Free Republic

Richard M. Weaver’s Ideas Have Consequences, published in 1948, was among the founding documents of contemporary conservatism. The title phrase has become something of a cliché, and overuse has stripped it of the interesting meaning it once had. Nowadays most people assume that what Weaver was saying was that how we think is bound to affect how we act, and that the intellectual trends that prevail in a society will determine its moral and political character. To be sure, that was part of his meaning, but if that were all he had in mind his message would have been a...

In fact, has Bush ever listened to one of your phone conversations? Unless you have spoken to a terrorist, the answer is no. Do you speak to terrorists? If you do, the answer is yes. Here is how it works. Every president for decades has had the ability to do it. The technology has changed with the advent of cell phones and the advances in computers, but the point is the same. It used to be done with people doing the listening. Then, a clever geek came up with voice recognition software. After that, a computer could do the listening....

NKARA - Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer has issued a Christmas message to Christians in Turkey today. Sezer said that he joins in the celebration of Christians over Christmas. ''We share the excitement and happiness of our Christian citizens for Christmas. Christmas reminds our multi-religious society about the historical ties that exist between all of us with warm feelings. Christmas carries new hopes of love, peace and brotherhood,'' stated President Sezer. (full article)

Would somebody tell Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to just shut up? Today, of all days, this moron demanded that the U.S. begin the immediate departure from Iraq. After the latest example (this very day!) which is living proof that Iraqis are more intelligent than she, preferring as they do democracy over one-party fascism, is it not time that the dragon, having been pierced by the third arrow, should slink its scaly breast and scalding voice back into the vulcanic bowells from whence it came? Bush has proven his point, that he has a plan and that it has worked. The...

If Fay Wray had gone to Vermont and married King Kong, would their first child be named Gay Wray or Hong Kong? Well, no matter. It's too late for that, now. As the film proves, the giant gorilla is no longer, yet forever with us. But, left to us is the art vs. life discussion this tale always inspires. What do these symbols mean? Well, King Kong in this edition clearly represents Bill Clinton. He always wants his own way, likes to paw women and talks pure gibberish the whole time. And, the press is always on his trail. Clearly,...

Retired four-star Gen. Tommy Franks gave a rousing address Thursday night in support of the War on Terror, raising speculation about a possible political career in the near future or at least a more visible role in defense of President Bush. Franks, who oversaw military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq as head of U.S. Central Command, was honored by retired Lt. Col. Oliver North’s Freedom Alliance with its 2005 Defender of Freedom Award. “We believe that in this War on Terror we can fight them over there or we can fight them over here,” Franks told the group of Freedom...

Early December, 2005 -- This is a review of a film I have not seen, and will never see. How can such a thing be a rational activity? Let's imagine that we found out that Hitler was still alive, living in Hollywood, and was making a film about Jews. Would you be willing to join me in guessing how he might treat the subject? Of course you would. It has to do with past activities by the artist. There's a pattern there in some cases. For example: Clooney Murrow Movie a Film Flam The movie above got rave reviews from...

Bush personifies all that pseudo intellectuals detest President George W. Bush is reviled by the Lib-Left media and its adherents and the pseudo-intellectual set in much the same way as President Ronald Reagan was reviled by the Lib-Left media and the pseudo-intellectual set. As we now know, Reagan was actually smarter than all of his detractors, and it may well be Bush will turn out that way, too. The likes of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul ignored the hyenas and the catcalls of the Liberal-Left and backed Reagan to the hilt and thereby brought down one...

Pete Ferryman and Kimberly Maus are part of the happy artificial family which "reports the news" each weekday morning on Oregon's oldest television station. (Oregon Magazine's Berlin Bureau Chief, Tom Lipscomb, grew up on Council Crest in the Forties, and watched the KPTV station tower go up.). Today, from this collection of unprofessionals we learned that Bill and Hillary Clinton are in the Middle East, visiting various sites. What a shame they can't visit the regular Clinton-era White House guest, Yassir Arafat, who at present is dead. Quite a few such terrorists are dead, now. It must bother Clinton. By...

In a meeting last week in Pittsburgh, an international panel of prominent Anglicans has called for an open break between members of the Anglican Communion and what they view as the wayward Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States. The meeting was hosted by the Bishop Duncan of Pittsburgh and presided over by seven archbishops from the West Indies, South East Asia, and Africa. The collapse of the authority and membership of mainstream churches in the United States has paralleled the collapse of the influence of other institutions from the media to academia as a yawning gap has continued to...

