Free Republic

ocky Mountain high, Colorado,” sang John Denver, AKA Henry Duetschendorf Jr. in 1972. Those were heady days for Colorado. Ski resorts, the Rockies, natural beauty aplenty and the promise of new beginnings enticed many, including me, to move to Colorado. My stay on the west slope was brief, and over the years, Colorado has descended from a more-or-less business-friendly and affordable state to a Democrat People’s Republic, increasingly crowded and hostile to civil liberties and prosperity. I occasionally travel to Colorado Springs for service on my recumbent trike and bike at the best recumbent shop in this part of the...

So many people inside the United States believe the left’s narrative about the United States today, the question becomes very real: can the nation survive the presence within it of a large and growing population of people who hate it and wish to see it destroyed? For the left, the truth doesn’t matter as much as the narrative. And if the narrative is incendiary enough, and they can convince enough people to believe it, it could indeed be destructive, and even bring the whole nation down, with incalculable effects for the world at large. The narrative that the left is...

The canonized legacy of Cesar Chavez is collapsing under revelations that recast a sainted activist as a deeply flawed—and possibly predatory—man the Left can no longer easily defend. Cesar Chavez, founder of the United Farm Workers, eventually became the symbolic leader of the entire Mexican American community of the 1960s and 1970s. Indeed, he was eventually enshrined in the pantheon of modern leftist activists and civil rights leaders alongside Saul Alinsky, Martin Luther King Jr., and Betty Friedan. His Chavez Foundation today emphasizes Chavez’s saintlike status as “a genuinely religious and spiritual figure.” His Tehachapi redoubt remains a national monument....

Democrats and their media propaganda arm have kept one narrative vibrantly alive for at least six years: 2020 was the most honest, fraud-free election in American history. As evidence they say: “because we say so,” and present Joe Biden’s 306 electoral votes and his 81.2 million popular votes, the most ever in a presidential election, far more than those of Barack Obama--The Lightbringer—in either of his elections. Normal Americans have always been skeptical of those assertions, as Biden, who ran a campaign from his basement and was clearly already in the throes of dementia, shouldn’t have been able to win...

The Paramount+ 'Star Trek' show will end after its already filmed second season.So much for Paramount+‘s Gen Z Star Trek show.The streamer has decided to end Star Trek: Starfleet Academy after season two. Starfleet Academy had recently finished airing its debut season. Paramount+ had (rather optimistically, as it turned out) already ordered a second season, which recently wrapped production. Starfleet Academy has been a polarizing entry in the Trek canon. Many critics have celebrated the show for focusing on a younger generation and its coming-of-age themes. On social media, the show has been a frequent target of mockery from those...

The civilian board that oversees America's spy agencies will probe whether political bias kept intelligence analysts from sharing with Congress and President Donald Trump evidence that China meddled in elections dating to 2020, its chairman says after an explosive report by Just the News. "We ran a decade-long investigation in the Congress into China, and so this new bombshell that you just dropped is very concerning to me, and it should be to the Congress," President's Intelligence Advisory Board Chairman Devin Nunes told the Just the News, No Noise television show. "This information was likely around in 2019, probably in...

As New York approaches the Green Energy Cliff, developments are starting to come more quickly. When last I addressed the subject on March 6, there had just been “leaked” a three-page memo from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to the Governor’s office, revealing that implementation of what New York calls its “cap and invest” program — actually, an artificial scarcity program intentionally designed to drive prices up and impoverish the people — would cost every New York household thousands of dollars in increased energy costs. (I put the word “leaked” in quotes because most knowledgeable...

Overconfidence despite clear incompetence was evident in both Obama and Mamdani. There is a cognitive bias called the Dunning–Kruger effect, which -- in my opinion -- would be better called the Obama-Mamdani effect today. Dunning-Kruger describes a delusional mindset where “People with low knowledge or skill in an area tend to overestimate how competent they are.” In biblical terms, this kind of hubris is defined by Paul in Romans 12:3 as one “...think[ing] more highly of oneself than one ought.” That Scripture verse captures the essence of two popular, similar politicians who, despite having little knowledge or skill, have convinced...

Seventeen years ago, then-President Barack Hussein Obama’s Department of Justice launched a witch hunt against four Connecticut police officers who’d been rooting out illegal alien fraud. The four East Haven Police Department officers — Jason Zullo, John Miller, David Cari, and Dennis Spaulding — “were branded as criminals, their lives and families torn apart,” according to the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund (LELDF). But they weren’t criminals — they were “committed, decorated professionals engaged in the unglamorous work of enforcing the law in a community plagued by fraudulent vehicle registrations, gang activity, and illegal enterprises.” Years later, Spaulding is now...

For 15 years the FBI was engaged in a landmark investigation into the largest Islamic-based charity in the United States, called The Holy Land Foundation. The organization was operating as a front for Muslim terror groups, funneling cash from western countries to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, until they were finally put on trial in 2008. Convicted leaders were known as the “Holy Land Five,” and included Shukri Abu Baker, Ghassan Elashi, Mufid Abdulqader, Abdulrahman Odeh, and Mohammad El-Mezain. Among the documents seized from these individuals during the investigation was a strategic paper drafted by senior Muslim Brotherhood operative...

