Free Republic

Back about a million years ago, long before I got with the hot wife, I was dating this very nice girl who asked me, shyly and with some hesitation, if I would take her to Outback Steakhouse. I was planning on taking her someplace very expensive, but Outback Steakhouse? Cool – when I was a kid, the Outback Steakhouse of the ‘70s, Sizzler, was a family treat. I could get a blooming onion and save a few bucks – a win-win! So, I took her to Outback Steakhouse and she loved it. She was in heaven. She was a lot...

What I remember most is how Trump came alive on shop floors, speaking to steelworkers, truckers, and plumbers. He really listened to the kind of people who historically voted Democrat. It didn’t surprise me when he got the GOP nomination for president—beating people like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. Then, on September 1, 2016, I decided to take a buyout from the paper where I had worked for 11 years, because I figured the next stage would be layoffs. I remember walking out of the building and thinking, I’m 57 years old, and there’s no job for me. Mine wasn’t...

MIDDLETOWN, Ohio — Three things stand out within a few minutes of talking to Beverly Aikins: Her grandchildren are her everything, she is deeply grateful she has earned her nursing license back, and the mother of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), the Republican vice presidential nominee, has found redemption and peace through helping others struggling with addiction. Aikins said it is a life of purpose. “I want people who are struggling with addiction or who have family members who are struggling with addiction to know that recovery is possible, and you get back so much more from recovery than you ever...

TYRONE, Pennsylvania — Shirley Hall has always lived in this charming Blair County borough, located a few miles from the big city of Altoona and once the home of booming coal and paper mill industries. She has also been a Catholic all of her life and for most of it a registered Democrat, two attributes she says are, or at least were, a profound part of her identity. She is still a Catholic, faithfully so, but last week when watching former President Donald Trump walk into the convention hall in Milwaukee just two days after being shot, she changed her...

BUTLER, Pennsylvania — The drive between Butler, Pennsylvania, and the Ohio village of East Palestine is less than 42 miles long. In between are the villages and boroughs of Lyndora, Connoquenessing, and Evans City on the Pennsylvania side before you cross the state line directly into the village of East Palestine. It is a stretch of geography that includes bucolic rolling pastures, the gentle slopes of the Appalachian Mountains, traces of what once was powerful Steel Valley between New Castle, Pennsylvania, and Youngstown, Ohio, and a mix of decay of what once was and a rebuilding of what may be....

JOHNSTOWN — Joe Burkhart is busy working at his job as a maintenance manager at a processor here in Cambria County. Like many people who have spent their career working with their hands, he knows that unexpected layoffs and companies who have been around for decades suddenly shuttering their doors is part of today’s technological revolution.Like many people around here born in the 1960’s, Burkhart says he was born and raised a Democrat. “Everyone in my family was a Democrat, its just what you did,” he said, adding when he first started looking for work as an adult being a...

ERIE, Pennsylvania—Two weeks ago, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman told CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour there is a peculiar disconnect between how the economy is doing and how the public is feeling about it. Ms. Amanpour pressed him on why people weren’t understanding that they are living in a “sunny economy.” He had asserted that “the economy’s rebound has been surreally good,” yet people keep saying it is terrible. [snip] U.S. inflation rates have been historically high during President Biden’s term, prompting central bankers to raise interest rates in a bid to tame prices. President Biden’s pitch saying “Bidenomics is about...

Will Ron DeSantis win Iowa? https://t.co/V0tevNaJWU— Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) September 14, 2023

Within moments after Flight 93 hit the ground here 21 years ago, locals, some on foot, others on tractors, and some on ATVs, dropped everything they were doing and hurried to the scene to see how they could help. To their great horror, all they found was a crater in the field near the edge of the trees spanning 30 feet in both directions still smoldering from the impact. Within six days, bales of hay were laid down at the reclaimed coal mine to create a base for a makeshift memorial for the family members who were brought here to...

DOYLESTOWN, Pennsylvania—Richard Tems was about as loyal a Trump supporter as you can get. The Bucks County businessman and GOP committeeman has fiercely defended former President Donald Trump in editorials, interviews with reporters, and conversations with anyone within earshot. He voted for Trump twice and believed he was the right president at the right time. However, eight years after the New York businessman and entertainer came down the escalator in Trump Tower in June 2015, Tems said he would move on in next year’s Pennsylvania primary. He plans to vote instead for Governor Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., for the Republican nomination...

BEDFORD, Pennsylvania — From across the curved chestnut bar in the sprawling lobby of the Bedford Springs Hotel in this central Pennsylvania town, it was hard not to be drawn into the conversation between Christopher Ege, JoAnn Harrison, and her husband, Dan. Given their animation and laughter, one might have assumed all three had known each other for years and clearly shared a lot in common. As they discussed trips they had made to Kentucky to visit the iconic Bourbon Trail while contemplating the bourbons on hand, the discussion went from the history of the Buffalo Trace distillery to politics....

