Free Republic

Conservatives and Republicans would be unwise to pursue President Obama's impeachment as my colleague Bruce Walker today argues. The odds are the effort would backfire, and there is a much more important goal that should be at the center of our political strategy: sweeping Democrats out of office in 2014 and 2016 in numbers sufficient to enact structural reforms, including replacement of the tax system and junking the IRS and outlawing public employee unions. President Obama is handing his opponents the means, if only they have the wit to pursue the bigger goal. ..... Somewhere along the line, Hillary and...

In recent conversations about girding for the uncertain future I have often suggested that folks accrue the means of productivity, beginning with water, dirt, and seeds to grow food, followed by skills, tools, and raw materials to fix and create useful things. I am not certain if I have mentioned a helpful reference in this matter but it does reflect the course I am following. Thirty years ago I discovered the book "The Alpha Strategy" (available in its entirety at several web sites including http://zombieprepdotnet.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/book2-preface.pdf) and have found it to be instrumental in forming my thoughts. Pete Ferron featured it...

In Memoriam: William Van Cleave, 77 by Pamela J. Johnson The former professor of international relations in USC Dornsife is remembered as a Cold War expert with a warm heart. William Van Cleave, former senior adviser to President Ronald Reagan, the United States Department of Defense, Department of State, and former professor of international relations in USC Dornsife, has died. He was 77. Van Cleave died of natural causes at his Idyllwild, Calif., home on March 15. Professor of international relations and director of the Strategic Studies Program in USC Dornsife from 1967 to 1987, Van Cleave had vast...

The President has held two news conferences in three days commenting on the coming wave of gun control initiatives. His presentation has been emotional and properly reflects the anguish that we all feel for the victims of gun crime. It also has been a dazzling display of sophistry. I say that because the President is smart. And if he were not smart, I would say that, so far as his gun ban proposals, his comments were a profound display of ignorance. Responding to the run on guns precipitated by the preliminary proposals floated by his team, the President said that...

In a minute, we'll give you four concrete steps you can take to preserve your guns and your gun rights -- and not coincidentally, make Sun-Tzu, the greatest of ancient strategists, smile. But first, an assessment of the position. We're under attack, but it's not unprecedented. It's just the usual suspects, taking delight in a crisis they won't let go to waste, frolicking in the bloody shirt. If you're young you haven't seen this before. If you're older, you saw it in the mid-nineties. A little older, you saw the 80s hysteria that led to the Hughes Amendment and the...

Some folks have said it’s like 1994 all over again. I disagree. There are many factors that are different. Some play in our favor, and some don’t. But the ones that do: * We have better access to the media than we did in 1994, such as this Dave Kopel article in the Wall Street Journal illustrates. * Back in 1994, the standard competition rifles were the M1A, the M1 Garand and M1 Carbine. If people owned a semi-auto, it was probably more likely to be a Mini-14 than an AR or AK. Today those have largely been replaced by...

The key to understanding Barack Hussein Obama is that he does nothing. This proposition is at the heart of a grave misapprehension of this Presidency. An American might be forgiven for feeling that a contribution to the common good is based on performance; productivity, some meaningful place in a functioning enterprise that fulfills one and contributes to the furtherance of some cause, or to one’s family and thus to God. What we cannot be forgiven for is continually attempting to apply this now remarkable cultural artifact; this mindset, to this Presidency. For example, the airwaves resonate as the right-wing talkers...

This post is written in anger and frustration. Angry that we continue to follow the Republican Party’s elite ignorance. A party that continues to pull defeat from the jaws of victory characterized by pompous fools who fulfill the sterotype built by the left. Frustrated that the reality of politics is this: There will be no third party capable of competing with the coalition constructed by the dems. As a result, true conservatives MUST take steps to irradicate the ignorance of the Republican Party while still adhering to the core values of our forefathers (beliefs that I discovered are considered extreme...

Here is the full equation: early voting + bribes* + Dems busing their bribees to vote early Obama victory * bribes = (1) Obama's unconstitutional gift to 800,000 illegal immigrants last June (2) beer & pizza parties on college campuses + rides to the polls (3) the usual Dem GOTV "walking around money" that gets spread around in urban areas every election

This year's presidential election was transformed between the first debate's opening statements in Denver and the closing statements in Boca Raton. As a result, most of the negative impressions created by the Obama campaign's five-month, $300-million television advertising barrage were destroyed. Seen unfiltered, Gov. Mitt Romney came across as an earnest, straightforward, thoughtful conservative with a concrete plan for the nation's future. [Snip] So what are each candidate's strategies for the stretch run? New television spots reveal the Romney campaign's closing message. One says another four years for Mr. Obama would mean more debt, up to 20 million people losing...

