Free Republic

Presidential elections are certainly at the forefront of the news, but Americans haven't forgotten that Iran is a tinderbox ready to ignite the Middle East. That being said, I'm not surprised that the recent USA Today/Gallup poll found that John McCain is leading Barack Obama among likely voters by a 49 percent to 44 percent margin. Despite all the mainstream media hype accorded Senator Obama's whirlwind nine day, eight nation tour of Western Europe and the Middle East, his "bounce" in the polls has been negligible. The primary reason is obvious: Americans are well aware that we live in a...

Election 2008 piece by Carol Devine-Molin For years I’ve been a fan of talk radio personality Rush Limbaugh, the “harmless lovable fuzzball”, and I’ve always enjoyed his humor and commentary. But recently, something has changed. He’s crossed a line. Limbaugh is now actively manipulating the Republican electorate in ways that are unacceptable for an entertainer, or even a self-styled ideologue and opinion shaper. Rush regularly underscores that he’s a “movement conservative”, not a Republican partisan. That’s fine. But then he has the chutzpa to engage in heavy-handed tactics that are meant to skew the outcome of the GOP election process....

According to one review of Christopher Buckley's new satirical work "Boomsday": "With Boomsday looming as 77 million baby boomers get ready to retire and crash Social Security, Cassandra Devine, a sarcastic spin doctor by day and a ferocious blogger by night, calls for a revolution. Why should the under-35 crowd pay higher taxes to support the "Ungreatest Generation?" What have boomers done for anyone?" Cassandra proffers a modest little proposal of government incentives for Babyboomer senior citizens - portrayed as a dastardly generation if there ever was one - to off themselves, thereby saving her generation some of the prohibitive...

Why can't Democrats just be Democrats? It's because Democrats understand that their party's seminal liberalism - their ideology from which all else flows - is abhorrent to the majority of Americans. Democratic candidates routinely obscure their core values and proclivities, and presidential candidate John Kerry is no exception. He's a fraud, and he's cross-dressing as a centrist Republican. The word "liberal" has not become a pejorative in America for nothing. Frankly, most Americans are well aware that Democratic presidents invariably want to raise taxes (and not just on the top 2 percent), and fail to effectively utilize and appreciate the...

Iran has been exhibiting an increasingly bold and confrontational pattern in its dealings with the West. There's been a momentum growing, and not for the good. A few weeks ago, the Iranians detained eight British servicemen for three days and exploited them on a televised propaganda broadcast, claiming that their boat had illegally entered Iranian waters. This version of events is now questionable -- British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon has made recent assertions that the servicemen had been "forcibly" brought within Iran's waters by the Iranians themselves. Moreover, during this past week, the US government expelled two Iranians that were...

The message that the Spanish electorate sent was clear -- Terrorism works! It was stunning to see Spain totally capitulate to the al-Qaeda terrorists. In the aftermath of the most deadly terror attack upon Spain's soil that left over 200 dead and 1500 injured, Spain promptly voted to give the murderous Jihadis exactly what they wanted - Spanish troops would be brought home from Iraq. In one fell swoop, Spain's Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar was axed, while socialist candidate Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who vowed withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq, was handed the reins of power. The prime...

Is it just me, or is anyone else compelled to review the testimony of long-time arms inspector David Kay, former head of the Iraq Survey Group, who triggered a firestorm when he indicated in a variety of venues, both official and media venues, that "we were all wrong", no large stockpiles of WMDs were found in Iraq and were unlikely to be found in Iraq. The liberal press is up to their usual tricks of twisting the truth – in this case taking Kay's partial statements and spinning them into the "big lie" that there was no justification for war...

<p>They used to be known as the boys on the bus: the big-name columnists, network TV producers and reporters for large-circulation newspapers who had the power to make or break a presidential candidate's reputation. Now they've got competition. In the 2004 election, the boys (and girls) on the bus have been joined by a new class of political arbiters: the geeks on their laptops. They call themselves bloggers. Their mission: to remake political journalism and, quite possibly, democracy itself. The plan: to run an end around big media by becoming publishers on the Internet.</p>

We conservatives are all saddened by the news that Rush Limbaugh is being investigated by law enforcement authorities for illegal buys of prescription painkillers. If accounts being bandied about the media are accurate, then Limbaugh: a) has procured tremendous amounts of highly addictive narcotic medications from his pill-pushing housekeeper Wilma Cline, and, b) is likely to be subjected to arrest. Oh, by the way, dear Wilma sold her hot celebrity story to The National Enquirer for about four hundred thousand dollars. Am I surprised by the overall situation? Yes and no. Given Limbaugh's outstanding analytical mind and sharp wit, it's...

Gerald Posner's latest tome, "Why America Slept", investigates the run-up to the September 11th terror attacks and its aftermath, with a view toward garnering pivotal insights. Not surprisingly, the author concludes that our nation's vulnerability on that fateful morning was the direct result of our flawed intelligence bureaucracies and President Clinton's unwillingness to properly tackle the scourge of Islamic terrorism throughout his tenure. Nothing new there. However, what's truly fascinating is Posner's ability to expose the behind-the-scenes machinations of America and its ostensible allies in dealing with the terror netherworld. Posner zeros in on the unholy alliance that both Pakistani...