One of the many obnoxious characteristics of present-day liberal elitists that makes them so detestable is their deep superiority complex, their Sophomania, their delusional belief that they are intellectually---as well as morally---superior to everyone else, particularly conservatives whom they see as Neanderthals. They truly believe they have a monopoly on intelligence and morality. Camille Paglia put it well: “Many highly educated, upper-middle-class Democrats regard themselves as exemplars of ‘compassion’ (which they have elevated into a supreme political principle) yet they routinely assail Trump voters as ignorant, callous hate-mongers.” This smug Sopjomania of theirs, combined with their self-righteous stance, is something...

One often hears Democrat politicians decrying the lack of common civility abroad in the land these days. In so doing, they generally blame Normal Americans—largely but not exclusively Republicans—for that failing. But how often do we see the Normal American owners or managers of restaurants or other public accommodations, kick Democrat politicians or functionaries out of their establishments because their presence “makes them feel unsafe” or might be “perceived as a lack of support for the community that makes up the majority of our team.” I can’t recall any instance of that happening, ever. That’s not surprising. Normal Americans aren’t...

Word is that things are a little rough down in Cuba right now. In my post of February 23, I reported that Cuba had become the first nation in the world to achieve the climate activists’ Holy Grail of “Net Zero” carbon emissions. I had looked around for news of the big celebration of Cuba’s achievement, but I couldn’t find any mention of it. If I had understood things correctly — and I think I had — Net Zero was supposed to deliver abundant and much cheaper electricity from the free wind and sun, lowering everybody’s energy costs, creating jobs,...

Democrats have kept the Department of Homeland Security shuttered since mid-February because they were outraged that two Americans were killed by ICE agents while interfering with their work. Since then, terrorists have claimed four American lives – a number that could have been significantly higher had fortune not prevailed. So, where are the protests over these deaths? “What’s happening in Minnesota is appalling — and unacceptable in any American city,” is how Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer justified his party’s decision to force the DHS closure. Democrats are insisting on a raft of ICE “reforms,” but their goal is simply...

There is an interesting article in the Telegraph by a psychotherapist called Jonathan Alpert, called ‘There’s a reason the Left seems more psychologically distressed than the Right’ (you can read it here). This is how he opens: In my clinical practice, one pattern has become increasingly difficult to ignore. Among a subset of patients on the political Left, hostility toward political opponents goes beyond dislike or even hatred. It sometimes takes the form of moralised fantasies about an opponent’s death, disappointment that Donald Trump’s shooter did not have better aim, or statements that certain public figures ‘deserve’ to be...

The contrast between the grateful immigrants who once embraced America and the resentful newcomers who scorn it reveals how radically—and dangerously—the nation’s immigration ethos has changed. The Traditional ImmigrantSilicon Valley was energized by legal immigrants from all over the world who founded eBay, Google, Nvidia, SpaceX, Stripe, Sun Microsystems, Tesla, Yahoo, and a host of others. The Greek American Elia Kazan’s 1963 film America, America is a fictional account based on the Herculean struggle of the director’s uncle to immigrate to the United States from an impoverished and hostile Turkish Anatolia. The film summed up Americans’ traditional view of immigrants:...

n ever-increasing number of despondent Westerners are taking to social media to state things like, “I took a walk today. I don’t recognize my town anymore.” Or, “Nothing is like I remember it from my youth.” Or, I feel like a stranger in my own country.” Many of us have a longing for yesteryear. There are multiple reasons for this, but every one of them is either directly or indirectly caused by Democrats and their disdain for the United States and traditional Americans. Period. Their policies, such as they are, are soft on crime and hard on law-abiding citizens and...

Kathy Hochul has a big problem: she and Mamdani have big spending plans, but the tax base of New York is eroding because high-net-worth individuals are leaving the state for greener pastures. Her solution? Ask them to come back. Be patriotic. Take one for the team. No, really. This is how well Democrats understand economics. With the war raging in the Persian Gulf, it's easy to let a host of other stories fall to the wayside. But there are plenty of them still out there that deserve attention. I have a bunch of stuff about crime, immigration, elections (did you...

D Democrats excel at warping the English language, making it say things it was never intended to say. There is “American gun culture,” which amounts to our unalienable, express Second Amendment rights. There are “assault weapons,” a term that exists nowhere in firearm nomenclature, but which in Virginia includes break action, single shot .410 shotguns. And there is “Ultra MAGA,” which is Normal Americans who apparently really want America to be great, prosperous and secure—the horror. And most of all, there are the phobias. Dictionary.com defines phobia thus: 1. an intense, persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, situation,...

The Spanish PM’s shift to the left could foreshadow the path that socialism—or the social-democratic Left—across the West will follow, or is already following. Last Sunday, regional elections were held in Spain, though they were experienced everywhere through a national lens. The People’s Party (PP) won the elections in Castile and León but failed to reach an absolute majority, meaning it will need VOX, the party led by Santiago Abascal, in order to govern the region. Both parties gained seats, and VOX, with 19% of the vote, achieved the highest share in its history in any election. The bad news...