Free Republic

On Fox News Sunday today, Bill Kristol threw cold water on Herman Cain‘s presidential candidacy, arguing that regardless of his popularity among conservative voters and whether or not his sexual harassment scandal will end up helping or hurting him, there was very little chance in the first place he was ever going to be the Republican nominee. Chris Wallace brought up Cain’s contentious exchange with a reporter last night over the allegations over his sexual harassment controversy, and asked the panel if there was a connection between what Cain is currently going through and what Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas...

Listen to what Michele Bachmann has to say at the 1:08:50 mark of this video. She honestly appears to believe we could direct the secretary of the treasury to pay off all "pay off all debts of the United States, all interest, all obligations" now. (Note: I inserted the exact language and employed the italics because I noted that in the comments section various Bachmannites were claiming she called for paying off only the interest. If you can't understand plain English, this is not the blog for you.)  She then goes on to say she would balance the budget.  Huh?...

My father suggested to me recently that it might be helpful to better explain what the term “neoconservative” means. “A lot of people don’t know,” he said. As usual, Dad was right. Though decades old, the mainstream use of the word neoconservative is relatively new. I mentally filed away my father’s suggestion agreeing that a layman’s explanation of “neoconservative” might be helpful when the time was right. The time is right—as the American intervention in Libya has drawn a clearer line between neoconservatives and conventional Republicans than any event in recent memory. The “neocons” believe American greatness is measured by...

Authors from several publications– the Atlantic, Commentary and the Washington Post have finally caught up on the political history of the past 5+ years–Governor Palin had an excellent record during her tenure. For some reason, the Atlantic writer, Joshua Green, finally realized in May of 2011 what Governor Palin accomplished as an oil and gas commissioner in 2003-2004 and as Governor 2006-2009. She took on the corruption in her own party in both roles. She revamped the oil taxation plan in Alaska by cleaning up the corruption of her predecessor and helping leave Alaska with what is currently a $12...

Sarah Palin has parted ways with the neoconservative foreign policy advisers who had been writing speeches and advising her on policy since she joined the McCain campaign. An aide to Palin, Tim Crawford, confirmed that Orion Strategies' Randy Scheunemann and Michael Goldfarb are no longer working for her PAC. They parted, both sides said on good terms. "Randy flat out said, 'We can't give you the time,'" Crawford said. (snip) Crawford said they've been replaced by Peter Schweizer, a writer and fellow at the Hoover Institution who blogs regularly at Andrew Breitbart's Big Peace. The personnel shift carries an ideological...

Andrew Sullivan takes exception to my observations that we are on a fool’s errand in Libya and a dangerous one. The other day I took issue with neo-conservatives who had learned nothing from failed attempts to create Western-style democracies in Muslim cultures. I had pointed to recent experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Gaza (let alone Turkey) and warned that our military invasion of Libya could lead to the creation of an al-Qaeda aligned totalitarian state. Here is how the Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan characterized these thoughts: “It looks as if David Horowitz has left the neocons and become an anti-Islam...

Ominous Signals on Libya: A Response to Andrew Sullivan Posted By David Horowitz On March 26, 2011 @ 12:04 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage Andrew Sullivan takes exception to my observations that we are on a fool’s errand in Libya and a dangerous one. The other day I took issue with neo-conservatives who had learned nothing from failed attempts to create Western-style democracies in Muslim cultures. I had pointed to recent experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Gaza (let alone Turkey) and warned that our military invasion of Libya could lead to the creation of an al-Qaeda aligned totalitarian state. Here...

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin came out strongly in favor of continued U.S. foreign aid to Israel in a Sunday interview with Judge Jeanine Pirro on Foxnews. "You know I'm sure that there's some waste and fraud in our foreign aid we need to find efficiencies and not give to any regime that would seek to harm Americans in any sense of the word 'harm,'" Palin said, "I don't support that kind of foreign aid at all. but when it comes to Israel - NO... I stand strong with Israel and unapologetically I say that America should keep this strong...

Two American airmen were shot dead and another left fighting for his life today after a Kosovo Albanian gunman stormed their bus before opening fire at Germany’s busiest airport where he allegedly worked. Officials said the gunman, identified as Arid Uka, 21, shouted out 'Islamic slogans' before opening fire. He gunned down his first victim as the soldier stood in front of the vehicle at Terminal 2 before turning his weapon on the driver as he sat behind the wheel. A fourth man was lightly injured and both he and the gravely wounded man are now being treated at the...

