Free Republic

... After combing my vast Trump archive, as well as contacting Trump sources, I present herewith nine of Trump's Trumpiest moments -- a Trump Moments collage, if you will -- that distill the very essence of the man. Not unlike Trump's tremendous cologne, Success, an inspiring blend of fresh juniper and iced red currant, with rich bottom notes of vetiver, tonka bean, birchwood, and musk. (In a word, "classy.") One cannot hope to capture Trump's entirety, since he contains multitudes. For instance, sometimes Trump will say he's "really rich," while at others, he'll say he's "very, very rich." That's Trump...

Bill Ayers is Hating Breitbart. Audio HERE

I woke up this morning to about ten emails from journalist friends asking if our mutual friend, Andrew Breitbart, was really dead. “Really” was the operative word. Some meant it in the traditional sense: Is it possible for the human inferno that Breitbart resembled to have actually been extinguished at age 43, leaving his elegant wife Susie and his four beloved children behind? Several, however, meant it as in: Is Andrew really dead? Many of us didn’t know if we could trust the announcement, thinking this could be another Breitbart caper, as he always had two or three in his...

When I disparaged you before, I didn’t take into account what you mean to the people of Alaska, where despite your approval rating being around 36 percent, many would follow you to Scottsdale, Arizona, where you might be moving away from them. Nor did I consider what you mean to this country. So that it makes sense that you would tour it by riding across it in a bus. Probably in the front of the bus. Just like Rosa Parks. Because you’re kind of like a white Rosa Parks. Except you’ve taken it so far beyond what Ms. Parks ever...

Excerpt: But if I seem both defensive and uncharacteristically gallant, that’s because I have a confession to make. There’s a reason why Cupp and I rarely, if ever, file on the same day. Because it’s a lot of work when you’re writing both columns. You see, I am S.E. Cupp. Are you happy, sexist? You made me say it. Jim Treacher played at outing me before, when I made him angry after I carelessly scratched his Very Best of Christopher Cross CD. But since Treacher has a dark secret of his own, he stopped short of pulling the trigger, and...

Excerpt from: Making Political Trouble Roger Stone shows how it's done--again. by Matt Labash 01/28/2008, Volume 013, Issue 19 Weekly Standard Messages poured in expressing revulsion and woe, and described resulting adverse physical symptoms, including but not limited to: nausea, dizziness, insomnia, twitching, numbness, abdominal pain, myalgia, cutaneous lesions, and retching. One friend invited me to visit him in Bermuda, where he'll be relocating. The only silver lining that came my way was an email from the professional dirty trickster and high priest of political hijinks, Roger Stone. It was titled "the good news" and said, simply, "Out of NH...

WHEN THE HISTORY of Christian rap-metal music is finally written, I pray to the Lord of Hosts that I don't have to read it. But if that fate should befall me, I'd feel gypped if it didn't include an extended encomium to the boys from Junkyard Prophet..... When I blasted them from my basement, my wife, who has a stomach for Christian praise music, descended the steps to complain, which I took as a good sign...

If the justice is so fond of eminent domain, say protesters, let's seize his ancestral property and develop a charming bed and breakfast on it.Weare, New HampshireLOGAN DARROW CLEMENTS doesn't seem like the sort of fellow who'd go around stealing the houses of Supreme Court justices. He's mild mannered and laughs easily, often at his own jokes. Physically he resembles a less creepy Ralph Reed: He looks like a 36-year-old altar boy whose mom made him scrub up and dress for dinner. An Ayn Rand devotee, he heads an objectivist discussion group back home in Los Angeles. A zippy evening...

Notes from Under Water From the September 19, 2005 issue: The struggle to survive the disaster in New Orleans.by Matt Labash 09/26/2005, Volume 011, Issue 01 New Orleans I'M NOT A BIG SUPPORTER OF MEN CRYING. But I nearly did so while watching the flood waters roll over New Orleans, drowning it in Katrina's backwash. Not only because of the obvious human toll, but also because this Jobian plague befell the greatest city in America. Sure, New Orleans regularly leads the league in all the wrong categories. It's been the fattest city, the most corrupt city, the most murderous...

Can political consultants Dave "Mudcat" Saunders and Steve Jarding win rural voters back to the Democratic party? Roanoke, Virginia "YOU'RE SLOWER than cream rising on s--. Haul ass down here so we can get this piece knocked out, Brotha!" As I barrel down I-81 in Virginia's Blue Ridge country, Dave "Mudcat" Saunders is growling on the other end of the line. He first entered my consciousness in the summer of 2003, like some force of nature sent my way by the Color Gods of Feature Writing.Back then, I was one of a group of short-straw reporters assigned to cover Bob...

