Free Republic

The 2024 Republican Iowa Caucus is now history. Donald Trump scored a decisive victory, capturing 98 of 99 counties and winning 51 percent of the vote. Trump’s opponents — Nikki Haley and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) — find themselves struggling to continue. Haley jetted off to New Hampshire where she hopes to get enough support from independents to either win or finish a close second. DeSantis decamped to Haley’s home state of South Carolina hoping to appeal to that state’s evangelicals. But the reality is that Donald Trump has an unshakeable base of support and is all but certain to...

HONG KONG—For months now, I’ve been told that Hong Kong’s protests would end soon. They’ll end when school starts, I heard during the summer. School did start, but the protests wore on, only now I saw high-school students in crisp school uniforms joining the protesters’ ranks. Next, the mask ban of early October was supposed to slow protesters down, but the very first day after that ban, I watched streams of protesters in masks and helmets make their way to their usual haunts on Hong Kong Island. The government shut down many of the subway lines that day, a practice...

While Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower had studied his World War II enemy, he was unprepared for the Nazi brutality he witnessed at Ohrdruf concentration camp in April 1945. Bodies were piled like wood and living skeletons struggled to survive. Even as the Allied Forces continued their fight, Eisenhower foresaw a day when the horrors of the Holocaust might be denied. He invited the media to document the scene. He compelled Germans living in the surrounding towns and any soldier not fighting at the front to witness the atrocities for themselves. On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, join Susan Eisenhower...

Breaking News Israel: #Iran is now moving "Strategic Weapons" to #Syria for a potential offensive against #Israel according to an Israeli Intelligence officer.The Gerald Ford Aircraft Carrier group is stationed nearby and the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group is en route from the… pic.twitter.com/NVgmMeaD25— Jim Ferguson (@JimFergusonUK) October 15, 2023

NORFOLK — “I see him!” exclaimed 8-year-old Penelope Holbert, vigorously waving. Her father, Petty Officer 1st Class Drew Holbert waved back from a platform at the stern of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. Holbert, an aviation structural mechanic, was one of 5,000 sailors who deployed Saturday aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower — the flagship of the Ike carrier strike group. It has long been scheduled to deploy this week to the Mediterranean. [Snip] The Eisenhower is expected to be deployed for about six months. [Snip] The Virginia Beach strike fighter squadrons known as Gunslingers, Fighting Swordsmen, Rampagers and Wildcats...

Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday promised to carry out “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history” in the pattern of the Eisenhower model, making the vow during a speech in Dubuque, Iowa.Trump delivered remarks on securing the border and stopping illegal immigration in the country.“One of the most important issues in this campaign is ending the nation-wrecking catastrophe on our southern border,” Trump’s prepared remarks read.“Under my leadership, we had the most secure border in U.S. history. Now, we have the worst border in the history of the world,” they continue, deeming the current immigration crisis as an...

MSNBC political commentator Chris Matthews said Monday on “Morning Joe” that President Joe Biden’s world leadership is “brilliant” at the level of former Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Matthews said, “Tom Friedman, I guess a couple months ago, said Joe Biden has united NATO as never before, his problem is uniting the United States, that is the challenge. I noticed that Richard Haass said the other day in leaving his post at the Council of Foreign Relations, he said biggest challenge in the world today is us. It is so interesting how this whole thing is polarized...

General Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in London January 2, 1944 to command Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) and to direct the last five months of planning for D-Day; the most difficult and complicated military operation ever attempted. Eisenhower’s study of leadership skills required he ignore opportunities for fear and doubt, which inevitably arise as strain and tension wear away endurance. He persevered to present confidence and optimism to those around him. For that reason, he brought with him a confident, battle tested team that had led successful landings in North Africa, Sicily, and Salerno, despite experiencing German counterattacks nearly...

July is scorching in Mexicali. The Mexican city just across the border from Calexico, California, averages 108 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer, but temperatures often swell into the 120s. In 1955, thousands of disoriented people roamed the city’s streets as the sun bore down on them. They had just been dumped there by American immigration officials—snatched from their lives and jobs in the United States and thrown into a city where they didn’t know anyone. These Mexican immigrants had been caught in the snare of Operation Wetback, the biggest mass deportation of undocumented workers in United States history. As many...

