Free Republic

Suzanne Massie first met President Reagan in January 1984, when US-Soviet relations were at their iciest: the previous year Reagan had labelled the Soviet Union the “evil empire”. Massie was not an academic, but she had written a book about Russian culture called Land of the Firebird: The Beauty of Old Russia that had caught Reagan’s eye, and she was summoned to the Oval Office for a five-minute chat that lasted 25. She proceeded to tell him what his hardline, all-male, fervently anti-communist advisers had not: that there was a huge gulf between the Russian people and their Soviet rulers,...

Dr. Joseph Giordano, the surgeon credited with saving President Ronald Reagan’s life after a 1981 assassination attempt and remembered for one of the pithiest comebacks ever uttered in an operating room, has died at the age of 84. Giordano’s family announced this week that he passed last month at a hospital in Washington, DC, from an infection caused by a lengthy illness. Giordano was in charge of the George Washington University Hospital (GW) trauma team that worked on the president after he was shot by would-be assassin John Hinkley Jr. on March 30, 1981, as the president emerged from the...

“America can’t do a damn thing against us,” Ayatollah Khomeini bragged while holding our hostages. The Carter administration had undermined the Shah’s government in favor of the Islamists who seized power and then prevented the embassy’s Marine guards from defending the facility and the people inside against the Muslim ‘student’ groups who claimed to be coming in peace.The “peaceful” student activists took over our embassy and held our people hostage.Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei taunted President Trump with the same slogan in June after being asked to give up Iran’s nuclear weapons program. “Our response to the US nonsense is clear:...

Full Title: President Ronald Reagan's Address at the Omaha Beach Memorial Cemetery Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the D-Day Landings in Normandy, France

Washington’s Reagan National Airport (DCA) has announced its celebration of 50 Years of Pride amid recent safety concerns following a deadly crash and other incidents. In the wake of a fatal January crash that killed 67 people and multiple collisions and other incidents, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) and DCA both made an announcement to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Pride in Washington, D.C. “Join the momentous celebrations as the nation’s capital is painted with pride, featuring a variety of events to inspire, empower and connect the international LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning) community and their allies,” the...

President Trump’s “Golden Dome” plan has riled the three countries whose weapons technology poses the greatest threat to American territory, with China, Russia and North Korea claiming the missile-defense project is driving a dangerous new arms race. -snip- North Korea slammed the Golden Dome on Tuesday as the “largest arms-buildup plan in history.” China and Russia in a joint statement earlier this month called the project “deeply destabilizing.” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, in a briefing to journalists Tuesday, said the plan “represented a direct disruption to the foundations of strategic stability.” All three countries have also denounced Trump’s...

Reagan's wit and humor shine through as he tells this amusing tale with his signature charm. Whether you're a fan of Reagan or just love a good joke, you won't want to miss this entertaining speech by one of America's most iconic presidents. Ronald Reagan's Hilarious Tale of a Republican Candidate Giving a Speech from a Democratic Platform

A great piece in the WSJ by former Reagan speechwriter Kenneth Khachigian reminds us of what happened when Reagan was snookered into raising taxes 40 years ago.“In 1988 Reagan complained that the 1982 tax increase that he reluctantly embraced was among the worst decisions of his presidency.”“The fellas promised I would get $3 of spending cuts for every $1 of taxes I agreed to. Instead, for every dollar of new taxes we got $1.70 in new spending – the complete reversal of what I was promised.” We would add that on several occasions when taxes were proposed to Reagan during...

Donald Trump the property developer is busting out of the political straitjacket to bling the Oval Office and reimagine the White House. From planning a “beautiful, magnificent” new ballroom to paving over the Rose Garden to create a convivial, Mar-a-Lago-style terrace, the 45th and 47th president is determined to make his mark on the White House this time. “It keeps my real estate juices flowing,” he told a reporter recently. ... On the curved walls, Trump has quadrupled the number of gilt-framed presidential portraits to 20, from Biden’s five, with Lincoln taking pride of place above the fireplace and Ronald...

London -- Keir Starmer hailed the contributions of British Sikhs across all walks of life in the UK in his Baisakhi greetings from 10 Downing Street on Sunday. Having hosted a special reception earlier this week to mark the festival symbolising the birth of the Khalsa, Starmer posted a video on social media showcasing the festivities along with his Baisakhi message. “It’s really fantastic to be able to come together and to celebrate the contribution of British Sikhs to our nation, and what a contribution that is and has been and will be into the future,” said Starmer. “From across...

