Free Republic

As we all know, Australia hasn't been a bastion of freedom of late. Gun confiscation, Covid lockdowns, and entrenched leftist politicians like Dan Andrews seem to be pushing the Land Down Under in the direction of the Soviet Union.I've noticed lately on Sky News Australia the coverage of skyrocketing crime in the the city of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. It seems that there is a particular crime problem among the indigenous population, similar to the Native American population on reservations here in the US.The news coverage of this issue, however, seems to be putting the blame for the...

Last year, my aunt-in-law passed away after a long battle with cancer. She had 4 relatively old (13-15 y/o) cats at the time, and unfortunately she did not have a will. She was renting at the time from friends who are now being forced to sell the house, and she had no other living family. The cats are all relatively healthy: they're all spayed/neutered, they're not declawed, and are very well socialized indoor cats. Since the house is nearby, my wife and I have been taking care of the cats: feeding, changing litter, etc (we can't bring them to our...

Listening to Hugh Hewitt this morning - he made the outrageous comment about how the vaxxed will survive the omicron variant if they catch it, while the unvaxxed will die! I know Hewitt is a Beltway 'conservative' with a reputation as a RINO with his support of Romney in the past, but how the hell can he get away with such crap? So far, there has been only one fatality on the planet related to omicron, and it's not even clear whether it was an 'of omicron' or 'with omicron'.

Question for all FReepers, especially those with a medical background:Why are people continuing to die from (or more likely WITH) Covid when there are therapeutics available? PDJT had it, got over it, and credited a drug called Regeneron with his recovery, calling it nothing short of a 'cure'.Yet we continue to wring are hands over the availability of a 'vaccine' that may or may not be effective.Ok, I know the politics behind this -- if Trump says positive things about it, the 'Rats and the media -- but I repeat myself -- immediately pooh-pooh it. IMO, any politician who withholds...

Had the pleasure to see Roky perform on several occasions: he was a unique talent and extremely underrated.

Please pardon the vanity … need some clarity on this.

I'll keep this vanity short ... Mods: please feel free to pull it if it's inappropriate.Why have so many here on FR turned on Ted Cruz in such a vicious way? We cheered when we first heard about Ted taking on the establishment in TX to win the primary in the race to fill Kay Bailey Hutchison's vacated Senate seat, in a bad year for the GOPWe cheered again when Ted exhorted us to 'Stand With Rand' when he offered public support for Rand Paul's filibuster over the NDAAOnce more, we cheered when he stood on the Senate floor and...

Not to imply that there's any connection, but can anyone comment on whether Trump has publicly identified George Soros and his merry band of paid agitators such as Moveon.org as the source of the recent violent clashes at his rallies?I've heard it from the pundits, but so far not from the man himself.

I've listened to Bob Grant off and on for years, starting with the afternoon show on WOR 710. He was a true original, doing political talk radio years before it was in fashion and during the height of the so-called 'Fairness Doctrine'. Grant's show has always been provocative and has spawned a host of imitators: he was the original 'Get off my phone' guy who had zero patience for nitwit lefty callers. In addition to never suffering such fools, he also has good regular callers such as 'Jimmy from Brooklyn', who intimately understands the nature of the threat posed by...

Is the Iraq War to blame for the mess we are in? Now, I should qualify that question by explaining “mess” and “we.” By “mess,” I mean the dawn of Barack Obama’s second term, the predictably catastrophic rollout of Obamacare, the exploding debt and deficit, the stimulus boondoggles, etc. By “we,” I mean conservatives (particularly those, like me, who supported the war), but also anyone else who doesn’t think Obama has done a bang-up job. There seems to be a growing consensus that the answer to that question is “yes.” In a recent column, the Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein writes,...

Calling all Philly area Freepers: we need to convince management of WNTP 990 AM to drop Penn State sports programming. After the Sandusky scandal, they won't be able to justify their continuing pre-emptions of regularly scheduled talk radio programs, as ratings for games and sports talk will no doubt collapse.

