Free Republic

Republican governors mimic democrats "It's the most dire situation we've seen in over 20 years, " laments Raymond C. Scheppach, executive director of the National Governors' Association. He's talking about the deficit faced by many states. The Washington Post reported last Sunday (Jan. 19) that many Republican governors are proposing tax increases to close the gap and abide by their state constitutions which require balanced budgets. Many, including Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, say they've cut expenses as much as they can and will now have to raise taxes. Kempthorne says, "I'm not going to dismantle this state, and I'm not...

Average Protestors: Total Kook Wackos On Monday, I rolled audio from that big anti-American protest in DC. “Anti-American protest? I didn’t hear about that” Maybe that’s because the press wrongly identified the protestors as “anti-war.” That's a misnomer, since no one wants war. No, these people are anti-American, anti-capitalism, anti-freedom and pro-dictatorship. They're retreads, or young people acting out an era – the 60s – that they missed. I told you in Hour One on Monday that you could find signs and issues at this protest from the pro-choice crowd or the animal rights crowd. Sure enough, by Hour Two...

White House Brief Stops Short of Bush Speech January 17, 2003 Folks, I really don't relish the next words, sentences, and paragraphs, which you will read on this page or hear from my mouth in the audio links below. There is some angst today in the conservative legal community over the University of Michigan case and the brief filed by the Bush administration late Thursday night near the midnight deadline, and how this brief differs in scope from the president's amazing speech. Now, the mainstream press, of course, is late to pick up on this. We have several wire reports,...

Axis of stupidity When President Bush included North Korea in the axis of evil last year, foreign policy experts concluded that he was a moron. On the basis of years of scholarship and close study, the experts pointed out that Iran, Iraq and North Korea were – I quote – "different countries." As Tony Cordesman, an expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, explained, "these are three very different countries here." USA Today sniffed that there was no axis because, "The countries have more differences than similarities." Koreans don't even look like Iranians. Moreover, as the ponderer class...

As Close As We'll Get To President Limbaugh Folks, as you know our microphones are everywhere. So as President Bush went through some of the highlights of his economic plan during Tuesday's program we JIPed the speech (Joined In Progress) for a few minutes. In the audio link below, you can hear my live, spontaneous running commentary on the president's remarks. The thing I want you to do, as you listen, is think about what you've heard from the Democrats since last week – the whining and moaning and bellyaching. They didn't even know what was in this proposal and...

"BORKING" OF PICKERING UNCONSCIONABLE WASHINGTON, D.C. - Gary L. Bauer, Chairman of the Campaign for Working Families, called for Senate Democrats to stop their hijacking of the nomination of Federal District Judge Charles Pickering. "The 'Borking' of Judge Pickering is simply unconscionable," Bauer said. The former presidential candidate made the following statement: "Senate Democrats are so desperate to protect the liberal stranglehold over the federal judiciary that they are willing to slander an honorable man. But don't take my word for it. Even the Washington Post, not exactly know for its conservative views, said in its own editorial, '…the attack...

Civil Rights Activists Protest Sen. 'KKK' Byrd While the White House and Republican Party leaders have sat on their hands as former Ku Klux Klansman Robert Byrd continues to reign as a top Senate leader, a group of civil rights and conservative activists will launch a lunchtime protest on Monday against the West Virginia Democrat, demanding that he remove himself from the line of succession to the presidency and resign from his post as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. In a press release issued Sunday, Kevin Martin, Political and Government Affairs Director of African American Republican Leadership Council, invited...

Cuomo Presses Democrats to Take On Bush WASHINGTON - Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo is pushing the Democratic Party to sharpen its differences with the Republicans on issues such as tax cuts and Iraq. Cuomo, responding to the Democrats' dismal showing last November, said the party lost the Senate and failed to win the House because it didn't offer an alternative to President Bush (news - web sites) and the GOP. "We virtually ceded the terrorism and Iraq issue, and then we didn't make the case on the tax cut because some Democrats had voted for it," Cuomo said...

