Free Republic

Barack Obama was ushered into the Oval Office by a wave of young supporters and first-time voters in 2008. However, they are now among those most disillusioned with Obama and his regime, and they are the ticket to winning the 2016 presidential election and preserving the heart and soul of our republic. Politico recently posted a story that started with the words, "Coming soon to a battleground state near you: White House campaigns combining census reports with Instagram and Twitter posts to target teenagers who aren't yet 18 but will be by Election Day 2016." With more than 8 million...

I have been granted a rare opportunity to embark on a new endeavor as CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a national think tank headquartered in Dallas. After serving my country for 22 years of honorable active duty service in a military career and a term in US House of Representatives, I now have a new mission: leading one of America’s premier public policy research centers into its fourth decade. Our objective is to create the preeminent free-market, public policy group in America. My years in and following elected office have brought me to a deeply held conviction:...

If government anti-poverty programs focused on individual outcomes, the results would be those like Lance from Michigan. His father on death row and his mother a prostitute, Lance wandered into Florida and lived behind a dumpster at a 7-11. Hungry, dirty and homeless, he later found a place to live, became sober, got a job and will go to college on a scholarship. We don’t hear stories like that attributed to government assistance. That is because there are over 90 government welfare programs ranging from cash payments to housing and nutrition that are projected to cost $14 trillion over the...

Source: courtesy of Bethany BlankleyThis week, Gov. Mike Huckabee, along with David Lane of the American Renewal Project, hosted a tour with roughly 100 ministers and faith leaders to follow the steps of three leaders who greatly influenced world history for the better, with the hopes that these ministers would return to America empowered to do likewise.Retracing the steps of Pope John Paul II in Krakow, Poland, Margaret Thatcher in London, England, and Ronald Reagan in California,The Journey: A Spiritual Awakening, was designed to exemplify how “God raises extraordinary leaders for extraordinary times.” Huckabee explains, “their lives and messages...

This mid-term election was clearly a repudiation of President Obama's"transformational" agenda. The majority of voting Americans were not pleased with the America the Obama administration has created. Americans weren't anti-incumbent; it was Democrat incumbents who felt the wave of voter anger. Democrats lost governorships in Illinois, MA, and Maryland where President Obama helped campaign. The GOP owns majorities in 70 percent of the state legislators. They control both houses of Congress in Washington. America has had enough of this Democrat nightmare.This election landslide was not a GOP endorsement but a challenge for them to lead in establishing a national agenda...

If you're a political junkie -- or at least if you're a conservative political junkie -- you've probably seen the map. It's a map of the United States showing the congressional districts won by Republicans in red and those won by Democrats in blue. It looks almost entirely red, except for some pinpoints of blue in major metropolitan areas and a few blue blotches here and there -- in Minnesota, Northern New Mexico and Arizona, Western New England, along the Pacific Coast. Of course, it's misleading. Congressional districts are of basically equal population, and Democrats tend to roll up big...

It's been almost a week and I am still giggling like a women-gendered schoolchild as I gaze out over the smoking ruins of the Obama dream. The voters spoke, and what they said to Obama was, “You suck.” But we need to move on from our glorious festival of schadenfreude and strike while the enemy is in disarray. This is an opportunity we must seize. This elections’ utter and complete repudiation of everything these progressive punks proclaim must be Viagra for an impotent GOP establishment. Time to run up the score on these liberal twerps. We have already seen the...

My mother was diagnosed with uterine cancer in the mid-1970s, when I was in grammar school. Her goal, at that time, was to stay alive to see my older sister Kathy and me graduate from high school. She neither dwelled on the disease, nor on why she was stricken with it, but instead focused on getting rid of the cancer and living for her two daughters. She watched both us of graduate from high school, from college and, in my case, from graduate school. In 2005, she was once again diagnosed with cancer. After enduring surgery and chemotherapy, her body...

This column is a continuation of my last, which can be accessed in my column archive. It is simply an expression of gratitude towards the ten people who have most influenced my life as I approach the fifty-year mark. The purpose of writing this two part series is twofold. First, it is to remind people of the importance of stopping every now and then to express gratitude towards others (see the previous installment). Second, it is to highlight the way these important people have provided encouragement to me – in the hopes that this will give the reader ideas about...