Leadership: For years, Barack Obama called Iraq "a dumb war." But considering how that conflict undeniably scared Libya's Moammar Gadhafi into ending his WMD program, the 2003 invasion has never looked smarter. 'I don't oppose all wars," future President Barack Obama told Chicagoans Against War in Iraq during a 2002 rally. "What I am opposed to is a dumb war ... a rash war ... the cynical attempt by ... armchair, weekend warriors in this (Bush) administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne." Obama called the...

Some activists want wealthy Jane Harman to pay for special election voteBy Sean J. Miller - 02/21/11 06:08 PM ET A grass-roots movement fueled by anger over the cost of a special election for Rep. Jane Harman’s (D-Calif.) seat has sprung up in the coastal towns surrounding Los Angeles. Harman announced Feb. 7 that she was stepping down as the representative for California’s 36th district to become head of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, a Washington-based research institution. She’s set to remain in the House until Feb. 28, according to her office. Her departure only two months into...

Let’s Blame Israel by Ari Bussel I am reminded that many thought (and some still do) that the United States went to war in Iraq on Israel’s request and for her sole benefit. President Bush, close with the Saudis, apparently cared so much more about Israel that, notwithstanding any threat to his friends the Saudis, he mobilized the entire US military to protect and defend Israel against an enemy she knew well how to handle. We can use as an example Israel’s 1981 bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor. For the past two weeks, our series “Postcards from America –...

Glenn Beck's epic takedown of George Soros left out something interesting. One of Sarah Palin's top aids, Randy Scheunemann, has been on Soros' payroll for years. From Salon: Given Soros' alleged role plotting to destroy the United States, Beck and his Fox viewership might be surprised to learn that one of Sarah Palin's top aides, [Scheunemann], has been on Soros' payroll for years.

Last Friday the WikiLeaks organization again published previously classified Defense Department documents. From their reporting, and from my own scant review of just a few of the documents, they appear to illustrate the inherent -- and forseeeable -- problems with the nation-building strategy we pursued in Iraq and are still pursuing in Afghanistan. The Post goes along with the WikiLeaks claim that the new documents show "…that U.S. soldiers killed at least 700 Iraqi civilians in situations where troops felt threatened." That claim may well be true. But how else can troops act -- in accordance with the rules of...

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Israeli Sephardic leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in his weekly Saturday night sermon said that non-Jews exist to serve Jews. “Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world; only to serve the People of Israel,” he said during a public discussion of what kind of work non-Jews are allowed to perform on Shabbat. "Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat," he said to some laughter. Yosef, the spiritual leader of the Shas Party and the former...

The Great Recession has done wonders for the Republican Party. Two years after being tossed out of power at every level, it's about to waltz right back in, kicking aside the corpses of Democrats foolish enough to go along with the designs of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. This is good news for most conservatives. It's slightly worse news for a smaller group of conservatives—namely, the ones who spent the end of the '00s explaining why a Republican comeback like this was not really possible. Take, for example, Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, whose 2005 Weekly Standard cover story, "The...

WASHINGTON - Sarah Palin, seen as a possible Republican presidential candidate, has paid tens of thousands of dollars for foreign policy advice to a U.S. firm that represents three overseas governments, campaign finance documents show. While legal, the adviser’s work as an agent for other countries raises questions about whether Palin is receiving impartial information about foreign relations and could be become a subject of debate if she runs for president or another elected office. Financial reports filed by the former Alaska governor’s fundraising committee known as SarahPAC, show that between December 2009 and the end of May 2010, it...

[Ed. note: In what easily ranks as the high point in my blogging career, and the low point of the entire neoconservative movement, I was somehow invited to attend the 80th Birthday Roast of Norman Podhoretz at the Park Plaza in New York last night where I got to rub elbows with, among others, Charles Krauthammer, William Bennett, Lucianne Goldberg, Paul Gigot, Mark Steyn, Henry Kissinger and the whole Podhoretz family. What follows is my small contribution to the roast, an edited version of which was wonderfully performed in character by the great Orson Bean. Many thanks to Commentary editor John Podhoretz for including me in...

For a glimpse of how venomous and debased the discourse about Islam has become, consider a blog post in The New Republic this month. Written by Martin Peretz, the magazine’s editor in chief, it asserted: “Frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims.” Mr. Peretz added: “I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment, which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.” Thus a prominent American commentator, in a magazine long associated with tolerance, ponders whether Muslims should be afforded constitutional freedoms....

Last September, the don of neconservatism was put to rest. Irving Kristol's funeral represented, to some, the end of not only the man but also his ideas. The obituary for neoconservatism proved premature, however. A younger generation of neocons, and aligned hawks, wrote President Obama that same month. "We congratulate you on the [wartime] leadership" the letter read. They urged the president to ignore antiwar pressure. It was the most public statement of support–albeit qualified–for what was now Obama's war.