Free Republic

There's no official Sen. Ted Cruz presidential team — yet. But the Texas Republican is already surrounding himself with key strategists and advisers that could make his transparent White House ambitions a reality. The tea party firebrand relies on a small circle of advisers to inform his views and amplify his ultraconservative message. The inner circle breaks down into two groups: his chief advisers in the Senate office, and the chiefs of his nationally-focused political operation, which he beefed up in the summer of 2014 by hiring a crop of seasoned Republican campaign operatives. These are the key players that...

The Tea Party favorite loves to needle Team Obama. But in an interview, Cruz also reveals a new kind of conservative foreign policy: American exceptionalism without the nation building.One way to understand Ted Cruz’s foreign policy, particularly if you are a Democrat, is through the prism of the social media phenomenon known as trolling. The best trolls are provocateurs. Their language is meant to expose a fallacy or weakness in the opponent’s position as opposed to offering a constructive alternative. In a wide-ranging interview with the junior senator from Texas, there was a lot of trolling. Of Obama’s recent attempt...

(Original title: John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Ukraine Foreign Policy) In 1984, Jeane Kirkpatrick, a lifelong Democrat who Ronald Reagan appointed Ambassador to the United Nations, took to the stage at the Republican National Convention in Dallas. The Republicans and this Democrat roundly mocked the unseriousness of the Democrats who wanted to replace Ronald Reagan. Calling them “San Francisco Democrats” — the Democrats had held their convention in San Francisco — Kirkpatrick delivered many broadsides that ring true today. As she said of these San Francisco Democrats, “they always blame America first.” The San Francisco Democrats in 1984 included the...

Today is the anniversary of the first election in history in which a nation's leader was selected by universal male suffrage. On December 10, 1848, Frenchmen went to the polls for the first time in fifty-six years. For a third time, a revolution had overthrown the king, and for the second time, a republic was proclaimed. But the French voters blew it. The surprise winner was a seedy forty-year-old adventurer who had lived in exile in Switzerland and England, except for two ignominious coup attempts. He ran on a vaguely socialistic platform of hope and change -- his first book...

"Ideas may be cut loose from experience in two senses: either they have no roots in experience, or they are not submitted to the test of experience. Either way, they are free to be foolish." So wrote Jeane Kirkpatrick in the Introduction to her landmark book, Dictatorships and Double Standards (New York, 1982, p. 10). Kirkpatrick's statement applies perfectly to the band of naïve idealists now in change of our government. The youthful dreamers guiding the Obama administration have almost no private-sector experience. Like Obama himself, the Cabinet and host of czars who direct policy have spent their lives in...

"Ideas may be cut loose from experience in two senses: either they have no roots in experience, or they are not submitted to the test of experience. Either way, they are free to be foolish." So wrote Jeane Kirkpatrick in the Introduction to her landmark book, Dictatorships and Double Standards (New York, 1982, p. 10). Kirkpatrick's statement applies perfectly to the band of naïve idealists now in change of our government. The youthful dreamers guiding the Obama administration have almost no private-sector experience. Like Obama himself, the Cabinet and host of czars who direct policy have spent their lives in...

Presidential Race: The war for the soul of the Republican Party was won in 1980 by Ronald Reagan. Presidential candidates who want to re-wage the conflict in 2008 will only weaken the GOP against the Democrats' nominee. In the aftermath of Vietnam, Watergate and a Jimmy Carter presidency that rendered America an economic and foreign policy basket case, Republicans discovered a tried-and-true recipe for electoral success. They would stand for three sets of principles: • Lowering high taxes and stemming the growth of government in order to revive the private economy, lower inflation and interest rates, and generate jobs. •...

'Making War to Keep Peace' is a fine tribute to Jeane Kirkpatrick By Jack Kemp Former Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, one of the most admired women in the world, passed away in December at the age of 80, leaving a huge vacuum in our hearts and minds. Her posthumously published book, "Making War to Keep Peace" (Harper Collins, $26.95), released April 24, brings her ideas to life. The book is devoted to her foreign policy experiences and reflections from 1981 to 2006. Jeane had a way of providing and applying a clear worldview for debating, discussing and deciding U.S. foreign...

