Free Republic

The Miami Herald is reporting that Martin County Sheriff Robert Crowder will enter the Republican primary race in the yet to be finalized 18th Congressional District that will have him facing off against Congressman Allen West. Crowder’s entrance to the race is very peculiar, as his endorsement of Democrat Gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink in 2010 over now Governor Rick Scott is still very much remembered by Martin County Republicans.

February may be our shortest month, but it’s filled with notable events. This month, we celebrate Groundhog Day, Chinese New Year and Washington’s Birthday. We also commemorate President’s Day as well as every lover’s favorite, Valentine’s Day. February has also been reserved as Black History Month. After doing just a little digging, I was struck by the significant role the Republican Party played in not only emancipating slaves in the antebellum South, but also in accepting and elevating them into American society. I was also amazed by how often the Democratic Party thwarted the GOP’s efforts.

Andrew Breitbart, the founder of popular conservative blogs Big Government, Big Hollywood, and many others was arguably the boldest speaker at the CPAC convention last week, and it was hard to miss the fact that he is cocked and ready for a fight . In fact, his own words, " F*** you - war." Breitbart released an explosive trailer for the upcoming project he is working on:

Anyone who knows me is well aware that I have a great love of our military and a great love of dogs, especially the German shepherd. Our family has a 4-year-old shepherd, Apollo. (He is affectionately known around here as just "The Boy.") That's him over there on the right. These dogs are loyal, protective, highly trainable and always looking for ways to please their masters. Our military, dating back to the Civil War, has been using dogs in warfare for more than 100 years. It is estimated that dogs saved the lives of more than 10,000 troops in the...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., stuffed his foot in his mouth yet again when he said, “Millionaire job creators are imaginary like unicorns, they don’t exist.” Apart from the country’s movers, shakers and innovators, I submit that all millionaires are job creators, even those we call the “idle rich.” You know, people like Thurston Howell III of “Gilligan’s Island” fame.

USA Today reported Jan. 21 that President Obama was setting aside much of that weekend to work on his State of the Union address. He should have just worked on the state of the union. I can hardly fault the president for using the occasion to make a campaign speech. All presidents do in election years. But in so doing, they usually point to all the good they accomplished during their first term in office. But there’s very little good to which President Barack Obama can point.

Sam’s a profligate spender. No matter how much he earns, it’s never enough, and his mounting credit card debt is proof. Ironically, Sam is concerned about his retirement, so he takes a second, part-time job and deposits all those earnings into an IRA. While Sam’s personal finances are teetering on the edge, his retirement account is firmly planted on solid ground. Sam repeatedly raises the limit on his credit cards, but it doesn’t keep up with his lifestyle. His accountant is always on Sam’s case to follow a budget, but Sam hasn’t even prepared one. To ease some of the...

In an age when politicians mourn the fact that they only have two sides of their mouth from which to speak, Rick Santorum is unabashedly pro-life, pro-family and pro-traditional marriage. He doesn’t waffle; he doesn’t back-step; he doesn’t sashay. Rick made this clear as far back as the Clinton administration. When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was first lady, she published a book titled, “It Takes a Village,” which was premised on the notion that it takes the work of the entire community to properly raise a child. Santorum immediately shot back with his own book, “It Takes a Family.”...

In 2008, I was a strong Mitt Romney supporter and was looking forward to casting my vote for him. Then, on Jan. 26, a mere three days before the primary, then-popular Gov. Charlie Crist sucker punched me by endorsing John McCain. I knew then that it was all over, and it was. Crist’s choice for the GOP presidential nominee became Florida’s choice. I was sucker punched again two years later, this time by both the Republican Party of Florida and the Republican National Senatorial Committee.

“Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America -- there's the United States of America.” Those were Barack Obama’s words in his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Given the language, one would think his election four years...

Since the Affordable Health Care Act’s passage, the Obama administration has been a three-record jukebox: “Tax the Rich,” “Save the Unions” and “Green Economy.” The first two selections are broken records, stuck on “Pass this bill now.” The last is just stuck on stupid. Its main defect is the current administration’s methodology. The evidence is the Solyndra scandal.

I spent six months in Manhattan in the early 1970s. I remember New Yorkers as having an in-your-face, take-it-or-leave-it, “Are you talking to me?” attitude. Coming from the small-town, everybody-knows-everybody, “Hello, neighbor!” Midwest, I found this altogether strange, fascinating and refreshing. During the last few years, however, something has gone terribly wrong. That old attitude I came to admire is fading into extinction. Who can forget George W. Bush, surrounded by emergency response workers while standing on a pile of rubble that only hours before was the Twin Towers? With a bullhorn in hand, and an arm around the shoulder...

Late Thursday, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced that next year’s Playmate of the Year will be former White House press corps member Helen Thomas. The EEOC declared this its latestvictory in a never-ending quest for equality in the workplace. In a related story, shortly after the EEOC announcement, Hugh Hefner, 96, founder of Playboy Enterprises, died of a massive heart attack in his Los Angeles mansion. Uh, just kidding. I’m merely demonstrating that when we take social engineering to its logical conclusion, we get illogical results.

A presidential address before a joint session of Congress is a very big deal -- the political equivalent of opening night at the Met and the final game of the World Series, all rolled into one. Thursday night lacked both the drama of the former and the excitement of the latter. It quickly reached the heights of mediocrity, and then fell as sharply as the president’s own approval ratings.

Labor Day is a celebration of the American worker, who helps turn management’s vision into reality. In that spirit, I wish everyone a happy Labor Day. Well, almost everyone. Let me explain. For as long as I can remember, my father owned a small manufacturing company in southwest Michigan. He didn’t pay the highest wages in the area, but he treated each employee with respect, and these workers in turn gave Dad an honest day’s work. That mutual respect, combined with a unique bonus program that all his employees participated in, made for a steady workforce.

In recent decades and while citing “separation of church and state,” religious clubs have been banned from public schools, nativity scenes and menorahs have disappeared from the public square, and references to prayer have been removed from the minutes of public meetings. In the last couple of months, the “separation” battle finally reached the level of the “Theatre of the Absurd.” Arleen Ocasio, Director of the Houston National Cemetery and with the approval of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs now bans graveside prayer at veterans’ funerals.

After Climategate cooled the fire of manmade global warming, Al Gore kept himself pretty much out of the limelight, until last week, when he suggested that we put together an “American Spring.” After hearing this, my friend Dmitry shot off an email in his typical, sarcastic style, saying, “I am so delighted to learn about Al Gore’s proposal for an ‘American Spring’ – a sequel to the original ‘Arab’ one! I wonder if he has any candidates for the role of Lara Logan, who was raped by a cheering Arab mob.”

The next presidential election is 15 months away, and 2012 (like most elections) will come down to the mundane, everyday, bread-and-butter issue of economics. I submit that the biggest economic indicator is the price of gasoline. Back in 2006, Nancy Pelosi railed about high gasoline prices, asserting that they were the result of “Big Oil” running the government. Barack Obama picked up on this theme during his 2008 presidential bid, and said he "felt the pain" of those who had to pay exorbitant gas prices.