Free Republic

Surveying the Abyss Those who know me best have little doubt: I am irrepressibly optimistic. Not naive, mind you — at least from my perspective — but whether by personality, disposition, or faith, I am wont to believe the best about people, and circumstances, and the future. I drive my wife nuts, she being of a decidedly more pessimistic bent. But I must confess of late to a recurring sense of foreboding, about a great many things. Now, prognosticating about the future is a fool’s game, to be sure; a review of most any futurist’s predictions invariable shows a...

Monsters from the Id: Good-bye to All That's DemocratThe monsters from the id that now control the Democrat Party have transformed that party into a mob of undead extras from The Dawn of the Dead. It's an indecent and disgusting spectacle and I suspect there's more than a few million long-time Democrats who are revolted by it. That certainly seems to be creeping into the polls. No matter the good it once did, the Democrats today present as sick and crazed political party that is so greedy and hungry for power that it will do anything, including selling its...

<p>LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) — The Amish are expanding their presence in states far beyond Pennsylvania Dutch country as they search for affordable farmland to accommodate a population that has nearly doubled in the past 16 years, a new study found.</p>

You Can Go Home AgainBy Quin Hillyer Every so often it does a man good to go home again. On Monday night I was privileged to be asked to give a speech to the Mobile (AL) County Republican Executive Committee, which wanted a report from me as a conservative columnist on what I've seen in my two years back in Washington after spending the previous eight home on the Gulf Coast. (cut). Finally, it is true, not some sort of pretense, that John McCain loves this country in the same deep, palpable, gut-level, and dare I say spiritual way that...

Ten Truths About The Election By Dinesh D'Souza Monday, March 31, 2008 1. Obama's connection with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright makes him unelectable in the general election, even though neither he nor most of the pundits seem to have recognized this yet. Obama continues to campaign as if he is still viable. The mainstream media continues to cover him as if he was still viable. In reality, Obama’s candidacy is seriously imperilled, and Hillary Clinton—yes Hillary Clinton!—is the strongest Democratic candidate left in the race. 2. John McCain is the strongest candidate the Republicans could have nominated. This is not...

ROB LONG (humor) Transcript from Larry King Live February 4, 2009 LARRY KING: “From Rawlins, Wyoming! Hello!” CALLER: “Hi, Larry. I’d like to ask your guest if she intends to keep her maiden name.” LARRY KING: “Good question. Your name. You’ve been back and forth on it. What’s gonna be the deal?” HILLARY CLINTON: “Well, Larry, I’ve always been Hillary Rodham, and then when I was married to Bill, I was Hillary Rodham Clinton, and then of course with all of those forms and so forth — ” LARRY KING: “Legalese! It’s killing us!” HILLARY CLINTON: “Right, right. So it...

Not Staying Home By Lisa Fabrizio Published 2/6/2008 12:07:17 AM If you're like me, you're probably sitting around somewhere in the dark, trying your best to avoid all forms of media coverage of the 2008 presidential primary season. Maybe for the first time in years, you eschewed the weekend talk shows, even Fox News. And except for the crossword puzzle or the sports section, you probably refused to even open your Sunday paper, especially if it is a liberal fish-wrap like the AP-infested publication in my hometown. (snip) In any case, we can always cheer ourselves up by enjoying a...

January 22, 2008 Saving the Trees and Killing the Children By Kyle-Anne Shiver What can be said of a society that has reached such a ludicrous level of moral confusion that it cannot even make the simplest value judgment, cannot even distinguish between the value of a tree and the value of a newly conceived, perfectly innocent, unique human being formed in God's own image? A society adept at saving the trees and killing the children. Can we rightly call this "enlightened"? Dare one call it "progressive"? Well, yes, actually. Believers in this absurd value system call it those things...

Annus Horribilis Ahead?By Patrick J. Buchanan Friday, December 28, 2007 With the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 8, and the Iowa caucuses dead ahead, the nominees of both parties may be known in two weeks. Surely, after Feb. 5, when a slew of primaries are held, both races will be all but over. Then, from Feb. 5 to Nov. 4, nine months, those nominees will be made to run an Iroquois gauntlet. To define them, before either defines himself or herself for the voters, both parties will engage in sustained barrage attacks. Their opposition research arms are stocked with ammunition....

Lyndon Baines Johnson. He was a well-documented force of nature. The champion of the Democrats' century-delayed acceptance of Civil Rights, he was the FDR-disciple who created Medicare and the vast government expanse known as the Great Society. But LBJ was also something else. He was at the heart of the fatal divide over the internationalist, strong-national defense policies of Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Johnson's predecessor, the man he served as vice president, John F. Kennedy. (snip) The once-dominant party of his youth blew apart in a furious battle for the party's soul, finally savaging itself in an orgy of violence...