Granted it is rough English to understand, as it is machine translation from the mainstream, non-Chavez "El Universal" newspaper in Caracas, Venezuela today, but it gives the street level tactics the Socialist Community Organizers used in Venezuela to eek out a victory for Communist Hugo Chavez earlier this week. It is provided below in its entirety, with the link to the original Spanish.Of specific interest will be the tactical description of the "double wave" Chavez PSUV strategy on Election Day in polling zones they identified as somewhat sympathetic to the anti-Chavez democratic forces. Pay close attention because these tactics...

A website used by the terrorist organization Hezbollah mapped out today, using a slideshow, their 'stretegy' to conquer the Galil, the Northern region of Israel. Among the plans - targeted attacks of the port in Haifa, tourist destinations, large army bases in the North, air force bases and....

Pundit says: Romney will fail if he doesn't change course.

Dear Friend, In this video commentary, I discuss how Obama’s game plan is becoming clear…and what we must do to counter it. Tune in!

Wisconsin is one of nine swing states that will determine the 2012 presidential race, according to this analysis of the electoral map by the Washington Post’s political blog, “The Fix.” The others are Ohio and Iowa in the Midwest; New Hampshire in the Northeast; Virginia, North Carolina and Florida further down the Atlantic Coast, and Colorado and Nevada in the West. Wisconsin is the only state on this list that Democrats have won in each of the past three elections (in fact Democrats have won the state in six straight elections). Of the nine states on this list, it’s also...

Presidential candidate NewtGingrich says even though rivals RickSantorum and Mitt Romney are currently leading the pack in the important primary state of Michigan — which is also Romney’s home state — the former House speaker has not given up on his chances. Gingrich, who has dumbfounded political pundits before with his repeated surges, also told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Wednesday that he continues to confidently look to Super Tuesday. “I’ll be in Michigan campaigning next week — we have every reason to believe we’re going to be competing there effectively — and we’re going to have a number of...

On January 7th, at the Republican debate, George Stephanopoulos embarked on a sudden, unexpected, and bizarre series of questions about contraception and birth control. Most of the political pundits who watched this, were somewhat puzzled at the virtual harangue that Stephanopoulos went on, asking candidate after candidate to pin down their views -- even though birth control issues were decidedly not in the forefront. Then, President Obama and his brain trust picked a fight with the Catholic Church, demanding that they fund birth control and abortion services. When the Church rose up in anger, they compromised -- they only needed...

Before an approving crowd of thousands at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the former House speaker laid out a cluttered schedule that would repudiate "at least 40 percent of (President Barack Obama's) government on the opening day." "When the Congress comes in (in early January) it will stay in session and by January 20th, it will have repealed 'Obamacare,'" Gingrich said to a loud roar, referring to the president's landmark legislation that has helped provide coverage for tens of millions of uninsured Americans. Also going under the axe would be the Dodd-Frank bill on Wall Street reform and the...

Entire article follows (less graphics) "Poor" Romney Can't Win VIDEO HERE Please watch this video...It is Instructive. This video illustrates the power of the MainStream Media to devastate a person with a deluge of attacks that clearly take out of context, comments by the convicted person. Romney has been convicted. Romney's big win in Florida convict him of being the presumptive nominee. The same MSM is assuming Romney is the winner and they are beginning the transition to attacking the Republican nominee. Republicans know this tune. The melody of love songs for McCain as the "reasonable moderate", has been given...

January 29, 2012 Gingrich's Sunshine State strategy Former Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum reacts

BEIJING: China on Monday slammed the United States' new Asian-focused defense strategy, saying its accusations of a lack of openness in Beijing's military policy were "groundless and untrustworthy.'' The strategy unveiled Thursday shifts the U.S. military focus away from Iraq and Afghanistan and makes a renewed commitment to assert America's position in the Asia-Pacific region. The document says the growth of China's military power must be accompanied by greater clarity in its strategic intentions to avoid causing friction in the region. In response, China said it was committed to peaceful development and a "defensive'' policy. "China's strategic intent is clear,...

The US military will become "leaner" while maintaining superiority as it switches focus to the Asia-Pacific, US President Barack Obama has announced. In a rare appearance at the Pentagon, he unveiled a far-reaching defence review under which thousands of troops are expected to be axed. He said the tide of war was receding, and the US needed to renew its economic strength. The Pentagon faces more than $450bn (£288bn) in cuts over the next decade. "So yes, our military will be leaner," Mr Obama told reporters, "but the world must know - the United States is going to maintain our...

