Free Republic

In August 1982, Ronald Reagan’s father-in-law was dying. Nancy Reagan’s beloved dad, Loyal Davis, was an atheist — a troubling fact to the 40th president. So Reagan penned a private, handwritten note in which he recounted how the prayers of colleagues and friends had cured him of a painful stomach ulcer. Giving hope for what lay beyond, Reagan entreated the older man, “We’ve been promised this is only a part of life and that a greater life, a greater glory awaits us … and all that is required is that you believe and tell God you put yourself in his...

WITH a controversial Israeli attack in the news, I have thought back to another controversial Israeli attack, one that took place 29 years ago today: the strike on the Osirak nuclear reactor under construction in Iraq. The daring, risky bombing dealt a fatal blow to Saddam Hussein’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon. I was then President Ronald Reagan’s national security adviser, after having been his chief foreign policy adviser for several years. Sunday afternoon, I was on my back porch in Arlington, Va., wading through...my perpetually mounting paperwork. My progress was interrupted..the duty officer was requesting that I go to...

Those of us of a certain age will remember a time, some 40 years ago now, when President Ronald Reagan advocated the Strategic Defense Initiative, Project High Frontier, and various other related programs, all built around the basic concept that we should have defenses against incoming missile attacks. Throughout all of human history, military preparedness has involved both offensive and defensive elements. An army might have swords and longbows for offense, while being equipped with shields for defense. Cannons and cannonballs made up the offense, fortresses and moats provided a defense. Thus it has been for thousands of years, but...

Saturday on Newsmax2, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani argued the correct response to Iran’s attack on Israel would have been to hit Iran at the earliest stages of the strike as possible. Giuliani argued that was what former President Ronald Reagan would have done if he were facing similar circumstances.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is planning to devote much of his energy in the remaining months of his term as Republican leader, as well as the next few years of his term, to ensuring Ukraine is supported as its war with Russia rages on. "It may not be fashionable now, but I’m a Ronald Reagan Republican: peace through strength," the longtime Senate GOP leader said during a speech in Shelbyville, Kentucky, per local outlet the Kentucky Lantern. McConnell has been a proponent of continued support for Ukraine, even after members of his party began to push back.

WASHINGTON - On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot and seriously injured outside a Washington, D.C., hotel, along with three other people. Jackson Bain was a news anchor for WTTG-TV, now FOX 5 DC, and quickly arrived on the scene after the shooting. He said it was one of the most confusing days in his lengthy journalism career. "It was just amazingly confusing, because there was so much complete misinformation," he told LiveNOW & Then. "It was chaotic. And of course, there were limits to anything we could do." As confusing as the day was, Bain said he...

Reagan, starring Dennis Quaid as the 40th U.S. president, is officially coming to cinemas. The movie has set an August 30 opening under a partnership with new distributor Showbiz Direct, according to a Deadline report. Showbiz Direct is headed by Kevin Mitchell as well as former Lionsgate distribution president Richie Fay and the former co-president of distributor Open Road, Scott Kennedy. Reagan will be the first big-screen movie to dramatize the life of Ronald Reagan and is expected to cover its subject’s entire life — from his beginnings in Illinois, to his career as a Hollywood actor, and ultimately his...

Since Donald Trump’s rise within Republican ranks, conservatives have divided into two competing foreign policy camps. One contends that Trump’s approach suits the world in which we live and supersedes previous GOP national security and foreign affairs outlooks. A smaller contingent contends that Ronald Reagan’s understanding of America and his conduct of diplomacy remain the gold standard for U.S. foreign policy. Atlantic Council colleagues Matthew Kroenig (also a Georgetown professor of government and international relations) and Dan Negrea contend that considerably more agreement about foreign affairs prevails among conservatives than they themselves realize. When fleshed out, a Trump-Reagan fusion represents,...

Would-be assassin-turned-folk singer John Hinckley Jr., who attempted to kill President Ronald Reagan in 1981, insisted he was a victim of “cancel culture” after his latest concert was called off. The 68-year-old was scheduled to perform at the Hotel Huxley in Naugatuck, Connecticut, on March 30 — 43 years to the day after he attacked Reagan — but the gig was postponed indefinitely, he told The Post. “I think that’s fair to say: I’m a victim of cancel culture,” Hinckley Jr. opined. “It keeps happening over and over again.” A message on the venue’s Instagram posted last week read, “You...

After President Joe Biden's electoral romp on Super Tuesday and his subsequent State of the Union address, his campaign quickly eased into its general election posture, with the commander in chief visiting key battleground states, including Georgia and Michigan. But it was an ad entitled "For You" released earlier this month that took on one of the 81-year-old Biden's biggest challenges ahead of the election: addressing voter concerns over his age. As he spoke in front of a camera, Biden had a distinctly sunny disposition. He quickly gets to the heart of the matter.