Republicans and Civil Rights Republicans, conservatives and constitutionalists always find themselves on the defensive in regard to civil rights issues. No matter what they do, will do or have ever done, the left, Democrats and contrarians demonize them as racists. By demonizing Republicans and conservatives the left can continue to impose the big lie, which will be accepted as gospel by minorities, whom Democrats believe "owe" them. For the Record At the 100th birthday party of former segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond, Sen. Trent Lott oozed flattery and camaraderie and said that it might have been a good thing if Thurmond...

Why Win If You're Going to Wimp Out? January 2, 2003 There is no reason for going soft on the Bush agenda, yet we're doing that more and more on everything from ending racial discrimination (aka: affirmative action) to tax fairness to Saddam. If we'd already dealt with him, we wouldn't be faced with this supposed dilemma over whether North Korea or Iraq should be our primary focus. It's not a dilemma, anyway. They're both going to be dealt with, so there's no reason to create these openings. Reuters reports that President Bush plans to unveil an economic stimulus package...

The panic that the Democrats face is real for a number of reasons. This kind of stuff makes me not worry so much about the Lott situation. What worries me more about that is not what the Democrats are saying, but what it's causing amongst the Republican and conservative ranks. The Lott situation was, and may or may not still be, on the brink of causing a deep fissure in conservative circles. A whole lot of people on our side saw self-serving grandstanding by certain elements of the conservative movement. The notion that it was never about Lott, but rather...

White House Wannabe Edwards Has Ex-Klansman for Mentor If the rest of the media do their job, White House wannabe Sen. John Edwards will find, like Sen. Trent Lott, that words can come back to haunt you. At Bill Clinton's impeachment trial, here's what Edwards had to say in the Congressional Record on Feb. 12, 1999, according to CNN: "... [H]owever reprehensible the president's conduct is, I have to vote to acquit on both articles of impeachment." 'Please Listen' "I have one last thing I want to say to you all, and it is actually most important. If you don't...

So Much More Than Lott So, already by Christmas the Republicans took their newly revealed "racist" Trent Lott and chopped him off like a hood ornament and left him folded up in the glove compartment like a paper napkin full of forgotten fruitcake. Nice crisis resolution, huh? Neat image management, right? Not so fast. One problem. Trent Lott is NOT a racist. Nobody believes Lott is a racist. His enemies don't believe that. His friends don't believe that. And nobody believes Trent Lott believes America would have been better off if Strom Thurmond had been elected president in 1948. What...

Journalism: Where Even The Men Are Women MOST JOURNALISTS are so stupid, the fact that they are also catty, lazy, vengeful and humorless is often overlooked. I generally avoid mentioning even widely published lies about me, or I'd never have time to do the things that provoke liberals to lie about me. But inasmuch as one of the media's favorite pastimes is to invent inane quotes and attribute them to me, I thought we could use a few examples to probe the need for lithium among the scribbling profession. One apocryphal quote that has long perplexed me was the one...

John Ashcroft: Man of the Year John Ashcroft, the 79th attorney general of the United States, is Human Events "Man of the Year" for 2002. No finer choice could have been made—for his role in the war on terror; for his adherence to the principles of liberty that animated our founding; and for his dignified stature in the face of unjustified criticism, John Ashcroft deserves this award. Atty. Gen. Ashcroft’s personal background is that of a man whose roots are in the Midwest—both physically and spiritually. He was born 60 years ago in Chicago, Ill., and raised in Springfield, Mo.,...

George W. Bush and the Betrayal Of Trent Lott Being a Texan, I’ve been a Bush fan for a long time. Not that everyone in Texas is a Bush fan, but I’ve supported him and his policies for a long time, reaching back to his days as governor here. I’ve even convinced others to support him. I’ve trusted him to be a strong and fair leader and to appoint other strong and fair leaders. I’ve accepted him at his word when he claims to be a Christian, and a compassionate conservative. It’s too bad I’ve had to revise my opinion...