Free Republic

Silence on destructive behavior and the bullying of city employees into complianceWe've been busy lately. All sorts of stuff going on. With all of the information suppression going on, we find ourselves with more free time than usual.What information suppression? Well, without giving away too much from our alternative media friends, it seems that our recent piece welcoming John Kass to the fight regarding lack of reporting the politics of crime issues was stifled quite heavily on social media. To wit, one of our friends reported traffic was down on their social media account by an astonishing 66 percent when...

A tense standoff between Florida authorities and an armed suspect became even more dangerous over the weekend when a naked 28-year-old woman suddenly drove into the crime scene on a golf cart, according to reports. The woman, identified as Jessica Smith, from Boston, had "a distinct odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from her person, and she was completely nude," an affidavit of the incident said, according to FOX 13 of Tampa Bay.

If you’re following the news, you know FBI Director James Comey announced that the FBI found a bunch of emails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop. Wait…hold on…the Gods of Humor demand that I pause here to insert a few Weiner jokes before I get to my point about Comey. ... I’m hearing several interpretations for these two observations: 1. Comey seemed pro-Clinton when he dropped the initial email case. 2. Comey seems anti-Clinton this week because he announced a new round of investigations right before the election.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen lacks just about everything that defines a good movie: plot, script, and credible acting – but it is still this summer’s blockbuster hit, benefiting from a vast “suspension of disbelief” from audiences knocked over by the special effects. Pretty much everyone is willing, to quote The Wizard of Oz, to “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” T2 is not for those who prefer a bit of realism in their summer films (never really been a strength of summer movies). Summer movies are usually retreats from reality that please the senses without...

Author's note: I've spent a couple of weeks overseas recently, where the newspapers and television reminded me of what happens to countries where the rule of law breaks down. More often than not, it starts with CIVIL laws, and not the criminal ones. DJA It has been said that bankruptcy is a form of “structured failure” – a means of preventing businesses from collapsing chaotically. Plainly, the Obama Administration is trying to prevent the chaotic collapse of major American businesses and financial institutions, and has exerted an unprecedented level of structure over them. But one should not forget: It all...

One can learn a lot, stuck in traffic. For example, turn on headlights in low visibility – if you can’t see the car ahead, how difficult will it be to see your car from behind? (A good sign you missed this one is getting rear-ended.) Also: if you are no good at multi-tasking, don’t even think of talking on the cell phone while driving. (The cars honking at you while you wander out of your lane at 25mph below the posted speed should be a good indicator that you missed that one.) There are so many simple, common-sense lessons to...

Writing about politics in Washington DC can be difficult, because the things that really happen here too often look like some theater-of-the-absurd production. It’s hard to make up the stuff seen routinely in this town. DC is a target-rich environment for absurdity, a truly reality-optional area. While often you simply fall right off the reality train, sometimes you actually get pushed: - Facing outrage over a porked-up budget proposal that exceeds 3 trillion dollars (imagine a warehouse filled with hundred dollar bills – then imagine two more), the President has ordered his Cabinet to “slash” $100 million from the budget,...

When Patty Hearst burst into San Francisco’s Hibernia Bank and hollered “Up against the wall, motherf*****s,” she was not coining a phrase, because that counter-culture expression was already the chosen name of a Weather Underground splinter group in New York whose reputation for “direct action” and violence was already well-known. Later, Ray Wylie Hubbard re-wrote the pungent phrase into the song “Up Against the Wall Red Neck Mothers” that Jerry Jeff Walker recorded. Now, Janet Napolitano has re-written it again: “Up Against the Wall Red-State Mothers.” According to the “Rightwing Extremism” assessment leaked not-so-coincidentally just before the Tax Day “Tea...

Contrary to what Attorney General Holder may think, there are many Americans who are not cowardly about discussing race. Author Tavis Smiley, for example, is urging citizens to “get past race” when assessing the President, and columnist Eugene Robinson marvels that race is never mentioned in criticism of the President. In a way, they both miss the point. The only race that matters at this point is the steeplechase of the next four years, and the length of that race to come. Long-distance runners will tell you that there are some universal rules: “don’t start too fast or tire too...

It has become fashionable in conservative circles to pull out old copies of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, and make references to the character John Galt, who engineered a “strike” of all the captains of industry to protest a socialist and confiscatory government in America. While that may seem a bit over the top, it’s clear from the news this week that the Obama Administration and Congress are trying to make Ms Rand a prophetess. After a week of sham outrage over bonuses at AIG, Congress has taken action that even the Washington Post called pandering, spineless, and irresponsible – enacting...

