Free Republic

Is it all over in America? This is a question that has been asked, I suppose, since its founding. It is reported that when Ben Franklin was asked after the Constitutional Convention in 1787, if America was a republic or a monarchy he replied, "A republic...If you can keep it." So, even at the birth of our nation, there were doubts as to the feasibility of a government whose powers were reserved to "We, the People." Never had a great nation survived without a group or groups of individuals seizing the reins and using governmental power to strip the rights...

Tomorrow will likely bring more bad news for President Barack Obama on the number one issue for voters -- the economy. The Labor Department's monthly job report will almost certainly show unemployment topping 9%, with a couple hundred thousand more jobs lost in May. It will get worse before jobs get better. Congressional Budget Director Douglas W. Elmendorf recently predicted that unemployment will continue rising into the second half of next year and peak above 10%. -- snip --

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor remains something of an enigma on legal matters relating to national security and the war on terror, issues likely to loom large on the high court's docket in the coming years. In one case touching directly on national security questions, Judge Sotomayor ruled for the Bush administration in 2006 in allowing broad search powers to a Vermont ferry operator for security purposes. But in a second case - still pending - she sharply questioned the government's "rendition" policy of shipping suspected terrorists to other countries for questioning.

Republicans plan to use the government takeover of General Motors Corp. as ammunition in their bid to defeat congressional Democrats next year, saying its a glaring example of big government intrusion into the marketplace that will rankle average voters. They said the bankruptcy arrangement, which President Obama announced at the White House on Monday, is doomed to entangle politicians in business decisions... "We'll continue to make the case that President Obama and House Democrats want to do to America's health care system what they have done to General Motors," said Paul Lindsay, a spokesman for House Republicans' campaign arm, the...

The nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court has vaulted the president, the Senate, and the entire country into a discussion about race and the meaning of equal protection under the law. The president could have gone another route — choosing, for example, a distinguished justice like Diane Wood who did not have controversial decisions, speeches, and law review articles suggesting that there are different strains of jurisprudence depending on the ethnicity of the judge. But he did not. And now Eric Holder will have his wish — everyone is talking about race. The much-discussed New Haven firefighter case...

77% See Politicians Unwillingness to Cut Government Spending as Bigger Problem Than Voter Resistance to Tax Hikes Friday, May 22, 2009 For nearly four-out-of-five U.S. voters, the problem is not their unwillingness to pay taxes. It’s their elected representatives’ refusal to cut the size of government. Seventy-seven percent (77%) of voters say the bigger problem in the United States is the unwillingness of politicians to control government spending. Just 14% say the problem is that voters are unwilling to pay enough in taxes, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. These findings parallel results in California just before...

Chapel Hill, N.C. (AP) -- In political debate, the side that keeps its arguments simple and repeats them again and again is likely to gain the advantage. It is an easier sale, especially when the topic is as scary as terrorism. That's how Republicans got the edge in the dispute over President Barack Obama's planned closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison. And it put former Vice President Dick Cheney on a separate but almost equal platform with the president of the United States, which is a plus any time the party out of power can manage it. Their back-to-back speeches...

WASHINGTON – On both economic and national-security fronts, President Barack Obama is giving ground and crossing swords with political allies. Caught in the worst economic downturn in generations, Obama has had to temper his stance on trade and lower his expectations for trimming charitable tax breaks for the wealthy and for taxing greenhouse-gas polluters. He's not the first president to be pulled toward the political center after being elected. But the recession and two wars abroad put him in a particularly tough spot — with smaller margins for error. With the deficit mushrooming, lawmakers in both parties are worrying more...

The latest FOX News poll asked Americans their views on everything from Guantanamo Bay to gun control to gay marriage to global warming. Here are some of the findings. Just over half of Americans (55 percent) oppose transferring detainees from the Guantanamo Bay facility to prison facilities in the United States. Even so, they are divided on whether bringing the detainees to the United States will put the country at risk. While some 43 percent think transferring the detainees to U.S. prison facilities would make the country less safe, about the same number -- 45 percent -- think it would...

Evangelical megachurches across San Diego, Calif., are joining Catholics on Sunday to make a public outcry against abortion in their first ever joint pro-life rally. The demonstration, which will take place after the multiple worship services that typically take place at megachurches, is being held on the same day President Barack Obama will take the stage at the University of Notre Dame to deliver the commencement speech. While the San Diego rally is fundamentally a pro-life rally, the undertone of the event is "a statement to the president that the killing of babies must come to an end," Pastor Jim...