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the key element of the response to the pandemic in America was to essentially take away the Bill of Rights, says Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., calling it a “coup d’etat against democracy by the military-medical-industrial complex.” At that time, the government began censoring speech for the first time in American history, thus infringing on the First Amendment to the Constitution, Kennedy said in a recent interview on EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program. America’s founding fathers put the right to free expression in the First Amendment because—as they themselves said–all of the other amendments and rights...

In his last few days as President, Dwight D. Eisenhower gave a televised speech in which he warned the nation about the dangers of .. the “military-industrial complex” (MIC). ... Eisenhower wisely delivered his speech warning the nation about the MIC when he was leaving office .. not wanting to anger the CIA. ... written for Facui. Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the...

After 36 years in Congress, all of it on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, I can confidently say this is the most transformative session of Congress for our transportation system since President Eisenhower established the Interstate Highway System. Let’s review the tape. Last fall we passed the historic bipartisan infrastructure law. This transformational legislation provides $660 billion for transportation—the largest ever one-time infusion of federal funds into our nation’s transportation system. It will provide over $400 billion in funding for roads, bridges, and major multimodal projects. In my state of Oregon alone, that means over $3.7 billion to rebuild and...

As he assumed command of NATO forces in Europe in 1951, General of the Armies Dwight D. Eisenhower uttered prophetic words of caution: "If in 10 years, all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole project will have failed."

Historian and author Jon Meacham said Monday on MSNBC’s “The Beat” that the infrastructure bill signed into law today by President Joe Biden “will rank” in history with former President Dwight Eisenhower’s Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 that created America’s interstate highway system. Anchor Ari Melber said, “What you see in the sweep of history, it’s hard to get a sense of it as we go in real-time, but when we look at the numbers, how rare or infrequent it is you get this national investment. I’m curious your thoughts on where this fits in long term.”

How it started:That would be with The Great Self-esteem Movement of the 70’s-80s, in which teachers and parents began to pour unconditional praise on children and to shelter them from adverse consequences and criticism. Accordingly, all of the children were above average. Indeed between the late 60s and 2004, the proportion of first year university students claiming an A average in high school rose from 18% to 48%, despite the fact that SAT scores had actually fallen. At best the participation trophy era created a generation of narcissistic underachievers. At worst it created a batch of nincompoops.How it ended:Incompetent nincompoopery...

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and...

Robert Frost’s iconic poem, memorized by generations of schoolchildren, reflects on one man’s choice between two roads that “diverged in a yellow wood.” Frost’s message was that the man’s will affected the course of his entire life. But what if the ‘choice’ was not that of a single soul but great power at war? Who should have the right to make that choice: The political leader or the military leader? The general can see the battle clearer than any politician but often can only see the battle and not the war. The politician may see the full scope of the...

This essay is adapted from Mr. Ferguson’s new book, “Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe,” which will be published by Penguin Press on May 4. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.In 1957, the U.S. rose to the challenge of the ‘Asian flu’ with stoicism and a high tolerance for risk, offering a stark contrast with today’s approach to Covid-19...“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,/But to be young was very heaven!” Wordsworth was talking about France in 1789, but the line applies better to the America of 1957. That summer, Elvis Presley topped...

Like many of Egypt’s towns and cities, Port Said is bustling. Donkey-carts weave through traffic on roads, while westerners – once the focus of local hostility – move about undisturbed. Sitting at the northern mouth of the Suez Canal, many call Port Said Egypt’s most beautiful city. It is also a popular tourist destination for cruise ships, which roll in and out, unloading their passengers at Egypt’s second largest port. Here, the visitors watch as cargo vessels line up to enter the canal – a 150km stretch of water that links the Red and Mediterranean seas, cutting out the long...

For most of his presidency, Harry S. Truman maintained a friendly relationship with General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower. Truman knew a hero when he saw one, and Eisenhower was viewed as a national hero for leading the Allied invasion of Normandy that helped bring about the demise of Hitler’s Third Reich. Truman even indicated he would support Eisenhower for President on the Democratic ticket in 1948, with Truman stepping down to be Vice President once again. But the bitter 1952 election campaign put an end to the cordiality that had developed between the two. Truman, campaigning for the...