Free Republic

The Democratic Party is broken, beaten down, shell-shocked, and scratching its heads wondering what went wrong. So, I have decided, being the noble American that I am, to offer some aid and comfort, not to the enemy, but to my fellow Americans as well as some friendly suggestions on how they can rebuild their party and image to compete in four years. President Obama should keep going around the world making incendiary comments about President (elect) Trump. There is nothing Americans like more than hearing negative comments about the person for whom they voted, and themselves, even more so when...

Losing it on a losing night. Ever since the early hours of Wednesday November 9, skeptical minds have been musing over what happened to Hillary and her concession speech. She was supposed to deliver it shortly after it was apparent she had lost on Tuesday evening. She was going to speak. No, she was not ready. Then it was coming Wednesday morning. No, it would be put off for a while. She supposedly was very gracious in talking to Donald Trump later that night, but was still not ready to concede publicly until late morning Wednesday. At 2 a.m., a...

When back in June 2015 Donald Trump announced he was running for president, he said during his speech, “I will find the General Patton or I will find General MacArthur. I will find the right guy. I will find the guy that’s going to take that military and make it really work.” Since then, Trump has frequently mentioned Douglas MacArthur in his speeches. It is worth discussing his importance in American history, especially as we are approaching the 66th anniversary of Battle of Inchon. While MacArthur’s greatest achievement was the creation of modern Japan, the Inchon landing on September 15,...

Putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 concludes a long, concerted drive to reimage U.S. currency. More to the point, it illustrates a profound, probably permanent shift in American historiography. Tubman joins the historical pantheon of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Hamilton, and Ben Franklin. Going forward Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul, and Susan B. Anthony will decorate the back of the $10. The New York Times calls the changes the “most sweeping and historically symbolic makeover of American currency in a century.” OK, no problem, we say, and maybe a good thing. Tubman on the $20...

President Obama made his fourth trip to Saudi Arabia Wednesday, ostensibly to “clear the air” in an attempt to repair the damaged relationship with the Kingdom brought about by what many will regard as his administration’s mistakes — cozying up to the Islamic Republic of Iran, for example, and embracing the Arab Spring which toppled the Saudi ally Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. But perhaps the biggest mistake Obama has made with regard to the Saudis is the one they’ll likely thank him for; namely, opposing — and threatening to veto — a bill authored by Sens. John Cornyn and Chuck...

<p>Donald Trump says a lot of things. We've become all too used to that now. Some of these things should probably be taken with a grain of salt - "Only Rosie O'Donnell" comes to mind - but some deserve to be analyzed more closely.</p>

Abraham Lincoln told an 1864 audience that "the world has never had a good definition of the word 'liberty.'" Different people can define liberty in different, even contradictory ways, so that both sides in a conflict can claim to the mantle of liberty. That was exactly the situation in the Civil War: Slaveholders defined liberty in such a way as to make themselves the guardians of liberty... The South's liberty was the liberty to hold other people as chattel slaves. What the slaveholders called liberty, the North quite rightly called tyranny; namely, the systematic deprivation of the natural rights of...

This piece will borrow liberally from a pair of previous occupants of this space, in which (1) it was prophesied that Hillary Clinton will not ultimately be that party's nominee and (2) Mike Bloomberg will be allowed to ride in and purchase that party lock, stock and barrel. Now that those prophecies no longer reside deep in left field, that is.

There was a time in my life when I was a campaign communications consultant, responsible for helping political campaigns come up with new and intriguing ways to engage voters using digital media. There is a reason I don't do it anymore, and that reason is, because no matter how many times I or any of my colleages explained that most Republican consultants had the pop culture knowledge of 80 year old men and couldn't find a connection to Millennials if they were accosted by an entire room of Urban Outfitters employees, they still produced things like this. Though, in fairness,...

deral Bureau of Investigation will recommend that the Justice Department bring criminal charges against Hillary Clinton and various of her aides, and soon. The evidence consists of materials that the Bureau has gathered in the course of its months-long investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s personal server. The recommendations will come very soon. The charges will consist of some of the following:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation will recommend that the Justice Department bring criminal charges against Hillary Clinton and various of her aides, and soon. The evidence consists of materials that the Bureau has gathered in the course of its months-long investigation of Mrs. Clinton's personal server. The recommendations will come very soon. The charges will consist of some of the following: 1. Improper disclosure or retention of classified information. 2. Destruction of government records. 3. Lying to federal agents. 4. Lying under oath. 5. Obstruction of justice. All the counts are familiar to those of us who have followed the...

