Free Republic

Late last week, in a conference call with donors, Governor Mitt Romney said what we all know to be the truth: that Obama's reelection plan was to divide Americans across various lines and dole out government freebies, such as health insurance, amnesty, and birth control. The promise of these "gifts" (or the fear of losing them) would then drive out turnout, specifically among those who did turn out: blacks, students, and Hispanics -- and lo and behold, it worked. For days now, Romney's been blistered by the media for telling a truth about a political tactic that the media itself...

Next week may be Black Friday but sweets lovers across the nation hung their heads in sorrow on a dark Friday yesterday as Hostess announced they would cease making their line of products, which include the iconic Twinkies brand, because of the Bakers Union Strike. But now as the brand heads towards liquidating and selling off their assets, a Mexican company may be angling to resurrect the golden Twinkies. According to the Christian Science Monitor, while food producers ConAgra and Flowers Food, the American company behind Nature Valley granola, have expressed interest along with Little Debbie baker McKee Foods, MexicoÂ’s...

Defense: The fruit of unilateral disarmament, appeasement and promised "flexibility" patrols our East Coast near one of our largest ballistic missile submarine bases. Defense cuts and Russian subs — a double whammy. 'On June 1 or a bit later, we will resume constant patrolling of the world's oceans by strategic nuclear submarines," Russian Navy Commander Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky said in February. Keeping that promise, a Russian Sierra-2 class nuclear attack submarine cruised within 200 miles of our East Coast on the eve of a U.S. presidential election in which defense spending and priorities were a key issue. This is the...

A new issue has popped up in the Presidential race. Surprisingly, it has nothing to do with the state of the U.S. economy. It is about a new world order that has removed familiar (and in some cases pro-American) leaders from strategically important Arab countries. Further complicating matters is the recent terrorist strike on our embassy in Libya. A murdered ambassador and potential cover up as to the circumstances surrounding the attack have raised concerns about the resilience of al-Qaeda and its affiliates at a time the president is claiming the terror group is "on its heels."

After Hitler and Stalin, France bows to Islam. A new literary case easily explains what's going on in Paris. What eminent, now villified author Richard Millet has to say about it, talking to Meotti. The new French leftist government approved the mega project of the Islamic Emirate of Qatar to finance the disadvantaged suburbs, which are home to a significant number of France’s estimated 4-6 million Muslims. Is Paris on sale to the Gulf monarchies, which support - anywhere in the world - radical Islam and jihad? Qatar's $ 65 million objective is to peddle religious hatred and separation among...

(AP) TEHRAN, Iran - A senior commander in Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard warned that Iran will target U.S. bases in the region in the event of war with Israel, raising the prospect of a broader conflict that would force other countries to get involved, Iranian state television reported Sunday. The comments by Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who heads the Guard's aerospace division, came amid tension over Iran's nuclear program and Israel's suggestion that it might unilaterally strike Iranian nuclear facilities to scuttle what the United States and its allies believe are efforts to build a bomb. Tehran says its nuclear...

Half a century ago this October, for almost two weeks, the world dangerously slid toward war as the United States and U.S.S.R. played a nuclear chess match. The confrontation focused on whether Soviet missiles, secretly installed in Cuba, would be voluntarily withdrawn by Moscow. It was the closest the two Cold War adversaries would ever come to nuclear war. Washington was committed to not endangering its national security by the placement of missiles drastically reducing the distance required for Moscow to launch a surprise nuclear strike against the United States while also reducing U.S. reaction time to such a first...

TOKYO — Japan marked the 67th anniversary of its World War II surrender with a somber ceremony in the capital Wednesday, while renewed tension over territorial disputes and animosity over its wartime actions heated up across the region. Renewing Japan’s pledge to maintain its war-renouncing policy, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda mourned for the war dead and apologized to victims of Japanese wartime atrocities. “We have caused tremendous damage and pain to many countries, particularly the Asian people, during the war. We deeply regret that and sincerely mourn for those who were sacrificed and their relatives,” Noda said. “We will not...

<p>PARIS (AP) - It's a July evening on the terrace of the legendary Cafe Flore. A coiffed woman sips chilled wine, another savors her chocolate eclair.</p> <p>The one thing to complete a perfect picture of Parisian life? A dash of French rudeness.</p>

Hi. I'm America. I've decided enough is enough. This is my opus. You know, I've been on this continent for about 236 years. I've had some really great moderators (George Washington, Ronald Reagan, Thomas Jefferson) and some really awful ones (Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson, Woodrow Wilson). But I just cannot take the administration that is currently in power. This Obama, or as I like to call him, OTrauma.... he's killing me. He's killing me and he's doing it on purpose. At this rate, if he is given another term, I'm dead! Not that the opposition is much better. I saw...

