Free Republic

Conservative commentator George Will criticized 2024 GOP primary favorites former President Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in a column Friday, saying that both candidates will come out of the GOP primary weaker. “The 2024 Republican nomination question was supposed to be: Could anyone harpoon the Great Orange Whale? Who knew that he would harpoon himself, repeatedly? Or that DeSantis, playing Captain Ahab, would pay Trump the sincerest form of flattery by imitating his persona as an unhappy warrior?” Will wrote in a Washington Post column.

What!? It’s Caturday again already? I’m calling for an international slow-down as I’m no longer able to keep up.As Sid Able (RIP), beloved Detroit Red Wings announcer, used to announce when a time out was called: “we’ve a pause in the action.”  That’s what I need.Let’s make it a really big paws Carry on as you wish, but I’m not going to push my luck with this backup computer after it’s complete malfunction-junction meltdown the other day. But please: no costumed felines.If cats were supposed to sport preppy haberdashery they’d all be called Chatsworth T. Osborne Jr. (h/t el Rushbo). Bow...

Donald Trump, an ongoing eruption of self-refuting statements (“I’m a very stable genius” with “a very good brain”), is adding self-impeachment to his repertoire. Spiraling downward in a tightening gyre, his increasingly unhinged public performances (Google the one with Finland’s dumbfounded president looking on) are as alarming as they are embarrassing. His decision regarding Syria and the Kurds was made so flippantly that it has stirred faint flickers of thinking among Congress’ vegetative Republicans.

Where Oh Where did you go George?.....:( ""America’s child president had a play date with a KGB alumnus, who surely enjoyed providing day care. It was a useful, because illuminating, event: Now we shall see how many Republicans retain a capacity for embarrassment...." More at link:(if you can stand reading it) https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-sad-embarrassing-wreck-of-a-man/2018/07/17/d06de8ea-89e8-11e8-a345-a1bf7847b375_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.4e7f60f44ef8

Donald Trump, with his feral cunning, knew. The oleaginous Mike Pence, with his talent for toadyism and appetite for obsequiousness, could, Trump knew, become AmericaÂ’s most repulsive public figure. And Pence, who has reached this pinnacle by dethroning his benefactor, is augmenting the public stock of useful knowledge. Because his is the authentic voice of todayÂ’s lickspittle Republican Party, he clarifies this yearÂ’s elections: Vote Republican to ratify groveling as governing. Last June, a Trump Cabinet meeting featured testimonials offered to Dear Leader by his forelock-tugging colleagues. His chief of staff, Reince Priebus, caught the spirit of the worship service...

<p>Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) meant that intellectuals in his day tended not to be temperate. In our day, this defect — moral overheating — has been democratized: Anyone can have it. Now, everybody can be happily furious, delirious with hysteria, and intoxicated with intimations of apocalypse, all day every day.</p>

<p>The Republican party’s incoherent response to the Supreme Court vacancy is a partisan reflex in search of a justifying principle. The multiplicity of Republican rationalizations for their refusal to even consider Merrick Garland radiates insincerity.</p> <p>Because they have a right to be obdurate, there being no explicit constitutional proscription against this.</p>

WASHINGTON -- Every sulfurous belch from the molten interior of the volcanic Trump phenomenon injures the chances of a Republican presidency. After Donald Trump finishes plastering a snarling face on conservatism, any Republican nominee will face a dauntingly steep climb to reach even the paltry numbers that doomed Mitt Romney. It is perhaps quixotic to try to distract Trump's supporters with facts, which their leader, who is no stickler for dignity, considers beneath him. Still, consider these: The white percentage of the electorate has been shrinking for decades and will be about 2 points smaller in 2016 than in 2012....

This week on “Fox News Sunday,” Washington Post columnist George Will said voters are not going to like finding out information about Donald Trump’s past, which will show he is both “uncouth” and “unprincipled.” [Relevant portion at 4:00 mark]

Overcoming climate change is a challenge for those "coming of age," much like World War II was for the Greatest Generation, Bill Nye "The Science Guy" asserted. Nye claimed that climate change was "certainly the most serious problem facing humankind right now" while on HuffPost Live May 7 with host Josh Zepps. "So what I want to do is create the next Great Generation," Nye said. He said the members of the Greatest Generation "pitched in" to win World War II. "And so I want the people coming of age now, the president’s kids and stuff, to work together to...

