominee to sever all links with him. Robert Malley told The Times he had regularly been in contact with Hamas, which controls Gaza but is listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation. Such talks, he stressed, were related to his work for a conflict resolution...

Ex-U.S. President Carter plans to visit North Korea - report July 29, 2013 - 05:15 SEOUL (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is planning to visit North Korea soon to try to win the release of a U.S. citizen held for committing crimes against the reclusive state, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported on Monday. Carter has made contact with the North to arrange for the visit, and he is likely to make the trip in a personal capacity to secure the release of Kenneth Bae, the U.S. citizen, a source in Washington was quoted as saying by Yonhap....

The White House confirmed on Monday that former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is traveling to North Korea, but sought to distance itself from his visit, calling it a “private trip.” … Carter had previously announced that he was planning on traveling to North Korea in an effort to secure the release of American citizen Kenneth Bae, who is being held by the regime. …

President H.W. Bush isn’t the only former president coming out of retirement lately. On Tuesday, Jimmy Carter weighed in on one of the most explosive trials in recent memory, expressing his satisfaction with the jury’s verdict that 29-year-old George Zimmerman was not guilty (via USA Today): Former president Jimmy Carter said the jury in the George Zimmerman trial "made the right decision" and agrees with President Obama that Americans should respect its judgment. Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, was acquitted last Saturday in the shooting death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. Carter, the nation's 39th president, made his comments about...