When President Biden and former President Donald Trump face off in an election rematch this November, one man will remain a one-term president. Trump, a Republican whom Biden unseated in 2020, seeks to return the favor in 2024 as the incumbent Democratic president struggles with lackluster approval ratings reminiscent of infamous one-term president Jimmy Carter. As of February, Biden's job approval rating stood at 38% in a Gallup poll — less than one point above President Carter's record-low Gallup rating of 37.4% after his third year in office. There is reason to believe that Biden today is in a weaker...

NAUGATUCK, Conn. (WTNH) — John Hinckley, who shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981, is headed to Naugatuck, Connecticut, to perform a concert. The controversial musician is set to perform at Hotel Huxley later this month. Hinckley said he’s hoping people will give him a second chance and listen to his folk music. “I want people to know that I’m coming in peace, I stand for peace now,” he said. “I know I’m known for an act of violence, but I’m a completely different person than in 1981.”

President Joe Biden is absolutely right to try to make a case on behalf of arming Ukraine. But the way he chose to do it was as hypocritical as can be. Biden used as a model of behavior the late President Ronald Reagan’s famous speech wherein the Gipper, in Berlin, said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” One problem: Biden at the time hated that speech. He said it was dangerous rhetoric. In Reagan’s personal diaries, the Gipper rarely mentioned Biden. But after his Berlin Wall speech, Reagan was infuriated by Biden, who at the time was in a race...

Welcome to The Campaign Moment, where the last major non-Trump and non-Biden candidate is now out. The big moment Today the key moment is Nikki Haley dropping out of the presidential race the morning after Super Tuesday and effectively bringing the Republican primary contest to an end. Haley announced her exit Wednesday after winning the Washington, D.C., primary on Sunday and Vermont on Super Tuesday, but losing more than 20 other contests to Donald Trump. “I said I wanted Americans to have their voices heard,” Haley said. “I have done that. I have no regrets.” Haley declined to endorse Trump...

It’s not Ronald Reagan’s GOP anymore. The Republican Party’s shift from Russia hawk to something softer is straining the GOP at a crucial juncture, highlighting the ascendency of former President Trump’s “America First” approach and exasperating old-guard conservatives who long for a return to the assertive foreign policy championed by the party through generations prior. It’s created nothing short of an identity crisis for those Republicans who still identify with the party of former President Reagan, a Cold War president long lionized within the GOP ranks for his aggressive confrontations with the Soviet Union. “Ronald Reagan would not recognize today’s...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) cited former President Reagan in a pitch for a national security bill in a Wednesday opinion piece. “Today, much like in the Washington President Reagan faced, it has become popular in some circles to bet against American resolve and bemoan the global responsibilities that come with global power,” McConnell said in the op-ed in the Northern Kentucky Tribune. “Loud voices peddle the short-sighted and ahistorical notion that America’s interests do not extend beyond the water’s edge, and that abandoning our friends is the price of restoring order at home.” McConnell then said he and...

A new ranking of presidents by a group of self-styled experts determined that Abraham Lincoln is America's greatest president, while Donald Trump ranks last. Lincoln topped the list of presidents in the 2024 Presidential Greatness Project expert survey for the third time, following his top spot in the rankings in the 2015 and 2018 versions of the survey. According to a release from the Presidential Greatness Project, which touts itself as the "foremost organization of social science experts in presidential politics," the 154 respondents to the survey included "current and recent members of the Presidents & Executive Politics Section of...

Representative Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) said Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that former President Ronald Reagan is “rolling over in his grave” because many Republicans are on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “team.” Slotkin said, “It is insane it is how many people we have in the Republican Party who are on team Putin.” Representative Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) said Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that former President Ronald Reagan is “rolling over in his grave” because many Republicans are on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “team.” Slotkin said, “It is insane it is how many people we have in the Republican Party who...

Acclaimed historian and Ronald Reagan biographer Craig Shirley still hasn't found what he's looking for. Citizens across the United States keep looking, too — for a new leader to draw the curtains on a new "Morning in America." They're getting closer to unraveling the mystery behind the Reagan mystique. "The Search for Reagan: The Appealing Intellectual Conservatism of Ronald Reagan," with a Feb. 13 publication, is Shirley's newest biography of the 40th president of the United States of America.

Patti Davis, daughter of former President Ronald Reagan, said he doesn’t think her father would be embraced by today’s Republican Party ― and that the feeling would be mutual. “I don’t think he would... and I don’t see how he would want to be in it,” she told CNN’s Jim Acosta on Sunday. “It’s so diametrically opposed to what he believed and to the dignity that he felt that people in government should have.” She mentioned Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) trying to get into a physical fight with labor union leader Sean O’Brien in the middle of a Senate committee...