Free Republic

Let me stipulate for the record: The American press is an embarrassment. Journalists are being unfair in their coverage. CNN and Politico and the New York Times and the Associated Press and NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt and NPR News are hyping Kamala Harris as the second coming and putting a thumb, two hands, and a 45-pound dumbbell on the scales in an attempt to prop her up. It also doesn’t matter. None of it is remotely decisive. The reason why the Republican Party is, at the moment, on track to lose the 2024 election is that the Republican...

A notable outcome of Ukraine’s surprise invasion of the Russian province of Kursk — now stretching into its third week — is the Russian army’s reliance on thousands of unprepared, under-equipped, and poorly led conscripts in its attempt to repel the invasion. It’s often under-appreciated in the West just how unpopular and politically sensitive the draft is in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The use of conscripts in Afghanistan and Chechnya (and their deaths in their thousands) was a huge part of the unpopularity of those wars inside Russia. In those years, the draft set off protests and a Russian “mothers’ movement”...

I was not going to write about Oliver Anthony’s brilliant song, Rich Men North of Richmond, because I have nothing worthy to add. The video puts all other commentary to shame. North of Richmond refers to the federal government, which is too large, too powerful and too uncaring. But Mark Antonio Wright, executive editor of the Never Trump National Review, butted in with a Learn-to-Code column attacking Anthony for daring to complain about DC’s treatment of the working class. It lectured Anthony to be more like Woody Guthrie, the Nazi apologist and communist. Anthony’s song says: I’ve been sellin’ my...