Free Republic

Now is the time for midcourse corrections to ensure the success of the conservative movement, as well as the American experiment. With that mission in mind, I would like to make a few suggestions of my own. Intellectual conservatism was once defined by two clear goals - the defeat of communism and the reduction in the size, scope and sweep of government. There are three observations I’d like to make about this conservatism. First, it was conservatism with a purpose. The goal of consigning communism to the ash heap of history was to eliminate oppression, increase liberty, and spread democracy....

I'm 34 years old. Young people today are smart and capable. That being said this clip suggests maybe we oughta raise the minimum age for certain major offices. The country is being run by children! GOD help us.

The Santorum and Romney campaigns are following Democrats down the class-warfare rabbit hole.Joe the Plumber might seem oh-so-2008, but as it happens he's alive and voting in New Hampshire, South Carolina and beyond. He's that unhappy voter that Republican contenders Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are pitching so hard to win. A little too hard, as it happens. If Republicans have an opening this year, it is with the white working class, a crowd the Democratic Party has been hemorrhaging for decades. Barack Obama did better than John Kerry or Al Gore with these voters, though even he earned just...

The normally Republican-phobic continent is taking a surprising shine to the lead GOP candidate, which it sees as a champion against the fringe   Mitt Romney, the GOP forerunner, met with fanfare on his recent travel to Europe.  The presidential primaries look a little different from across the Atlantic, and not necessarily in the way that you'd expect. The coverage isn't an Obama love-fest as it was early in his presidency, nor is it entirely GOP-bashing. That said, mainstream Europe -- whose open antagonism toward the Republican party appears to have faded somewhat since the Bush years ended, despite an...

... “We have a president who is a socialist,” Perry said in response to a question at the early-morning eye-opener GOP debate in Concord, N.H. “I reject the premise that Obama reflects our founding fathers,” Perry said. “He doesn’t.”..

The Dutch interior ministry has said new cameras for screening people who enter the country by car will not violate EU laws on free movement or privacy. In what looks like a fresh attack on the Schengen passport-free travel agreement, the pilot scheme—entitled "@migo-Boras"—is to see €19 million worth of cameras installed on 15 major highways from Belgium and Germany and in some police cars between February and April. … Dutch interior minister Gerd Leers said in a written statement in December the system "falls within the existing rules for border control and privacy." He added: "The cameras will not...

One of the more insane claims in Ron Paul’s newsletters was that the Israelis were behind the WTC bombings in 1993: Whether [the 1993 World Trade Center bombing] was a setup by the Israeli Mossad, as a Jewish friend of mine suspects, or was truly a retaliation by the Islamic fundamentalists, matters little. This claim is of course so ridiculous and absurd that even Paul has to protect himself by claiming that “a Jewish friend” told him about it. What a handy rhetorical device! If only Paul had had the foresight to couch all his racist remarks in the newsletters...

Time to close ranks behind Romney. He will beat Obama.

Pardon the vanity, but I hate living in Illinois, and I just have to vent about it a bit … So I go to the annual extended family Christmas gathering, and this year, because I am a card-carrying Tea-Partier, my two socialist aunts team up to give me a book called Plot Against America, by Philip Roth. This is a book that basically says the people in flyover country who are not urban liberals are naturally prone to become Nazis, given the right political environment. Roth makes this point by hypothesizing an America where FDR loses the 1940 election to...

National Review editors have rolled out their big gun, Mark Steyn, to take whacks at the much-whacked Newt Gingrich. Steyn's article was featured at Monday's National Review Online under the banner: "Big-Government Newt." Steyn spends four pages slicing and dicing the eminently sliceable and diceable former U.S. House speaker. But aside from Steyn's always enjoyable trenchant humor, there's really not a lot of there there in the article. By that is meant nothing groundbreaking on Gingrich. The article is a laundry-list recapitulation of the "Many Foibles of Newt." Newt is contradictory, we learn yet again -- here are the examples,...

<p>O’Reilly: Is he a socialist?</p> <p>Romney: You know, I prefer to use the term that he’s just over his head.</p> <p>O’Reilly: Yeah, but you got to look at his economic plan. An economic plan that’s top down, federal leadership, getting us out of the recession--- he spent trillions of dollars on that. And people say, Listen, the guy’s a socialist — it’s class warfare that’s what he’s gonna wage against you if you get the nomination: You’re a rich guy, you’re out of touch. Is he a socialist?</p>

Cuban-born, Venezuelan-raised actress Maria Conchita Alonso and actor Sean Penn had a contentious exchange at Los Angeles International airport recently, in which Alonso called Penn a “communist a**hole“ and Penn called Alonso a ”pig.” Over a year and a half after Alonso penned an open letter to Penn asking him why he supports socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the two met up serendipitously (or not so) at LAX while both were waiting to claim lost luggage. Alonso, who starred alongside Penn in the 1988 film “Colors,” described the exchange to Steve Malzberg on WMAL. “I go ‘Hello,’ and he smiles...

slip of the tongue reveals the true intentions of Maxine Waters (D) during a house hearing while arrogantly grilling oil executives including John Hofmeister, President of Shell Oil Company. This liberal, Maxine Waters starts to be honest by revealing herself as a Socialist, but stops, stumbles and then comes up with a more accepted answer. Oops! The guy next to her sighs with relief when she finally gets the words out America would want to hear her actually say, the lady next to him seems to be holding back her laughter. A pathetic real time revelation of the true identity...

His mother was an unabashed hippie from 1960s central casting. His father was an openly avowed Communist from Kenya. While his father wasn't around much, his devoutly progressive grandparents arranged for him to be mentored during his adolescent years by a dues paying member of the U.S. Communist Party, Frank Marshall Davis. When he went to college, he was attracted to the Marxist professors and student activists, according to his own published memoirs. When he graduated, he moved to Chicago and became an instructor for the left-wing extremist organization ACORN in the social manipulation methods of radical Marxist agitator Saul...

Who goes Nazi? By Dorothy Thompson It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times–in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis. It is preposterous to think that they are divided by any racial characteristics....

Some video from the attempted blockade by occupy, of the Wal-Mart distribution center in Loveland. I didn't stay long, so didn't get any of the arrests on video. They happened about 10 min after I left it seems.

A Detroit Free Press editorial opposing legislation that would remove arbitrary caps on the number of charter public schools contains a series of misleading, inaccurate and intemperate statements. The newspaper’s opening argument exemplifies the latter: “[T]he experiment [the Legislature] is trying to inflict on children and their parents is ill-conceived and dangerous.” No charter public school has ever “inflicted” anything on parents or children, for a very basic reason: The only children who attend charters are those whose parents have voluntarily and conscientiously chosen to send them there. In fact, the Legislature cannot itself increase the number of charters —...

Youtube video of Scott Walker do official Xmas tree lighting at the capitol. Two in the audience prominently give a 'Nazi' salute as he is introduced.

Gov. Rick Perry: The Entire, Uncut ‘On the Record’ Interview by Greta Van Susteren As promised, here is our entire interview with GOP presidential hopeful Gov. Rick Perry (it has footage that we were not able to show you on last night’s ON THE RECORD because of time constraints). Watch and share your thoughts! ...

In one of the best Marx Brothers scenes is from A Night at the Opera, where Groucho and Chico are ripping up a contract and they finally come to the SANITY CLAUSE, in which Chico proclaims there is no SANITY CLAUSE. In tomorrow’s Financial Times, there is a story about France pushing for a Christmas gift from the ECB. The gift that the French are hoping for is a backstop for the European banks that are under severe stress because of the huge amount of EURO sovereign bonds on the banks’ balance sheets. In order for the ECB to act,...