After a dramatic, confusing night of suspense in the Republican Party's Iowa caucuses, the big winner may well have been a Democrat: Barack Obama. The president's re-election campaign had reason to smile early Wednesday, as Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum battled to a virtual dead heat in the caucuses that kicked off the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, emerges from Iowa with his front-runner status intact, his well-funded campaign ready for a months-long fight. But his razor-thin margin over Santorum - a social conservative who ran a low-budget campaign with little advertising - reinforces...

Few of the lectures I give on political technology and campaigning make people as agitated as this one. None is more important. Simply put, politics is not about the common good, appealing to men’s better angels, nor serving our Lord. These may be your motivations. I pray they are mine. Occasionally, they will be a politician’s motivation. Politics is the adjudication of power. It is the process by which people everywhere determine who rules whom. In America, through a brilliant system of rewards and punishments, checks and balances, and diffusion of authority, we have acquired a habit and history of...

"But because the Republican Party insists on insider moderates or at least gives the impression that's who they support, then it opens the door for all kinds of people to make headway because the Republican primary base is not interested in who the establishment is interested in. It's just that simple. I'll tell you something I've been saying here for the last couple, three weeks, maybe even longer than that, that Mitt Romney can't get higher than 30% anywhere. Other than New Hampshire, he gets 35. But in truth no other Republican does, either. When you get right down to...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: If you'll recall, I and I alone, I believe, El Rushbo long ago predicted to you, or opined that the Occupy Wall Street movement was a creation of the regime's, because Romney is perceived as Wall Street. They want Romney, and they assume they're going to be running against Romney, and who could blame them. I mean, if you're the Obama regime and you take a look conservative media today, you would have to assume that the Republican Party also wants Romney. Okay, it's inevitable. So you gear up for Romney.

The collectivist in chief is warning people that they .... might have to work. He further inserts his teeth into our neck with the promise that the enslaved will be further enslaved. He is warning Americans that if he is not elected, the decline of America will be reversed. "You are on your own” if he is not elected, Obama warned a crowd of 200 mindless donors over lunch at the W Hotel. Ya promise, O? That's the best news I have heard all year. That's a campaign promise I can get behind! Obama is in NYC tying this town...

"Now, one other thing here about this business in the New York Times today with the Obama regime basically admitting that it has no interest in attracting white working voters. The headline to that New York Times story could just as well be: "Obama to White Workers: Drop Dead." Pure and simple. That would be the headline if it were in the New York Post. The only real surprise here is to hear a liberal and the New York Times just flat-out admit it and talk about it as though it is a timely and brilliant strategy. We've known for...

The spot was posted on October 19th, according to its YouTube page, but because it was unlisted on Cain's main YouTube page it seems to have gone undiscovered until now. There has been some speculation online that the spot is a hoax, but the Cain campaign late Monday night confirmed to CBS News that it is legitimate. A campaign official said that the video was "just Block being Block." But it's unclear what the campaign planned to do with the video, whether it was intended to be an ad, or why it wasn't publicly available on Cain's page with his...

Strategic BankruptcySomeone has to stop working among the trees and focus on the forest. A couple of weeks ago I wrote a column addressing the fact that in an era of fiscal restraint, policymakers and strategists needed to think harder about U.S. strategic priorities. One commenter stated that my piece was a slur on admirals and generals who spend considerable amounts of time thinking through this nation’s strategic options. Anyone who believes this is actually what generals and admirals do has a poor grasp of how things work.In fact, the Pentagon’s new Number 2, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, immediately...

President Barack Obama is eyeing a 2012 campaign modeled on President Harry Truman’s 1948 successful re-election campaign against Congress. First, however, the White House will send to Capitol Hill an assortment of ‘economy-boosting’ legislation in a package that may include a major overhaul of the tax code. “I’ll be putting forward, when they come back in September, a very specific plan to boost the economy, to create jobs, and to control our deficit,” Obama told a friendly audience at a Decorah, Minnesota campaign-event on Monday. “My attitude is, get it done … [but] if they don’t get it done, then...

Contrary to recent media reports, the malicious prosecution of Julie Bass of Oak Park, Michigan has not ended. Authorities have also charged her with having unlicensed dogs, though they never escaped or threatened anyone. Here’s the unedited scoop straight from her own blog, Oak Park Hates Veggies: Home-grown: Julie Bass has fallen foul of local authorities by growing vegetables in her front yardHome-grown: Julie Bass has fallen foul of local authorities by growing vegetables in her front yard 1- the charges against us were not actually “dropped”. they were dismissed by some judge we have never heard of or seen....

