Free Republic

As a Reagan Republican, I am an unlikely and probably unwelcome source of ideas about how a Democrat can win the presidency in 2020. But precisely because I am a Reagan Republican, I do not support Donald Trump and do not wish to see him elected to a second term. I worked for President Reagan for many years: initially in his 1980 campaign, then in the White House, and finally in his post-presidency office in Los Angeles. I knew him well. And I am absolutely certain he would be appalled by how Donald Trump conducts himself in the presidency.

WASHINGTON, April 15, 1986 (UPI) -- The blistering U.S. airstrike against Libya was a victory in the global battle against terrorism, President Reagan said Tuesday, warning the United States is ready to repeat its message ''in the only language Khadafy seems to understand.'' As Reagan pledged he will not relent in his campaign to ''eradicate the scourge of terror in the modern world,'' reports from the Libyan capital of Tripoli said that Moammar Khadafy's 15-month-old adopted daughter was killed in the bombing and two of the Libyan leaders's sons were seriously hurt. After night fell in Tripoli Tuesday, the thud...

President Trump on Wednesday gave the most honest, direct speech about Iran's dictatorship that has ever given by an American president. It was a refreshing break from the lies and self-deception that have characterized much of the American establishment’s efforts to avoid thinking about it. Watching the various reactions to the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, I have been struck by how historically ignorant most politicians and commentators are – and how our political-diplomatic language and mindset block us from reality. The reality is: Iran's dictatorship has been waging war against the United States for more than 40 years....

Ronald Reagan bombed Libya, after quadaffi bombmed a Berlin nightclub.

This is the classic Ronald Reagan Christmas address, with the relevant message edited for clarity. I consider this the Gold Standard for presidential holiday addresses, and came about at a time of building American confidence after the troubling 70's.Link to Ronald Reagan Christmas Address

[Volcker's] obituaries were disappointing for them almost uniformly promoting the fiction of Volcker as inflation slayer. Such a view doesn’t square with simple economic history. Indeed, explicit in the accepted wisdom that Volcker was “inflation’s worst enemy” (Hoover Institution’s John Taylor) is that economic growth causes inflation. As Phillips Curve devotee Neil Irwin put it in the New York Times, Volcker allegedly beat inflation “at the cost of what would become the worst recession in the seven decades between the Great Depression and the global financial crisis.” In the analysis of seemingly everyone, job loss and greatly reduced prosperity were...

President Donald Trump hands down won throwback Thursday with an epic snap he shared showing him on stage standing next to Ronald Reagan. In the fantastic black-and-white shot, we get to see Trump rocking a black-tie look while standing next to the 40th president, who was also wearing a tuxedo at some kind of event, possibly for awards.

On Nov. 11, 1983, seven House Democrats introduced a draft resolution to impeach President Ronald Reagan. They charged that the 40th president had committed a high crime or misdemeanor by "ordering the invasion of Grenada in violation of the Constitution," among other charges. One of the sponsors of that resolution, Rep. Henry Gonzalez, D-Texas, later introduced another measure to impeach Reagan over his role in the Iran-Contra affair. Both efforts failed and have become nearly forgotten episodes of American history.

When the scandal finally broke, it was on the other side of the Atlantic, in a nation that millions of Americans couldn’t pinpoint on a map. Congress had made its intentions clear in the form of legislation, but the White House secretly ignored that to illegally pursue its own controversial agenda. Meanwhile, it was revealed that shady foreign-born middlemen were pocketing millions of dollars. The president’s approval rating plummeted, and it looked like an early exit. “I had hoped there would not be discovery of an impeachable offense,” the Speaker of the House said at one point. “I didn’t want...

A majority of Republicans say President Trump is a better leader than former President Lincoln, according to this week’s Economist/YouGov weekly tracking poll.

Ronald Reagan talks to America on Thanksgiving Day 1985 Ronald Reagan's Thanksgiving Day address in 1985 shows a spirit of gratitude, humility, and American unity.

