Free Republic

A cloud hangs over Republicans. The election did not go as well as they thought. They expected the results nationwide to resemble the results in Florida, where Republicans walloped Democrats. Didn’t happen. Florida now seems to be as exceptional politically as it is culturally. Races across the country are much closer than expected. Many have yet to be called. Chances are that the House will flip to Republicans, and Senate control will depend on the outcome of Adam Laxalt’s race in Nevada and a probable December runoff between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker in Georgia. It may be a month...

President Trump’s fight for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is breaking up the “Never Trump” coalition of GOP leaders and pundits, many who are now uniting behind the president in advance of Saturday’s Senate confirmation vote. Rocked by the wall of Democratic opposition no matter what evidence supporting Kavanaugh is presented and impressed with Trump’s solid backing amid a brutal media attack, Never Trumpers are abandoning their opposition in a show of support for the man they once mocked. One famous Never Trumper even told Secrets that Trump’s unwavering support for Kavanaugh, a long-time public servant who worked for former...

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Bill Kristol, from the Weekly Standard, went from a leading conservative voice and Obama critic to a Trump hater who worked with Obama to derail the Trump Campaign. Kristol fell so far that he started pushing the Trump – Russia dossier at the same time as John Brennan and the Obama team. Kristol went from leading conservative voice to being the leader of the anti-Trump “conservative” movement in a matter of a few years. Kristol and The Weekly Standard published articles smearing The Gateway Pundit for supporting the Republican Presidential candidate.

Twitter helped make Donald Trump president. It may also lead to his impeachment. The president values Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram as ways to bypass a hostile media and express his thoughts directly and authentically. But there is a difference between tweeting as a candidate for president and tweeting as the president. And there have been plenty of times since January when his Twitter habit has diverted President Trump from his message and agenda.

One day after Scott Walker dropped out of the presidential race, the Politico headline read: “Walker’s campaign manager unloads.” The same day, the Washington Post had an article, “Inside the collapse of Scott Walker’s presidential bid,” which also drew heavily from Walker’s campaign manager, GOP consultant Rick Wiley. It’s almost as if Wiley had an agenda.

The authorization for the use of military force against ISIS that the Obama administration sent Congress this week is not worthy of the name. Its language is far more about what the president won’t do against the terrorist army that controls much of Syria and Iraq—limits on ground troops and a sunset provision for the authorization after three years—than what he will do. Congress should reject it. If the threat of ISIS is as dire as the president says it is in the preamble of his resolution, if ISIS really does pose “a grave threat to the people and territorial...

Jeff Bell was a reform conservative before it was cool. He’s spent his career arguing with a risk-averse Republican establishment. He pushed Ronald Reagan to embrace the supply-side doctrine of tax cuts before deficit reduction. He spent the 1990s warning the GOP that its tax policy favored investment capital over human capital, corporate interests over working families. He designed a family-friendly flat tax that reduced payroll taxes, increased the child tax credit, taxed capital gains and regular income at the same rate, and ended business expensing. Payroll tax relief and a generous child tax credit are elements of today’s reform...

President Barack Obama delivered an impassioned speech Thursday at the memorial service for victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. But that was to be expected. We all know Obama can give a stem-winder. What wasn’t expected was that this would be by far the toughest week of the Obama presidency—the first time I can remember the president being dealt an unequivocal policy defeat. Only the “shellacking” of the 2010 midterm comes close, and even there a case can be made that achieving the decades-old progressive dream of universal health care was worth losing the House of Representatives and a filibuster-proof...

There aren’t many occasions on which I will pick up a copy of The Weekly Standard and read one of their articles. My wife, however, left a copy of it sitting at my desk, having subscribed to the magazine earlier in the year. The magazine was open to an essay, entitled, “The Two Faces of the Tea Party” by Matthew Continetti. So, I became another unfortunate victim of The Weekly Standard, reading an essay that was written for RINOs, and those individuals who make the cocktail party circuit in Washington, D.C. I’m sure there will be a plethora of buzz...

The numbers in David Carr's piece on Sarah Palin's brand are striking: (1) 2 million people watched the first episode of her show, Real American Stories. That's about the same number who normally watch On the Record with Greta van Susteren, which Palin preempted. (2) Going Rogue has sold 2.2 million copies. (In 2009 only) (3) Palin will be paid million per episode of "Sarah Palin's Alaska," a travelogue / documentary, on TLC. (4) Palin's appearance on Oprah last fall to promote Going Rogue drew that show's highest ratings in two years. Palin has 1.5 million Facebook friends. When Palin...

McCain's aides messed up her debut and campaign. First, the book says that the McCain press office had no biographical information ready when Palin was picked. Not only had the campaign not done its homework to defend Palin, but it wasn't prepared for the media backlash. In their defense, aides note that had the campaign flooded the state with officials snooping for info on their veep pick, McCain's surprise would have been ruined. Continetti does cite some press tactics that worked, such as the anti-Obama "Celebrity" ad. Liberal-leaning feminists, especially comic Tina Fey, the 30 Rock star who portrayed Palin...

Denver - THE country is at war. The economy is in shambles. The Republican Party is weaker than it has been in decades. So whom does John McCain choose as his vice presidential nominee? A former beauty queen turned governor from Alaska. Think the 47-year-old Barack Obama is too inexperienced to be president? Mr. McCain says the 44-year-old Sarah Palin, who has two years fewer of experience as governor than Mr. Obama has as a senator from Illinois, is up to the job. Concerned that Americans do not know enough about Mr. Obama, who spent part of his childhood overseas...

Sunday Shows for 3/23/06This main post is the Sunday Shows.  Message 1 will be the Saturday Shows and message 2 will be the show guest links post.  Then I'll post the ping list.Fox News Sunday (Chris Wallace) Meme: Hoekstra & Harman both don't like Negroponte, hurrah, hurrah!Panetta and Duberstein both don't like Bush's men, hurrah, hurrah!And Gilbert Arenas plays online poker at halftime....???? (that's the best I can figure as to why he's on) Topics: Reps. Peter Hoekstra and Jane Harman on Iran's nuclear ambitionFormer Chiefs of Staff Leon Panetta and Ken Duberstein on White House shake-upWashington Wizards' star Gilbert...