Tea Partiers split over debt strategyBy Erik Wasson - 07/04/11 05:24 AM ET Tea Party activists are split between opposing any new increase to the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling and tying an increase to spending cuts, caps and a balanced budget amendment. On one side is the Tea Party Patriots group, which is urging its supporters to sign a “no debt increase” pledge. On the other side are Tea Party-related groups with significant GOP establishment backing such as FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity. Tea Party Express has joined this side. These groups have joined a coalition calling for “Cut, Cap...

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor turned the policy temperature down on austerity this week by rolling out a strong economic-growth agenda. Headlined by a 25 percent top tax rate for individuals and business, the Cantor package includes regulatory relief, free trade, and patent protection for entrepreneurs. It’s job creation and the economy, stupid. Sounds Reaganesque? Well, Eric Cantor has a lot of Reagan blood in him. Back in 1980, while Cantor was still in high school, his father was the Virginia state treasurer of the Ronald Reagan presidential campaign. So the apple never falls far from the tree. In fact,...

RUSH: Sarah Palin announced her bus trip yesterday to take place over the Memorial Day weekend. Now, I want to spend some time trying to analyze something here. I don't want people to be confused when I say that the Democrats will always tell us who they fear. That is true, and I believe -- I firmly believe -- that the efforts that have been made to take Sarah Palin out are rooted in fear. At the same time, there are Democrats who do think she is a blithering idiot, love to make fun of her, and honestly do believe...

I’m busy reading final papers for the grand strategy seminar at Bard this spring, and the students are finishing up their exams and thinking about summer. It’s already time to start reading and thinking about the syllabus for the fall course in Anglo-American grand strategy. British and American strategic thinkers and policy makers developed a new form of global strategy in the last 300 years that enabled the two English speaking powers to build a global political and security order resting on a foundation of liberal capitalism. Understanding the grand strategy that shaped the modern world is surely something that...

www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-assistant-president-homeland-security-and-counterterrorism-john-brennan-csi # Note: The following text is a quote: Home • Briefing Room • Statements & Releases The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release May 26, 2010 Remarks by Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan at CSIS “Securing the Homeland by Renewing American Strength, Resilience and Values” Thank you very much John, and I would like to take a moment to express my appreciation to CSIS for inviting me back. You invited me here a little after six months after I came into this administration and I greatly appreciate the invitation...

The White House on Thursday is expected to unveil its proposal to enhance the nation's cybersecurity, laying out plans to require industry to better protect systems that run critical infrastructure like the electrical grid, financial systems and nuclear power plants. The Obama administration also is insisting that companies tell consumers when their personal information has been compromised. According to cybersecurity experts familiar with the plan, the administration's proposed legislation also would instruct federal agencies to more closely monitor their computer networks. Several House and Senate committees have been working on cybersecurity legislation for the past two years, while waiting for...

The federal government has no strategy to counter the Muslim Brotherhood at home or abroad, according to the chairwoman of the House panel that oversees counterintelligence and terrorism. “The federal government does not have a comprehensive or consistent strategy for dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliated groups in America,” Rep. Sue Wilkins Myrick said during a hearing Wednesday. “Nor does it have a strategy for dealing with the Brotherhood in Egypt or the greater Middle East.” The North Carolina Republican is chairwoman of the House Intelligence subcommittee on terrorism, human intelligence, analysis and counterintelligence. Mrs. Myrick said at...

Up and down the frontier of American global power, from the South China Sea to the Middle East, from the Caucasus to the north Central European plain, U.S. allies are increasingly nervous. Along the littoral rim of East Asia, South Koreans, Japanese, Taiwanese and others in the region watched anxiously throughout 2010 as China ratcheted up efforts to assert control over strategic waterways and challenge the U.S. position in Asia. In the Middle East, too, Israel, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States ended the year less confident than ever that the United States would somehow bestir itself to contain...

With the world melting down and the Bard semester heating up, I’ve fallen behind in my grand strategy posts; apologies to all and I hope to catch up with a post next week (during Bard’s spring break) on Machiavelli. But today’s business is still the Second Punic War, the conflict between Carthage and Rome that engulfed most of the Mediterranean world in what would prove to be the most important war in the history of what would, thanks to Rome’s victory, one day become western civilization. In the last post I wrote about how Rome had a grand strategy that...