Just one month after President Obama signed a back door amnesty executive order for hundreds of thousands of young illegal aliens, his administration is now planning to shut down nine Border Patrol stations, something the people living in border states, Border Patrol agents, local Sheriffs and some Congressman are up in arms about. Critics of the move warn the closures will undercut efforts to intercept drug and human traffickers in well-traveled corridors north of the U.S.-Mexico border. Though the affected stations are scattered throughout northern and central Texas, and three other states, the coverage areas still see plenty of illegal...

Chief Justice John Roberts last week did something that, in polarized Washington, may turn out to be more important than saving Obamacare. He showed that compromise can be consistent with principle. More than that: He showed that compromise, for someone who respects and knows how to use the democratic process, can be the best way to advance principle.

Security: From leaks about Osama bin Laden to those detailing cyberattacks on Iran, a disturbing pattern of publicly disclosing classified material to give Barack Obama a political boost is emerging. Under this president, our enemies don't need spies. The fact that the Allies in World War II had the ability to intercept and decode German and Japanese military transmissions, leading to critical military victories at Midway and elsewhere, remained a secret until long after World War II was over, and it didn't matter who knew it. "Loose lips sink ships" was then more than a clever wartime slogan. The pattern...

Geopolitics: The administration begins the push for ratification of a 1982 treaty that would end America's sovereignty on the high seas, limit our freedoms on land and speed up the global redistribution of wealth and power. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Sen. John Kerry's Senate Foreign Relations Committee last Wednesday that the freedom of the sea once guaranteed by the British Royal Navy and then the U.S. Navy should be in the hands of United Nations bureaucrats in Montego Bay, Jamaica, enforcers of the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) he said we must ratify. It used to be that...

Federal Priorities: A new report shows we have spent $70 billion on climate change since 2008 while our strapped military is ordered to become energy-efficient. Imagine weapons that don't harm the environment. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, took to the Senate floor Thursday to decry the green agenda being imposed on the military by the Obama administration at the same time the defense budget is being sacrificed on the altar of runaway deficit spending.

Sovereignty: Even if he's not re-elected, the president hopes to leave behind a treaty giving a U.N. body veto power over the use of our territorial waters and to which we'd be required to give half of our offshore oil revenue. The Law Of The Sea Treaty (LOST) has been lurking in the shadows for decades. Like the Kyoto Protocol that pretended to be an effort to save the earth from the poisoned fruit of the Industrial Revolution, LOST pretends to be an effort to protect the world's oceans from environmental damage and remove it as a cause of potential...

French Socialist Francois Hollande appeared headed to victory over President Nicolas Sarkozy, according to exit polls of voters released by Swiss and Belgian news media. Those polls showed Hollande with 52 to 53 percent of the vote in an election that turned on solutions for Europe's economic crisis amid record unemployment in France. French voters were still headed to cast their ballots when the exit polls were released in the early evening _ the results of exit polls cannot be published in France until voting ends at 8 p.m., 2 p.m. Eastern _ but the outcome seemed all but certain.

President Barack Obama made a previously unannounced visit to Afghanistan on Tuesday, the first anniversary of the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden in neighboring Pakistan. The president will make a televised address from Afghanistan at 7:30 p.m. ET. The trip was Obama's third to Afghanistan since taking office. He visited in March 2010 and returned in December of the same year. He also visited Afghanistan in 2008 as a presidential candidate. Tuesday's visit came at a particularly delicate time in relations between the United States and Afghanistan. The countries have been negotiating a strategic agreement that would outline...

National Security: The president tells his Russian counterpart to give him space until November when, if re-elected, he'll be able to give away missile defense and the rest of the store without political consequences. It seems President Obama has a space program after all, one in which the Russians cool it on the dismantling of U.S. missile defenses until the least transparent administration in history can razzle-dazzle, smoke-and-mirror and divide-and-conquer its way into a second term. One of the subtexts of the 2012 campaign has been the fear of what a second-term Obama will do unfettered by the need to...

President Barack Obama offered a private request Monday to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for some “space” on missile defense ahead of November’s elections. “On all these issues, particularly on missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space,” Obama said, referring to incoming Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a TV pool reporter who heard audio recorded by a Russian reporter who was in the room moments before the two leaders spoke to reporters after their 90-minute meeting. “Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you,” Medvedev responded. A...