Free Republic

I was talking to one of my friends from Rio de Janeiro a couple of years ago, and he was bragging that Brazil dominates the sport of soccer. I told him he was probably right, and good for Brazil, but added that America would be better (if not the perennial best) if soccer was the premier sport in this country. As expected (and as I hoped), he flew off the handle. I asked him to hear me out completely before letting his pride speak for his brain. He agreed. I explained to him that our professional soccer players -- the...

If you're like me, you're skeptical of articles like this one by AP writer, Ron Fournier: Republicans are three steps from a November shellacking -- each a grim possibility if habitually divided Democrats get their acts together. First step: Voters must focus on the national landscape on Nov. 7 rather than local issues and personalities that usually dominate midterm elections. That would sting Republicans, who trail badly in national polls. Second step: Voters must be so angry at Washington and politics in general that an anti-incumbent, throw-the-bums-out mentality sweeps the nation. That would wound Republicans, the majority party. Third step:...

Fifteen years ago, the late Isaac Asimov wrote a stirring essay about the Star-Spangled Banner. (yes, that Isaac Asimov) Because many Americans seem to think of Memorial Day merely as a work or school holiday, I thought I would reprint it with hopes of reminding everyone that the USA exists today because of those who gave their lives to establish and defend the radical experiment of self-government in the land of the free and the home of the brave. We should also remind ourselves that America will exist tomorrow because of our brave countrymen who freely risk their lives today...

As PoliPundit reminded us:Thomas Sowell once defined "racist" as a conservative who's winning an argument with a liberal.That simple quote perfectly defines the irrational tendency for liberals to rely on ad hominem and other logical fallacies to defend their positions. Typical liberal arguments usually follow along these lines: (Republican = R, Democrat = D) Person R makes claim X. Person D says Person R is bigoted, therefore claim X is hate-based. Person R is forced to defend his credibility, and person D never addresses the validity of claim X. Liberals actually believe that this is a logical approach to dealing...

Someone named John Steinsvold e-mailed me an article he wrote titled, Home Of The Brave? It appears to be good-intention spam, which is the term I use for e-mails that are meant to advertise ideas, rather than items. I decided that since I've shamelessly sowed links to my site all over the internet, It would only be fair for me to give this guy's essay a once-over. It was published on a website of an organization called The Libertarian Enterprise, but there's a problem; the essay doesn't seem to espouse libertarian ideals at all. As I understand it, libertarianism is...

The tragedy didn't send shockwaves across the world, but the reaction to it might. I'm talking about the news that Islamic extremists in Turkey brutally attacked judges at their top administrative court. The terrorist's aim was to undermine the Turkish government's strong tradition of secularism, hoping to impose sharia law on the Turks by fear of murder. Here is how a Turkish Press article described the scene: A senior judge was killed and four others wounded when a man shouting "I am a soldier of Allah" stormed into the court and sprayed bullets on judges who were in the middle...

Markos "Kos" Moulitsas is considered by many in the establishment media to be a powerful political player who can unleash an army 'citizen activists' at a moment's notice. Based on the traffic that he gets on his site, Daily Kos, some journalists seem to think that he has his finger on the Democratic pulse. Even Republicans and conservative publications have felt compelled to concede that there is nothing on the right side of the blogosphere that can compete with the political superpower that is "Kos". For an example, let's look back to a February 2005 Weekly Standard piece titled, Taking...

It looks like the NSA is back in the news again, only this time it's because of the startling revelation that they've been data-mining. Shocker! As always, Bill Keller's New York Times is all over the breaking news......again. Here's an excerpt:The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials. The volume of information harvested from telecommunication...

When work is light and no news articles or social issues have compelled me to climb on my soapbox, I like to plug random topics into Google's Blog Search to see what comes up. I enjoy reading alternative points of view, especially those of the people who I most often criticize. But lately, it hasn't been so fun - at least not in a worthy opponent kind of way. In fact it's been pretty awkward. I don't like to speak in generalities, but it appears as though there is little rationality among the far left regarding anything Bush anymore. To...

I was reading Kevin Drum's Political Animal blog and felt compelled to take issue with one of his statements. While I do love to see infighting among liberals, especially between the traditional liberals and the hyper-psychotic liberal blogosphere, I am invariably annoyed by the tug-of-war argument over which side is more progressively populist. This is Kevin Drum's line that bothered me: (emphasis mine)"Now, there's no question that the left blogosphere is vaguely in favor of all the usual liberal goals: progressive taxation, decent healthcare for everyone, tolerance for minorities, and so forth." I am so tired of the self-righteous left...

