Free Republic

At the close of the 19th century, thousands of spectators gathered in secrecy to watch two heavyweight Irish fighters slug it out for 75 rounds. John L. Sullivan, boxing's first modern heavyweight world champion and the first to earn more than $1 million, took on challenger Jake Kilrain in a makeshift boxing ring on a farm in Richburg, Mississippi on July 8, 1889. Almost 3,000 people secretly traveled to the makeshift venue to watch the fight, paying as much as $15 for ringside tickets. Fans had traveled under cover of darkness the night before the fight, while their train tickets...

Does the political class overrate the necessity of diplomacy experience in presidential candidates? n a strange convergence, there's agreement among the diehard right-wingers gathered at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside of Washington this week and left-wing pundits: Scott Walker is on top of the world. Well, maybe not the world—we'll get to that—but the Republican presidential sweepstakes. Although Jeb Bush boasts impressive momentum—nearly insurmountable momentum, in the judgment of D.C. tastemaker Mike Allen—CPAC is a good illustration of Bush's weaknesses. Bush was due to speak later Friday, but just the mention of his name drew boos earlier in the...

Latin America: Donald Rumsfeld once observed that Venezuelans had a way of fixing political problems on their own, with no need of U.S. intervention. The dramatic prison break of a union boss may be the first sign. Carlos Ortega's escape Sunday from a Venezuelan maximum security military prison must have sent a shiver through the tyrannical leftist regime of President Hugo Chavez. The tough union boss had crossed Chavez before and was serving a 16-year sentence for leading a vast oil-worker strike in 2002-03. Like Lech Walesa of Poland, Ortega called for independent union leadership at Venezuela's state oil company...