Free Republic

How unfair it is on Chipping Norton, that handsome, decent town, to be burdened by a link with David Cameron, the second worst Prime Minister of the modern age... Mr. Sunak cannot want Mr. Cameron's expertise on foreign policy. His major achievement in that field was to destroy Libya, replacing the despot Gaddafi with wild, burning chaos. This one action triggered the giant explosion in human trafficking across the Mediterranean which has utterly transformed Europe and European politics for the worse. He also supported the failed attempt to overthrow the nasty Syrian dictator, Bashar Assad, supposedly in the name of...

Leaked audio has emerged from the DeSantis donor strategy meeting in Miami on Thursday. In the clip you can hear below, DeSantis strategists tell high dollar donors making calls for the campaign that:DeSantis’s position is keeping abortion decisions at a state level (following Trump’s position);That the Governor will shift to the middle during a general election;The campaign’s position on abortion can be described as “safe, legal, and rare in Florida” – a stunning deployment of President Bill Clinton’s infamous pro-abortion catchphrase.During the session, the hosts – including DeSantis pollster Ryan Tyson amongst others – can be heard lauding this a...

Some Republicans are expressing concern that pro-Trump candidates in blue states, where the party has typically found success with more moderate candidates, could hurt the chances of large GOP gains in Congress and statehouses this November. "It can’t continue," former Connecticut U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, a moderate Republican and Trump critic, told the Associated Press referring to the GOP choosing pro-Trump candidates. "One of the things that will happen is that a lot of the Trump candidates who won the primary will lose the general election. And there are a lot of unhappy Republicans who hold office now who believe...

When President Biden jumped into an Ohio congressional race to offer a surprise endorsement, progressives weren’t pleased. In the final stretch of a Cleveland area rematch, Biden threw his weight behind Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) over Biden critic and former state Sen. Nina Turner. Turner, an ally of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), saw disparaging remarks she made about then-candidate Biden during the 2020 election come back to haunt her, including her comment to The Atlantic that voting for him would be equivalent to eating a “bowl of ****.”

More than a list of numbers, President Biden's budget documents what he'd most like to accomplish this year, and it offers a glimpse into how his administration plans to confront some of the bracing political realities he faces right now. His $5.8 trillion proposal is coming up against the headwinds of a divided Congress, high inflation, low presidential approval ratings and midterm elections that threaten Democratic majorities in the House and Senate later this year.

We wrote earlier about the challenge that Democratic House moderates were throwing down in front of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) — that they weren’t going to pass the Build Back Better bill (BBB) until they had a chance to be able to read the final text of the massive bill — massive in text with over 2,000 pages and massive in the amount of money. The moderates want a CBO score before they will vote on it. They want to know the real cost — not what just what Joe Biden claims it would cost.So Pelosi bowed to the...

When the Bolsheviks seized control of the Russian state during the October uprising, it set off what would come to be known as the Russian civil war. It lasted from 1917 to 1923, when the Bolsheviks finally crushed their opposition. That is the most overlooked, but most important, part of the story. The czarist system had collapsed and in the wake of that collapse came a battle over what would replace it. The two sides in the civil war were the Bolsheviks led by Lenin and the anti-Bolsheviks, an incoherent collection of army officers, property holders, various right-wing political groups,...

Remember the media cheers for Sen. John McCain when he stopped the effort to repeal Obamacare? McCain was a Republican frustrating a Republican policy goal, which was enough to earn the highest praise in some media circles. "It was a stunning moment," The New York Times reported, "a flash of the maverick John McCain, unafraid of going his own way despite the pleas of his fellow Republicans." That was four years ago, and Donald Trump was president. Fast-forward to today, with Joe Biden in the White House and Democrats desperately trying to pass a massive spending bill that has been...

WASHINGTON — Nine moderate House Democrats told Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday that they will not vote for a budget resolution meant to pave the way for the passage of a $3.5 trillion social policy package later this year until a Senate-approved infrastructure bill passes the House and is signed into law.

Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus had harsh words for the far left and, particularly, far-left House Democrats on Wednesday, insisting that election results in New York and Ohio — where “moderate,” more Establishment Democrats routed progressive challengers — prove that Democrat voters are rejecting a far-left message. “Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, a top member of House leadership, said in an interview Wednesday that Democratic voters were clearly rejecting candidates from the party’s most strident and ideological flank,” The New York Times reported Wednesday as part of its Ohio coverage. “Where some primary voters welcomed an angrier message...