Democrats back calls for Obama to explain strategyLARA MARLOWE in Washington The Irish Times - Friday, March 25, 2011 US ROLE: AMID GROWING calls for President Barack Obama to explain his strategy to Congress and the nation, leading Democrats say questions about the Libyan war raised by the Republican speaker of the house John Boehner are “legitimate”. Deputy national security adviser Denis McDonough told CNN that a letter sent by Mr Boehner to the White House on Wednesday contained “a very legitimate set of questions”. Democratic senator Sherrod Brown said Mr Obama “needs to face the nation and . ....

Barack Obama tried to convince Univision last night that the US has an exit strategy from the Libya conflict, and that strategy is to, er, stick around and fight. Jake Tapper calls it a Lewis Carroll moment, while others might consider it more Orwellian: In an interview with Univision Tuesday, President Obama re-defined the term “exit strategy,” and said our exit strategy in Libya would begin this week. “The exit strategy will be executed this week,” President Obama said, “in the sense that we will be pulling back from our much more active efforts to shape the environment. We will...

The Muslim Brotherhood's Strategy in Egypt"This is a revolution for all Egyptians--it's not ours" By Eric Trager Feb 10 2011, 9:15 AM ET Some Americans fear that Egypt in 2011 could repeat Iran in 1979, when a small group of religious fanatics hijacked a revolution. They see another popular uprising overtaking a much-hated, U.S.-backed dictator. They know that the strongest opposition group is the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement that is unfriendly to the United States (In my years of interviewing Brotherhood leaders, I've almost never heard one say anything friendly about the U.S., which they regard with open and...

...In 2012, the president's strategists can choose between trying to reproduce Obama's narrow wins in the affluent corners of the South (not including Florida) or attempting to hold on to swing states like Nevada and Colorado, where Democratic senators in 2010 won on support from well-organized Hispanic voters and the labor movement. It's not a tough call. It would be almost impossible to make the case for investing political resources in the South. The divorce is final. And largely for the good, as congressional Democrats will no longer have to twist their policies beyond recognition to accommodate Southern Democrats who...

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, has written in the Wall Street Journal that we should “un-surge” in Afghanistan. While arguing against total withdrawal, he says “the U.S. effort there should be sharply reduced.” Mr. Haass’s recommendation on Afghanistan sounds similar to his (flawed) recommendation on Iraq during the debate about the surge. In a November 13, 2006, interview with Der Spiegel, Haass said: “We've reached a point in Iraq where we've got to get real.

The Gop Strategic Advantage Bill Connelly, Guest Columnist December 16th, 2010 The measures of Republican success in the 2010 midterm are familiar. The GOP gained: (1) a House majority, with a net pickup of 63 seats, (2) six Senate seats leaving Democrats facing a more challenging Senate playing field in 2012 and 2014, (3) seven governorships, and (4) twenty legislative chambers, giving Republicans control of both legislative chambers in 25 states—an increase of 11. Republicans now control more state legislative seats than any time since 1928. Republican gains include regional advances in the Midwest and Northeast, and important advances in...

With a new bestseller, a blockbuster TV show, and her kids popping up everywhere, Sarah Palin is changing politics forever, says Meghan McCain—and she’s either brilliant or insane. Unless you have been living under a rock, the complete and total media saturation of every single outlet with all things Sarah Palin, all the time, has hit a proverbial fever pitch these past few weeks. Between the premiere of the Mark Burnett-produced TLC reality show Sarah Palin’s Alaska and the launch of her book, America by Heart, today, she is simply everywhere. Her omnipresence and the questions about her future are...

ROVE IS POLITICALLY DEAD! I will personally spend the next two years to make sure that every candidate Karl Rove supports loses in the primary. I will repeat every bad story and every rumor about Karl Rove to make sure I do all I can to destroy any future he has left in politics. We lost the chance to win the United States Senate only because Rove decided to attack and defame the candidate we the people chose to represent the party. Had he been a real man and just supported the conservative after they won the primary, than those...

What would happen if conservatives targeted several dozen relatively weak leftist Democrats in states or districts conductive to the conservative message, and then sought to elect a genuinely conservative Democrat (recruited, of course, within the ranks of the conservative movement)? What would happen if conservatives decided in 2012 to unify behind an articulate conservative to run in the Democrat primaries and caucuses against Obama? Let the small leftist minority in America worry about not just losing a general election, but a primary: what would that do to the appeal of leftism in our political system? It would raise the profound...