Free Republic

Just a quick personal-joy vanity. I have released my 9th book into the wild and I feel so blessed that I live in a country and time where I can pursue a career based on my ability to entertain people through my writing. Almost four years ago, I lost my job and started this new stage of my life by releasing my first novel. Since then, I have had a few very successful books and a few unsuccessful books, but I am exceptionally proud of my newest one. With each book I become a stronger writer and story-teller, and my...

Here is a quick spreadsheet of the last poll numbers and the results of the Republican contests up to this point that I promised on a couple of threads last night. I started with a few parameters. First, no polling data was included unless there were at least two polls of the contest in the month prior to the caucus or primary listed on RCP (I used RCP for all of the data.) Second, I only listed current candidates. Those who have withdrawn have been lumped together under 'Other'. Third, I have not weighted contests. So little Kansas has just...

Just a bit of vain, personal joy today. On my ongoing journey of being a novelist, I am happy to have put out my 8th book (6th novel). My life goal is to have 100 books in print by the time I semi-retire, so I am only 92 short of the goal now. This book, EMP: Heading Home, is the sequel to my novel EMP from last year. I heard from a lot of angry people about how, in the first book, they hated that David did not go to Chicago to get his wife and daughter and instead stayed...

Just a plain and simple vanity. I have finally completed my first science fiction series. The third book of my Bright Horizons series is out and I am both incredibly relieved and a little wistful at the same time. It's been almost three years since I lost my job and decided to put out my first book to try to make ends meet. I have struggled with health issues, had to put the writing on hold to take a seasonal job as I refilled the cash tank, and had the other typical issues of life come up, but I just...

This is nothing more or less than a complete vanity. My sixth book is out today and I am thrilled with it. I started my journey as a self-published writer just over two years ago and look forward to doing this as a career for the next few decades. My latest novel is called 'EMP': In a flash of searing light, the world changed. A massive solar flare has crippled the modern world and brought chaos and destruction. David Hartsman is stuck in the remote farm town of his youth on what was expected to be a short visit to...

The White House is part of 'President's Park' and as such is administered by the National Park Service. If restaurateurs are being evicted from their location in Park Service facilities, shouldn't that be consistently applied to those who live and work in other Park Service facilities? Shut it down!

The pieces of the puzzle fit. The rumors that Ambassador Stevens was in Benghazi to try and recover the MANPADS is one of the items that can't be proven, but it makes the rest of the case finally come into focus. If the terrorists were supplied a large cache of surface-to-air missiles by the rebels (originally given them by the U.S.), then could the Pentagon, State Department and White House risk having an aircraft shot down by them? There was no reason to believe that the Ambassador was dead until after the decision had been made not to send the...

Good morning everyone! If you are reading this than be aware that the headline is absolutely not a trick, this is pure vanity. No hidden news or nuggets of truth here. I have a new book out! It's an historical fiction set in Nottingham, England in 1199. Yep, it's a Robin Hood story. But there is a little twist. This story is from the point of view of the Sheriff of Nottingham. Here is the promo blurb: ---------------------------------------------- King Richard is dead. With King John on the throne, the Sheriff of Nottingham knows he will soon be replaced by one...

A quick thank you to the kind words and support that I recieved here this last June when I giddily announced I had published a book. I recieved some wonderful feedback and some very helpful advice as I forged forward in this new career of writing and selling book. Last week I launched my second book and I feel secure in my decision to become a book seller. The book I released is called "Bible Stories for Grown-Ups" and is a collection of 39 stories from the Bible designed to be read by anyone, especially those without a background in...

I apologize for the waste of bandwidth on this total vanity. I am writing under the pen name "Wilson Harp" and have just uploaded my first novel "Bright Horizons". It should go live sometime overnight on Amazon's Kindle store. I am just so relieved and excited to have made the final edit and be done with it. Now back to the business of this site, let's get Barack Obama out of the White House.

