Free Republic

Searching old newspapers is one of my favorite pastimes, and I have tried to use them many times to shed light on current events - or to inform readers about how the past is prologue to our very interesting present-day quandaries. Recently, I came across a syndicated column from November 1979 that seemed to point 30 years into the future toward an obscure campaign issue that arose briefly in the 2008 presidential campaign. Though by no means definitive, it provides an interesting insight, at least, into how Chicago politics intersected with the black power movement and Middle Eastern money at...

Libertarian Solutions: Property rights in America: Your 'castle' is under siege by Bill Winter, LP News Editor & Jon Trager, LP News Staff Writer EDITOR'S NOTE: How can Libertarianism solve America's problems? Each issue, LP News showcases how "Libertarian Solutions" -- or interim steps in a libertarian direction -- can help improve our nation. [May 24] In 1994, Vera Coking received an ominous letter from the New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Development Authority. Coking, a widow who had lived in her Atlantic City home for 35 years, was notified that her house had been seized under the state's eminent domain laws....

DISPATCHES FROM THE AMERICAN FRONT George Bush, Real ManBy James Benton You could see it in his eyes, hear it in his tone Tuesday night in the second half of his State of the Union speech: this was a man not to be trifled with, a man who would see a difficult, dirty business through to the end, and God help anyone who stood against him as he does battle against the foes of America and her ideals. If anyone had doubts about Bush's commitment to victory in the War on Terrorism, they were laid to rest Tuesday night. Rarely...

Most Americans haven’t forgotten the bald-faced lies the Clintons told about Bill’s affairs and molestations along with the sheer savagery of the attacks their surrogates launched against these women. For example, we all remember Bill Clinton perjuring himself by saying, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” Of course, Bill was lying which helped lead to the House voting to impeach him. The Senate attempted to follow suit and although 50 Senators voted for impeachment, they didn’t reach the 67 vote threshold needed to send Clinton home in disgrace. What you may not remember was the...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Suspended Broward Supervisor of Elections Miriam Oliphant has been charged with 55 counts of violating election laws. Oliphant, already facing a Senate trial for her conduct in office, is accused of not opening polls on time and not keeping them open late enough during the September 2002 primary. The Florida Elections Commission levied the charges against Oliphant at its Feb. 19 meeting. If found guilty, Oliphant faces a fine of up to $55,000. She has 30 days to respond and can choose to appear in administrative court or in front of the Elections Commission. Oliphant, a...

Wasn't it Mark Twain who said that reports of his demise were much exaggerated or was it Harry Truman in 1948? Well, the witticism could just as easily be applied to George W. Bush, who suddenly seems to be the subject of dire predictions from nearly every political undertaker and spin-doctor in Washington. If one were to listen to the clownish Democratic mouthpiece James Carville and the rest of his "Democracy Group," there is practically no chance that Bush can win in November a year from now. Between the lines of their most current status report is the implied suggestion...

"Be happy! Don’t worry! We have a true conservative in the White House!" At least that is the message that I keep hearing from many who have duct taped a "conservative" label on themselves these days. The proof, they contend, is in the $674 billion dollar "tax cut/economic stimulus" plan the president is proposing. For that, they think he should immediately be stamped with the "Good Conservative Seal of Approval" for exhibiting sound conservative credentials. But should we really have no concerns? Now don’t get me wrong, I think the tax cuts are great. But in this case, they don’t...

It might have been homeland security. Or maybe even the economy. At least that's what the political experts say, when it comes to explaining the Republican Party's success in November's election. But there may be more than meets the eye behind the outcome of 2002 midterm elections. Undoubtedly, with many Senate races being decided by less than 10,000 votes, both the economy and security concerns were politically potent issues. But according to Jennifer G. Hickey of Insight Magazine, most analysts have overlooked the impact of the abortion issue in several key races. In fact, she contends, polling data indicates that...

I find your remarks, you attitudes and your stupid red map extremely offensive. How long do you think people will remain "dumbed up" with respect to your old-white-men racist crap. Why not publish a map by population rather than by acreage? That is how VOTING operates. I am sure you know this, but it is another distortion coming from you and your kind. You and the Republicans have had a dirty little secret for two generations...they have courted your votes, but would not be caught in the same room with you at the White House or the ranch in Crawford....

EDITOR’S NOTE: The publication of Byron York's "Bad Lands, Bad Votes," describing voting improprieties in South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson's 524-vote victory over Republican challenger John Thune, has set off a storm of debate, both in South Dakota and in Washington. Some Republicans have been outraged at their party's decision not to pursue the allegations and challenge Johnson's victory — especially in light of the GOP's precarious 51-49 majority in the Senate. But South Dakota attorney general Mark Barnett, a Republican with designs on the governor's office, has dismissed criticisms of voting in his state, calling the story "shoddy and...