It almost suggests that someone slipped the script from Casablanca onto the President’s teleprompter. “I am shocked, shocked,” said he, “to find that gambling is going on in here!” speaking of the allegedly unexpected revelation that bailout funds were being used to line the pockets of greedy executives. His dismay was echoed by Sen. Chris Dodd, Sen. Barney Frank, and many others. How could AIG act so irresponsibly? “Round up the usual suspects.” Even if the President did not exactly quote the memorably cynical lines of “Captain Renault,” he still gets credit for a spot-on Claude Raines impression. That the...

Today my son put it in perspective: “Last year, Bush got blamed for everything,” he said. “This year, he still does. Where’s the change?” It reminded me of the old Cold War joke, wherein the new Soviet Premier gets two envelopes from his predecessor, labeled “Open at first crisis” and “Open at second crisis.” When the first crisis erupts, the Premier opens the first envelope, in which his predecessor advises “Blame it all on me.” Later, when the second crisis arrives, the Premier opens the second envelope and finds a note that reads “Prepare two envelopes.” Less than two months...

This week, the White House turned to something truly transformational: demonizing a talk-radio celebrity, while playing “bait-and-switch” with the economy, civil liberties, and defense. It’s exactly the kind of agenda that people like Rush Limbaugh warned would follow an Obama election, and which so many Obamistas rushed to assure Americans would not happen. The bait-and-switch game has been ruled illegal in a number of contexts, but is still alive in politics. Maybe it’s a Chicago thing, but throwing out McKuen-esque platitudes while sharpening the knives seems to be the Obama M.O. The radical that many warned was lurking beneath the...

Everyone has those moments when they wish they hadn’t said something, but that seems to be a theme this week. From arguably racist snarkisms to gross misrepresentations of fact, Obama and his friends and allies are tripping all over their tongues lately. There are a lot of reasons one may regret ones words, including saying something insensitive, saying something clearly wrong, and simply saying something so badly that it mangles the point. This week, the awards for tongue-gashing go to President Obama, Vice-President Biden, Secretary Clinton, Senator Byrd, the vast majority of the media industry, and many others. In the...

The phrase “a hundred days” was coined by the Compte de Chabrol in 1815, referring to the time between Napoleon’s escape from Elba, and his defeat. Later, it was used to describe the 3-month honeymoon FDR enjoyed in 1933 with Congress, essentially dictating legislation from the Oval Office. Now, for better or for worse, we grade all of our Presidents on their First Hundred Days. A lot can happen in a hundred days. Empires can be made and lost. It’s worth taking an early look at Obama’s first month to see what the first hundred could bring, even if the...

Pogo, the eponymous possum of Walt Kelly’s timeless cartoon strip, once famously declared that “We have met the enemy, and they is us.” Quoted so often that Al Gore probably thinks he wrote it, one can only conclude that the statement is just as true today as when the cartoonist first penned it – particularly as we watch the putative stimulus bill waddle its way through Congress this week. The evolution of this bill, if nothing else, stands as a firm refutation of evolution in economics. Rather than “survival of the fittest”, this bill enshrines revival of the fattest, plumping...

There are a lot of things to admire about France: fashion, wine, truffles, a couple of nice museums, a nifty tower, a few good writers and musicians, and most of the Cote D’Azur, for example. But there are also a lot of things not so admirable: a declining workforce, a bankrupt entitlement system, ethnic riots, an insufferable superiority complex, and a history of surrendering. Unfortunately, the Senate Republicans are learning all the wrong lessons from those Congressional junkets they must have taken to France. Now, the putative conservatives in the Senate have all but re-organized into a new Vichy Occupation...

It was 20 degrees below zero in West Virginia last week, and 2 degrees above in Washington DC. 2008 now appears to have been one of the cooler years on record, and the almanacs are all predicting 2009 to be chillier. If it gets any colder, we may just have to take this global warming stuff seriously. But there is a more profound chilling effect taking place already this year, and one that we ignore at our own peril. Here’s a pop quiz that should set the stage: 1: Which of these two statements is hate speech? (a) Those guys...

Now that the Inaugural is finished, it would be nice if some of my fellow inhabitants of the Capitol region removed their “End of an Error” bumper stickers, but I guess some of them would have to scrape off their “Kerry-Edwards” stickers first. But the party is now over, and it’s time to get to work. Of course, for many, getting to work will not be quite so simple any more. Despite the exhortations of our President for “a new era of responsibility”, it appears that every one of the nearly two million witnesses on the National Mall couldn’t be...

I cleaned my desk last week, an annual New Year ritual, and something I invariably put off until absolutely necessary. Who wants to deal with all the odd bits that bubble up from the clutter? This column is also a cleaning-out of sorts. In this era of impending Hope and Change, it’s a good time to clear out old column ideas and make space for the new. So, in no particular order: - Morning after: With the electoral frenzy finally fading, some media outlets are feeling pangs about the hype. The Washington Post Ombudsman recently concluded that her paper was...