The Folly of Deifying Democracy in IraqBy Selwyn Duke We hear lots of criticism about the Iraq venture from the left, right and center. There is everything from silly notions about presidential prevarication to how "it is only about oil" to one-world government conspiracy theories. Yet, while military action can rise from policy objectives, it's often ignored that policy objectives tend to rise from the time's prevailing philosophy. And the truth is that insofar as the war in Iraq has been misguided, the blame can be laid at the feet of the spirit our age. I speak of a...

October 09, 2007 The evidence for NeocommunismBy James Lewis There is a compelling factual case to be made that the contemporary radical Left can properly be called "Neocommunist." The Hard Left is grounded in Marxist vision of creating a "new man" under a system led by a vanguard that knows best what the rest of society needs. And Neocommies behave in patterns with startling parallels to Old Communist tactics. The Neocommies are not members of a Communist Party, and are part more of a movement than a conspiracy. They are utterly different from traditional liberalism in America and Europe. Traditional...

Political Hay Protecting the Most VulnerableBy Andrew Cline Published 10/8/2007 12:07:57 AM Less than a week after President Bush vetoed a $35 billion expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, Congressional Democrats hastily organized another showdown with the White House by passing the Children, Mothers, Orphans, Puppies, Soldiers, Baseball, Country Music, and Beer Protection Act and immediately begging the president to veto it. "This bill is about protecting the most vulnerable among us," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada. "Oh, please, God, let President Bush veto this bill" Even as they ramped up the political pressure on the president, Democrats...

October 05, 2007 Neo-Cons and Neo-CommiesJames Lewis Everybody talks about the evil Neo-Cons, but nobody talks about the resurgent Neo-Commies. "Communist" has been expelled from the Politically Correct lexicon -- which tells us a lot about the Commissars of the PC. They bear the most amazing resemblance to the old Commissars of (deleted) who killed 60-100 million people in the 20th century. (And Kim Jong Il, not to mention Red China, are still doing it....) Mikhail Gorbachev, who should know them when he sees them, recently warned about a "resurgence of Stalinism" in Russia and Eastern Europe. The history of...

COLUMBIA'S LOSS By RALPH PETERS September 25, 2007 -- THE Iranian president's welcome to Columbia - following a self-serving whine by the university's president - reflected brainless activism, not academic freedom. It was the professoriate imitating Hollywood's embrace of terrorists. Meanwhile, Columbia denies our military's ROTC programs the chance to recruit and teach on campus - ostensibly because of the Congress-approved "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Of course, it's just a cultural issue when Ahmadinejad executes homosexuals (although, according to him, there aren't any in Iran). The victims of the ban are students - who are denied one of the...

'Pain, grief, questions'As Nickel Mines anniversary nears, Amish give update By JENNIFER TODD, Staff Intelligencer Journal Published: Sep 13, 2007 1:25 AM EST LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. - Although Oct. 2 is certain to be a day of heavy hearts, prayer and family, Bart Township Fire Company officials and the Nickel Mines Accountability Committee said there will be no public observance of the shootings one year ago at West Nickel Mines Amish School in Bart Township. A statement released Wednesday by the committee said that although families continue the healing process, "the approaching anniversary and public attention to it intensifies the...

August 16, 2007 -- THE media missed a big one yesterday. They ran with the story that the Bush administration will soon designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps - a major troublemaker in Iraq - as a terrorist organization. But they didn't look past the public-consumption explanation that the move lets our government go after the Revolutionary Guards' finances and the international companies that cut deals with Tehran's thugs. The real reason for the move is to set up a legal basis for airstrikes or special operations raids on the Guard's bases in Iran. Our policy is that we reserve the...

LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. - U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts said Tuesday he refused to support a local developer's request for a $2 million federal earmark for road improvements that would benefit a shopping center proposed in Manheim Township. "We are way out of control (with congressional earmarks), and it is a corrupting influence," the Chester County Republican said during an interview with the editorial board of the Intelligencer Journal. High Real Estate Group wants $2 million in federal funds to improve the Route 30/Harrisburg Pike interchange near the Park City Center. The interchange borders a 90-acre farm where High wants to...

A political primer By Burt Prelutsky Monday, August 13, 2007 Nothing that I’ve written recently has stirred up the hornets quite as much as a piece in which I declared my support for Rudy Giuliani. I can’t say I was too shocked. After all, aside from religion and, in certain strange circles, TV soap operas, there’s little that Americans feel more passionately about than partisan politics. Frankly, the only thing about the response that surprised me was that I was mainly raked over the coals by Ron Paul’s disciples. I barely heard from Fred Thompson’s fans and not at...

The Real Long War By Christopher Chantrill A faction within America always denigrates our country, seeing our enemies through rose colored lenses and finding only oppression at home. The Long War we face with Radical Islam is matched by the long war against this bloc. Color me cynical, but I think that the fix is in on Iraq. In September Gen. Petraeus will report on the surge and declare a qualified victory. Then President Bush will start drawing down the troops. Slowly. Everyone will feel betrayed. The conservative base will feel that our steadfast support for the war was...