Free Republic

Winston Churchill said: “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” That was in the pre-digital age. Now we enjoy a 300-channel, ever-connected world. Today that lie is around the world and knocking at the door before the truth has even fetched the morning paper. In fact, before that paper is even printed, the lie has probably bounced around the TV, radio and Internet echo chamber for hours. A recent example of this occurred as Barbra Streisand was being honored with something called the Humanitarian Award. She took the opportunity...

Welcoming Remarks EDWIN J. FEULNER: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ed Feulner, and I am President of The Heritage Foundation. On behalf of The Heritage Foundation, I welcome you to our conference on public diplomacy entitled "Regaining America's Voice Overseas." Public diplomacy is a topic near and dear to my heart. From 1982 to 1994, under three Presidents, I served as a member--and for nine years as the Chairman--of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. I have been involved in the details and the programs of America's talented international communicators ever since. The first thing I...

“One more such victory and I am lost.” -- Pyrrhus It’s not always easy to do the right thing, especially when power and prestige hang in the balance. That’s especially true in Washington, where power in Congress means sitting on the correct committees, and party leaders can yank those plum assignments if members step out of line. So we owe a word of thanks to the conservative representatives and conservative senators who put their power and prestige at risk and voted against the Medicare “reform” bill. We already know they’ll pay a price. Republican leadership aides told The Hill newspaper that...

The natives in Iraq aren’t getting restless. But some residents of Washington, D.C., are. A dozen senators, including presidential candidates John Edwards, D-N.C., and John Kerry, D-Mass., recently voted against President Bush’s request for $87 billion to help rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq. Out on the campaign trail, another presidential hopeful, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, says we should bring our troops home—now.What a self-inflicted reversal of fortune that would be. From glorious victory—Saddam’s statue crashing down back in April—to ignoble defeat in just six months.As Vice President Cheney says, Iraq is the front line in the war against terrorism. “Having liberated...

<p>The conservative movement has scored historic gains but has yet to achieve several of its basic goals.</p> <p>That's the verdict of some of its founding fathers (and one important mother).</p> <p>"We won the battle against communism, but I guess we've largely lost the battle against big government," says Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly, 79, who defied conventional wisdom by leading a women's crusade that defeated the Equal Rights Amendment in the mid-1970s.</p>

What a special day July 29 was for me. On that day, my family welcomed the birth of my first grandchild, Elizabeth Jane Feulner. The birth of a grandchild gives us a chance to take stock of who we are and where we’re going. As a conservative, I tend to be an optimist. And why not, considering all the improvements we’ve witnessed over the last few decades? For example, medical science has cured polio and virtually wiped out diseases such as measles and whooping cough, which frightened parents back when I was born. I’ve also watched governments, both here and...

Think conservatives are mean? No. Turns out we’re just crazy. That, at any rate, seems to be the conclusion of a new study published in the American Psychological Association’s Psychological Bulletin—one that could lead one to believe that conservatives are mentally ill. That’s right. Four professors—two from the University of California at Berkeley, one from Stanford University and one from the University of Maryland—studied 50 years of research into the psychology of conservatives. The result, according to one of the authors, is a “pluralistic and nuanced understanding of the source of conservatism.”Yes, their study is highly nuanced. I knew it was the...

Some lawmakers say it so often, you’d think it was a mantra: We can’t afford to cut taxes, because doing so would increase the federal deficit. After a tax-cut measure passed the House of Representatives recently, Rep. Martin Frost, D-Texas, claimed the bill’s sponsors wanted “to spend $82 billion of the Social Security Trust Fund and drive America even deeper into debt.” Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, vowed to fight any tax cut that would increase the deficit. It’s true that we’re facing a record budget deficit. That’s partly because of the brief recession that began just as President Bush was...

<p>A courageous, principled, farsighted conservative who made a profound impact in many different worlds — in business, in national politics, in mass communications, in public policy — is gone. Joseph Coors, without whom there would be no Heritage Foundation, is dead at the age of 85. And I know we shall not see his like again.</p>