Free Republic

We learn from history that we learn nothing from history. George Bernard ShawHistory is, indeed, little more than the register of the ‘crimes, follies, and misfortunes’ of mankind. But what experience and history teach is this - that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history or acted on principles deduced from it. Georg HegelTwo president’s farewell addresses with similar messages separated by 165 years.From President Washington’s 1796 farewell address.Over-grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796Context:Hence likewise they...

In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, scientists and public health institutions made bold claims about the effectiveness of various policy responses such as closing schools and banning public gatherings. These claims shaped government responses and had enormous effects on the lives of billions of people around the world. Are those claims supported by data? To answer that question, we explored whether patterns in the epidemiologic data could support claims made in the scientific literature and by public health institutions about the effectiveness of policy responses to Covid-19. We were optimistic we would find some policies that were consistently helpful....

A former Trump White House aide lamented Tuesday that former President Trump has “learned nothing” from the events of Jan. 6, 2021, after he urged supporters to protest his potential indictment in New York City. Sarah Matthews, who worked on the Trump campaign and as a deputy press secretary in the Trump White House, said on CNN she’s “definitely worried” the former president’s language leading up to potential charges against him in a hush money payment, though she downplayed the likelihood of violence like two years ago. “I think it goes to show he’s learned nothing in the aftermath of...

Birthdays are important to celebrate – yes, as milestones, but also as markers of significance. And consequence. One hundred and twelve years ago Monday, on February 6, 1911, Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois. He is remembered and celebrated all these years later – not because he is gone – but because of how he lived. The legacy he left behind both inspires and, in part, mystifies us still. He has been analyzed and scrutinized from every angle, yet the magical formula or "secret recipe" of Ronald Reagan all these years later seems as elusive as ever. What...

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday suggested former President Donald Trump may have learned some lessons from President Biden's speech marking the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, after Trump dismissed the remarks as "political theater."

President Joe Biden effusively praised Pope Francis on Sunday, reflecting on his personal audience he had at the Vatican on Friday. “He is everything I learned about Catholicism from the time I was a kid going from grade school through high school,” Biden said. The president spoke about Pope Francis at a press conference with reporters in Europe after the G20 Summit. “This is a man of great empathy. He’s a man who understands that part of his Christianity is to reach out and forgive,” Biden said.

What Joe Biden should have learned from Jimmy Carter © Getty Images The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has concluded, accompanied by a refrain that the 20-year American troop deployment represented the nation’s “longest war” — a conflict seen by President Biden as far too long and costly for results that, had the commitment continued, might have secured a stalemate at best. But as the post mortem over the president’s decision continues, it’s worth remembering that this is not the first time a newly-elected president has bucked the consensus of the national security establishment in an effort to end an extended...

Over the course of his long political career, two presidents have shaped the way Joe Biden thinks about a conundrum every commander in chief must face: How do you get credit for your successes? His conclusion is simple: You need to claim your victories, and not just quietly or occasionally. You have to talk about what you’ve done and how it’s helped people, over and over again, in every public situation imaginable.

President Barack Obama released a video on Monday ahead of the 10th anniversary of the signing of Obamacare, celebrating it as “the closest we’ve ever come to universal coverage in America.” In truth, Obamacare expanded access to health insurance, primarily for the working poor, but at a massive cost to middle-class budgets. It also changed American politics for the worse, turning it into a zero-sum game in which compromise is nearly impossible.

The history of impeachment proceedings in the modern era, from Nixon to Clinton to Trump, shows that a successful impeachment needs three things: it must be bipartisan, it must be about something Americans think is important, and Congress must strike while the iron is hot. In Trump’s case, Democrats have botched all three. First, this impeachment inquiry is an entirely partisan affair. The public hearings of recent weeks have made this undeniable, but even before the hearings it was obvious that Democrats alone were going to conduct this impeachment. The House’s impeachment inquiry resolution passed last month without a single...

