Free Republic

May 02, 2005, 9:44 a.m. Dominionist Domination The Left runs with a wild theory. What is the real agenda of the religious far Right? I’ll tell you what it is. These nuts want to take over the federal government and suppress other religions through genocide and mass murder, rather than through proselytizing. They want to reestablish slavery. They want to reduce women to near-slavery by making them property, first of their fathers, and then of their husbands. They want to execute anyone found guilty of pre-martial, extramaritial, or homosexual sex. They want to bring back the death penalty for witchcraft....

Rumsfeld’s War, Powell’s Occupation Rumsfeld wanted Iraqis in on the action — right from the beginning. By Barbara Lerner The latest post-hoc conventional wisdom on Iraq is that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld won the war but lost the occupation. There are two problems with this analysis (which comes, most forcefully, from The Weekly Standard). First, it's not Rumsfeld's occupation; it's Colin Powell's and George Tenet's. Second, although it's painfully obvious that much is wrong with this occupation, it's simple-minded to assume that more troops will fix it. More troops may be needed now, but more of the same will not do...

<p>DETROIT -- A federal agent was shot inside the federal building on Friday, police said.</p> <p>The person who shot the agent also was shot, said Detroit Officer Robert Carlton.</p> <p>The shooting occurred two blocks from the courthouse where a hearing was held Friday for three men arrested in Detroit during an FBI investigation into a man on the agency's "watch list." A U.S. magistrate ordered the men detained Friday, saying they presented a flight risk.</p>

Scorched Earth - - Republican Style Much noise is being heard from the mass media about the awful consequences of the Florida Legislature stepping in to award the state's electors to George W. Bush. We hearken to the sound of liberal gnashing of teeth over the possibility of the House of Representatives, currently with enough of a Republican majority, awarding the Presidency to George W. Bush, if it comes to that. We witness the spectacle of speculation by the likes of Chris Matthews and Brian Williams about the grave consequences to the nation if a divided Supreme Court awards George ...

The first thing you should understand is that Al Gore really, really respects the Constitution. "Our Constitution is the whole foundation of our freedom, and it must be followed faithfully toward the true result ordained by the American people with their votes in our respective states," the vice president said in Nashville Wednesday. "The consent of the governed, given freely in an election process whose integrity is beyond question, is the living heart of our democracy." But what seemed to many to be a wholehearted endorsement of the rule of law appears, on closer examination, to be something quite different. ...

The Reform Party Rolls the Dice by Matt Labash Las Vegas Here in Las Vegas, sin and diversion beckon. There's the Elvis-a-Rama museum, featuring the King's Social Security card and husky-size jumpsuit. Or if your taste runs to the exotic, you've got your X-rated comedy hypnotists, nancy-boy master magicians, and the $5.95 steak-and-egg cornucopia down at Hotel San Remo. But we are not here for fun or sin (unless you count backbiting). We are here for yet another Reform party convention—the third in eight months. The party, to put it politely, is in disarray. Not so long ago, every ...

Anniversary Blues The tenth anniversary of the fall of the Wall passed almost without notice. In Berlin, understandably, it was a bigger event than here. George Bush made an appearance in the restored German capital, as did Mikhail Gorbachev. But whether here or there, no one was in a particularly cheery mood about an event that for all intents marked the end of the Cold War -- and if not victory for the forces of freedom then capitulation for the forces of oppression. All the same, no one seems particularly moved looking back, perhaps because the fall of Communism in ...

Around lunchtime on October 17, George Roche IV returned from an errand to find that his wife of 21 years, Lissa, had shot herself to death behind their home on the campus of Hillsdale College. Both Roches had attended Hillsdale, a small liberal-arts college 100 miles west of Detroit, and both worked there, he as a physical trainer in the athletic department, she as an editor at various Hillsdale publications. Their son was a junior at Hillsdale. George’s father, George Roche III, was Hillsdale’s longtime president. But there was no memorial service for Lissa Roche on the Hillsdale campus. ...

A picture really is worth a thousand words. Just ask Jesse Jackson. Just days ago, Mr. J. was basking in the lifegiving glow of national publicity as he introduced us to those New Age martyrs, the Decatur Seven. Back in September, the Seven had been expelled from their Decatur, Illinois high schools for two years, merely -- by Jackson's widely-publicized account -- for engaging in a little high-spirited horseplay in the bleachers during a football game between Decatur's Eisenhower and MacArthur high schools. The expulsions triggered quite a storm locally. Last weekend, Jackson -- with his uncanny radar for hot ...