"....................All this tells a considerable amount about what passes for the unremarkable inside the Washington establishment. For Feehery spends his time continually attacking conservatives. There was this open letter attack on Rush Limbaugh in Politico in which he snarked:Congratulations! You have been selected by the Obama administration, the mainstream media and 20 million of your most passionate followers to be the new head of the Republican Party.As such, you are given all the rights and responsibilities that come with being a true political leader.Your mission is simple: Restore the Republican Party to its former greatness by single-handedly helping Republicans to...

What happened to the American Spectator magazine. the website is still current but it seems there has not been a magazine published in a while.

The political baggage he carries isn't likely to fly.Politically, Bushes are, like the value of the Ivy League degrees most of them have, vastly overrated. Jeb Bush, who recently, to the surprise of no one, all but announced he would run for president, is no exception. Ever since Jeb established an “I’m Thinking About Running for President Committee” (translation to English: I’m running for president) a week or so back, the conventional wisdom, whooped up by the chatterati and the various great mentioners, is that this latest Bush is a lock for the Republican nomination for president in 2016. They...

AUSTIN, April 6, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Ebola, a form of hemorrhagic fever in which the internal organs of the victim liquefy, has one of the highest rates of fatality of any known contagious disease at approximately 80-90% and is one of the most contagious diseases known to medical science. It is also high on the list of possible bio-terror weapons of concern to international law enforcement and military security agencies. Tom Clancy’s thriller novel, Rainbow Six describes a group of radical environmentalists that wants to rid the world of people using a modified version of Ebola. All of which is...

A grand jury has convened to determine what charges, if any, will be brought against Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, the officer who shot and killed Michael Brown earlier this month. Over at The New Republic, Yishai Schwartz argues that a conviction against Wilson is impossible because of Missouri's self defense laws [Snip] If Wilson isn't indicted by the grand jury or is acquitted at trial, the Brown family will most certainly file a wrongful death lawsuit. I also wouldn't be surprised if Eric Holder were to pursue a case against Wilson for federal civil rights violations. But that will...

When the news trickled out a year ago that the head of the IRS union, Colleen ("fat and ugly") Kelley, met with President Obama the day before the agency began targeting the Tea Party, I finally saw the link. The story was picked up by many news sources on the right but did not develop any further. It's my opinion that this is the connection that the "lost" emails are trying to hide. And it's a big connection -- the White House, the POTUS, the union boss, and the government agency all collaborating, and conspiring, to thwart the actions of...

The replacement of Kathleen Sebelius by Sylvia Mathews Burwell as the Secretary of Health and Human Services has been portrayed by the legacy “news” media as a new lease on life for Obamacare. The party line is that Sebelius was mortally wounded by GOP exploitation of a single uncharacteristic mistake—the botched rollout of Healthcare.gov—while Burwell is a brilliant Beltway veteran unsullied by controversy and possessing the very administrative skills needed to save Obama’s “signature domestic achievement.” … This tale fails to conform to the facts, however … The vessel is taking on water at an alarming rate, and Sylvia Burwell’s...

Russian takeover of the Crimea, as well as many of our problems in the Middle East, was funded by high oil prices. Since there is no military solution to the Crimea conflict, President Obama should look closely at the successful pages of the Reagan playbook. Before the Reagan and Gorbachev Summits could begin, Reagan needed to rebuild our defenses to bring the Soviets back to the bargaining table. The Kremlin was pressured to end the Cold War on America’s terms because of President Reagan’s policies of supporting the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, deploying Pershing cruise missiles in Western Europe (to counter...

WASHINGTON -- It is called the Taranto Principle, having been named after he who coined the principle, the inimitable James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal. According to the Taranto Principle, the left-wing media, in their fawning treatment of left-wing politicians, only encourage the pols' worst instincts: encouraging Jean-Francois Kerry's sophomoric wind-surfing during his presidential race or Howard Dean's blood-curdling scream upon losing the Iowa caucuses. And then there is President Barack Obama. At his press conference the other day, he finally commented on the traitor Edward Snowden. Obama said, "You know, if I had a son, he'd look like...