Free Republic

Yesterday, Allah covered part of Nancy Pelosi’s self-serving interview wherein she took a personal and professional shot at John Boehner. I admit, from a point of view of a snarky blogger, I appreciated the verbal judo employed by our outgoing Speaker. It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to chide a man for his occasional emotional outbursts over politics not all that long after engaging in a little sob-fest of your own to make a shamelessly partisan point. As deft as that was, though, it was nothing compared to the “Wait…what?” moment that followed. Right after she threw her jab...

The Foreign Ministry has criticised some foreign reports as excessive and at least one cabinet member, Labour Minister Jean-Louis Borloo, has hinted the critical reporting was meant to hit back at France for opposing the U.S.-led Iraq war. French media have run hard-hitting reports on the riots, just as they have been very critical of social or racial problems abroad. But seeing equally tough reporting about their own country seems to have caught the French off guard. Eric Raoult, mayor of the eastern Paris suburb of Raincy, did not like being at the receiving end of outside attention. "Last night,...

First, this is NOT an April Fool's joke. I am leaving Free Republic. Over the past two years, civility and thoughtful discourse has vanished from this site, replaced with demands for ideological conformity that are straight out of Stalinist Russia or China's Great Cultural Revolution, and unrelenting uncivility if said conformance is not forthcoming. This trend began with the California recall election, where certain posters were allowed to flame the living beejezus out of those who didn't wholeheartedly support Tom McClintock, or thought that he wasn't running a campaign capable of winning. It extended into the Keyes campaign last year,...

e interrupt our coverage of the war on terrorism to check in with that other permanent conflict against a stateless enemy, the war on drugs. To judge by the glee at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, the drug warriors have just accomplished the moral equivalent of routing the Taliban — helping to halt a relentless jihad against the nation's drug laws. Ballot initiatives in Ohio (treatment rather than prison for nonviolent drug offenders), Arizona (the same, plus making marijuana possession the equivalent of a traffic ticket, and providing free pot for medical use) and Nevada (full...

Opine away : )

Americans who value the Constitution should stand with Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., and oppose George Bush's attempted power grab in conjunction with establishing a Department of Homeland Security. The Bushies are trying to frame the debate as either protecting bureaucracy or providing security for Americans. In fact, the debate is about preventing an authoritarian president from sacrificing the Constitution in the name of providing security. Let me remind you that those who prefer security to freedom will lose both. Bush wants to be able to disregard labor contracts and civil-service rules, as well as move money within the department as...