In an update to a previous post titled Do As I Say, Not As I Do, I directed everyone to a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) editorial titled, Our Rotten IntelligenCIA. Today, Bill Keller, Executive Editor of The New York Times (NYT), responded to the above WSJ editorial. (snip) The most ridiculous thing that Bill had to say was this: To believe that aggressive journalism is driven by liberal partisanship requires an awfully selective memory. (Ask Bill Clinton. Ask Congressman Mollohan.)Is Bill Keller out of his mind? Seriously, is he taking crazy pills?

The Politburo Diktat has a handy chart that reveals all of the connections between Mary McCarthy and the usual Democrat suspects: (hat tip: Brainster) (click on image to enlarge) If you think this chart better resembles a tea leaf than a logical network of personal and professional connections, then you're probably a healthy skeptic that likes to wait until all the facts come out and all versions of events are vetted before rushing to judgement.....

According to The Washington Post: Washington Post staff writer Dafna Linzer was online Tuesday, April 25, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss the firing of CIA intelligence officer Mary McCarthy for leaking classified information to the media and the possible legal fallout of continuing investigations. McCarthy denies that she was involved in disclosing information about the existence of secret prisons to The Post's Dana Priest. Here is an electronic back-and-forth that made my jaw drop:

Greg Mitchell, the editor of Editor & Publisher, penned a column titled, A Crisis Almost Without Equal. This is the first time since the last election that I've seen liberal groupthink impose itself on everyone with such arrogant fervor. Sure, since the last election there have been looney editorials, Cindy Sheehan, and calls for the violent overthrow the US government, but this column by Greg Mitchell really reminds me of the kind of forgone conclusion writing style that permeated the mainstream media prior to Senator Kerry's defeat in the presidential election. Democrats are setting themselves up for another huge disappointment....

In a recent piece on liberal media bias, Michael Barone relayed a relevant encounter: I remember a conversation I had with a broadcast news executive many years ago. "Doesn't the fact that 90 percent of your people are Democrats affect your work product?" I asked. "Oh, no, no," he said. "Our people are professional. They have standards of objectivity and professionalism, so that their own views don't affect the news." "So what you're saying," I said, "is that your work product would be identical if 90 percent of your people were Republicans." He quickly replied, "No, then it would be...

Every time I walk past a parked car emblazoned with Bush Lied and Kerry/Edwards '04 stickers, I wonder what it would take to jolt one of these revolving door revolutionaries out of their delusional sense of reality. What evidence would be necessary to dissolve the cognitively dissonant afflictions of moral relativism, political correctness and myopic foreign policy? I guess my real question is; what would it take to make victims of Bush Derangement Syndrome and Post Election Selection Disorder remove the Bush Lied! bumper stickers from their cars? As the rationales behind the Bush Lied! mantra are shot down, one...

CNN's Chritiane Amanpour has written another news piece that further affixes the label of liberally biased" to the mainstream media. It is titled, From terrorism to trash collection, and it is a puff piece about Hamas that is better suited for broadcast by the pro-palestinian BBC. On second thought, CNN did black out Saddam Hussein's atrocities for a decade, so maybe this propaganda is apt at the network. Here it is: You would think that after more than 50 years of one of the most intimately chronicled conflicts in human history -- Israelis vs. Palestinians -- there would be nothing...

I believe we are witnessing the end of the "Bush is finished" news cycle. I predict that over the next several months, news stories will begin to focus on Bush's rebound. Despite the setbacks and infighting that has recently plagued the Administration and the Republican party, the Democrats' lack of a coherent message has hamstrung their ability to capitalize politically. This ineptitude in itself has become newsworthy, and will be the underlying theme of many future news articles. Moreover, the mainstream media is beginning to reap the backlash from overtly unfair and negative reporting. With circulation rates dropping, and more...

I do not often write about religion or religious issues. However, I thought I would share this story. As you all know, yesterday was Ash Wednesday. I decided to attend the 5:30 service near my home rather than near my office, mainly because it allowed me to leave work a little early. I arrived at Saint Joseph's Catholic Church about ten minutes early and was pleased to discover that Cardinal McCarrick would again be delivering the Mass. The church was pretty empty, but being one block from the Senate office buildings, it always fills up at the absolute last second....

Stuart Taylor, Jr. wrote a thought-provoking piece in today's National Journal titled, Leak Prosecutions: The Gathering Storm. One excerpt in particular seemed to frame the debate around the relationship between leaks, the press, the White House and matters of national security. Still, a couple of assertions rubbed me the wrong way, and I was compelled to e-mail him with this response: I just read your piece titled, "Leak Prosecutions: The Gathering Storm". I thought it was a very good perspective piece, but a couple of things bothered me. Dear Mr. Taylor, You open the essay with this line: "The news...