Free Republic

If consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, Joey B has nothing to worry about. It seems Joey voted for retaliation against Iran strikes against the U.S. in 1996 before he voted against it in 2020 A.D. (After Donald, in case you forgot). In fact he said straight out that Iran attacking U.S. service barracks In Dharan was an act of war: As a U.S. senator in 1996, Joe Biden characterized a deadly bombing orchestrated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as an “act of war” that gave the United States latitude to respond with any level of force it...

Post #24. With so many rats running for president in 2020 it's hard to keep up with who's in and who's out. Hopefully, this post will help. This thread will be posted each week, likely on Monday, with the dropouts from the previous week and newly declared candidates noted. Below is a list of declared candidates and their occupation. Below that is a list of dropouts, their occupation and the date they dropped from the race. Dropouts in the past week: Julian Castro. He has the privilege of being the first dropout in 2020. He's moving from the first list...

Recently, an oft-cited Business Insider survey ranked the rudest cities in America. The top 10 are all bastions of misguided liberalism. They are sanctuaries to illegal aliens and often hostile towards law-abiding citizens by imposing oppressive taxes and silly regulations and by encouraging lawlessness by handcuffing law enforcement. Intrigued, I compared the Business Insider list to a survey that ranks cities on a conservative-liberal spectrum, and to other surveys that rank by friendliness, safety, and crime. The results are insightful: independent surveys indicate that the rudest, most dangerous, and least friendly cites are overwhelmingly liberal and sanctuary cities. Moreover, some...

An adviser to Iranian president Hassan Rouhani last night dropped a chilling hint of an Iranian attack on Donald Trump's property empire after the death of military commander Qassem Soleimani. Hesameddin Ashena shared a link to a Forbes article listing nine of Trump's properties in New York as well as hotels and golf courses elsewhere in America. The properties are no secret, and many of them are named after Trump, but the post by a senior Iranian adviser was a clear hint of a possible strike against Trump's real estate empire. Iran has already threatened the White House and the...

A Svengali is a person who controls another’s mind, usually with sinister intent, based on the 1891 gothic-horror novel Trilby, by George du Maurier. A century later, in the 1950s and 60s, the CIA actually dabbled and experimented in mind control under the codename MKUltra. The concept appears frequently in popular culture. Jason Bourne, a Robert Ludlum character, was programed by MKUltra. So too, allegedly, was Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. Today the master of mind control, also known as the “very stable” Svengali genius is none other than President Donald Trump. Simply by tweeting or eating a scoop of ice...

This retro military model is made by the Upper Sandusky-based Ithaca Gun Company for their Dayton neighbor, Inland Manufacturing. The latter is best known for their excellent reproductions of World War II M1 carbines. The American martial tradition is no stranger to shotguns. Militiamen employed fowling pieces in battle during the Revolutionary War, and the Confederate Cavalry wielded sawed-off shotguns in the Civil War. It was during World War I that you might say the Army got serious about shotguns. It was, after all, the biggest war they had fought to date. Close combat in the trenches, and especially night...

Iranian general Qassem Soleymani was a master terrorist who orchestrated atrocities around the world that claimed thousands of lives, including hundreds if not thousands of Americans. That was the default position after President Trump took out Soleymani last week. The Democrats’ furious reaction overlooked realities about the Iranian regime in general and Soleymani in particular. Israel had also targeted the Quds Force commander, but according to the Kuwaiti Al-Jarida, the Obama administration tipped off the Tehran regime. Soleymani emerged unscathed and continued to spearhead the Islamic regime’s military and terrorist operations. Those were funded by criminal activity, and on that...

<p>A 5.8-magnitude quake has jolted Puerto Ricans out of their beds as the strongest quake yet to hit the U.S. territory that has been shaking for the past week.</p> <p>The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck Monday morning just south of the island at a relatively shallow depth of more than 6 miles. There was no tsunami threat.</p>

Its Swingin' Monday and we have Ocie Stockard & His Wanderers with Cow Town Boogie (1946). THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/

The assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani is an unusual, possibly aberrant, event. The killing of this individual leader of a sovereign state may lead to all-out war between Iran and the U.S. — or, on the other hand, the assassination may bring an end to the cycle of Iranian violence countered by U.S. and world diplomatic flatulence and appeasement. Assassinating the leaders of terrorist organizations — i.e., non-state actors, such as Osama bin Laden and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi — did not lead to a greater war footing against the USA because, as terrorist organization leaders, not heads of state,...