In what some observers called an uncharacteristically harsh response to his critics, South Dakota attorney general Mark Barnett on Friday denounced a National Review account of voting irregularities in his state as "shoddy and irresponsible and sensationalistic and garbage."Barnett made the statements during a news conference in which he announced that his investigators have determined that two of the more than 40 affidavits collected by Republicans in the days after the election are false. The affidavits are from two people who said that the driver of a "Tim Johnson for Senate" van offered them $10 to vote. Barnett said...

It's been only two years since the closest and most disputed presidential election of modern American politics. Considering how far President Bush has come since those rancorous days, it feels more like a lifetime. Determined to put 2000 behind him, Bush barnstormed for Republican candidates from Florida to South Dakota, placing his reputation on the political line. It was a gutsy gamble that paid off handsomely. Republicans control the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives for the first time in almost 50 years. The net gain in congressional seats in a midterm election was the first...

REP. JOHN Conyers Jr., the Michigan Democrat recently crowned for the 20th time when voters sent him back to Congress, might be the ambulatory argument for term limits. Conyers has sponsored much legislation, some of it good, over the years. He has so grown in stature that he has made the error of thinking he actually knows something about Maryland's politics. Here's the congressman speaking at a post-election forum Thursday sponsored by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in the Rayburn House Office Building .

Pity the poor trial lawyers. They're people, too, said Bill McBride in his last debate with Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. But Bush beat McBride 56% to 43% in the Nov. 5 election. And around the country, the trial lawyers' favorites lost in most close races. Fans of tort reform say it's a trend. The rising cost of health care has made voters more receptive to their message blaming excessive malpractice awards. That's helped win key elections. And fewer activist judges and more Republican lawmakers better the odds for tort reform, even if getting stalled bills out of the Senate is...

Election 2002: The Mourning After by William F. Harrison, M.D. November 14, 2002 The election of 2002 is over, and as usual, there are winners and losers. The winners are the religious right, big business, rapacious capitalism, corporate raiders, the big rich, the gun lobby, stock manipulators, war munitions manufacturers, those who would rape and pillage our forests, streams, shorelines, and public lands — and the politicians who serve them. The losers are our environment, the middle class, the poor, organized labor, small stockholders, wage earners, those without medical insurance, and those who serve them, and — the biggest losers...

While whimpering Democrats and their media allies sit around trying to figure out why they lost the November 5 elections, over in London Tina Brown found a simple answer to the Dem's puzzle, according to Liz Smith in today's New York Post. Writing in Britain's Times, Brown explained that: "more Americans voted Republican because they wanted to." Noting that "'THE POST-election spinning of mortified Democrats shares a premise with all victims of public humiliation: 'If only people knew,' ... If only people heard my side of the story!' Brown observed that the Democrats "cling to the tenacious old lie of...

When a victorious Roman general was granted a triumphal procession through the city, a slave was assigned to stand behind him in his chariot whispering "Remember that thou are mortal." When an American president enjoys an electoral triumph like that enjoyed by George W. Bush earlier this month, exactly the opposite happens: Pundits and analysts assure him that he is now immortal. In this case Mr. Bush was told that his triumph was a historic one, establishing an extraordinary precedent for a Republican president in his first midterm elections by actually gaining seats, and that he may even have...

The demographic headline on the 2002 election was expected to be either "Democrats ride growing numbers of nonwhite voters to victory," or "GOP wins by attracting more minorities." Instead, non-whites played an anticlimactic role. The star turn was taken by what had become the Invisible Giant of American politics: the white electorate. As reported first by United Press International, Republicans won the two-party vote by a 53 percent to 47 percent margin. Despite the collapse of the Voter News Service exit polls, evidence has mounted that the Republicans triumphed not by broadening their tent to include more minority voters;...

Tuesday was a massacre for the democrats. They had no message and the polling was horrible. I have always been skeptical about polls and it appears that most of the pre-election polls were off. So why did the republicans do so well? George Bush deserves much of the credit, but let's not forget about the great candidates we had. 90% od our candidates were experienced and did well in their debates. The democrats did have a message. It was "no" to whatever being asked. The get nothing done senate was another reason. No bills and no judges were coming out...

When the helicopters lifted off the roof of the American embassy in Saigon in 1975, Gerry Ford, reputed to be president at the time, went on national television to reassure the public, insisting that this was no time for "recriminations." To which a friend of mine replied: "This is exactly the time for recriminations!" The deep significance of the Republican victory on Tuesday has barely been appreciated in the land: This was the 50th anniversary of Eisenhower's first landslide, which was the last time that the Republicans had control of the White House, the Senate, and the House at...