ON A LATE MARCH EVENING in the Mission District, the line stretches down the block. Hopefuls are anxious to make the cut at $10 a head; the auditorium in the Women's Building only seats 400. It's an explosively colorful structure featuring murals of warrior poets and others who've been lodged in the tread of the jackboot of oppression, like Audre Lorde and Rigoberta Menchu. From the feverish intensity of those standing in line, you might think they'd turned out for the Vagina Monologues or American Idol auditions. Instead, they've come to hear a craggy-faced ethnic studies professor from the University...

Turnabout is only fair play, I guess. Considering that official Canada routinely takes cheap shots at the United States for supposedly being a war-mongering state run by born-again Neanderthals, it was only a matter of time before someone down south decided to return the favour. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "The Great White Waste of Time," the cover story from the latest issue (dated today) of the Weekly Standard, an unabashedly American conservative publication. In the piece, writer Matt Labash cuts right to the chase, saying he regards Canada "as most Americans do, as North America's attic, a mildewy...

If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia. – Margaret Atwood, Canadian writer Vancouver, British Columbia – Whenever I think of Canada … strike that. I'm an American, therefore I tend not to think of Canada. On the rare occasion when I have considered the country that Fleet Streeters call "The Great White Waste of Time," I've regarded it, as most Americans do, as North America's attic, a mildewy recess that adds little value to the house, but serves as an excellent dead space for stashing Nazi war criminals, drawing-room socialists,...

YOU'VE GOT TO HAND IT to our political players. Even with the onset of second-term ho-hums, everyone did his part to convey the momentousness of what some wags call the "peaceful non-transfer of power." Republicans turned out for the inauguration in cashmere-swaddled, mink-stoled finery, dutifully forcing smiles as the president they returned to office cast doubt on their good judgment by showcasing a Lawrence-Welk singer crooning the John Ashcroft-penned "Let the Eagle Soar."Then there were those pesky protesters. During every convention or inauguration or political-pageant-of-the-day, they go at it once more, as though anyone besides their group-housemates cares. It's as...

Clintonmania From the December 6, 2004 issue: It never ends in Arkansas. by Matt Labash 12/06/2004, Volume 010, Issue 12 Little Rock, Arkansas During the weeklong lead-up to the opening of the Clinton Presidential Center, I felt as though I was stuck in The College Nightmare. You know the one: Every professor you have is giving an exam concurrently, and you don't know which one to take. It just didn't seem fair. There were so many ways to celebrate President William Jefferson Clinton. How could I pass up any of them? I wanted to take all my meals at Doe's...

SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS isn't typically my bag. Not that I'm self-centered, but thinking about oppressed peoples of the world takes away from valuable me-time. Every now and then, however, one's sense of justice is so violated when witnessing freedoms so ruthlessly trampled, that there is no choice but to loosen the shackles, to storm the barricades, and to do other things that sound like Pete Seeger lyrics. A few days ago, I received a call from the Atlantic Monthly's Joshua Green. Josh is typically a sunny guy. The world loves him, he loves it right back. But the troubled voice on...

<p>DURING THE PARTS of this presidential campaign that I've managed to stay awake through, it's striking how few gaffes and humiliations John Kerry has suffered. When he does, they nearly always result from his flying his freak flag, trying to talk to the young people, or otherwise waiting for his hipster credit to get approved.</p>

In which two moviegoers conduct their own interfaith dialogue. AT LAST WEEK'S OPENING OF Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," I never expected actually to see Jesus. Yet there he was, carnival-barking on the Connecticut Avenue sidewalk outside the Avalon Theatre in Washington, D.C. He stood out in his long brown hair and tunic. "Blessed are the merciful--go vegetarian!" he cried. But something wasn't right. It might have been the disciple carrying the "For Christ's sake, go veg" sign. Or maybe it was the mouth-hole on his beard riding up over his nose that gave him away as a...

Running for president to escape the shadow of Jesse Jackson I love to do my thing / Ha . . . and I don't need, no one else / Sometimes I feel so nice, good God / I jump back, I wanna kiss myself.--James Brown Columbia, S.C. WHILE MANY REPORTERS like to cover frontrunner campaigns, I've always favored no-hopers. Losers are more vulnerable, accessible and desperate, meaning they reveal rather than conceal. Plus, it is always perverse fun to watch a man's id hit the end of its leash, just to see how far it snaps back. That's how I...

With the "Wes-wavers," Lieberman's mom, and Dennic Kucinich in Manchester. Manchester, New Hampshire OWING TO geographic and time-travel limitations, Cicero never made it to the New Hampshire primaries. Still, he anticipated them when he said, "A most wretched custom is our electioneering and scrambling for office." From the moment you touch down here, you sense a chicken-or-egg dynamic: It's unclear if the trivial is being made to seem important, or the important, trivial. Almost everything in the state is tainted by overkill or hype. Rookie reporters check into Bedford's Wayfarer Inn--perhaps the most storied hotel on the campaign trail--half expecting...