The political scene is evolving so quickly that I presume to offer some advice to President Trump: He can now win in 2024 by being the potential candidate of calm and moderation. The Democrats have become a Babel of contending extremists, suddenly and implausibly blaming the Republicans for defunding police forces and miraculously discovering the virtues of voter identification, after having denounced it for six months as the resurrection of Jim Crow. The utter moral bankruptcy of many elected Democrats was captured in the Texas state legislators fleeing the state in private planes, excitedly taking selfies of themselves unmasked and...

Biden calls out moderate Democratic senators, urges 'action' President Biden this week took the rare step of calling out two Democratic moderates — Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) — in a sign of growing frustration over stalled legislative priorities. Congressional aides say Democratic lawmakers have been reaching out to the White House in hopes that Biden would be more actively involved in efforts to convince Manchin, a key swing vote, to get behind the Democratic agenda.

Opinion writer Bari Weiss got chased out of The New York Times for her political views — not because she’s an uncompromising conservative, but because she is a moderate. In our team-sports era of politics as tribal warfare, we’re expected to be all-in for one side or the other. Figures such as Weiss or slightly nonconforming public figures such as author J. K. Rowling (a liberal feminist who expresses some reservations about transgender orthodoxy) or Goya CEO Robert Unanue (whose firm is being boycotted because he said something nice about Donald Trump) are a problem for the cheap moralists and...

WASHINGTON — In a surprise ending to a tortuous three-month search, President Clinton on Monday nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an appeals court judge and former women’s rights activist, as a Supreme Court justice, making her the first appointment to the high court by a Democratic administration in 26 years. Ginsburg, 60, who serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, was hailed by Clinton in a Rose Garden ceremony. He said that she is a moderate who has “proven herself to be a healer” and consensus builder and who has put her convictions into deeds during...

When Joe Biden chose Kamala Harris to be his running mate, the New York Times referred to Harris as a “pragmatic moderate” and ABC News personality George Stephanopoulos said, “Kamala Harris comes from the middle of the road, moderate wing of the Democratic Party.” Of course, this is exactly how Uncle Joe wants himself and his ticket to be seen, but for some these descriptions probably felt a bit like the time the Washington Post described ISIS terror leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as an “austere Islamic scholar.” Sometimes the description says more about the one making the description than the one...

PITTSBURGH -- There is a battle going on here within the Allegheny County Democratic Committee, a formidable force of centrist, conservative and liberal Democrats whose backgrounds range from union halls in the city to the businessmen and women who have spread out into the leafy suburbs that hug the city limits. A key figure in the battle is committeewoman Heather Kass, who is running for the state House. Several years ago, Kass's posted on social media criticism of Obamacare and the distribution of free narcan for addicts -- and insinuated support for President Donald Trump. Fortunately for Kass, she received...

**SNIP** Bloomberg's presence in the race has raised concerns that a four-way fight for the moderate vote will mean no centrist alternative emerges to Sanders, leading to a long slog to the nomination that leaves Democrats with little time to unify before taking on President Trump in November. "At the moment, they're cannibalizing each other," Democratic strategist Jon Reinish said. "You have no one who can really emerge while they're all taking votes from each other." The splintering of the moderate vote is diluting the impact of centrist Democrats. **SNIP** Democratic moderates will also have to contend with as ascendant...

Christendom Is the Solution for the Emptiness of our Nihilistic Society Grave moral problems are tearing the country apart. For many, this is apparent in the form of broken homes, procured abortion, shattered communities and lost Faith. Many people get it right when pointing out the problems. However, they get it wrong when looking for solutions. Some get it wrong because they look for solutions that address symptoms, not causes. Others search for a way out that involves the least possible effort. In these politically correct times, people are told not to offend anyone by their proposals. Thus, they automatically...

Media darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow “squad” members have never been shy about their plan to shove the Democratic Party toward adopting socialist principles. And now that we’re more than a year and a half into the AOC era, it’s clear that their two-part plan is working. The first component of their plan is to reshape the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) into a powerful political force in Congress. Historically, the caucus, which began in the 1990s, has been primarily a club for left-wing congressional Democrats. But it had little political power because of its members’ unwillingness to vote as...

Impeachment is already backfiring on the Democrats even before the full House votes on two articles of impeachment. A Democratic member of Congress is preparing to switch parties, joining Republicans amid the Democrat-led impeachment effort that has put dozens of moderate Democrats in a tough position with their Trump-supporting constituents.  Representative Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey has been in talks with top advisors for President Trump, according to The New York Times. Mr. Van Drew is concerned about losing his seat in the Democratic primary or in the 2020 general election. Van Drew's district is a traditionally Republican district...