"He pulls out a knife, you pull out a gun. He puts one of your men in the hospital, you put one of his in the morgue. That's the Chicago way." -- Sean Connery, "The Untouchables". The lesson? When you're dealing with thugs, whether street gangs, mafiosos or terrorists, brute force invariably trumps all. Like most Americans, I'm still heartbroken over the recent Palestinian terror-bombing of a bus, now known as the "Massacre of the Children". This latest abomination, involving the targeting of Israeli children, is one of a long line of kamikaze-style attacks on Israeli civilians motivated by unmitigated...

The Schwarzenegger campaign has made a significant blunder - a miscalculation that has caused considerable consternation among the ranks of the GOP. Choosing financier Warren Buffett to head-up Schwarzenegger's economic team has sent precisely the wrong message to Republican voters. Not surprisingly, Republican challenger Bill Simon is initiating radio commercials that will capitalize on Arnold's misstep. Buffett suggested that property taxes be raised in California, which is considered anathema to the conservative GOP crowd that holds the Reaganesque dictum, "Thou shall raise no taxes" as sacred and inviolate. This is hardly hyperbole. We all know that breaking his "no new...

I was amazed! These Iranians sound more like conservative Republicans than a bunch of insurgents in their open letter "To the Free People of the World" that can be found at their website, "Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran". Although lengthy, it's truly an enlightening message that is well worth reading. Again, the old rubric "never assume anything" rings true. Before reading their communiqué of June 22nd, I thought of the Iranian dissidents as dyed-in-the-wool socialists that were thoroughly in sync with the pro-Palestinian, pro-Arafat drivel almost universally espoused throughout the Islamic world. Gee, was I wrong! Don't...

Hillary Clinton's new book "Living History" might be wowing them in major urban centers and adjoining suburbs that lean politically and socially liberal, but what about middle America? According to a recent article by journalist Jon Dougherty of the popular website WorldNetDaily, although Sen. Hillary Clinton's memoir is "reportedly selling well in some areas of the country, it isn't setting records in the heartland". Well that begs the following question -- Which new books have a more widespread appeal throughout America? Moreover, is there any particular bestseller that not only reflects the values, but the overall pulse of America at...

Political junkies are tremendously fascinated by the ongoing trench warfare between the paleoconservative and neoconservative camps. That said, this is as good a time as any for this writer to jump back into the fray. There is an old Irish adage: "Too Far East Is West". It simply means that if you continue to move East on the globe, you'll inevitably wind up in the West. Ironic, isn't it? Of course, it can be a terrific metaphor for so many situations. For instance, in his diligent pursuit of personal beauty, singer Michael Jackson has accomplished something quite the contrary; creating...

As our troops head out to the Persian Gulf region and the US and its allies get ready to rumble with Saddam Hussein, the antiwar movement, also known as the "Peace at Any Price" crowd, is orchestrating demonstrations with alacrity, both on American soil and abroad. Certainly, with war on the horizon and vociferous criticism abounding, it's time that President Bush confronts the sophistry of the antiwar naysayers and invidious smear-mongers, and builds an unequivocal case for regime change in Iraq. The current administration must underscore that it has fully cooperated with the UN process, and is not going off...

Iraq and North Korea are now at the forefront of our foreign policy and national security concerns. Throughout the past week on the various cable news channels, Left-leaning pundits have invariably charged that President Bush has applied a "double-standard" regarding the differential manner in which the nations of Iraq and North Korea are being treated. Sure, both nations have incipient nuclear programs, and to be fair, North Korea probably has already squirreled away a few nukes while Iraq is at a lesser stage of super-bomb development as it diligently seeks to procure fissile materials. Yet, Iraq is subjected to an...

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott is now a significant liability for the Republican Party and he should resign his leadership position forthwith, given his deeply divisive remarks at a celebration for Senator Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday. Senator Lott demonstrated terribly poor judgment and insensitivity when he asserted, "I want to say this about my state (Mississippi). When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either". On hearing this particular statement, most Republicans...

The religion of Islam represents an enigma to most Americans, especially in the aftermath of the atrocities perpetrated by radical Islamists on September 11th. There's just too many conflicting statements being disseminated that only add to the confusion. Is Islam really a "religion of peace", as consistently asserted by President Bush, or is it a vehicle for violent Jihad? Well, history reveals that both versions of Islam have emerged at various points over the course of the past 1500 years, according to author Stephen Schwartz in his informative tome, "The Two Faces Of Islam". Schwartz exhibits a notably sympathetic approach...

By Carol Devine-Molin Sartre: How utterly barren is your life, that you felt the need to write that inane, mean-spirited screed? It was "over-kill", a smear job, worthy of the political Left. But it was even worse than that, it was downright bizarre. My article, "The Heck With The Neocon Label" was subdued in comparison to your vitriolic response, "Carol Devine-Molin, You Are No Ronald Reagan". Well now its no holds barred. Sartre, you're pompous and abusive! In effect, your attempt at a "gentlemanly" facade doesn't hold up to the light of day. Most regular readers only know what is...