Free Republic

Talking to Camille Paglia is like approaching a machine gun: madness to stick your head up and ask a question, unless you want your brain blown apart by the answer, but a visceral delight to watch as she obliterates every subject in sight. Most of the time she does this for kicks. It’s only on turning to Hillary Clinton that she perpetrates an actual murder: of Clinton II’s most cherished claim, that her becoming 45th president of the United States would represent a feminist triumph. ‘In order to run for president of the United States, you have to spend two...

"What to Expect After the Nov. 13 Paris Attacks is republished with permission of Stratfor."

I was talking to a Jehovah’s Witness the other day and found out their idea of heaven is the same utopia that liberals are trying to force us into. There is no conflict in Jehovah’s afterlife—just a bunch of twentysomethings having picnics with lions and bears, and maybe a dinosaur or two walking around. It’s Earth without any of the bad stuff. That sounds like hell. I asked him if there was boxing in this magical place. He thought for a second and said: “Only if they have no animosity in their hearts.” What’s so bad about animosity? That’s how...

Immigration to American shores is in the newspapers and on television every day now, and many Americans doubtless believe they know what this bedeviling problem is really about. They would feel secure, for instance, in endorsing these common beliefs about the mass movements of people across U.S. borders:

<p>Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, who moved to the United States at age 13 in order to escape being kidnapped by Brazilian gangs, has been in the news this week for renouncing his American citizenship in order to dodge taxes on his Facebook stock. He’s headed to Singapore to keep being rich in a place where he’s (a) safe, (b) can speak English, and (c) doesn’t have to pay a capital gains tax.</p>

Who goes Nazi? By Dorothy Thompson It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times–in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis. It is preposterous to think that they are divided by any racial characteristics....

What Happened to the American Declaration of War? by George Friedman April 29, 2011 In my book “The Next Decade,” I spend a good deal of time considering the relation of the American Empire to the American Republic and the threat the empire poses to the republic. If there is a single point where these matters converge, it is in the constitutional requirement that Congress approve wars through a declaration of war and in the abandonment of this requirement since World War II. This is the point where the burdens and interests of the United States as a global empire...

Israel Tests on Worm Called Crucial in Iran Nuclear DelayBy WILLIAM J. BROAD, JOHN MARKOFF and DAVID E. SANGER Published: January 15, 2011 The Dimona complex in the Negev desert is famous as the heavily guarded heart of Israel’s never-acknowledged nuclear arms program, where neat rows of factories make atomic fuel for the arsenal. Over the past two years, according to intelligence and military experts familiar with its operations, Dimona has taken on a new, equally secret role — as a critical testing ground in a joint American and Israeli effort to undermine Iran’s efforts to make a bomb of...

When one considers all of the people and places in the West targeted by transnational jihadists over the past few years, iconic targets such as New York’s Times Square, the London Metro and the Eiffel Tower come to mind. There are also certain target sets such as airlines and subways that jihadists focus on more than others. Upon careful reflection, however, it is hard to find any target set that has been more of a magnet for transnational jihadist ire over the past year than the small group of cartoonists and newspapers involved in the Mohammed cartoon controversy. Every year...

Last week, the U.S. Senate gave its advice and consent to the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which had been signed in April. The Russian legislature still has to provide final approval of the treaty, but it is likely to do so, and therefore a New START is set to go into force. That leaves two questions to discuss. First, what exactly have the two sides agreed to and, second, what does it mean? Let’s begin with the first. Read more: Click Below Making Sense of the START Debate is republished with permission of STRATFOR.

Taking Stock of WikiLeaksDecember 14, 2010 | 0956 GMT By George Friedman Julian Assange has declared that geopolitics will be separated into pre-“Cablegate” and post-“Cablegate” eras. That was a bold claim. However, given the intense interest that the leaks produced, it is a claim that ought to be carefully considered. Several weeks have passed since the first of the diplomatic cables were released, and it is time now to address the following questions: First, how significant were the leaks? Second, how could they have happened? Third, was their release a crime? Fourth, what were their consequences? Finally, and most important,...

