Free Republic

Is anyone else seeing Cindy McCain on E-60 (ESPN) talking about "drifting" and her NASCAR fandom? http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?videoId=3578032

An Open Letter to Nancy Pelosi 19 November 2005 Dear Madam: When I read Friday night that you condemned the House Republicans for pulling a political “stunt” by calling for a floor vote on a resolution to call for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, I was beyond furious. How dare you? I suppose as political stunts go, it ranks right down there with Rep. Rangel’s bill to reinstate the military draft or the Senate Democrats’ recent crass stunt of demanding a secret Senate session to discuss the possible manipulation of pre-war intelligence. It is certainly not as...

The navy's new destroyer, the DD(X), is becoming so expensive that it may end up destroying itself. The navy once wanted 24 of them. Now it thinks it can afford five - if that. . The price of the navy's new ships, driven upward by old-school politics and the rusty machinery of American shipbuilding, may scuttle the Pentagon's plans for a 21st-century armada of high-technology aircraft carriers, destroyers and submarines. . Shipbuilding costs "have spiraled out of control," the navy's top admiral, Vern Clark, told Congress last week, rising so high that "we can't build the navy that we believe...

CLASHING MILITARY CULTURES By RALPH PETERS April 13, 2005 -- LAST month, I sat in the of fice of Col. Jon "Dog" Davis, a veteran Marine aviator. While at war, the Corps' pilots had seen a rise in their accident rate. Davis was determined to do something about it. I wanted to be sympathetic, so I said, "Well, you're flying some very old aircraft." Davis, a taut, no-nonsense Marine, looked me in the eye and said, "They may be old, but they're good. That's no excuse." snip Morally bankrupt, the Air Force is willing to turn a blind eye to...

All,     With Sen. Kerry's concession this morning, the presidential campaign of 2004 seems to finally be at a close.  Since every other pundit is rushing out his or her own electoral analysis, why should I be any different?     I was hoping to write about a modest Bush "mandate" that I grew to hope would occur.  After all, the President enjoyed the support of disgruntled conservative Democrats (Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia), "hawkish" liberal Democrats (former New York Mayor Ed Koch and actor Ron Silver), "security moms," and ethnic minorities disaffected with the Democratic Party's stance on social issues. ...

Why This Conservative May Have to Vote for John Kerry By D. Grant Greffey               My friends and family will all be shocked by a radical thought that crossed my mind.  Maybe I need to vote for John Kerry in order to secure victory in Iraq.  Before my fellow conservatives have an apoplexy, let me explain.  I submit that there are several possible benefits that a Kerry Administration would bring to the nation’s war in Iraq.              One benefit of a new Kerry Administration would be the likely cessation of seditious Senate speeches by Sen. Edward Kennedy.  Once his...

All of the Democratic contenders say that George W. Bush "divides" Americans like never before and that they — and only they — will be able to unite Americans. John Kerry says Bush uses "wedge issues" like the Defense of Marriage Act to divide the American people (even though it was Bill Clinton who did that). Howard Dean, before he imploded like a vegan soufflé, was fond of declaring, "I am tired of being divided by race in this country. I'm tired of being divided by abortion, by gay rights." John Edwards has a whole shtick about how the country...