Free Republic

Over the past several decades, America’s culture has been transformed at a pace that is absolutely breathtaking. When I was growing up, I was convinced that I believed in a shared set of national values that most other Americans also embraced. But in our day and age those values have been discarded and now people that see the world the way that I do are clearly not in the majority any longer. I know that a lot of people out there may not want to hear that our national values have been turned upside down, but it is the truth....

During an interview with ABC News on Thursday, White House Senior Adviser Gene Sperling stated that “people have been through a tough few years” but the PCE (Personal Consumption Expenditures) price index reading is “very close to normal” and “prices are moving in the right direction” and “moderating.” But you can’t expect them to not go up. Sperling said, “It’s been a tough few years since the pandemic,” but “inflation is coming down. In fact, it was really 2.4% in this measure, 2.8% if you don’t include food and gas. And that’s not good enough, but it is very close...

Seventy-two percent of American adults believe the nation is headed on the wrong track under President Joe Biden’s leadership, up four points since December, a Monmouth University poll found Tuesday. While Americans’ view of the nation has worsened since December, 22 percent of Americans say things in the nation are headed in the right direction, down from 28 percent in December. Since September 2021, the right direction number has fluctuated between ten and 31 percent. September of 2021 was the month of the deadly Afghan withdrawal that left the Taliban in control of the country.

President Joe Biden claimed the country was moving in the right direction in a press conference on Wednesday at the White House. “What is the trajectory of the country? Is it moving in the right direction now?” he asked. “I don’t know how we can say it’s not.”

A poll released by the far-left CNN shows that optimism about the direction of the country under President Trump has hit an 11-year high of 57 percent. The last time this same poll registered a number that high was in January 2007. This includes 40 percent of Democrats, which is a leap of 15 points from just last month. Only 40 percent say things are going badly. Also of note is that CNN polled a random sample of adults. Polls that screen for registered or likely voters generally produce a more favorable result for Trump. This poll is a good...

Sen. Rand Paul is upping the ante in his ongoing spat over national security with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, calling it “sad and cheap” for Mr. Christie to invoke victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to make his point. “It’s really, I think, kind of sad and cheap that he would use the cloak of 9/11 victims and say, ‘Oh, I’m the only one who cares about these victims.’ Hogwash,” Mr. Paul said Monday on Fox News’ “Hannity.” “If he cared about protecting this country, maybe he wouldn’t be in this ‘gimme, gimme, gimme all the money’...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats on a congressional committee say the panel has obtained no evidence that a flawed gun smuggling probe called Operation Fast and Furious was conceived or directed by high-level political appointees at Justice Department headquarters. The Democrats say the probe grew out of a misguided five-year-long effort during both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations in the Phoenix division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to dismantle arms trafficking networks along the Southwest border.

Much has happened in Washington recently, most of it good. I do not refer to the details of the debt-reduction agreement but to the change it signifies. The logistics of turning around an aircraft carrier concern me less than the new direction the big boat will face. Changing course is incredibly complicated. But now, I believe, we’re moving toward our target. Beyond even the reawakening of national priorities under President Ronald Reagan, this debate over what House Speaker John Boehner calls “the arrogant habits of Washington” has produced the most radical change in my lifetime. The debt-ceiling debate exposed Washington’s...

PRESIDENT OBAMA: "Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. a small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability."

China is preparing for conflict 'in every direction', the defence minister said on Wednesday in remarks that threaten to overshadow a visit to Beijing by his US counterpart next month. "In the coming five years, our military will push forward preparations for military conflict in every strategic direction," said Liang Guanglie in an interview published by several state-backed newspapers in China. "We may be living in peaceful times, but we can never forget war, never send the horses south or put the bayonets and guns away," Mr Liang added. China repeatedly says it is planning a "peaceful rise" but the...

Although it's said that still waters run deep, now scientists find that deep waters aren't still - in fact, the deep waters of the Atlantic Ocean seem to have reversed their direction of flow since the last time ice dominated the Earth. Instead of heading southward as they do now, these abyssal waters once flowed northward roughly 20,000 years ago, back when the world saw ice sheets more than a mile high, a new study suggests. The change in flow could have accompanied profound changes in climate, researchers explained. Climate connection In the Atlantic, the Gulf Stream brings warm surface...

