Free Republic

So…this is an unusual question one might ask about a presidential candidate, but nevertheless, it happened. Washington Post reporter Ben Terris spoke with Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) while he was in the process of writing his soon-to-be released book The Big Break: The Gamblers, Party Animals, and True Believers Trying to Win in Washington While America Loses Its Mind. The book is described on Amazon as a profile Washington power players who have tried to navigate the raucousness and political upheaval DC has seen in the last several years. Scott is now prepared to enter the 2024 Republican primary, and...

Left-wing scholars, particularly in academe, make lots of attention getting assertions. Regrettably, they usually offer little in the way of illuminating evidence. "In the midst of almost unimaginable horror in Puerto Rico, a bright light has shone on one of America's most unjustifiable and economically backward laws, the previously obscure Jones Act," Brink Lindsay and Steven Teles wrote on October 2, 2017 for Washington Monthly. "First created in the aftermath of World War I to buffer the impact of post-war demobilization, the Jones Act requires that all ships that carry cargo within the United States be built in America, with...

Should the mainstream media lead, to borrow a term from religion, a great awakening? Yes, in a sense, suggested longtime journalist Steven Waldman in a Thursday Washington Monthly piece. “Donald Trump and his campaign have pushed the idea that each of us has our own truth, or ‘alternative facts,’” wrote Waldman. “Suddenly I feel like journalists are the most religious people in America. I don’t mean that journalists are suddenly enamored with the supernatural, but rather that we’ve re-embraced the idea that there’s a thing called ‘truth’ — an absolute value that lives above and apart from the world of...

It was, perhaps, the day the media died. Next week marks the fifth anniversary of the bitter night-January 21, 2011-when progressive Americans, and indeed Americans of all political persuasions who value honor, truth, respect, intelligence and decency, were shocked to learn that MSNBC had decided to end Countdown with Keith Olbermann, perhaps the single best news program ever to air on cable television in the United States. The abrupt cancellation of Countdown was a victory for the dishonest political forces Olbermann had forcefully condemned during his nearly eight-year run-and a demoralizing defeat for democracy. Things just haven't been the same...

Here’s a puzzler for you: we all know the next week will feature a competition among the 35 or 52 or however many Republicans are considering a 2016 presidential run as to who can say the most irresponsible things about the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran that just got a big step closer to reality yesterday. But how are they going to outdo Scott Walker’s pledge, initially made last week and then repeated like a terroristic threat, that he’d blow up any such deal on his first day as president? I mean, I guess someone could say they’d shout insults...

While it’s becoming common to hear Scott Walker dismissed as a flash-in-the-pan or Flavor of the Month or Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time gaffmeister sure to be pushed aside to make way for Jeb’s Brinks truck of cash or Rubio’s glamor, there are less-apparent aspects of his appeal worth noting. That intrepid translator of the Christian Right’s codes, Sarah Posner, has a fascinating take at Religion Dispatches about Walker perfectly matching a growing mood among politically active conservative evangelicals who want a less showy but more reliable champion: >>>>Should he run for president, Walker may very well turn out to be the 2016 cycle’s...

Scalise Apologizes For Event He Didn't Attend The venality and outright lies about House Republican Whip Steve Scalise’s association with David Duke’s racist organization, EURO, keep getting more obvious as Speaker of the House John Boehner, House Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy struggle to contain the damage keeping Scalise on the House leadership team is doing to the Republican Party. None of what Scalise has said to try to explain away his association with David Duke, and Duke’s principle Louisiana political operative Kenneth Knight, has passed the smell test, and the more Scalise tries to explain it away, the deeper...

On April 8, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi headlined a Boston conference on ''media reform.'' She was joined by four other congressmen, a senator, two FCC commissioners, a Nobel laureate and numerous liberal journalists. The 2,500-person event was sponsored by a group called Free Press, one of more than 180 different media-related organizations that receives money from liberal billionaire George Soros. Soros, who first made a name for himself in investing and currency trading, now makes his name in politics and policy. Since the 2004 election, the controversial financier has used his influence and billions to push a laundry list...

Grand Old Partisan salutes John Bingham, principal author of the 14th Amendment and a great REPUBLICAN. Writing yesterday in The Washington Monthly, Steve Benen accused the GOP of going "From the Party of Bush to the Party of Jefferson Davis." His point, it seems, is that questioning whether the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to children born in the USA of people here illegally is akin to advocating slavery. Such absurdity is not worth refuting. I will, however, point out a fact that Benen overlooks -- the Party of Jefferson Davis is the DEMOCRATIC PARTY. Indeed, the Democratic Party was the...

While Ted Turner was in college, his father wrote him a letter that concluded: "I think you are rapidly becoming a jackass." Anyone who has watched the eccentric billionaire over the years might be inclined to admire Dad's prescience.... Far from self-made, Mr. Turner inherited a large billboard business when his father, with whom he had a troubled relationship, committed suicide.... He had been less lucky in 1985 when, without consulting his board, he bought MGM for $1.5 billion. He overpaid and was drowning in debt. Three months later he sold the studio back at a discount. More damaging, he...

FReeper and co-author of 'Unfit for Command' Jerome R. Corsi, PhD is being attacked on WashingtonMonthly and MediaMatters. From WashingtonMonthly: LUNATICS?....A few misguided souls took issue with my cavalier dismissal of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth as "certifiable lunatics" yesterday. If you're one of them, I have two words for you: click here. It turns out I was being too kind.... That leads to this MediaMatters page: While much has been written about the identity and history of John E. O'Neill -- one of the authors of the forthcoming Regnery book Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against...

Respond to this Article April 1980 Beam Me Out Of This Death Trap, Scotty 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... Goodbye, Columbia By Gregg Easterbrook This April 1980 Washington Monthly cover story on the problems and progress of NASA's space shuttle program was written one year before Columbia's first launch in 1981. To view a larger image of the original cover, click here. The most expensive flying machine ever constructed sputtered and smacked through the low waves, kicking up spray, straining mightily to take flight. It had been bobbing by the dock in Long Beach...

Comparative Advantage How economist Paul Krugman became the most important political columnist in America. By Nicholas ConfessoreThere have always been columnists who, for better or worse, commanded the greatest attention of their day. Think of Walter Lippmann during the postwar consensus, Joseph Kraft during the Vietnam era, or George Will during the Reagan years. William Safire heralded the Clinton backlash of the early 1990s, Maureen Dowd the frothy, decadent latter half of the decade. In much the same way, Paul Krugman, who has written a column twice-weekly for The New York Times since January 2000, is essential reading for the...