Free Republic

Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton. That is not a complicated sentence. Nevertheless the fact conveyed in that sentence came as a monstrous shock to many of the best political minds, pundits and reporters in the whole United States. The greatest brains, the wiliest strategists, the most experienced campaign advisors were in so deep for the Hillary win that they assigned to it a certitude normally associated with the mutterings of Fate. I still receive merriment from the memory of election night, when a bare hour before the polls were closing such oracle-organs as The New York Times and its compeer...

It’s not all Trump, you know. American politics, post-election, is an embarrassing mess, a degrading and degraded spectacle, driven by rivers of frantic speculations, feeding on leaks, misreporting, and hyper-partisan narratives, and ultimately powered by the self-serving certitude of the side that lost to that clown, that they couldn’t have lost, didn’t really lose, and if they did lose was because — apart from a million lesser causes beyond their control — Vladimir Putin was out to get Hillary Clinton. Naturally, many of the heroic reporters of this unhinged moment in American polity have the great saga of Watergate on...

Has there ever been a victory lap like President Barack Obama’s? Day after day the affable, soon-to-be-former leader of the free world makes his rounds — sombre and a little sad, reassuringly calm. Progressives and classical liberals everywhere, not least in Canada, wipe away a single tear as we contemplate the end of this grand moment in American history, inaugurated with a Nobel virtually before the man set foot in the Oval Office. Perhaps in the New Year, as citizens of Earth grapple with the rising tide of chaos and carnage, and cope with the immediate consequences of Obama’s failures,...

Aleppo has fallen. The last and sturdiest bastion of the Syrian uprising is gone. The Battle of Aleppo is over, the revolution is finished, and the Syrian mass murderer Bashar al-Assad has won. Russia has won. Iran has won. Hezbollah has won. The United States has lost. The United Nations has lost, and the bloody war in Syria, already having taken nearly half a million lives, goes on. Aleppo mattered, it should go without saying, but it’s worthwhile enumerating what did not matter. You can start with Aleppo’s 31,000 dead and proceed from there through each and every statutory war...

It has been so delightfully amusing, taking in all the mockery and wickedness that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau brought upon himself by having keened so plaintively last weekend upon hearing the news of the death of that gruesome old Cuban caudillo Fidel Castro. We’ve all had a good laugh. We should also strive to be fair. First, as wildly ill-advised as they were, nothing in Trudeau’s dolorous condolences would have been out of place had they been uttered at any gathering of fashionable society in Canada. Secondly, the Castros and the Trudeaus have been chummy for decades, so the dabbing...

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi went on state television early Monday to announce that the crucial battle to end Islamic State’s ruinous reign of terror in Mosul and western Iraq had finally begun. “Today I declare the start of these victorious operations to free you from the violence and terrorism of Daesh,” al-Abadi said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIL. Shortly before the prime minister told Iraqis that “God willing, we will win,” two Canadian generals who are privy to the battle plans said they were convinced the end of the hardline jihadists in Iraq was inevitable and fast approaching....

In the era when Communism was the big global threat, we used to be able to say, with impunity, that Marxism could exist without Communism but Communism would not exist without Marx; that fellow travellers in the West who purposefully infiltrated key political institutions in the service of the Communist revolution were a grave threat to democracy; and that informing the public about their methods was a civic duty, not hate speech against socialists. Today it is the reverse. Islamism is the gravest global threat, but one is pilloried for saying the obvious: there can be an Islam without Islamism,...

For all we have and are, For all our children's fate, Stand up and take the war. The Hun is at the gate! Our world has passed away, In wantonness o'erthrown. There is nothing left to-day But steel and fire and stone! Though all we knew depart, The old Commandments stand:- "In courage kept your heart, In strength lift up your hand." Once more we hear the word That sickened earth of old:- "No law except the Sword Unsheathed and uncontrolled." Once more it knits mankind, Once more the nations go To meet and break and bind A crazed and...

Wars are often fought on more than one front. During World War II, Allied forces fought and won the war on both the eastern and western fronts in Europe, along with winning the war in the Pacific. The war of Canada and its allies against Daesh, more commonly called Islamic State or ISIS (I prefer Daesh mostly because they hate to be called it), is no different. It has at least two fronts: The physical one in Syria and Iraq, and the digital one on the world wide web. We may be winning the war on the physical front. According...

