Free Republic

Google’s security foibles, its “aggregate and advertise” model, its avoidance of price signals, its silos of customer data, and its visions of machine mind are unlikely to survive the root-and-branch revolution of distributed peer-to-peer technology, which I call the “cryptocosm.” Today, all around us, scores of thousands of engineers and entrepreneurs are contriving a new system of the world that transcends the limits and illusions of the Google realm. In the Google era, the prime rule of the Internet is “Communications first.” That means everything is free to be copied, moved, and mutated. While most of us welcome “free” on...

f you want good roads, you have to pay for them. It’s not just the politicians in Madison and Washington, D.C., who have failed to learn that lesson. It’s the people of Wisconsin, too.

Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, seeking to represent New York's 14th Congressional District, has called for the abolition of the Electoral College. Her argument came on the heels of the Senate's confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. She was lamenting the fact that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, nominated by George W. Bush, and Justices Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, nominated by Donald Trump, were court appointments made by presidents who lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College vote. Hillary Clinton has long been a critic of the Electoral College. Just recently, she wrote in The...

Gloria Alvarez, the young woman from Guatemala I wrote about last week, just got blocked by Facebook. Why? Because she criticizes socialism.After Alvarez joined me in my American studio to make a video we titled "Socialism Fails Every Time," she flew to Mexico City to make a speech.A few days later she wrote me that "some leftist 'students' posted on a fanpage called 'Marxist and Leninist Memes': 'BOYCOTT Gloria Alvarez in our University! We won't let her in!'"So Alvarez posted (in Spanish) on her own Facebook page: "My dear Mexican socialists intolerants: Thank you! for trying to boycott my event......

This week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in preparation for a 2020 presidential run, decided to fight back against President Trump's brutal nickname for her: Pocahontas. Trump, you'll recall, labeled her Pocahontas because for years, she has claimed Native American ancestry. Not only that, she claimed repeatedly that her mother's Native American ancestry drove her parents to elope after her father's family refused to welcome her mother with open arms thanks to their bigotry. As it turns out, Warren could never provide any evidence of Native American ancestry -- even though she spent years labeling herself Native American while at the...

One can only assume that in the Kavanaugh home, there's a horseshoe over every door, a rabbit's foot in every pocket and a lawn entirely planted with four-leaf clover. There were half a dozen times during Brett M. Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination battle when most experts were certain he'd have to be withdrawn. Republicans already faced a likely Democratic wave in the midterms, and standing by Kavanaugh would all but concede not only the House but also possibly the Senate. Yet somehow he was confirmed. And his party's luck is even more astonishing. Far from turning the Blue Wave into...

The concerted efforts now underway to derail the improved relations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia established by the Trump administration are unhelpful at best and dangerous to America’s national and economic security at worst. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is a reformer trying to modernize his country. The steps he has taken so far are unprecedented. Letting that progress fall victim to mistakes by his government and attacks from opponents would be a massive mistake. The death of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi – a critic of the Saudi government, who has not been heard from since he...

RUSH: The Khashoggi situation, and there’s some things about this guy that I don’t think are being widely reported exactly who he is. The Drive-Bys… Let me just tell you what the Drive-Bys purpose here is, again. The Drive-Bys are trying as hard as they can to link Donald Trump to Khashoggi’s murder. By the way, just so you know, there are a couple of CNN infobabes who are pronouncing the name “Khashog-gee” because there’s two G’s in there. Every time I’ve heard the word, the name pronounced, it’s always been “Kah-show-gee,” Adnan Khashoggi pronounced his name that way. Robin...

RUSH: Donald Trump, the president of the United States, has “has strongly informed the President of Honduras that if the large Caravan of people heading to the U.S. is not stopped and brought back to Honduras, no more money or aid will be given to Honduras, effective immediately!” The Drive-Bys are eagerly covering this caravan, desperately hoping for it to arrive. Trump is saying if you don’t turn ’em back, then you can forget any aid from us. We’ll see what happens. ‘Cause he means it.

Last week, federal authorities fined Munilla Construction Management $25,868 for “serious” safety violations in its role as the contractor on the Florida International University bridge that collapsed in March, killing six people. The morning after the collapse, Juan Perez, director of the Miami-Dade Police Department, said the department’s homicide squad would explore criminal charges for contractors such as MCM. “We’ve got to look at the reality that there may be some negligence down the line,” Perez said. Perez answers to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who appointed him director in January 2016. Miami-Dade is the only county in Florida where the...