Abortion, gay marriage complicate Supreme Court selection President Obama hopes for a candidate who won't galvanize conservatives over hot-button issues. By James Oliphant and David G. Savage May 16, 2009 Even as President Obama flies to the University of Notre Dame this weekend to give a commencement speech that promises to be marked by bitter abortion protests, he will be grappling with one of the most critical decisions of his presidency. With a new poll out Friday showing that for the first time a majority of Americans call themselves "pro-life," the decision of whom to nominate to the U.S. Supreme...

Even before this week, it was apparent Dick Cheney would not go gently into the not-so-good night of a former vice president. The man whom many consider the most powerful veep in history had already been far more vocal and visible than most of his predecessors in retirement. This week in particular, the former No. 2 has been out there almost daily, doing talk shows and giving a formal address to the American Enterprise Institute on the importance of interrogation techniques widely considered to be torture. Along the way, he is also unburdening himself of opinions on everything else, from...

The GOP needs to clearly understand that gun owners are not a constituency that can be taken for granted. In summary, let the GOP beware … Gun owners are not blind apologists for the party and we expect those who want our vote to earn it.

In politics, conventional wisdom can be slow to die, even when the so-called wisdom is neither true nor wise. So I was reminded on a recent visit to Capitol Hill, when I asked several lawmakers and senior members of their staffs to explain the Democrats’ timidity about standing up to the National Rifle Association by pressing needed measures to curb gun violence. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Obama tossed cold water a few weeks back on Attorney General Eric Holder’s well-founded enthusiasm for reviving the assault weapons ban that Congress and the Bush White House let expire in 2004....

(CNN) – House Minority Whip Eric Cantor and former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said in an interview airing on CNN's State of the Union Sunday morning that the GOP wasn't directly responsible for much of the party's electoral misfortune in 2008. "I frankly believe that much of what happened in the last election revolved around the fact that the economy fell apart at the time we were, if you will, holding the hot potato. Republicans and Democrats have been playing this game, passing the hot the potato, spending money like there was no tomorrow," Romney told John King. "And...

(snip) On the subject of education, one attendee declared that “people learn more from listening to Rush Limbaugh than they do in high school or college.” And while the leaders said they're willing to embrace the thoughts of the concerned voters, a group of conservative activists who were protesting in the parking lot complained that they were not allowed through the doors. “We’re demonstrating against the fact that this organization set up by RINOs [Republicans in Name Only] have taken immigration off the agenda,” said Michael McLaughlin, a member of the American Council for Immigration Reform, a group seeking to...

It was a mere four years ago that the Republican Party governed — and I assure you I employ the word "govern" reluctantly — every level of federal government. Few experts construed this to mean that the Democratic Party was forever irrelevant or a rotting cadaver. What were the future apparatchiks up to as Republicans were busy breaking every promise, crime and piggy bank they could get their paws on? Well, they did what any enlightened individual should do: They found themselves. They started blogging. Getting angry. Raising money. Marching. Caring. They began purging imposters and crafting catchy platitudes that...

John Boehner thinks the road back for the GOP begins with the issue of national security. And they are coming out swinging.

Say what you want about Meghan McCain, the girl knows how to grab a headline. Speaking Saturday to the Log Cabin Republicans, McCain pronounced her belief that the GOP is too far behind the times to be relevant to the American electorate. "I feel too many Republicans want to cling to past successes," the 23-year-old McCain said. "There are those who think we can win the White House and Congress back by being 'more' conservative. Worse, there are those who think we can win by changing nothing at all about what our party has become. They just want to wait...

I experienced a moment of clarity: The Republican coalition can not stand the dominance of the neocons. 1) Communism possessed a powerful military force with numerous nuclear weapons. Radical Islam does not threaten us in the same way. 2) Businessmen do not feel as threatened by Islam. 3) Some in the Republican coalition will worry that Israel is using us. 4) Converting Moslems into our friends is made harder by our Middle Eastern conquests. The Communists were easier to convert by conquest, they rarely held any real love for Communism. Neoconservatives can be a part of the coalition, but they...