Free Republic

On Saturday, any number of national Republicans crapped their pants. In the middle of the afternoon, as word twitted and texted out of the Salt Palace that three-term senator Bob Bennett had been denied re-nomination, the world changed for the powers that be in the Republican Party. They got reminded who’s in charge. In a two-year effort that predates the tea parties and the Club for Growth, the conservatives of Utah sent the message that good enough isn’t good enough. Either walk the talk or make way for someone who will. It’s RINO season and we just got a big...

Of course it’s a religious war. It’s all about religion. It is a religious war and we are on the defensive. Islam is waging a war of conquest against the western world and we are engaged in a defensive action on one front of that war.It has ever been thus. And we are fools to allow our own decency and political correctness to cause us to forget that. Islam is a religion whose entire history has been about aggressive expansion. It has always spread at the point of a sword. It is a totalitarian faith of compulsion. And in recent...

It should be illegal to be illegal. Isn't that, after all, what "illegal" means? I don't understand the fuss over Arizona. A state, long plagued by the failure of the federal government to enforce immigration laws, has taken a step to protect itself.It has declared being an illegal immigrant a misdemeanor, an act of trespass, under state law. And it has empowered its police, in the course of their contacts with people, to inquire about and verify immigrant status. And the fit has hit the shan.The president has condemned it, Al Sharpton is going to protest it, marchers have attacked...

Earth Day is a crock. It is the high holy day of the environmentalism cult and I choose not to engage in that particular brand of idol worship. I choose not to worship the earth as if it were a god and I were a savage. I am its steward, not its slave. I wasn’t created for it, it was created for me. Man exists not as an accidental product of earth’s evolution, the earth exists as a home for man. It did not produce us, it was produced for us. God made the heavens and the earth, and he...

If it weren’t tyranny, it would be funny. But it is tyranny, so it’s not. The Obama Administration has claimed for itself the right to determine how much salt is in your food. In this last area of personal choice – taste – you have lost your choice. Or at least you will. Under a plan being floated by the Obama Food and Drug Administration, the federal government will set salt levels in food the same way it sets emission levels for cars. In the name of protecting you, the government will enslave you. And it will order food companies...

We are all Tea Partiers today. Whether we’re marching on Washington or demonstrating in our own town. Even if we’re home with kids or at work like usual. We’re all Tea Partiers, and if circumstance doesn’t allow us all to stand shoulder to shoulder, we do stand heart to heart. Today, we are one. And the people they show on the evening news are representatives of us all. We may not carry signs, but we do carry Liberty’s torch. We cherish our freedom, we love our country, we’re not standing still anymore. We’re demanding to be heard. From Massachusetts to...

We have been bankrupted and bound, and today we will be disarmed. We have been destroyed from within, and today we will prepare to be destroyed from without. Today, Barack Obama will abandon the policy of the last half century. Today, Barack Obama will give away our trump card. Today, America will stop being a nuclear power.In the game of disarmament, Barack Obama wants to lead by example. In the game of chicken that is the international balance of power, Barack Obama wants us to put down our gun. Today, the United States will declare that it is renouncing the...

Sometime over the weekend, at the Monroe County Democratic headquarters in upstate New York, somebody threw a brick through the window. Attached to it, reportedly, was a quote from Barry Goldwater’s speech at the 1964 Republican National Convention. Personally, I think a Democrat did it. Few Republicans of this generation are familiar with the Goldwater quote, and it has much more currency among liberals as proof, from their standpoint, that conservatives are nuts. The quote – “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” – was used by the media and Democrats in 1964 to beat down Goldwater’s campaign....

They say it will be over by Sunday. The Speaker of the House said that, the president's spokesman said that. Sometime, between now and Sunday, probably when we're not looking, when we are lulled by the empty monotone of the evening news, they will slit our throats. When they have rigged the rules just so, when they have stacked the vote the best they can, when they can cheat the system and subvert the country, they will do it. And the jug-eared caesar will proclaim that he has done what no other president could, he has reformed health care. He...

As power curdles into arrogance, the assumption of superiority becomes so intoxicating that the tyrant has no clue of how foolish or evil his conduct becomes. Like the thing with the salt. In New York, a state legislator has introduced legislation that would forbid restaurants to use salt. Each violation of the law would result in a $1,000 fine. Here’s how the legislation reads: “No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on...