RUSH: I want you to hear the standing ovation the Turtle got. This would never have happened… I don’t know how long it’s been since Mitch McConnell was greeted with this kind of love and respect and excitement by a Republican audience anywhere. But Donald Trump brought him on the stage at a MAGA rally in Richmond, Kentucky, on Saturday thanking the Turtle for standing firm on Kavanaugh. And listen to the reaction. Trump says Mitch McConnell "Kentucky tough"THE PRESIDENT: Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. Come up here! CROWD: (loud cheers) RUSH: George Will is watching this and just unable...

"Seventy years of post-war diplomacy ruined" is the consensus establishment view of Donald Trump's America First foreign policy. And it is true. But Donald Trump is not the first president in postwar America to rattle the iron cage of establishment diplomacy. That honor goes to Harry Truman, who ruined Franklin Delano Roosevelt's vision of the postwar world when he did what Roosevelt would have never done – drop two nuclear bombs on Japan. Nor is President Trump the first postwar president to tread in Truman's footsteps. Both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan did that before him. And yet, there is...

There are tides in the affairs of men, we are reliably assured, which, taken at the flood, lead on to fortune. Does that mean Texans may expect the ascent of Rep. Beto O'Rourke to the U.S. Senate, on a flood of antagonism toward Donald Trump? Hanged if I see any such prospect cresting out there in the political sea. I say so in spite of all the cash supposedly deluging O'Rourke's campaign organization. I say so, additionally, despite the forest of "Beto" signs surrounding my premises. My conservative neighborhood has given over, at least somewhat, to admiration of a liberal...

Three things are true about Elizabeth Warren’s five-minute video debunking Donald Trump’s claim that she’s lying about her Native American roots. First, it’s a terrific introduction to her family history. Second, it won’t change any Republican minds. And third, that doesn’t matter. It’s aimed squarely at Democrats and the media—and yes, it’s an early salvo in what will certainly be a crowded Democratic presidential primary. I’ve sworn I would ignore 2020 politics until after the 2018 midterms, and that I will resist endorsing a Democrat as long as is humanly (for me) possible. With this piece, I’m breaking the first...

The midterm elections are just over three weeks away, and the stakes have never been higher. Brett Kavanaugh is now a Supreme Court Judge, but his journey to confirmation was laced with hateful comments from the left, unsubstantiated claims of sexual abuse, and extremist attacks in hallways, restaurants, parking lots, and anywhere Republican senators could be found. Recently, surveys had Democrats far more motivated to vote, but that margin has all but disappeared. Brett Kavanaugh’s ordeal is seared into the memory of GOP faithfuls and has united and motivated them to vote. The thought of giving control of the...

Over the weekend Donald Trump warned of "severe punishment" if an investigation concludes that a Saudi hit team murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Riyadh then counter-threatened, reminding us that, as the world's largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia "plays an impactful and active role in the global economy." Message: Sanction us, and we may just sanction you. Some of us yet recall how President Nixon's rescue of Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War triggered a Saudi oil embargo that led to months of long gas lines in the United States, and contributed to...

Given what the Trump administration is saying are record achievements for a president at this stage in office, why would anyone consider voting for Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections? Writing in The Washington Examiner, Paul Bedard lists 289 accomplishments of the Trump administration, beginning with the obvious one, the economy: "They include 173 major wins, such as adding more than 4 million jobs, and another 116 smaller victories, some with outsize importance, such as the 83 percent one-year increase in arrests of MS-13 gang members." They also include two justices now on the Supreme Court and 82 other...

Any doubt that Elizabeth Warren plans to run for President ended Monday when the Massachusetts Senator released a DNA analysis indicating that she probably does have some trace of distant Native American ancestry. The former Harvard professor went so far as to unveil a website and video featuring an analysis by Stanford professor Carlos Bustamante, who said that while Ms. Warren is mainly European she likely has some Native American ancestry “in the range of 6-10 generations ago.” This makes her between 1/64th and 1/1024th Native American, which barely spares her the humiliation of not having any after she had...

ERIE, Pa. -- Jason Vogel is fired up to vote. He says his passion crystallized two weeks ago when he saw just how chaotic Washington, D.C., would be if the Democrats were to seize power in Congress. When Democratic senators smeared Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as an attempted rapist without proof and angry protestors stormed the Capitol, he said, he grew increasingly concerned. "Hard to imagine that occurring every day, but you begin to realize that is exactly what would happen if I didn't turn out to vote," he said. Vogel is with his family at the Erie Insurance...

For those on the left and right who were certain that President Donald Trump's presidency meant the end of global free trade ... think again. Though Trump's critics have dismissed the significance of the new Mexico and Canada trade deal, it's hard to deny that it is a welcome advance for the economy of the entire continent. The pact will extend for years a (mostly) tariff-free North American trade zone. This was Ronald Reagan's vision nearly four decades ago -- and that legacy can now live on for hopefully many years to come. Here's just one example of the...