Free Republic

Two momentous things come together as the New Year approaches. The first is the 250th anniversary of the greatest document in political history, the Declaration of Independence. The second is the national firestorm that rages over its meaning. Trump The first of the contrary winds fueling our national firestorm is Donald Trump, who has closed out his first whirlwind year. Crime is down in several cities where he sent the National Guard. The economy is doing pretty well, and predictions are that it will continue, decline, or quicken (I think it will fluctuate). The stock market is high, and the...

The precision and sporter shooters will compete at Hillsdale College July 24-26. The American Legion’s Junior 3-Position Air Rifle National Championship will again be held on the campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Mich., July 24-26. The top 15 precision and 14 sporter youth marksmen who competed in the American Legion postal match advanced to the championships. During competition July 24 and 25, participants in both the precision and sporter categories will shoot a .177-caliber air rifle in three positions – prone, standing and kneeling – 20 times for each position twice. The top eight competitors in both categories will...

 David McCullough was born in 1933 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and was educated there and at Yale University. Author of 1776, John Adams, Truman, Brave Companions, The Path Between the Seas, Mornings on Horseback, The Great Bridge and The Johnstown Flood, he has twice received the Pulitzer Prize and twice the National Book Award, as well as the Francis Parkman Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. The following is adapted from a public lecture delivered at Hillsdale College on March 31, 2006, during Mr. McCullough's one-week residency at the College to teach a class on “Leadership and the History...

David McCullogh Historian David McCullough was born in 1933 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and was educated there and at Yale. Author of John Adams, Truman, Brave Companions, The Path Between the Seas, Mornings on Horseback, The Great Bridge and The Johnstown Flood, he has twice received the Pulitzer Prize and twice the National Book Award, as well as the Francis Parkman Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. His next book, 1776, will be published in May 2005. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following is an abridged transcript of remarks delivered on February 15, 2005, in Phoenix, Arizona, at a Hillsdale College National...

Sowell and Robinson announce Sowell’s new web site, FactsAgainstRhetoric.org

Just hours after his inauguration on January 20, President Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people convicted of offenses related to the events of January 6, 2021. He commuted the sentences of fourteen additional people whose cases for a full pardon are still under review.

Left to right: Reagan Reese ’22, Phillip Wegmann ’15, and Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell ’24 are White House correspondents. Courtesy | Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell What’s new about reporting on the Trump administration for Philip Wegmann? The RealClearPolitics White House reporter and 2015 Hillsdale grad is drinking more coffee. How many cups per day? “My mother might read this,” Wegmann deflects. “I can’t tell you.” Wegmann is one of three Hillsdale graduates covering the White House who say the new Trump administration is more energetic than the last. Wegmann began covering the White House in 2019, Reagan Reese Gensiejewski ’22 joined him...

A prominent historian of World War II and the life of Winston Churchill recently criticized the "popular historian" who has taken flak for telling Tucker Carlson that the former British prime minister was a psychopathic villain.Darryl Cooper — whom the former Fox News host described as maybe "the best and most honest popular historian in the United States" during their two-hour interview earlier this month — suggested that Churchill was "the chief villain of the Second World War," guilty of "rank terrorism" and "primarily responsible for that war becoming what it did, becoming something other than an invasion of Poland."During...

The conflict today is not simply a normal policy argument between conservatives and progressives. It is over the future of the historic American nation, both its creed and its culture. The following is adapted from a talk delivered on April 18, 2024, at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in Bellevue, Washington. In the past two years, two competing groups of conservatives—National Conservatives or NatCons and Freedom Conservatives or FreeCons—have issued competing manifestos. These manifestos reflect a divergent understanding of the progressive challenge to the American way of life. This divergence can best be understood in the context of the...

In its typically clueless way, The New Yorker is hot on the topic of whether the liberal arts—and especially classical education—have gone conservative. (The article is titled, “Have the Liberal Arts Gone Conservative?”) Better break out the smelling salts.You’d think this is an easy question. The left have attacked or hollowed out the liberal arts on campus, and the only people who take the classics seriously, and on their own terms, are conservatives. Leftist intellectuals insist on reading all classical literature through the current ideological filters, and students find it repellent, irrelevant, and above all boring.Emma Green, The New Yorker‘s...

Interview with Patton's driver during WW2. TWO important notes in this video: Jeff Sanza states he was there when Ike radioed him to STOP and not go further to Berlin. The driver states he saw tears go down Patton's face because he didnt want the Soviets there and it clearly upset him. Patton wanted to be in Berlin 2) The REAL story for eh slapping incident: NO, it was NOT a slap across the face. Idiot liberal media back then had in it for Patton. At 12:30 MARK but watch the entire 16 minute video, it's great.