Group tries to break bow-tying record August 28, 2011 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- A crowd of people gathered in Millennium Park Sunday afternoon to break a world record. TheTieBar.com invited people of all ages to rock a bow tie. Organizers were trying to break the Guinness World Record for the most bow ties tied at the same time by a group. They chose Sunday because it's National Bow Tie Day.

Disgraced former attorney Aaron Biber, imprisoned for raping a 15-year-old friend of his son, has been ordered to pay $15 million to a trust in the teen's name for acts a judge deemed "utterly intolerable to the civilized community." Hennepin County District Judge Denise Reilly ordered Biber, 48, formerly of Shoreview, to pay $10 million in punitive damages and $5 million for assault, battery and emotional distress inflicted on the teen, leading up to and including the October 2009 assault. Attorney Michael Schwartz, trustee for the teen, said he and other attorneys will immediately work toward collecting on the civil...

Pundit Tucker Carlson publicly announced Tuesday that a right-leaning news site resembling the Huffington Post he's been planning will go live within weeks. Carlson will launch TheDailyCaller.com, which he said would focus on reporting on the Obama administration and "adding facts to the conversation." "We are a general-interest newspaper-format style site," Carlson told conservative bloggers at the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday. "There just aren't enough people covering this administration and telling the people what's going on." Carlson, a former conservative and libertarian pundit (most notably on CNN), touted his site as a home for basic reporting. "Tell the truth, and...

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NEW YORK - (KRT) - The Bronx martial arts expert arrested in an alleged plot to build a secret al-Qaida training camp is a well-known city jazz musician who has backed greats like Abbey Lincoln and Betty Carter, friends said Tuesday. Tarik Shah, 42, has played bass at local clubs for years, and fellow musicians said they've never heard him espouse an allegiance to Osama bin Laden. "This man talks about music. That's all he talks about," said pianist Donald Smith, 61, who last month played with Shah at St. Nick's Pub in Harlem. "The only thing we know is...

LONDON (Reuters) - The United States has entered a recession, according to highly-regarded investor Jim Rogers, who told Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper on Wednesday he was switching out of the dollar and into yen, the yuan and the Swiss franc. The veteran investor, who predicted the 1999 commodities rally, also said he was still bullish about surging Chinese stock markets despite worries over a bubble. Fears are growing over the health of the U.S. economy after the fallout from the subprime mortgage market crisis and the global credit crunch it triggered. The U.S. Federal Reserve has already slashed borrowing costs...

No, we're not kidding. The official roster won't be announced by ABC until Monday, but Tucker Carlson will be among the the list of celebrities gutsy enough to get jiggy with it on national television.

TRIPOLI, Libya (FinalCall.com) - “Why are we here?” asked the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan in his address opening the World Islamic People’s Leadership Conference Extraordinary Session for the celebration of the birth of Prophet Muhammad, which was hosted by Libya and its leader, Colonel Muammar Gadhafi. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan serves as the Deputy Secretary of the commission, which involves over 50 Muslim countries. “We’re here to celebrate the birth date of Prophet Muhammad, Peace be upon him, whose birth into the world has changed the world forever,” Minister Farrakhan answered. “He was born to show us the value...

From the 4/11/06 edition of his yack show.........CARLSON:  Well, if you watched this show before you may have noticed that I look different tonight.  I‘m not wearing a bow-tie.  This is odd for me.  I have worn a bow-tie on television every night for the past six years and for 15 years off air before that, since I was in 10th grade.  I like bow-ties, and I certainly spent a lot of time defending them.  But from now on I‘m going without: no ties at all.  I didn‘t lose a bet.  It is not a political statement.  I didn‘t ditch...

George Will is quite rightly recognized as among the two or three finest pundits of the last 25 years. Put aside his bow ties and his very well known love of baseball: Will has consistently produced entertaining and insightful prose over a very long period of time. It is simply wrong to reject Will as "no big deal." But he can and does throw spokes, and he did so in Sunday's column. From Will's column: "Last week's ruling divided the justices into unlikely cohorts, thereby providing a timely reminder that concepts such as ``judicial activism,'' ``strict construction'' and ``original intent''...