Free Republic

Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a high-profile meeting with his Hungarian counterpart, Viktor Orbán, in Budapest. Argentina’s libertarian president, Javier Milei, has called Orbán his “comrade in this fight for the ideas of freedom,” and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni is Orbán’s “Christian sister.” Last year, Donald Trump hosted the Hungarian leader three times at Mar-a-Lago. How did this one country in Europe become a beacon for right-wing ideas—and leaders—around the world? Once upon a time, Hungary was the poster child of “regime change”—the peaceful transition from communism to democracy. The process was indeed peaceful. But was it...

The left has been seriously embarrassed by the stories of communist atrocities, corruption and monumental failures that have been pouring out of Eastern Europe since the collapse of the communist regimes there. The carefully cultivated image of communists as honest humanitarians dedicated to helping the poor and downtrodden has been thoroughly demolished. But American leftists are fighting back, trying to counter these stories by calling attention to the alleged sins and crimes of the United States. Hence the success of a recent disinformation operation that resulted in a spate of stories in U.S. newspapers and magazines charging that the our...

It's become painfully clear that the "super-hero Action Figure" we elected to clean up Sacramento -- the guy who said "I will clean house" -- was just acting all along. The Action Figure told us, "Any of those powerful special interests, if you take money from them, you owe them something….." "I don't have to take money from anybody. I have plenty of money," went on to raise more than $30 million from the special interests, a hoard of loot funneled through a convoluted, secret and loophole-ridden realm of campaign committees and non-profit organizations. He took in $72,000 a day....

Chris Hedges is on leave from the New York Times to write a book, but his anti-war rants keep on coming. Hedges first gained notoriety with his anti-war address at a commencement ceremony at Rockford College in Illinois, which resulted in his mike being unplugged and him being booed off the stage. Upon the capture of Saddam Hussein, Hedges has reappeared for an interview for the left-wing website TomPaine.com. The first question from senior editor Steven Rosenfeld regarding Saddam's capture delivers the far-left flavor of TomPaine.com (part of the Bill Moyers' family empire, run by son John). Note Rosenfeld's first...

Three ways to hate By Eliahu Salpeter Several weeks ago, the American Jewish Committee published a study entitled "Anti-Americanism and Anti-Semitism: A New Front of Zealotry," written by Prof. Alvin Rosenfeld. As the title indicates, says Prof. Rosenfeld, "there is a certain structural similarity between anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism - they are closely connected, so much so that sometimes it seems that the growing hatred of America is none other than a new form of Judeophobia and vice-versa as well." While the examples in the chapter on Germany are not the most convincing (in contrast to Rosenfeld's view, in Germany,...

The California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) today issued this response by its General Counsel, Gary Cohen, to the Petition for Writ of Mandamus filed today with the California Supreme Court by The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights: "The Foundation's petition for writ of mandamus lacks merit and I am confident it will be denied. First, the Foundation's argument that the PUC's settlement with Southern California Edison violated state law is wrong. When the legislature adopted AB 1X and AB 6X during the energy crisis, it returned the utilities to cost of service regulation, thus requiring the Commission to adopt...