Eric Massa is a snake. But he is a brilliant snake. And in one of the most audacious p.r. moves ever, he has conned Limbaugh, Drudge and Beck – and untold millions of Americans. From a little radio studio beside a swamp, with the help of a couple of deluded backwoods yokels, he has made himself a national star.It is astounding. And proof that in American politics, it’s not how big your lie is, it’s how loud you can yell. And so it is that Eric Massa, who fled the Congress out of fear of what Ethics Committee investigators would...

The other week, while you were watching “American Idol,” Greece went bankrupt. Not all the way, but pretty close. And people have been rioting in the streets. See, the government had been financing things for years on end with debt. The government was taxing and spending, of course, but it was also borrowing. A lot. A staggering amount. So much that the people who do the lending decided they’d had enough. Which left Greece insolvent. Which brought the economy to collapse. Which created a crisis for the European Union and for its currency, the Euro. Which made the world jittery....

I appreciate Michelle's concern, but if your kid is fat, it's your fault. Period. It's not the high-fructose corn syrup, it's not the drive-thru, it's not the Lucky Charms, it's you. And she can call for billions in new spending -- as she has -- she can call for curbs on advertising to children -- as she has -- she can even call for Grocers for Ghettos -- as she has -- but it's still going to come down to bad parenting. Let me repeat that, to make sure I hurt your feelings: Bad parenting. Fat kids don't have a...

Every time I see Joe Biden, I laugh. If there ever was a poster boy for the dangers of cosmetic surgery, it’s him. His eyelift didn’t work any better than his presidential campaign. And every time I seen him, I laugh. Which helps balance the rage and contempt. And there was plenty of that this weekend. In another demonstration of the Obama Administration’s patently anti-American agenda, he threw five U.S. citizens under the Iraqi bus. I’m talking about the Blackwater guards, the men who had charges of manslaughter dropped by a federal judge who are now, Biden proudly announced in...

Apparently there is no Haitian word for “thank you.” At least not as translated by the American news media. A week since a horrific earthquake knocked Haiti to smithereens, reporting on the incident has hardened into an endless complaint about the failure of relief efforts. From the first days of the tragedy, when TV reporters spoke breathlessly from the shattered streets of Haiti, the questioning of locals has centered around how long they’ve gone without water, if they’re upset they haven’t been given food yet, and why they think no one has come to help them. In these halcyon days...

Barack Obama is a bank robber. To his other honors and achievements, he now adds this. He is a thief, seizing assets in the name of the revolution. And thereby demonstrating how far we have fallen from the vainglorious boast of our anthem. “The home of the free,” we used to sing. “The home of the free,” we used to be.But that was a year ago and such notions as freedom and private property have all gone into the memory hole. Marx and the collective have overtaken Jefferson and the right of possession. And so it was that, without firing...

Harry Reid should resign. I’m not kidding. This is too much. The embarrassing old bird should pack up his bags and go back to whatever desert valley he crawled out of. He should be removed as Senate majority leader and he should give up elected office. Harry Reid should resign. But not for what he said about Barack Obama. Not for commenting on the color of the president’s skin or the way he talks. The hubbub over that is just political opportunism, an illustration of how both parties play a ridiculous game of gotcha, ignoring things that matter to feign...

Here is a question of principle. Do you take the free money? When Comrade Obama comes calling, and he’s passing out cash, do you take it? Are you a hypocrite if you denounce the administration’s free spending, but take the administration’s free handouts? That’s an issue many people face. If you’re a conservative, and you believe that debt is killing our country and that welfare is bad, do you participate in Cash For Clunkers? Do you let the government help you buy a refrigerator or insulate your house?Do you drink of the poison you believe is killing your country? The...

It's a death sentence. Our first taste of Obamacare -- the government as the arbitrer of what health care we do and don't need -- will kill thousands of women. It is a death list by another name. A federal task force has declared that for most women mammograms are unnecessary before the age of 50 and should only be administered every other year after that. Further, breast self-exams are no longer recommended. In a fight with a horrific disease in which early detection is the most-effective tool, America's women have been told by their government to forget about it....

Few words have been more popular in recent years than "diversity." And few concepts have been more destructive. Destructive of our social fabric, destructive of our moral well-being, destructive of our ability to make judgments. In schools, non-profits and government programs across the nation, diversity has been held up as a great and noble prize. Some objective to be fought for and given prominence. It has become the top priority in institutions from colleges to corporations. And it has become a philosphy handed down like the word of god from the pulpits of education, business and government. And yet it...