Free Republic

I went to Ferguson shortly after all the mayhem back in 2014. I saw sections of the city burned to the ground. I talked to pastors and residents who shared that little had changed even years after all of the mainstream media hype. In an article in 2014, I accused the news media of malfeasance in what seemed to be blatant efforts to foment a racial war. They’re still fanning the flames from their cozy air-conditioned studios today almost gleefully relaying America’s politically driven chaos. After walking through Ferguson, and having lived and worked in desolate urban neighborhoods for years,...

When U.S. cities erupted after the death of George Floyd, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser was in the vanguard of the protests, renaming a section of downtown Black Lives Matter Plaza, and painting the name in letters on the street so huge they could be seen from space. Thursday, however, Bowser awoke to those same BLM protesters yelling outside her home, denouncing a "D.C. police murder of a Black Man," and demanding the mayor fire Police Chief Peter Newsham. 18-year-old Deon Kay had been shot and killed Wednesday afternoon in an encounter with cops. While this was the fifth shooting by...

While Democratic operatives and pundits are calling for Georgia to go for the Democratic nominee, President Donald Trump has greatly improved his lead. Let's start with a bit of history for those who are not as familiar as I am with Georgia, my home for more decades than I would like to mention. For several presidential election cycles, pundits have said Georgia has been shifting into the Democratic column. This election year is no different. The state has voted for Republican presidential candidates since 1972 (with the exception of Southern Democratic candidates Jimmy Carter in 1976, 1980 and Bill Clinton...

Editor's Note: This piece was co-authored by Joseph Olson. Last week, President Trump claimed the election will determine the future of private gun ownership in the United States. On Saturday, the NRA tweeted out that a Biden win “will destroy our Second Amendment.”They are right. If Democrats gain control, Joe Biden and Senate Democrats promise a radical change in the Senate by eliminating the filibuster, which will allow them to pass any legislation that they want with a simple majority vote. This year, the Democrat’s convention platform is focused on a radical gun control agenda. It advocates licensing for gun owners, allowing...

Reacting to the shooting of a Black man by a white Kenosha, Wisconsin, cop, a tearful Doc Rivers, the Black NBA Los Angeles Clippers Coach, held a postgame press conference. Rivers said: "All you hear is Donald Trump and all of them talking about fear. We're the ones getting killed. We're the ones getting shot. We're the ones that were denied to live in certain communities. We've been hung. We've been shot. And all you do is keep hearing about fear. It's amazing why we keep loving this country, and this country does not love us back. It's really so...

No one wants to be the skunk at the garden party, but sometimes a garden party needs a skunk to remind everyone about the reality of the world around them. Today, I’m going to be that skunk, at least a little. I’ve been seeing a bunch of columns recently about how President Donald Trump has the election in the bag, how it’s over and there’s no way a senile sock puppet like Joe Biden can possibly win in November. That’s simply not true. There’s a saying I like and use often: never spike the football on the 5-yard-line. It’s obviously...

I have returned with some regularity over the years to compare what is going on in our country today to what was going on in the 1850s, the years preceding the Civil War. America has always been about freedom of expression. And that freedom has often led to protests and tension. Generally, we've gotten through these tough and challenging times and moved on. But what caused everything to break down in the 1850s, leading to a horrible Civil War? The answer, I think, is to understand the distinction between plurality of opinions and plurality of values. Plurality of opinion is...

On Monday, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was finally forced to confront the left-wing violence that has been plaguing America's major cities for months on end: riots in New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland and Seattle, among other cities. For a full week, the Democratic National Convention ignored that ongoing violence, driven by members of the Black Lives Matter and Antifa movements. The media went right along with the narrative that violent riots have been "mostly peaceful," that conservatives were "pouncing" on occasional violence for political purposes and that the true threat to American safety could be found...

I know we’re all talking about Joe Biden’s speech in Pittsburgh, which once again showed that his mind has devolved into applesauce, along with the leftist riots that continue to engulf the nation, but we have new political correctness news. Apparently, a DC committee convened by Mayor Muriel Bowser has recommended that the Washington Monument, among other federal memorials in the city, should be marked for removal, relocation, or contextualization. No, you cannot make this up (via WaPo): A committee reporting to D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser recommends renaming dozens of public schools, parks and government buildings in the nation’s...

President Donald Trump isn't the first incumbent president to run for reelection facing a deficit in the late summer polls. At this stage of the election cycle in 1948, no one thought Democrat Harry Truman had a prayer of winning as he sank in the polls. Newsweek magazine likened the Truman campaign in the month before the election to a "ship beating itself to pieces against a rocky shore." The "never Trumans" in the Democratic Party were not much different from the Republicans' never Trumpers, a group of neoconservatives who Trumpism has thrust into irrelevancy. In the election of 1948,...