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — People in the world's most populous Muslim nation have been facing Africa — not Mecca — while praying. Indonesia's highest Islamic body acknowledged Monday it made a mistake when issuing an edict in March saying the holy city in Saudi Arabia was to the country's west. It has since asked followers to shift direction slightly northward during their daily prayers. "After a thorough study with some cosmography and astronomy experts, we learned they've been facing southern Somalia and Kenya," said Ma'ruf Amin, a prominent cleric of the Indonesian Ulema Council, or MUI. "We've revised it now...

Indonesian Muslims told to change prayer direction JAKARTA, July 16 — Indonesia’s Muslims learned today they have been praying in the wrong direction, after the country’s highest Islamic authority said its directive on the direction of Mecca actually had people facing Africa. Muslims are supposed to face the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia during prayer and the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) issued an edict in March stipulating westward was the correct direction from the world’s most populous Muslim country. “But it has been decided that actually the mosques are facing Somalia or Kenya, so we are now suggesting...

The Ezra Klein post that Stephen Spruiell ably critcizes below raises (by failing to see) an important point. The difference between most conservatives and most liberals on health care is not a difference of degree but a difference of direction — a difference on the question of which we way want to move from our existing highly inefficient system of paying for health insurance. Both sides agree there are huge problems with the current system, and they even agree on what some of those problems are: there is a shortage of incentives for efficiency, and therefore costs are rising much...

The World Bids Farewell to Obama US President Barack Obama suffered a painful defeat in Massachusetts on Tuesday. With mid-term elections looming, it means that Obama will have to fundamentally re-think his political course. German commentators say it is the end of hope. US President Barack Obama has had a number of difficult weeks during his first year in the White House. Right after he took office, he had to wade through a week full of partisan bickering over his economic stimulus package combined with a tax scandal surrounding Tom Daschle, the man Obama had hoped would lead his health...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Sixty percent of all Americans strongly want the country to change direction after nearly seven years of President George W. Bush's rule, according to a new opinion poll released late Sunday. The survey by The Washington Post and ABC News indicated that only 24 percent of those surveyed think the nation is on the right track, and three-quarters said they want the next president to chart a different political course. A new direction is wanted not only by Democrats, but also by three-quarters of Independents and even half of Republicans, according to the poll. More than six...

HONOLULU, Sept. 16, 2007 – Members of Scott Harpley’s Ringgold High School graduation class in northern Georgia probably wouldn’t recognize the driven young sailor squeezed into seat 51F on an airplane yesterday headed here to his first duty assignment. U.S. Navy Fireman Apprentice Scott Harpley, age 22, heads to his first duty assignment in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where he will serve aboard the Navy submarine USS Pasadena, Sept. 15, 2007. Defense Dept. photo by Donna Miles   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. At age 22, U.S. Navy Fireman Apprentice Harpley is much more – and in some cases,...

California Republicans are heading for a showdown over the direction of the party. Gov. Schwarzenegger wants the state GOP platform boiled down to as little as a single page focusing on lowering taxes, limiting the size of government and building a strong national defense. But conservatives say he's attempting to undercut party positions on everything from support of traditional marriage to immigration. State Republicans begin work this weekend on a new platform at their fall convention. The governor is circulating a letter that calls for a trimmed-down platform. It does not mention abortion or gay rights.

U.S. Army Master Sgt. Brinda Kupiec of Lubbock, Texas, the host national escort noncommissioned officer in charge with the 657th Area Support Group, checks in local Iraqi laborers, May 3, 2007, as they report for work at Logistical Support Area Anaconda. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Alexandra Hemmerly-Brown Deployment Provides Direction, Focus for Anaconda Soldier By Sgt. Alexandra Hemmerly-Brown 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) LOGISTICAL SUPPORT AREA ANACONDA, Iraq, May 14, 2007 — Two years ago, a wife sat by her husband’s side, comforting him. The woman had quit her job a school teacher several years earlier to help her...

WASHINGTON, March 26, 2007 – Several positive developments indicate that Iraq’s leaders and its people will eventually surmount insurgent violence occurring in the country and ultimately achieve stability, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to Iraq told reporters in Baghdad today. “In my view, although difficult challenges lie ahead, and there is a long way to go, Iraq is fundamentally headed in the right direction and success is possible,” Zalmay Khalilzad said at the news briefing. President Bush has nominated Khalilzad, who has served as the top U.S. diplomat in Iraq for the past 21 months, to become the new U.S....