Our Iron Lady by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.Posted Dec 14, 2006It was at Jeane Kirkpatrick's funeral this week that I finally heard of some good achieved by the United Nations amidst all its dithering and graft. According to Jeane's pastor, during her momentous tenure as our U.N. ambassador, Jeane was so wobbled by the international body's cynicism and moral emptiness that she forsook years of atheism and became a person of faith. Mind you, she had always had an abundance of secular faith before President Ronald Reagan tapped her for the United Nations. Her faith in the American way of...

Pinochet tortured and murdered. His legacy is Latin America's most successful country. In the past 15 years, Chile's economy has grown at twice the regional average, and its poverty rate has been halved. It's leaving behind the developing world, where all of its neighbors remain mired. It also has a vibrant democracy... Like it or not, Mr. Pinochet had something to do with this success. To the dismay of every economic minister in Latin America, he introduced the free-market policies that produced the Chilean economic miracle -- and that not even Allende's socialist successors have dared reverse. He also accepted...

Jeane Kirkpatrick, who died yesterday at 80, was that rare thing--a public intellectual and a public figure. She excelled at both. Ms. Kirkpatrick is known to the public at large because Ronald Reagan, after defeating Jimmy Carter for the Presidency in 1980, appointed her U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. It is worth mentioning in this context that earlier this week Senate Democrats succeeded finally in driving John Bolton from the U.N. ambassadorship. The mind's eye recalls the televised image in the early 1980s of Ambassador Kirkpatrick, a Democrat then, seated at the U.N. Security Council table and publicly defending...

Alec Baldwin Disses Jeane Kirkpatrick, Advocates Disbanding CIA Posted by Noel Sheppard on December 9, 2006 - 19:15. Arianna Huffington really needs to rethink access to her blog. Lately, the nonsensical ravings of her guests would be much more appropriate at Daily Kos than the Huffington Post.This abomination by actor Alec Baldwin is a perfect example. On the day America learned it had lost one of the classiest people to ever represent our country at the United Nations, Baldwin chose to disparage her in a way that either questioned her femininity, or insinuated she was a warmonger: I heard William...

R.I.P. I just heard the news that Jeane Kirkpatrick passed away last night. More to follow, I'm sure.

Jeane J. Kirkpatrick's eyes twinkle at the mention of that August 1984 night at the Republican National Convention in Dallas when she eviscerated liberal Democrats as the "blame America first crowd." "When Marxist dictators shoot their way into power in Central America, the San Francisco Democrats don't blame the guerrillas and their Soviet allies," ... "They blame United States policies of 100 years ago. But then they always blame America first." With those words, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations -- a long-time Democrat -- described the difference between President Reagan's determination to defeat communism and Democratic Party leaders'...

Alan Keyes: It is my honor and privilege... to express my gratitude, my great satisfaction at having been able to spend time today with a friend and mentor, someone who was at one time both my boss at U.S. UN Mission but also someone from whom I think I learned all about both integrity and principle, and a sense of intellectual clarity in dealing with international relations and foreign affairs that was the most important formation for me in dealing with international relations, and I hope that thanks be to God, I have never lost my respect for that formation...

Register Business Editor Fresh off an unexpectedly controversial appearance at Napa Valley College Tuesday afternoon, Dr. Jeane Kirkpatrick found a more receptive audience that evening at the Silverado Country Club & Resort Ballroom. Kirkpatrick, a former ambassador to the United Nations who currently serves an ambassador on the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations, received a standing ovation from the more than 300 people attending when she reached the podium to give a speech at a fundraiser for the Napa Valley Boys & Girls Club. "I have never forgotten how beautiful Napa is and how good it tastes," Kirkpatrick...

At the 1984 Republican National Convention, Jeane Kirkpatrick, then the Reagan administration's U.N. delegate, gave a speech on foreign policy that has stuck with me. She blasted the Democratic Party's approach to foreign affairs, repeating the phrase "the blame America first crowd." I hated the speech at the time, but have recently reread it. It has aged better than I have............That same tendency to blame America for the moral shortcomings of others unfortunately permeates the left and the Democratic Party. I wish it were otherwise, but I got the first whiff of it after Sept. 11 when some people reacted...