Alaska state representative Bob Lynn (R., Anchorage) is asking the long overdue question: Why do we consider 18-year-olds old enough to join the military, to fight and die for our country, but not to have a drink with their friends before they ship out or while they’re home on leave? Lynn has introduced a bill that would allow anyone 18 years and older with a military ID to drink alcohol in Alaska. The bill is already facing strong opposition from self-styled public-health advocates. However, the data indicate that the 21-minimum drinking age has not only done zero good, it may...

This week the House will pass a bill to repeal Obamacare. Congressional experts will argue that the Senate won’t pass a full repeal. They are correct to argue that full repeal will not be passed by both the House and Senate in the next few months, but they may be wrong that a full repeal bill will not pass in this Congress within the next two years. If Senators don’t take two procedural steps this week, they will make it virtually impossible to ever get a vote on the House-passed full repeal bill this Congress. The House will pass H.R....

When I first heard about how quickly the Left jumped at the chance to blame conservatives for the AZ shootings, I thought of the Reichstag fire in Berlin in 1933 and the murder of Sergei Kirov in Leningrad in 1934. To this day, the truth about these 2 events has never completely been discovered, but in both cases, they served as pretexts for bloody purges of political opposition by totalitarian dictators.We have no way to prove whether a similar event happened here, but IMO, there are some coincidences. How, for example, was this clearly disturbed shooter able to procure a...

Some conservatives outraged by Obamacare’s individual mandate had helped pave the way for it through the war on drugs. If the generation of “limited government” lawmakers freshly chosen to man the trenches in Washington wishes to be taken seriously, the butcher’s bill must include some of the social conservatives’ sacred cows. Starting with the War on Drugs. Many conservatives have long argued that the federal government is broadly empowered to prosecute the drug war under Congress’s authority over interstate commerce. In the name of the drug war, they have been willing to allow federal law-enforcement officers to prosecute seriously ill...

Kathryn, there’s no need to go through the drug debate all over again, but I did read what Bill Bennett and the others had to say, and I am afraid I was left shaking my head. After the destruction that the drug warriors have caused in this country and others (not to speak of their disastrous contribution to the war in Afghanistan), a little more humility on their part would go a long, long way. We’ve yet to see it. No matter. I had a look at the report cited by Mr. Bennett and, having done so, I can only...

A reader forwarded me this very interesting critique of conservative anti-Wilsonism — and of my book's treatment of same over at Hot Air's Green Room. I must say it’s more persuasive than Galupo’s effort (my response here) and it's a refreshingly tough-without-being-trollish critique of what I think is my book’s best chapter (that is, the one on Wilson). That said, I don’t find C.K. MacLeod’s complaints all that powerful. A big chunk of his critique boils down to an argument I’ve heard many times: Wilson (or this or that progressive) merely reflected the prevailing ideas at the time. Well, that’s...

WASHINGTON - After years of world leaders condemning America for overreaching its power, Americans elected their first Imperialist President. "We do everything we can to help the world, but we're still resented, they call us imperialist pigs," said DC cabbie Albert Shlutnick. "Now they'll see what imperialism is really like." Americans got a raw taste of its new leadership this morning at the first press briefing with President Hillshire in full form. The president opened the briefing with shocking news: "Good morning ladies and gentlemen, I would like to announce that Iran and North Korea no longer exist. Are there...

Google strikes yet another blow for p.c.: celebrating the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street on its front page, while ignoring the 234th anniversary of the founding of the USMC.Priorities ...

Pardon the vanity, but I need to share this with the FReeper community. (Mods: feel free to pull if not appropriate). Like many of us, I find it utterly frustrating that the ideas that made America great -- limited government, personal responsibility, and individual liberty -- are not in vogue anymore. The opposite ideas -- leviathan government, the victimhood mentality, and loyalty to the collective -- are what the media, academia, the Communist, er, Democrat party (and some Pubbie useful idiots) are being crammed down our throats everyday. This drumbeat has been going on for years, and last November, we...