We have not in our lifetimes seen a president in this position. He spent his first year losing the center, which elected him, and his second losing his base, which is supposed to provide his troops. There isn't much left to lose! Which may explain Tuesday's press conference. President Obama was supposed to be announcing an important compromise, as he put it, on tax policy. Normally a president, having agreed with the opposition on something big, would go through certain expected motions. He would laud the specific virtues of the plan, show graciousness toward the negotiators on the other side—graciousness...

Newsweek and The God Who FailsBy Jon Sanders December 03, 2010 This week’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Jon Sanders, Associate Director of Research for the John Locke Foundation. RALEIGH — Turns out Hugo Chavez was right. George W. Bush really is the devil. Only the true prince of darkness could so screw up the country that even the lord god Obama Himself can’t fix it. OK, I don’t really believe any of that. But Newsweek apparently does. In Newsweek’s defense, it’s the only way to acknowledge the stark reality that President Barack Obama’s agenda has been an abject failure...

How Obama Thinks by Dinesh D'Souza Barack Obama is the most antibusiness president in a generation, perhaps in American history. Thanks to him the era of big government is back. Obama runs up taxpayer debt not in the billions but in the trillions. He has expanded the federal government's control over home mortgages, investment banking, health care, autos and energy. The Weekly Standard summarizes Obama's approach as omnipotence at home, impotence abroad. The President's actions are so bizarre that they mystify his critics and supporters alike. Consider this headline from the Aug. 18, 2009 issue of the Wall Street Journal:...

The Tea Party and Insurgency Politics Nearly every American with a political memory recalls that Texas billionaire Ross Perot captured 19 percent of the vote when he ran for president as an independent candidate in 1992. Less well known is what happened to that vote afterward. Therein lies an intriguing political lesson that bears on today’s Tea Party movement, which emerged on the political scene nearly 17 months ago and has maintained a sustained assault on the Republican establishment ever since. Just this week, the Tea Party scored another upset triumph, this time in Delaware, where protest candidate Christine O’Donnell...

Militancy and the U.S. Drawdown in Afghanistan The drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq has served to shift attention toward Afghanistan, where the United States has been increasing its troop strength in hopes of forming conditions conducive to a political settlement. This is similar to the way it used the 2007 surge in Iraq to help reach a negotiated settlement with the Sunni insurgents that eventually set the stage for withdrawal there. As we’ve discussed elsewhere, the Taliban at this point do not feel the pressure required for them to capitulate or negotiate and therefore continue to follow their strategy...

Rethinking American Options on Iran is republished with permission of STRATFOR. Public discussion of potential attacks on Iran’s nuclear development sites is surging again. This has happened before. On several occasions, leaks about potential airstrikes have created an atmosphere of impending war. These leaks normally coincided with diplomatic initiatives and were designed to intimidate the Iranians and facilitate a settlement favorable to the United States and Israel. These initiatives have failed in the past. It is therefore reasonable to associate the current avalanche of reports with the imposition of sanctions and view it as an attempt to increase the pressure...

The Most Powerful Republican in PoliticsBy JIM VANDEHEI & ANDY BARR & KENNETH P. VOGEL Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is the most powerful Republican in American politics — at least for the next three months. Barbour, who runs the Republican Governors Association, has more money to spend on the 2010 elections — $40 million — than any other GOP leader around. And in private, numerous Republicans describe Barbour as the de facto chairman of the party. It’s not just because he controls the RGA kitty but, rather, because he has close relationships with everyone who matters in national GOP politics...

Mark Felt died last week at the age of 95. For those who don’t recognize that name, Felt was the “Deep Throat” of Watergate fame. It was Felt who provided Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post with a flow of leaks about what had happened, how it happened and where to look for further corroboration on the break-in, the cover-up, and the financing of wrongdoing in the Nixon administration. Woodward and Bernstein’s exposé of Watergate has been seen as a high point of journalism, and their unwillingness to reveal Felt’s identity until he revealed it himself three...

Resetting Our Reset Foreign PolicyObama’s old foreign policy wasn’t working; thank goodness he’s hitting the reset button. Almost every element of Barack Obama’s once-heralded new “reset” foreign policy of a year ago either has been reset or likely soon will be. Consider Obama’s approach to the eight-year-old War on Terror. Plans made more than a year ago to shut down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay by January 2010 have stalled. Despite loud proclamations about trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of 9/11, in a civilian court in New York, such an absurd pledge will probably never be kept. Talk...