Free Republic

When it’s all over, and the populists have won, then everyone will say that it was inevitable. If populism is defeated, then everyone would say that it never had a chance. If you are Deroy Murdoch you see Speaker Mike Johnson as a “squish” for caving on the Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan foreign aid bill. Johnson has mastered McConnell’s art of giving Democrats what they want while getting nothing in return. Whatabout the good old days of the “conference committee,” Murdoch asks, when House and Senate resolved their differences and sent the compromise to the President for signature? It was Obama-time...

Joel Kotkin reports from Davos that things are not well with Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum. Says he: The growing irrelevance of what Adrian Wooldridge has labelled “the progressive aristocracy” can even be seen in the less than enthusiastic press coverage. Politico describes the contemporary Davos crowd as a “smart set” which “sounds dumb.” Then he sticks in the shiv: The grandees don’t have to travel far to see the results of their “reset” as nearby Germany’s industrial machine collapses, with even its last solar panel plant about to go belly-up. But then there was Javier Milei’s rousing speech in...

If an Inner Party chappie gets a free ride, and the Outer Party chappie gets leg irons, what is the fate of the Proles in Biden’s America? Last week we ordinary Americans took a couple of punches in the gut. First, lawyer Michael Sussmann was acquitted by a jury of lying to the FBI about who was employing him to dish dirt on Candidate Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Said the jury forewoman: “I don’t think it should have been prosecuted,” she said of the case. “There are bigger things that affect the nation than a possible lie to the FBI.”...

Over a weekend of discussing politics with like-minded family, we of course discussed Trump and the mean tweets. Women don’t like mean tweets. Especially from their president. Because? Never mind. Remember Ronald Reagan? Back when Ronald Reagan was building up to a presidential campaign he was broadcasting weekly opinion pieces in which he sounded pretty angry and determined to do something about it. When he was on the Carson Show he emitted corny one-liners, and everyone laughed. But when he became president he switched to an avuncular personality. I wonder why? Do you think it was because he had a...

I took a look at my recent AT articles and I apologize. I have been dancing around the elephant in the room. The only thing that matters in America right now is that liberals got everything wrong. And they can’t believe it. They won’t believe it. They dare not believe it. When was the last time a New York Times writer said that the trouble with the labor and pro-union legislation of the 1930s is that it led directly to the overpriced manufacturing union labor of the 1970s? In the long run, it Made Things Worse for the white working...

I took a look at my recent AT articles and I apologize. I have been dancing around the elephant in the room. The only thing that matters in America right now is that liberals got everything wrong. And they can’t believe it. They won’t believe it. They dare not believe it. When was the last time a New York Times writer said that the trouble with the labor and pro-union legislation of the 1930s is that it led directly to the overpriced manufacturing union labor of the 1970s? In the long run, it Made Things Worse for the white working...

If you like to be frightened out of your wits, you can’t do better than spend an hour or two with Rod Dreher on “Joe Rogan World vs. NPR World” and Angelo Codevilla’s “Revolution 2020.” Ron Dreher argues that America cannot thrive with two narratives competing for dominance, the American founding narrative and the progressive narrative, especially when the progressive narrative says of “people who don’t fit the progressive narrative, that you aren’t worthy of our consideration or attention.” Codevilla says the same, only different. More and more, America’s ruling class, shaped and serviced by an increasingly uniform pretend-meritocratic educational...

There is no doubt that the Bush administration made a big blunder in its planning for hurricane Katrina.  It had planned for hurricane relief in which FEMA assisted the state and local governments in getting help where it was most needed, based on the assumption that local resources could hang on until 72 to 96 hours after the disaster.  That is why ever since 9/11 state and local governments have been showered with federal funding as First Responders. Where the feds failed was in planning for another contingency, one that, in hindsight, any fool should have thought of.  They...