These people can see the handwriting on the wall. First Roberts, then Alito. The U.S. Supreme Court, as Dylan would put it, is a'changing. No wonder liberals hate Bush. They enjoy killing tiny humans. Last night the PBS program, Frontline, ignoring the obvious problem generated by recent decisions that killing a pregnant woman is a double murder, said that resistance to the slaughter of the unborn was detrimental to women's health. The legions of the anti-baby-murder movement are, additionally, racist, since they oppose access to the procedure to poor black single mothers in Mississippi. These poor women, according to the...

Pat Buchanan describes it in terms of the fall of the West. "Rome conquered the barbarians, then the barbarians conquered Rome." Pat often dons his twenty league boots, these days, but it is he, not the West, who has seen his best days. Rome, whose senate from time to time officially declared this or that caesar a god, will never select Buchanan for the pantheon. Paris is a tourist destination, these days, nothing more. Eastern liberal college students traditionally spend some time there, casting about for culture and trying out their skill with the lingua franca. Painters pay homage visits...

"It started with (hurricane) Katrina," he said to the early morning NBC anchor. Then, according to Tim, there were the problems with the CIA agent leak. Added to the truthfulness problems about WMD which Bush used to justify our attack on Iraq, it explains why the Bush White House is in trouble, with job disapproval/trust ratings in the negative sixty percent range! Before he left office -- in fact, if memory serves, on the day he was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives -- Bill Clinton sent missles to bomb Baghdad. Of late, those who recall that sort of...

Beginning with a panel of key staffers from the Carter (Hamilton Jordan), Reagan (Ken Duberstein) and Clinton (Leon Panetta) administrations, this edition of Meet the Press muffed it at every point. History for the past two and a half decades, current events -- all were presented and interpreted incorrectly, as far as I could see. Every observation they made was junk, every analysis they offered was incorrect, every suggestion they offered was wrong. This describes everybody in the first half of the program, even (sad to say) Duberstein on a key point or two. The Beltway disease is a plague...

What follows is what passes for the modern Democrat Party. It is the sort of news that is unlikely to make it to the front page of the Portland, Oregonian, or as the lead item on the local television "news." 'Party trumps race' for Steele foes By S.A. Miller THE WASHINGTON TIMES November 2, 2005 Black Democratic leaders in Maryland say that racially tinged attacks against Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele in his bid for the U.S. Senate are fair because he is a conservative Republican. Such attacks against the first black man to win a statewide election in Maryland...

Following Harriet Miers, who removed her name from consideration, Bush today nominated Judge Samuel Alito -- who has nineteen years experience at various judicial levels, including the federal one -- as his present choice to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O'Connor, a swing vote who swung in many directions during her years on the high court. Miers had an unclear past, as far as conservatives were concerned. Then, her nomination flags went from doubt to danger when some liberals came out in support of her. The motivation for these liberals to do that was both unlikely and...

Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald, widely admired by Chicago prosecutors for his creative genius in locating new ways to charge people with crimes, said words to this effect: "These are not charges that Mr. Libby outed a covert CIA agent." He is not, apparently, a stupid man, for that charge would have required eventual proof of a violation of the 1982 Identities Act, which obviously has not taken place. (More about that, below.) Then to justify this indictment he referred to a statute in the U.S. Code which upon investigation proves his reputation for creativity since it relates to (can you believe...

OVER the last two elections, the Republican Party regained control of the United States Senate by electing new senators in Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas. These victories were attributable in large measure to the central demand made by Republican candidates, and heard and embraced by voters, that President Bush's nominees deserved an up-or-down decision on the floor of the Senate. Now, with the withdrawal of Harriet Miers under an instant, fierce and sometimes false assault from conservative pundits and activists, it will be difficult for Republican candidates to continue to make this winning...

Sometimes the good guys win when they take the law into their own hands. Craig Nelsen won a battle -- skirmish, maybe -- in the war to repel illegal immigration. Mr. Nelsen is not a vigilante but he is the executive director of Friends of Immigration Law Enforcement and also Project USA. Trib readers learned in "Banking on illegals," my column of May 29, that New South Federal Savings Bank cooked up a scheme to give mortgages to illegal aliens. Nelsen sent the bank a nasty letter suggesting it was breaking the law and promising his group would pursue all...

Note to readers: It is important to read right to the end of this column. "Jewish activists capturing Tory races," screamed the front page headline in Friday's Globe and Mail newspaper. The article that followed was just as breathless. These Jews represented a "political penetration" of the Tory party by people who take a "hard line." These Jews had "ties" to Jewish "groups." And this was not achieved through normal democracy, but by rabbis "persuading" their flocks to join the party. Out of 308 riding associations, the Globe only found eight in which Jews were candidates. But still they called...