The numbers thrown around when talking about money at the levels spent by the Federal Government are so big, they lose all meaning. In order to understand it, I will reduce it to a simple household income idea. Let us assume that the Household in question brings home $50,000 a year. That will be the equivalent of the revenue of the U.S. Federal Government. The real number for the revenue of the Federal Government is $2,627,000,000,000. But we are going to peg that to $50,000 for the purposes of this explanation. That means that $1 of our "household" income is...

Why should a candidate drop out? Sure there are the altruistic reasons of "it's better for the party", "it's better for the country", and "it's better for the people", but in the nitty gritty of political life it is simply "the payoff doesn't meet the costs". If that is the reason, then none of the five major Republican candidates has any business considering dropping out of the race at this time. No candidate looks like they will sweep a bunch of States that will lead to the nomination, and every candidate has States that look to favor them. And with...

We are now 24 hours out from the Iowa Caucus. No electioneering or analysis please, just your prediction for the race.

First some facts. We are currently 613 days from electing our next President of the United States, around 300 days until the Primary season starts and both Parties select their candidates. For the first time since 1952, a sitting President or Vice President will not be running as a candidate. This leaves both fields wide open and in a media driven world unimaginable in 1952 means that we will have unprecedented campaign coverage of not one, but two hard fought nomination processes. On Freerepublic there is a lot of good information scattered through an immense amount of thunder and fury....

Well, we had a bad night no doubt about it. But what can we take away from it? Some clear lessons for sure. First, we have some lessons for all Freepers. Second, we have some lessons for the Republican Party. For Freepers, we have a few facts that some have been able to ignore for a while. But now, it appears that we can ignore them no longer. 1- The squishy middle controls national politics in the middle. Neither Free Republic nor Democrats Underground are the “mainstream”. “Mainstream” is the milquetoast centrists that only pay attention when the television tells...

I have seen the light! I am reborn! I realize now that I have been a RINO, a wimp, a Republican and not a True Conservative. I had been laboring under the impression that since it has taken 60+ years of liberal small steps to get to the point we are at now, it would take decades of conservative small steps to get back to a more conseravative view of government. I was wrong. We can do it now, and all at once. You see, when we got 2 new Justices on the Supreme Court, I thought that was good....

Warning*** In case you didn't pay attention to the title, this review is full of spoilers. Simply put, this is what the first two movies in this cycle of the Star Wars saga should have been. If the first two had been condensed to one movie and Revenge of the Sith had been expanded to two movies, I would have been thrilled. Alas that was not to be, so we are left with two movies that meandered along a path that has a clear destination until we have to sprint to that destination with little time to spare in the...

As we head into this election, Bush has to do a few things to become re-elected. First, he must secure his base. Second, he must construct the debate. Third, he must play a mistake-free hand. The first objective is to secure his base. But who is his base? Many people like to think they are his base, but if they voted for Pat Buchanan last time, or the Constitution Party candidates or, held their breath and turned blue, or even voted Libertarian, they are not his base. His base are moderate to conservative Republicans who are for lower taxes, less...

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 25,677,727 males between the ages of 16 and 28 during the year 2000. A quick review of the murder rate among men 17 to 29 during the year 2001 shows this group of men being murdered at a rate of 19.6 per 100,000 according to the FBI. Compare this to the approximately 120 military service men and women killed in Iraq since the beginning of May. Around 200,000 troops have been stationed in and around Iraq. If the figures hold up, we will lose right at 250 from May 2003 to May...

Nobody wanted to impeach Clinton over sex. That's a lie spun out by his defenders. He was impeached over perjury and obstruction of Justice. "Well it was about sex, wasn't it?" So Bob Packwood should be re-instated to the Senate after being driven out over a similar sexual harassment scandal? Didn't see Democrats saying "It's all about sex" in that case. No, they said it was about a political boss pushing himself on a subordinate in an inappropriate way. Just like Clinton did to Paula Jones, as the civil case proved. But Clinton, unlike Bob Packwood, lied to a Grand...