In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place: and in the sky The larks still bravely singing fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the dead: Short days ago, We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved: and now we lie In Flanders fields! Take up our quarrel with the foe To you, from failing hands, we throw The torch: be yours to hold it high If ye break faith with us who die, We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields

(Full title: Prince Charles makes substantial donation to families of Canadian soldiers killed in attacks last week) OTTAWA — Prince Charles has made what is being described as a substantial donation to the families of the two Canadian soldiers killed recently in separate attacks. Clarence House confirmed a donation was made to the True Patriot Love Foundation, which is managing the flood of money coming in for the soldiers through the Stand on Guard Fund. The Prince of Wales’ Charitable Foundation isn’t revealing the amount of the donation made specifically for the soldiers, but a source close to the matter...

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Friday he will deploy about 30 soldiers and two cargo planes to help deliver weapons and other military supplies to Kurdish forces in Iraq. A CC-130j Hercules and a CC-177 Globemaster will transport weapons from the U.S. and its allies to the Kurdish Peshmerga who are trying to fend off "the murderous rampage" of the terrorist group ISIS, Harper said in a statement released Friday. "Canada will not stand idly by while (ISIS) continues its murder of innocent civilians and religious minorities," Harper said. The two planes are stationed in Cyprus and a...

A legendary Second World War spy school will be officially recognized as a piece of Canadian history, Parks Canada said Saturday. British-run Special Training School 103 - also known as "Camp X" - which operated in Whitby, Ont., was open for only two years during the Second World War, but the Brits trained over 500 special agents there who undertook missions across the world. The British trained agents in the dark arts of silent killing, sabotage, espionage, weapons use, and gave recruits other skills used for clandestine activities for the Allied forces. The majority of the recruits trained at Camp...

Air Task Group deploys to Romania in response to crisis in Ukraine April 29, 2014 By RCAF Public Affairs Earlier today, a Canadian Armed Forces Air Task Group left 3 Wing Bagotville, Quebec, headed for Romania. The deployment is part of the Government of Canada’s response to the crisis in Ukraine. The Air Task Group includes six CF-18 Hornets from 425 Tactical Fighter Squadron, located at 3 Wing. As soon as the aircraft, crews and support personnel arrive in Romania, they will begin conducting multinational joint exercises as part of Canada’s commitment to its NATO allies. Prime Minister Stephen Harper...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - An Alaska glacier is exposing remains from a military air tragedy six decades later.Relics from an Air Force cargo plane that slammed into a mountain in November 1952, killing all 52 servicemen on board, first emerged last summer on Colony Glacier, about 50 miles east of Anchorage. That discovery, by Alaska National Guard crews flying training missions out of Anchorage, put into motion a sophisticated recovery program carried out by the Hawaii-based Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command. After last year’s initial work - when nearly everything that rose to the glacier’s surface was picked up - the JPAC...

Canada has closed its embassy in Egypt "for security reasons," the department of foreign affairs announced Tuesday morning. In a tweet, the department said the embassy would be closed until further notice. Canadians in Egypt are encouraged to register with the department online. On Sunday, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said he was "deeply concerned" about reports of violence and deaths in Egypt. "Dangerous divisions within Egypt threaten its stability and damage its long-term economic prospects," Baird said in a statement. "We urge the government of Egypt to foster more meaningful political participation by the opposition to focus on rebuilding...

In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.

Dane-Geld A.D. 980-1016 It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation To call upon a neighbour and to say: -- "We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight, Unless you pay us cash to go away." And that is called asking for Dane-geld, And the people who ask it explain That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld And then you'll get rid of the Dane! It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation, To puff and look important and to say: -- "Though we know we should defeat you, we have...

<p>“The intentions were righteous, but the unintended consequences were greater than anyone thought they would be,” said Representative Daniel Davis, who sponsored the effort to repeal the proposal.</p> <p>The law, in effect since Jan. 1, has turned thousands of unwitting foreign tourists into illegal drivers.</p>

UNITED NATIONS - In his eighth and likely final address to the United Nations General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a speech here Wednesday laced with religious references but largely stayed away from hate-filled anti-Jewish screeds that have marked his previous appearances here. Canadian diplomats boycotted the speech, leaving the UN General Assembly hall before Ahmadinejad even took the stage. "We will not sit silently in our chairs and listen to Iran's hateful, anti-Western, anti-Semitic views. If anything, today's address only reinforces our decision earlier this month to suspend diplomatic relations with Iran," said Rick Roth, a spokesman for...