Free Republic

Not a single vote has been cast in the Republican presidential primary. Not one. Yet, the Republican Party establishment has decided for us that Mitt Romney is the 2012 anointed one. Why? Well, he's a veteran campaigner, or he has become a household name. Or some variation that leads to the bottom-line rationale that "It's his turn." The GOP machine tries mightily to formulate the parameters of intra-party debate so that candidates gather in a virtual cartoon-depicted assembly line, each awaiting "his [or her] turn." Let's give the GOP veteran operators their due. These are folks who have done much...

December 9, 2010 The other WikiLeaks scandal: media coverup By Wes Vernon Few outrages are so infuriating as a mainstream media blackout of relevant facts that pose threats to its agenda. The most obvious Pravda-style see-no-evil going on right now is the refusal to use terms such as "Islamofascism," "radical Islam," "Islamist," or even "War on Terror," lest the public become aware of "politically incorrect" facts about the forces behind terror threats, suicide bombings, and mass murder plots. That's one example. Here's another case: The latest forbidden fact Since the latest barrage of leaked government cables by the WikiLeaks cyber-terrorist...

Veteran Journalist Recommends Voodoo Anyone? Malcolm A. Kline, January 7, 2010 Veteran journalist Wes Vernon gave Accuracy in Academia’s first textbook an unreserved rave in a review in The Washington Times. “In an ideal world, Voodoo Anyone? would be required reading for every journalist who communicates with the public on politics and economics,” Vernon wrote. “That would emphatically include the overwhelming majority in the mainstream media.” “Even sportswriters or commentators should understand the market forces at play for the stratospheric salaries accorded football players, just as entertainment writers have some familiarity with celebrity performers whose pay dwarfs that of their...

Clearing the air vs. splitting hairs and distorting Cold War history (Part 1) Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter whitewashed Since the downfall of the Soviet Union, volumes have been written about that late superpower's penetration of American Society and its institutions before and during the Cold War years. It can be said without credible contradiction that what we now know about Soviet spying and infiltration of the U.S. for seven decades vindicates the much-maligned anti-Communists (in and out of Congress) of that era. If anything, they didn't know the half of it. It was they who warned — often to...

The trouble with many of the past ratings of America's presidents is that the "consensus" has been arrived at by academics who act alike, do alike, and think alike. In the view of many, they are suspect of viewing history exclusively through the prism of Ivy League faculty lounge discourse. Alvin Stephen Felzenberg (Ph.D.) — who has taken a fresh and comprehensive look at the nation's chief executives in his book The Leaders We Deserved (and a Few We Didn't): Rethinking the Presidential Rating Game — does not challenge the credentials of the conventional historians. Rather, as he explains in...

San Francisco police told to shut up about it By Wes Vernon You are earnestly urged to believe that President Obama's Justice Department is seriously investigating a 39-year-old murder case involving his political friends and communist terrorists Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dorn. That assurance is given as justification by Attorney General Eric Holder's agency to tell San Francisco police officers (present and retired) to shut up because any day now, some arrests are to be made in this "active" case. Earlier this month, members of the San Francisco Police Officers Association appeared at a news conference sponsored by...

Violent chickens roost on candidates' shoulders: exploring the liberal/Marxist nexus Wes Vernon April 21, 2008 Last week's Clinton/Obama debate opened a new door on an old coalition: What is it about Marxists (violent or otherwise) that attracts liberals (well-meaning or otherwise) to their defense? What is their common goal (to the extent that they have one)? The counterculture sixties Here is the mantra of the Weather Underground, as enunciated by one of its leading disciples: "Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents. That's where it's really at." Who said...

Wes Vernon March 24, 2008 The Clintons are at it again. There is no length to which these scheming affronts to plain decency will not go in order to protect themselves — i.e., his precious legacy and her perceived entitlement to ascend to the throne. Keep the truth from the American people Obviously embittered by the failure of their acolytes and thugs to intimidate ABC into canceling the 2006 film The Path to 9/11, they are now going to the ends of the earth to prevent the release of that film on DVD. This time, ABC's brass is cooperating...

You are earnestly urged to believe that the attacks and dirty tricks used against Congressman Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican seeking re-election, have absolutely nothing to do with the following: 1 — Congressman Weldon took the lead in getting House approval of SDI — the missile defense that was bitterly opposed by the Clinton White House. (See this column "Go along to get along? Not this congressman," Oct. 16, 2006). 2 — The idea of a U.S. missile defense system is also opposed (for obvious reasons) by the enemies of the United States (first the Soviet Union, then the terrorists)...

Virtually all the chattering-class attention has targeted Coulter's comments disparaging the "Jersey Girls" or (this past weekend) a charge that she plagiarized a few sentences. On the latter point, Coulter can defend herself. But a quick scan of one of the sentences in question shows wording that is easily different enough to pass the smell test on that issue. The "Jersey Girls" are four widows whose husbands died on 9/11. Coulter excoriates them for using their family tragedies to promote a left-wing political agenda. Whether one would have used exactly the same words to make the author's point (who can...

The media double standard on the stories of two leak investigations is striking. On the one hand, Washington newshounds demanded to know who leaked the name of desk-bound CIA bureaucrat Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak. Contrast that with the way the media handled news the Justice Department is investigating to determine those who leaked information to the New York Times that the National Security Agency (NSA) monitored phone calls from al-Qaeda terrorists to persons in the U.S. Suddenly, these same media mavens reacted in horror that anyone would think of harassing "whistleblowers." A 22-year veteran of the Air Force...

There has been a lot of fuss about what Under Secretary of State John Bolton did say or should not have said when he spoke to the Heritage Foundation a few years ago. Well, I know what he said because I was there. (See my write-up of the speech, "U.S. Says China, Russia, Cuba, Syria, Libya Abet Terrorism.") Bolton issued warnings about what America's enemies were up to. If his words are deemed "undiplomatic," it's because the mushy-mouthed striped-pants types at the State Department have a heart attack whenever they hear someone in their midst using plain English to stand...

WASHINGTON -- The cry of "McCarthyism" has weakened America before her enemies. While a group called international A.N.S.W.E.R has organized (sometimes violent) appeasement protests throughout the nation leading up to and during the war in Iraq, there is no established committee in Congress assigned to investigate this group. Such a probe would not abridge anyone’s freedom of speech, but would determine if enemy forces are trying influence U.S. policy. There is no committee to follow up on documentation by hard-leftist-turned-conservative activist David Horowitz that ANSWER is "a front for the Communist Workers World Party with tentacles stretching around the globe."...