But while Trump and Vance and Gabbard are all showing up, the actual people running this country have been missing in action. It took until February 16—nearly a full two weeks after the crash—for the first top Biden official, EPA administrator Michael Regan, to be on the scene. Meanwhile, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg—who has one job, overseeing the infrastructure of this country—has not yet witnessed the catastrophe in person nor did he acknowledge it until February 13, though he is scheduled to arrive today. President Joe Biden released a fact sheet about the accident and tweeted about it, but...

The chickens have come home to roost for Donald Trump in Pennsylvania. After he stuck his nose in the state’s Republican primary process last May against the guidance of his most loyal advisers, many of his once-devoted followers say they are done with the former president. (snip) “If you’re a Republican in Pennsylvania and you look at Donald Trump’s bigfooting of the people in Pennsylvania and the implosion of his candidates in Pennsylvania, you’re pretty upset,” said Urban, a Washington-based strategist who grew up in Beaver County, Pa. Urban said his phone has been ringing all week with county chairs...

Last May, when Trump endorsed Oz for the Republican Senate nomination over David McCormick, many of the state's loyal conservatives balked. Dave Ball, the Washington County GOP chairman who flipped his county from blue to red in voter registration, said at the time, “What the hell was he thinking?” When Mastriano surged comfortably ahead in the polls for the GOP gubernatorial nomination in the weeks before the May primary, I reported extensively on the Republicans' fears that Mastriano would drag the party down, including its Senate nominee; within days of that story, Trump endorsed Mastriano.

Instead, they spend their time, day in and day out, constantly saying you or your family members, neighbors, co-workers, employees, or employer who voted for Donald Trump once or twice is an ultra-, mega-, extremist-MAGA insurrectionist fascist out to strip your rights and votes away. And they wonder why people have turned on them! The final image of this election happened last week when someone snapped an iPhone photo of Michael McGuire, who just got off of work at the local coal mine and rushed to Rupp Arena at the University of Kentucky so he could watch an event with...

EXPORT, Pennsylvania — For the first time in this election cycle, most of the people sitting around the restaurant bar casually watching the debate saw the depth of the effects of the stroke Lt. Gov. John Fetterman suffered in May when he began the debate Tuesday evening with a “good night” as his opening greeting. It only got worse from there. For 60 painful minutes, the York native and Harvard graduate, who had made his home in Western Pennsylvania for the last 20 years, struggled vividly with cognitive issues in handling the simplest of questions tossed his way during the...

BRADDOCK, Pa. — Tony Lundy is sitting on one of three chrome stools at Hocky Brothers auto parts store on Braddock Avenue, waiting to find out how much it will cost to fix his car. Dressed in work clothes from the plant he works at nine miles down the river in Pittsburgh, the 61-year-old has called Braddock home for most of his life. Lundy fondly recalls growing up as one of 13 children surrounded by this once-vibrant community. “The town was the place to be,” Lundy said. “Braddock Avenue had four or five businesses on every block on both sides...

SPRINGFIELD TOWNSHIP, PA — This past June, Dr. Mehmet Oz was declared the winner of Pennsylvania’s Republican primary for US Senate by just 951 votes. Even so, he was not in a good position. And things were about to get a whole lot worse. His bitter primary contest against businessman David McCormick had left him battered. His Democratic opponent, Pennsylvania’s Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, had gone on the attack — portraying Oz as an elite carpetbagger from New Jersey. Polls showed Oz had slid into a double-digit deficit in the race. The money had dried up, and establishment Republicans were...

SPRINGFIELD TOWNSHIP, PA — This past June, Dr. Mehmet Oz was declared the winner of Pennsylvania’s Republican primary for US Senate by just 951 votes. Even so, he was not in a good position. And things were about to get a whole lot worse. His bitter primary contest against businessman David McCormick had left him battered. His Democratic opponent, Pennsylvania’s Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, had gone on the attack — portraying Oz as an elite carpetbagger from New Jersey. Polls showed Oz had slid into a double-digit deficit in the race. The money had dried up, and establishment Republicans were...

ERIE, Pa. -- Every election cycle in America, plenty of people will decide, for one reason or another, not to show up to vote. Their reasons often vary. They may not like either candidate's personality or may not feel either candidate represents their views -- or they just don't think the government will change, no matter who is in power. Sometimes, however, they make that decision based on cues from someone who they believe has their and the country's best interests at heart, somehow thinking that by abstaining from voting, they are sending a message. In the heat of the...