Free Republic

Today's Republican Party is building a political bomb -- and the ingredients for the explosive concoction are being mixed before our eyes. When it all blows up -- and it will, unless the party changes course soon -- the result will be not just rhetorical extremism but could well include real violence.A chilling new poll by PRRI, the Public Religion Research Institute, found that nearly one in four Republicans (that's tens of millions of people) believe the QAnon mythology that "the government, media, and financial worlds in the US are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles."

If you were expecting President Biden to take a victory lap, to boast about his remarkable achievements in just 50 days in office, it's understandable. After four years of the former president, many of us became accustomed to self-serving rhetoric. But Biden's first prime-time address Thursday night was something altogether different from that. Biden was 20 minutes into his speech before he mentioned that he had just signed into law a $1.9 trillion Covid-19 economic relief package that is, in fact, one of the most significant pieces of legislation in modern history -- one that will change the lives of...

Watching the pandemic edition of the Republican National Convention, I had to remind myself this wasn't a "Saturday Night Live" parody of the Party of Trump. The RNC first night alternated between lying about who President Donald Trump is and what he has done -- and lying about who Joe Biden is and what he would do. In the convention's opening film, as images of the Statue of Liberty and Trump flashed, narrator Jon Voight described Trump as "a man who works tirelessly for you." Cue the laugh track. We were told that Trump has been a "decisive leader" on...

The first time most of us learned that President Donald Trump was thinking about relaxing existing measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic was on Sunday night, just before midnight. That's when his tweet shouted in all caps, "WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF." He went on to say he would make a decision at the end of the current 15-day period of CDC guidelines recommending social distancing. The idea to change course may have come from his favorite network, Fox News, where a Sunday morning host suggested that when it comes to...

When Americans turn their attention more fully to the 2020 election, voters will be interested in candidate proposals about health insurance, student debt, and the like. But the way to a Democratic victory is more likely one that also promises an end to the awful feeling that now pervades much of the country. That sense of constant war against each other. That floating dread about how far this will go. Americans have endured more than two years of ugly stories from Washington; stories of corruption, of conflicts of interest, of payments to adult-film stars, of secret meetings with Russians, of...

Angie Valeria had not celebrated her second birthday when she drowned on Sunday, grasping her father as they tried to reach the United States. The picture of tiny Valeria, face down, with her arm still around her dead father's neck, has become the heartbreaking symbol of the Trump administration's cruel -- and failing -- policies at the southern border. Valeria and her father, Oscar Alberto Ramirez, are more than a statistic because we have their picture. But they are not an anomaly.

The era of the sensitive man is officially coming to an end. From Sacramento to Jerusalem, from Bogotá to Baghdad, across all latitudes and longitudes, the masses are flocking toward the strong, choosing the tough over the thoughtful, the swaggering over the serene. The international political arena increasingly resembles the old Saturday Night Live game show "Quién es mas Macho?" Contestants tried to guess who was more macho, deciding if, for example, John Wayne had more testosterone than Charles Bronson. Already Israel's Shimon Peres has declared that Israel has its own Arnold Schwarzenegger in office with the redoubtable Ariel Sharon...

<p>Arnold Schwarzenegger's election as governor of California makes official what has been brewing for some time: The era of the sensitive man has come to an end.</p> <p>From Sacramento to Jerusalem, from Bogota to Baghdad, across all latitudes and longitudes, the masses feel drawn towards the strong, choosing the tough over the thoughtful, the swaggering over the serene. The international political arena increasingly resembles the old Saturday Night Live game show "Quien es mas Macho?" The show where contestants tried to guess who was more macho, deciding if, for example, John Wayne had more testosterone than Charles Bronson.</p>

The re-birth of the masculine politician By Nikki Clark My rebuttal to Frida Ghitis, “The end of the Sensitive Politition”, Pittsburg Post Gazette October 12, 2003. Let me begin with this, Frida your are a moron. As a woman, I thank god that the era of the so-called “Sensitive Man” is over and in fact prayed for it. With the current crop of Democrat Presidential want-to-be’s, from John Kerry the French looking Vietnam veteran with the long horse face to the baby face John Edwards, let’s not forget Dennis Kacinich who must have been born with one ovary and no...