One of the several downsides in watching too much football this past weekend was watching too many TV commercials. And although I had grown used to the “stupid white man” trope, now a staple of comic advertising, I was unprepared for AT&T’s impressively racist and sexist “Just OK is not OK” campaign. The larger message of the campaign is that “when it comes to wireless networks, just OK is not OK.” According to some dubious test, AT&T is allegedly “America’s best network.” To launch this concept, AT&T and its marketing geniuses at the Omnicom Group designed a series of scenarios...

President Trump claimed Sunday that his tweets are sufficient notice to Congress of any possible U.S. military strike on Iran, in an apparent dismissal of his obligations under the War Powers Act of 1973. Trump’s declaration, which comes two days after his administration launched a drone strike that killed top Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani, was met with disbelief and ridicule from congressional Democrats, who called on the president to respect the role of the legislative branch in authorizing new military action abroad. “These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any...

Right Wing media usually portray Obama’s actions with Iran as being a diplomatic failure, initiated because he wanted a Nuclear Deal as part of his legacy; but if we ascribe his intentions towards Iran differently, then we are left with an entirely different perspective from which to view the current situation. If we couple a description of Obama’s actions to the results of his actions we could say that what he did was helpful to Iran’s military objectives.One might even be able to conjecture that the recent Iranian attacks against US assets are being spurred on by the likes of...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem (Music in The Bible) Psalm 78 Psalm 78 A maskil[a] of Asaph. 1 My people, hear my teaching;     listen to the words of my mouth. 2 I will open my mouth with a parable;     I will utter hidden things, things from of old— 3 things we have heard and known,     things our ancestors have told us. 4 We will not hide them from their descendants;     we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,     his power, and the wonders he has done. 5 He decreed statutes for Jacob     and established the law in Israel, which...

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The Smithsonian Institution, has stood as an emblem of American knowledge and values since its establishment. Its vast spaces have been used to advance technological progress, social change and, in the realm of the arts, what is good and beautiful.  In 2015, my painting 'Unafraid and Unashamed' was submitted to the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery for inclusion in an exhibit on American political art.  The scoffing response from the museum’s director, Kim Sajet, was that it was “too big”, “too political”, “too pro-Trump” and finally "no good."The abrupt, arbitrary dismissal of an artist’s work may cause hurt feelings. However, the...

Very challenging CG from today’s Arkansas Gazette, Anything under 10 minutes is good, under 6 is excellent, and 2 minute or less is amazing. GZCV ZUCVYBEWC GWEV YDYH DAWR DW GYQW OI ZOP GMRXC VZ DYEQ UZEXEH VAPZOSA VAWG. —ZPMCZR CDWVV GYPXWR You can find this little fun word game, to combat early dementia and senility in us baby boomers, in several daily publications. The way it works is a letter stands for another letter. For example: AXYDLBAAXR is LONGFELLOW (does not apply to today's cryptogram). Beware, the game is very addictive. If this is your first time, don't be...

If you’re a resident of Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, or West Virginia who voted Republican in your state’s most recent gubernatorial race, did you also hope your vote would help facilitate the voluntary admission of more refugees from the third world? If not, too bad, because that’s exactly what it did, thanks to an astonishing level of guilt-induced moral preening from eighteen (and counting) RINO squishes all too happy to put foreigners over the citizens who elected them to office. “But, but, but,” you...

Ralph Benko and Bill Collier have written the free market antidote to The Communist Manifesto, titled The Capitalist Manifesto. They reveal some fascinating insights that you probably have never heard of. I always said that capitalism only works if tempered by Christianity. While I still believe that, and this book does not say anything to contradict that, it will give you a fresh new perspective on how capitalism by itself is a good thing. Benko is an early Kemp-era Supply Sider and former Reagan White House official, who founded the Prosperity Caucus, is the co-founder and chairman of The Capitalist...

Conservative students and speakers have had a tough time at UCLA. And when Donald Trump Jr. came out to speak about his new book, Triggered, at a Turning Point USA event, everyone knew there would be trouble. President Trump’s son had appeared at multiple campuses with TPUSA with no problems.But UCLA had a bad reputation to live up to. And it lived up to it.Except instead of the expected alt-left Never Trumpers, alt-right Never Trumpers shut down the event.While alt-lefties waved orange signs reading “Trump/Pence Out”, their Trump-hating counterparts had infiltrated the Triggered event. And what the Commies outside couldn’t...