From the introduction to this speech which is part of a series, "The modern pharmaceutical industry has in many ways proved itself a great benefit to mankind, making health- and life-saving drugs and vaccines widely available. But its reputation has come under attack in the wake of America’s opioid epidemic and the COVID pandemic. This fourth and final CCA of the 2022-23 academic year will consider the rise of Big Pharma, its role in the declining state of American health, and ideas for reform."

MIDLAND – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke to hundreds of Michigan Republicans here on Thursday, positioning himself as an unapologetic conservative who has developed a “culture of winning” in his state. “What we showed in Florida, is that if you show bold leadership, if you pursue a bold agenda, you can beat (Democrats),” DeSantis said at a Midland Republican Party breakfast. “We've beaten them in the state of Florida.” DeSantis has not yet announced a presidential campaign but is setting the stage for a possible run in the GOP primary against former President Donald Trump, who has led DeSantis by...

According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, enrollment in colleges across the nation has decreased by roughly 13%. While many colleges struggle to draw in students, many faith-based universities are seeing a boom in applications, championing the classical curriculum over woke ideologies. Founder and CEO of the Classic Learning Test (CLT) Jeremy Tate outlined on “Fox & Friends Weekend” Saturday how the classical education is giving many colleges across the U.S. an edge over others. “If you’re watching this, and you graduated college in the sixties or seventies, then you probably took U.S. history or economics or Western civilization....

Three Tennessee school boards denied the application of the American Classical Academy, a K-12 charter school system affiliated with Hillsdale College that provides students with a classic liberal arts education. The American Classical Academy alleges that these decisions are politically motivated and based on its ties to Hillsdale, which is Christian and conservative, as well as comments made by Hillsdale’s president, Larry Arnn.The American Classical Academy filed appeals with the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission, a group appointed by the governor. In two statements of intent, the American Classical Academy said that the Rutherford and Madison school boards did not...

Yes, the history of Rome often sounds like our own. But then, it sounds like most every other civilization that has existed in any part of the world at any time in history.The bad news for Americans wondering if we are “like ancient Rome” is that all civilizations come to an end. This often happens on the heels of great success.Nowhere was this truer than with the Roman Republic. The Roman general Scipio Aemilianus burst into tears as he and his troops finally and thoroughly destroyed the city of Carthage. We are told,After being wrapped in thought for long, and...

Tennessee GOP Gov. Bill Lee has invited the private conservative Hillsdale college to open 50 charter schools in his state that will teach so-called "anti-woke" curriculums. The offer for Hillsdale, a liberal arts college with about 1,500 students in Michigan, to use public funds includes $32 million for charter facilities. Hillsdale developed the "1776 Curriculum," a direct response to the New York Times' "1619 Project" about so-called Critical Race Theory, which in suggests American is inherently racist. Hillsdale's version teaches students that America is "an exceptionally good country." Critics of the 1776 Curriculum say it has an overly positive take...

With only 1,500 students on a small-town campus in southern Michigan, Hillsdale College is far from the power corridors of government and top-ranked universities. But it has outsize influence in the conservative world, with strong ties to the Washington elite. Republican leaders frequently visit, and Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the 2016 commencement address, calling Hillsdale a “shining city on a hill” for its devotion to “liberty as an antecedent of government, not a benefit from government.” Now the college is making new efforts to reach beyond its campus, this time with an even younger audience. The college is fighting what...

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee (R) announced on Monday a state partnership with Michigan’s Hillsdale College to launch a number of K-12 charter schools. Lee announced the partnership during his state of the state address on Monday evening in front of a special joint session of the state Legislature. Hillsdale College is a liberal arts college in southern Michigan known for its refusal to accept federal funds. The college has launched an initiative to revitalize “public education through the launch and support of classical K-12 charter schools.” Lee and Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn are working together to build a system...

The government’s pandemic response, while telling people to “follow the science” of its experts, has adopted a model of tyranny by the experts who have twisted the true spirit of science, according to Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College. “It’s just foolish to say, ‘That scientist can rule,'” Arnn told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program when speaking of Hillsdale’s decision to stay open for in-person instruction amid the pandemic, noting Winston Churchill’s view that “expert knowledge is limited knowledge.” The full American Thought Leaders interview with Larry Arnn will premiere on EpochTV in the near future. “If it were true...