Liberals like to think and talk about themselves as if they were the wave of the future. Note, for example, how Barack Obama and John Kerry have denounced Islamist terrorists and Vladimir Putin for behaving as if they are still in the "19th century." On domestic policy, liberals see history as a story of progress from tiny government to ever-larger government -- though never stating exactly how far that movement should go. Obama came to the nation's attention in 2004 as a new figure, young and future-oriented. His successful 2008 campaign was seen as a drive for "hope and change."...

This week I had the honor of speaking to the docents at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. They're the guides and the hosts who bring Ronald Reagan to life for a new generation of Americans. Many who visit weren't alive or paying attention when his administration brought America back from the cultural malaise and economic recession that threatened the future of our country. My presentation, "You're the Only Reagan Some Will Ever Meet," helped remind those attending of the importance of sharing and living the principles Reagan valued. Citizens visiting the Reagan Library aren't just interested in history; they want...

Vox clamantis in deserto. A voice in the wilderness. That phrase is from the Bible (Isaiah 40:3), but also happens to be the motto of my alma mater, Dartmouth College. Although both the Bible and Dartmouth – the latter founded before the American Revolution by a man who arrived, literally, in "the wilderness" with 500 bibles – use the Latin (originally Greek) to mean slightly different things, the spirit of the phrase however is clear: Even one voice, speaking truth on its own, can make a difference. Today, that one voice is the average American. It is you. It...

It's the highlight of my year: a visit to Governor's School at Hendrix College in Conway, which brings together promising young people from every corner of the state during the summer between their junior and senior years in high school. It's something for an old man to anticipate, then enjoy, and most important of all, learn from. I always leave refreshed, cheered, buoyed. There's hope after all. It is the great indulgence of the old to lecture the young, and it is the great kindness of the young to pretend to listen. It is a curious experience to be...

As we gather with family and friends this week to mark the Fourth of July, let us keep in mind the defining value that sets this nation apart – the founding principle that stands as our greatest cause for pride and celebration: that every American deserves an equal opportunity to achieve a happy and fulfilling life. Equality of opportunity is the driving force behind the American Dream. Yet while this Dream was born on a July day in 1776, one of its greatest strides toward full realization came on a July day in 1964. The enactment of the Civil...

This isn’t going to be one of those sentimental Father’s Day articles, even though that is what I would prefer. This article will have a bit of an edge to it. Please excuse my bluntness, but fatherhood is serious business, and for me to sugarcoat or evade the truth about it would benefit nobody. Here goes: What does my peculiar title mean? Aren’t all fathers men? No, they are not. All fathers are male, but not all fathers are men. Maleness is a biological identity, a physical reality, a matter of hormones and organs. Manliness, on the other hand, is...

Editor Note: This is an excerpt from Tom Purcell's new book, "Comical Sense: A Lone Humorist Takes on a World Gone Nutty!"Get this: Dads are essential to kids. According to the National Fatherhood Initiative, kids who grow up without dads are more likely to grow up poor, drop out of school, end up in jail and encounter numerous other struggles in life than kids who grow up with dads do. This information comes as no shock to most men. We know that boys are prone to stupidity and that the creature best suited to taming them is the like-minded...

In the thick of the debate over President Barack Obama’s health care reform bill, administration officials ignored warnings that one of its most controversial provisions was financially unsustainable and could leave taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars. According to a report released Thursday by a working group of congressional investigators, officials inside the Department of Health and Human Services ignored numerous red flags about the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program (CLASS) — and in some cases the officials went to work figuring out how to hide them. Now, those same officials are scrambling to come up...

Can some Freeper please explain how SS works to me? So far, there are two theories...

Immediately after President Obama took office, his Hollywood benefactors clamored for the creation of a "Secretary of Culture." Tinseltown was disappointed with the administration's crony arts czar choice (Chicago lawyer Kareem Dale), but left-wing artists and entertainers have now been mollified. Instead of one government-supported arts czar, the White House has designated an entire herd of them. On Tuesday, as part of Obama's "Winning the Future" initiative, the president designated members of the liberal activist group Creative Coalition as official "America's Champions of Change for the Arts." This is the latest in a series of "public engagement" efforts overseen by...

Pelosi Statement on President Obama’s Speech on America’s Energy Security March 30, 2011 Washington, D.C. – Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on President Obama’s speech on America’s energy security: “American energy independence is an essential part of winning the future; it’s about our national security and our economic competitiveness. We can fuel American prosperity by creating jobs in a clean, green way. “Today, President Obama outlined a strategy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil imports by one-third by producing more oil domestically, promoting efficiency, and leading the way in developing new energy technologies and cleaner...