Free Republic

Michelle Obama provided the star power at Monday night’s opening of the Democratic Party convention, but the evening really belonged to Bernie Sanders. The Vermont socialist, so long a voice in the wilderness, was handed a prominent speaking slot to celebrate how much the party and Joe Biden have adopted his ideas for governing. He earned it. Mr. Sanders failed a second time to win the nomination this year, foiled by the extraordinary turnout of older black voters in South Carolina for Mr. Biden. But in many ways the progressive war horse has won the more important fight for the...

There are those in the Democratic Party who believe that now that God and Jerusalem have been properly reinstated into the Democratic National Platform, all is right with the world -- I mean the election. I am not so sure. I guess, only time will tell. Right now what is of most concern to me is the burning question nobody seems to be asking, "Who stole God and Jerusalem from the Democratic National Platform in the first place?" Turning myself into a combination Inspector Clouseau and Detective Columbo, I decided to form my own list of possible suspects: Could it...

Ridding the U.S. of oil-based energy and avoiding the catastrophic consequences of climate change are the primary goals of the Democratic Party platform released this week that labeled the planet’s temperature variations as a national security crisis. “We must end the tyranny of oil in our time,” the platform said. “This immediate danger is eclipsed only by the longer-term threat from climate change, which will lead to devastating weather patterns, terrible storms, drought, conflict, and famine. That means people competing for food and water in the next fifty years in the very places that have known horrific violence in the...

BOSTON -- The Democratic party platform that will be adopted this week includes one particularly significant change from the platforms adopted by the party conventions of 1992, 1996 and 2000. During the platform-writing process, the drafting committee quietly removed the section of the document that endorsed capital punishment. Thus, for the first time since the 1980s, Democrats will not be campaigning on a pro-death penalty program. Why the change? Simply put, on the question of execution, John Kerry is a very different Democrat from Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Clinton and Gore, while surely aware that capital punishment is an...