Last year I replaced all the windows in my house with those expensive, double-pane, energy-efficient kind. Today, I got a call from Home Depot who installed them. The caller complained that the work had been completed a year ago and I still hadn't paid for them. Helloooo,........... just because I'm a Senior Citizen doesn't mean that I am automatically mentally challenged. So, I told him just what his fast-talking sales guy told me last year -- that these windows would pay for themselves in a year--- Hellooooo? It's been a year, so they're paid for, I told him. There was...

Transatlantic relations What Donald Trump learned from his German grandpa Friedrich Drumpf Want to understand the phenomenon called Donald Trump and his surprising rise to the top of the Republican presidential field? Then you'd better check out his German roots, Trump biographer Gwenda Blair tells DW.

Will Israel do the unthinkable to stop the unimaginable? The Obama administration seems peeved that almost everyone in Israel, left and right, has no use for the present Iranian–American deal to thwart Iran’s efforts to get the bomb. Indeed, at times John Kerry has hinted darkly that Israel’s opposition to the pact might incur American wrath should the deal be tabled — even though Kerry knows that the polls show a clear majority of Americans being against the proposed agreement while remaining quite supportive of the Jewish state. President Obama, from time to time, suggests that his agreement is being...

CHICAGO, December 13, 2011 ― I was a Chicago Police Officer for almost 30 years. I spent the first ten years of my career in one of the worst, most impoverished areas of Chicago, Lawndale. It was named as one of the ten most dangerous neighborhoods in America. Even people’s dreams weren’t safe. Everyday I patrolled streets where there was no hope, no change, no future, and no way out. Self survival was paramount. People did whatever they could to live through one more day. Crime was just a day’s work.

A huge agenda of global issues was crammed into four days of 'secret' meetings by a mysterious group of power brokers. But who elected them and why are we paying for them? * Bilderberg 2010: What we have learned A huge agenda of global issues was crammed into four days of 'secret' meetings by a mysterious group of power brokers. But who elected them and why are we paying for them? Weary and bramble-scratched, elated by the press coverage, and sick of riot vans and lukewarm Spanish omelette baguettes, we return from Bilderberg 2010 with the following thoughts uppermost in...

WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain's ethics entanglement with a wealthy banker ultimately convicted of swindling investors was such a disturbing, formative experience in his political career that he compares the scandal in some ways to the five years he was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. "I faced in Vietnam, at times, very real threats to life and limb," McCain told The Associated Press. "But while my sense of honor was tested in prison, it was not questioned. During the Keating inquiry, it was, and I regretted that very much." In his early days as a freshman senator,...

MINEOLA, N.Y., Sept. 19, 2007 – The reason the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff visited Chaminade High School here was on the wall as he entered the building today: a simple plaque with the names of graduates killed in combat. Rev. James C. Williams and Marine Gen. Peter Pace look at photos of graduates of Chaminade High School who have been killed in combat. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff visited the Mineola, N.Y., school Sept. 19, 2007, and met with Gold Star families. Photo by Staff Sgt. D. Myles Cullen, USAF  (Click photo for screen-resolution...

Below is printed the Confiteor, which can be clipped out at home and used for homework until it becomes second nature. When I was an Anglican clergyman in England, I was once asked to hear a young man's confession. The location was Coventry, where many people, young and old, would come to visit Coventry Cathedral, with its medieval parish church alongside. The venerable Church of the Holy Trinity looked very Catholic and very ancient, 1043 AD in fact. It could well have been mistaken for a traditional Roman Catholic Church (as indeed it had once been). The young man began...

Romans may have learned from Chinese Great Wall: archaeologists The construction of the Roman Limes was quite possibly influenced by the concept of the Great Wall in China, though the two great buildings of the world are far away from each other, said archaeologists and historians. Although there is no evidence that the two constructions had any direct connections, indirect influence from the Great Wall on the Roman Limes is certain, said Visy Zsolt, a professor with the Department of Ancient History and Archaeology of the University of Pecs in Hungary. Visy made the remarks in an interview with Xinhua...

The Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense commissioned this report. He did so at the recommendation of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense-level Information Operations Steering Committee. The Committee decided in its March 9, 2004, meeting that a review of psychological operations (PSYOP) lessons learned from Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) was in order. ----