I ran across this interview of Ronald Reagan. It done in March of 1975. It's interesting for a few reasons...it shows him getting ready to start his push for the Presidency which happened a few years later. But there was one very discouraging thing he said. Starting about the 5:15 mark he started talking about what we call today the deep state. A permanent employee class that actually determines policy in the United States. This was almost 45 years ago! It explains WHY today we've come to where we are and what Donald Trump is up against. Reagan on the...

Bigotry. Fascism. A threat to women’s rights. Alliances with foreign dictators. A president as entertainer, trampling labor and the environment. It sounds like the contemporary complaints against President Trump. Actually, it’s a 1984 newspaper advertisement from “Scholars Against the Escalating Danger of the Far Right.” “With Ronald Reagan as its performing star in the White House, the Far Right is attempting to take over the Republican Party,” says the ad, published in the November 2, 1984, New York Times and signed by, among others, Carl Sagan, Linus Pauling, Corliss Lamont, Stephen Jay Gould, John Hope Franklin, Gloria Steinem, and Frances...

Twenty-five years ago this month, President Ronald Reagan told the nation he’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. “I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life,” he wrote in a letter addressed to his “Fellow Americans,” dated November 5, 1994. Reagan wrote that he and his wife, Nancy, decided to disclose his condition in hopes it would increase attention for the disease that slowly, but surely, robs the mind of its memories. “In opening our hearts, we hope this might promote greater awareness of this condition,” he wrote. “Perhaps it will encourage a clearer...

Leaders from Germany and its allies on Saturday commemorated the 30th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall, which helped spur the fall of Communism in parts of Europe. Officials from Germany, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic attended the ceremony at Bernauer Strasse — a site where part of the wall still stands — before they placed roses in the barrier’s gaps, The Associated Press reports.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will unveil a statue of former US President Ronald Reagan at the US Embassy on Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. […] For over 10 years, the United States has wanted to honor Reagan with a statue in Berlin. However, the administration of the capital had till now rejected numerous applications from US officials and dignitaries. Berliners had mixed reactions to the new statue. One older woman told DW that she was not opposed to a statue of Reagan as the US had been a “protecting power” over West Germany. But a man...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will formally unveil a statue of former President Reagan in Berlin, 30 years after the Berlin Wall fell in the city. During his visit in Germany, Pompeo will reveal the statue of Reagan at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, according to a Facebook post from the U.S. Mission to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The statue will overlook the location where the president gave his speech calling for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the wall. Pompeo will inaugurate the statue on Friday, the day before the 30th anniversary of the momentous...

With our country currently wading through the miasma of another potential Impeachment inquiry, it can be difficult to remember a time when the President of the United States could rise above his circumstance and truly lead a country and move it forward. As it stands, this happens to be the 39th anniversary of the election of just such a president. Thirty nine years ago, Ronald Reagan did what few other men had done in American history. He not only won the presidency, but defeated Jimmy Carter, an incumbent president running for re-election. Carter’s presidency was hamstrung by a myriad of...

Ron Reagan was not on stage Tuesday night for the Democratic presidential primary debate, but his provocative plug for a prominent atheist group earned him the top spot on Google after he declared himself a "lifelong atheist, not afraid of burning in hell." Reagan, the 61-year-old son of the late President Ronald Reagan, made the pitch for the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), a group that targets religion in public schools and government across the nation. “Hi, I’m Ron Reagan, an unabashed atheist,” he said in the 30-second spot, "and I'm alarmed by the intrusion of religion into our secular...

Peter Wehner said there’s a reason why many of President Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters won’t turn on him. “It is almost like a hermetically sealed world,” Wehner said on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” “Facts are like BBs, they’re just bouncing off of a brick wall. They just don’t penetrate.” Wehner, who served in the administrations of presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and as a senior aide in the White House of President George W. Bush, said it comes down to a concept called the psychology of accommodation. “People decided early on for a variety of reasons to accommodate...