Jack Gargan, Reform Party Man Matt Labash Cedar Key, Florida Descending into the Reform party’s nerve center can be a bit unnerving. But it’s a scenic ride. Pushing down a two-lane highway that dead ends an hour-and-a-half west of Gainesville, one passes thick-ribbed oaks laced in Spanish moss, smoked mullet stands, and “lawn critter” kiosks. Across channel bridges that span osprey-populated marshes, one enters the sun-kissed isle of Cedar Key, home of the new head of the Reform party, chairman-elect Jack Gargan. The Reform party has long been knocked for being little more than a P.O. box in Dallas. ...

Pakistan's Army Stages Apparent Coup Attempt Updated 11.18 a.m. ET (1518 GMT) October 12, 1999 Pakistan's army staged an apparent coup attempt Tuesday, shortly after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif fired the powerful army chief of staff. Witnesses said troops surrounded Islamabad International Airport, state-run radio and television, and the official residence of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. "It's up in the air as to who will be in control tomorrow morning," Lee Irwin, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, told Fox News. He said the embassy had advised Americans in Pakistan to take "due precautions as to the situation," ...

REAGAN BIOGRAPHER MIXES FACT WITH FICTION; MORRIS STYLE CALLED BIZARRE! For more than 12 years, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edmund Morris has been the "authorized biographer" for Ronald Reagan. Now the often delayed Morris book, DUTCH: A MEMOIR OF RONALD REAGAN, is just days away from publication [Sept. 30 from RANDOM HOUSE] -- a book that has Morris knowingly mixing fact with fiction! Saturday's NEW YORK TIMES viewed the book on condition that direct quotations not be used. TIMES reporter Doreen Carvajal: "Simply put, Morris has invented a character: himself. For literary purposes, the author, 59, has essentially transformed his own ...

STANDING PAT So back to the news. It looks like Pat Buchanan is splitting. This will lead to no end of editors and headline writers making "It's my party…" puns. It will also, according to every sharp-eyed political analyst and pollster, help Al Gore or Bill Bradley get elected. Of course, the experts are probably right. In 1992 Perot stole slightly more votes from the Republican side of the ledger than the Democratic. Buchanan would take almost entirely from conservative voters. But the experts have been wrong in the past. They predicted that Democrats would hold on to the House ...

Updated 8/23/99 4:30 PM LYING AND THE LEFT What is it with the Left and lying? Sure, sure, individual conservatives bend, fold, and mutilate the truth — but not as a matter of policy. As Emerson said, "There is a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its fact." Liberals denounce us as heartless children-haters for not fully funding Headstart. Conservatives meanly and, alas, meekly point out that Headstart hasn't really been proven to work. Leftists shriek like little girls who find spiders in their Easy Bake Ovens over the horrors of American poverty ...

The Army of the Saints THE OTHER DAY I picked up a phone message on my answering machine which concerned a charity event for homeless youngsters I was organizing with some liberals in Hollywood. The voice was female and said she had found a friend who was willing to volunteer her home for a fund-raiser we had planned for the children—then she paused—"but not if Charlton Heston comes." Then she paused again. "In fact," she said, "none of my friends’ homes will be available if Charlton Heston comes." It was unnecessary for her to tell me, as she did under ...

Smug, horny, unedited panderers! If you want to understand what’s wrong with Salon magazine, read Thor Hesla’s smug, juvenile piece on right-wing pundette Ann Coulter. Coulter recently wrote a column for George in which, according to Salon, she complained "that she was having trouble getting dates in the nation’s capital." Salon’s piece purports to give Coulter dating tips. The problem isn’t just that Salon takes this promising premise and turns it into an extended, locker-room style sexual mockery of Coulter. (Sample witty advice: "Stop being a mean bitch," "Get your head out of your ass"). Nor is the problem that ...

SO NOW WE ARE FOUR, as along comes Jack, eight pounds, four ounces, to join Tom, who for the record welcomes this development; and now I know what my job will be for the remainder of my days. I will be the man sitting behind the driver's wheel saying: Boys, listen to your mother. This is a good job, and one of the better things about it is the nice clarity it lends to life. Fathers (and mothers) relearn that the world is a simple enough place. They discover that their essential ambitions, which once seemed so many, have been ...