Of all the riots that have gone unchecked in the country this summer, the one in Kenosha, Wisconsin, might matter most with regard to the November presidential election. The vivid imagery in the days following the police shooting of Jacob Blake shows a town in devastation. Rioters blocked traffic. And they stole gasoline from a nearby gas station to start fires that took out numerous small businesses, car lots, an apartment building and a Family Dollar store. Other businesses that were not burned down nonetheless were looted and had their windows and doors smashed. It is a war zone, and...

Just watching Trump on Laura Ibgraham, FNC.It's an answer to liberal propagandists arguing that "it's under Trump's watch..." Interesting to note. Ferguson, is closely pronounced as FORGETTING in German...

A high school classmate of mine, an honor roll student and leader back then, long known for her objectivity, sent a compelling letter to a handful of friends. She gave me permission to anonymously reprint her insightful letter, which I slightly modified only for length: Hello friends, 2020 is such an important election year, I want to share my thoughts with people I believe share my concerns about a possible Donald Trump loss.  In November, we will not be choosing between two old men from our traditional parties. It will be a fight between the cornerstone of our democracy –...

We are living in truly dangerous times. In the midst of a global pandemic that has taken the lives of more than 180,000 Americans, protests, riots, looting, vandalism, and violence have gripped cities across the country for months.The most recent example occurred on Thursday, following President Trump’s Republican National Convention speech.Attendees of the address, including several convention speakers and members of Congress, were ruthlessly harassed and threatened by a mob of left-wing radicals as they exited the White House.Among those most in danger were Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., his wife, and two of their female friends. Just one block from his...

"Freedom Is Everybody"s Business Your Business My Business The Church's Business And A Man Who Will Not Use His Freedom To Defend His Freedom Does Not Deserve His Freedom"..... "You had the numbers. So when Ammon Bundy was arrested why did everyone leave as asked? If you make them arrest everyone everything changes"... Am I "Saved" When It Comes To Politics? If by "saved" you mean do I support President Trump the answer is "Yes" because I see the need for the "wild card" because the rest of the political landscape is so bleak and barren. People who believe in...

Reagan wrote about this for VIP, but Portland’s Mayor Ted Wheeler did two things. He sent a ridiculous letter to President Trump turning down his offer of federal assistance to get his lefty street hooligans under control. By the way, he tweeted this thereby showing that law and order were not priorities, and that he’s responsible for the ongoing violence. Second, this letter is a nice in-kind contribution to President Trump’s 2020 re-election effort.  Today, I sent this letter via email to @realDonaldTrump declining his recurring offer to aid Portland by sending federal enforcement to the city. https://t.co/W85EDfriyk pic.twitter.com/CC1IWTp5k8— Mayor...

Is Joe Biden forfeiting the law-and-order issue to Donald Trump? So it would seem. "Republicans Use Law and Order As Rallying Cry" was the top headline on The New York Times' front-page story on Vice President Mike Pence's acceptance speech at Fort McHenry Wednesday night. The Wall Street Journal Page One headline echoed the Times: "Pence Accepts Nomination as GOP Puts Focus on Police." In his address, Pence charged Biden with sinning by silence in failing to denounce the rioters, looters and arsonists who have for months attacked police and pillaged Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Kenosha and other cities. Said Pence:...

Democrats can try but won't succeed at distancing themselves from the violence they have enabled on American streets. People surely know where the Democrats have stood on this, and that they're now backpedaling only because of polling data. Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg outright blamed this anarchy on President Donald Trump. "The simple reality is that we are seeing more and more chaos and violence under the Trump presidency, and there's no reason to expect that it would get any different or better if he were reelected," said Buttigieg. "This is very much characteristic of living in Donald...

I’ve been very lucky in my life to meet some really interesting, smart, and nice famous people. It wasn’t their fame that made them any of the other things, and a lot of the famous people I’ve met were literally none of those other things, but a few were all of them and more. One such person was Christopher Hitchens, who became a friend in the final years of his life. Another such person is Tucker Carlson. That’s why I can’t sit by silently while progressive fascists try, yet again, to destroy him. These modern fascists are Democrats, ideological brethren...

I’m an angry man, and by angry, I mean living in a state of perpetual outrage over the events that continue to unfold in the United States over the past few years. It’s the same kind of outrage I experienced that motivated me to answer the call (which is very real) to join the Marine Corps and serve this country in 1999. It’s the same kind of outrage I felt after 9/11 towards the cowardly terrorists who slaughtered three thousand innocent Americans. It’s the same kind of outrage I felt when I deployed in 2006 to Fallujah, Iraq, as innocent...