John Kerry's Fellow TravellersA 5-part series exposing John Kerry's Communist connections.Part 4: Subversion in the Senate: Kerry's Communist ConstituencyBy Fedora *NOTE: The term "fellow traveller" as used in this article series refers to someone who is not a member of the Communist Party (CP) but regularly engages in actions which advance the Party's program. Some apparent fellow travellers may actually be "concealed party members": members of the CP who conceal their membership. Which of these classifications is applicable to the Kerrys is a question this series leaves unresolved. This series does not argue for any direct evidence of Richard or...

I was raised to respect the Austrian School of economics. From the hardliners at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) and Reason to the more moderate libertarians like Milton Friedman and President Reagan, the conservatives of my generation (I’m 62) knew several things with absolute certainty:· Taxation is Theft.· The most important goal of our Founding Fathers was limiting the size and scope of government.· The Invisible Hand of the Free Market delivers the best results for the consumer.At the same time, however, we recognized certain other fundamental truths of government:· Government is instituted to protect society from external enemies...

A Delta Airlines plane carrying 136 people nearly collided with a military jet Friday afternoon in a loss-of-separation incident outside the same DC airport where a mid-air collision took the lives of 67 people in January. Delta Airlines Flight 2983 departed its gate from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport at 2:55 p.m. local time and was cleared for takeoff to Minneapolis-St. Paul around 3:15 p.m As the commercial plane headed south over the Potomac River, a group of four Northrop T38 Talon jets traveled west toward Arlington National Cemetery for a flyover. The Airbus A319 and the military jet crossed...

Two air traffic controllers traded punches when a shocking fight erupted inside the tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal. The facility is already under massive scrutiny following January’s deadly midair collision between an American Airlines flight on final approach and an Army helicopter. And trouble flared again Thursday when a pair of on-duty tower controllers got into a blazing argument before one threw a punch at the other, a source tells us. By the time the brawling colleagues were separated, there was blood spattered over a control console, according to our insider. The tower would likely...

You see, at first, when someone says, 'Let’s impose tariffs on foreign imports,' it looks like they’re doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while it works – but only for a short time. What eventually occurs is: First, homegrown industries start relying on government protection in the form of high tariffs. They stop competing and stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in world markets. And then, while all this is going on, something even worse occurs. High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries...

Former President Reagan’s daughter says her father “would be heartbroken” by actions under President Trump that have signaled America’s shift toward isolation from longstanding allies. “I think he would be grieving,” Patti Davis said during a Tuesday night appearance on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.” “The America that I grew up in, that we all have known, is one that had alliances and was friends with other countries, and it would go to other countries who were in trouble, who were being tyrannized, or invaded, or, you know, otherwise suffering from famines, for example,” she said. Trump, since reclaiming the White...

HBO MAX funnyman John Oliver listed two positive things you could say about President Ronald Reagan: “‘He was our only president to make a movie with a chimp,’ or ‘He’s dead.’” Oliver was sounding off on what he called “centrist Democrats” and their generally fecklessness response to Rep. Al Green (D-TX) being removed from the House chamber after her refused to take his seat and cease shouting at President Donald Trump during his Congressional address Tuesday night. The Last Week Tonight host took umbrage with the split screen of Green being booted from the chamber for grandstanding, when other Republicans...

Prior to the current recession, the deepest post-World War II economic downturn occurred in the early 1980s. According to the accepted arbiter of the economy’s ups and downs, the National Bureau for Economic Research, a brief recession in 1980 — lasting only six months — and a short period of growth, were followed by a sustained recession from July 1981 to November 1982.The unemployment rate hovered between 7% and 8% from the summer of 1980 to the fall of 1981, when it began to rise quickly. By March 1982 it had reached 9%, and in December of that year the...

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., lit into President Donald Trump on Tuesday night, suggesting that President Ronald Reagan — whose “peace through strength” mantra Trump has adopted — would be appalled by his approach to Russia’s war against Ukraine. “After the spectacle that just took place in the Oval Office last week, Reagan must be rolling in his grave,” Slotkin, referring to Trump’s unexpectedly contentious meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week, said in her response to the joint address to Congress. “As a Cold War kid, I’m thankful it was Reagan and not Trump in office in the 1980s,”...

I miss Rush Limbaugh. During the Biden years, I couldn’t help imagining him up in Heaven begging God to put him back in the game. Today I imagine him sitting in a bar smoking a cigar with Ronald Reagan and buying a round for the house every time a new EO drops. When he was here however there were a few things that he used to say that I loved because of their clarity. He always pointed out that illegal immigration was all about votes and that Democrats were hypocrites on the issue. He’d suggest that if it was real...