Free Republic

What drove evangelical multimillionaire Howard Ahmanson—the man behind Prop 8—away from the Republicans? It wasn't Sarah Palin. He talks to The Daily Beast’s Kathleen Parker. Multimillionaire Howard Ahmanson, one of the nation’s top evangelical Christian philanthropists and one of three funders of Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage, recently joined the Democratic Party. Although Ahmanson’s support for Prop 8 earned him critics on the left, his many philanthropic interests funded through his Fieldstead Institute are most often nonpartisan and nonpolitical, from AIDS prevention to public transportation. In an exclusive interview with columnist Kathleen Parker, he explains why he switched political...

Well-known conservative hopes to steer the GOP away from the politics of Rush LimbaughThe future of the Republican Party, if it has one, is Canadian. David Frum is emerging as the reasoned alternative to the blinkered prejudices that inform much of the debate within the GOP. His close knowledge of the struggle to reinvent and reunite Canadian conservatism, and his own personal evolution, have led him to call for a renaissance of the Republican Party within the United States, one that combines fiscal probity with social moderation, targeted primarily at young, university-educated voters. It has made him deeply loathed by...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Many detainees locked up at Guantanamo were innocent men swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncombatants, a former Bush administration official said Thursday. "There are still innocent people there," Lawrence B. Wilkerson, a Republican who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, told The Associated Press. "Some have been there six or seven years." Wilkerson, who first made the assertions in an Internet posting on Tuesday, told the AP he learned from briefings and by communicating with military commanders that the U.S. soon realized many Guantanamo detainees were...

Pseudo-conservative Kathleen Parker’s ongoing method of getting her columns published in the Washington Post – bashing conservatives – took another sleazy turn on Sunday, with Parker asserting in the Post that conservatives who accuse the media of a liberal bias are "non-journalists" who stoking "ignorance," like Rush Limbaugh (not to mention groups like the Media Research Center.) The biggest challenge facing America's struggling newspaper industry may not be the high cost of newsprint or lost ad revenue, but ignorance stoked by drive-by punditry. Yes, Dittoheads, you heard it right. Drive-by pundits, to spin off of Rush Limbaugh's "drive-by media," are...

It wasn't a fight I went looking for. On March 3, the popular radio host Mark Levin opened his show with an outburst (he always opens his show with an outburst): "There are people who have somehow claimed the conservative mantle … You don't even know who they are … They're so irrelevant … It's time to name names …! The Canadian David Frum: where did this a-hole come from? … In the foxhole with other conservatives, you know what this jerk does? He keeps shooting us in the back … Hey, Frum: you're a putz." Now, of course, Mark...

Between 1990 and 2007, the total mortgage debt held by Americans rose from $2.5 trillion to $10.5 trillion. This rise was part of a societal credit bubble that burst in 2008. To cushion the pain of that collapse, federal authorities decided to replace private debt with public debt. In 2008, the Bush administration increased spending by about $1.7 trillion, and guaranteed loans, investments and deposits worth about $8 trillion. In 2009, the Obama administration spent $800 billion on a stimulus package, $1 trillion on a second round of bank bailouts and committed another trillion on health care reform and other...

All week the word I kept thinking of was "braced." America is braced, like people who are going fast and see a crash ahead. They know huge and historic challenges are here. They're not confident they can or will be met. Our most productive citizens are our most sophisticated, and our most sophisticated have the least faith in the ability of our institutions to face the future and get us through whole. They have the least faith because they work in them. Tuesday I talked to people who support a Catholic college. I said a great stress is here and...

An article in New York Magazine notes the difficulty The New York Times is having in trying to find a conservative voice it’s comfortable with for its opinion page. The paper is losing one of its two ostensibly conservative columnists. Departing columnist Bill Kristol is an establishment Republican who’s never been accused of being exactly dynamic, eloquent or edgy. Hence, he was safe from The Times’ perspective. The paper’s remaining voice on the right (loosely defined) is David Brooks. In Brooks, The Times has found a writer Maureen Dowd would be comfortable taking home to dinner.

GOP Sen. John McCain is positioning himself to be one of President Barack Obama’s strongest supporters, effectively giving Democrats the votes they need to override any GOP attempt to block the new administration’s legislative agenda. Obama heaped warm praise on his GOP rival during a dinner held in McCain’s honor the day before the inauguration, calling him a hero. Insiders duly noted McCain was granted a prime spot on the dais at the inauguration, sandwiched in a seat between White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The day after the inauguration, Obama and...

It is the curse of the journalist always to be present, but never really There. The job requires that we stand slightly apart, seeing but not believing; hearing without being seduced. We jot down the words, careful not to let them get under our skin. Like surgeons in the operating room, we can't afford to become emotionally involved lest we notice the blood and let the scalpel slip. Then comes the rare instance that penetrates the armor, when something causes you to put down the pad, turn off the camera in your head, and become part of the moment. The...

Here is video of Gen. Colin Powell talking with ABC yesterday about the inauguration of Barack Obama as President. During the interview, Powell said about his party affiliation, "I think I am still a Republican." He makes the statement at the 4:02 mark in the video. Well, Gen. Powell, to have thrown a fairly moderate Republican like John McCain over the side, despite his heroic service to America and his wisdom in supporting the surge strategy in Iraq, it will be hard for you to make the case to any Republican that you have a single GOP bone in your...

Senior Bush administration officials are preparing to ask lawmakers for the second half of the $700 billion financial rescue package despite intense opposition in Congress and then have President Bush use his veto if the request is voted down, three sources familiar with the matter said. The initiative, which is being coordinated with the Obama transition team, may be taken within days, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity because no announcement has been made. Democratic Senate aides were notified in a meeting this afternoon that the request could come as soon as this weekend and that a vote...

WASHINGTON (CNN)—Arizona Senator John McCain is adopting a major 2008 campaign slogan for a new political action committee designed to support not only his own planned re-election run in two years, but help him put his stamp on the rebuilding of the Republican Party. The formation of the “Country First” PAC is to be announced Wednesday, two sources familiar with the plans tell CNN. One of the sources called it the “first official step” of the GOP Senator’s re-election campaign. McCain made it clear not long after losing the presidential election that he intended to seek re-election to the Senate...

Principle: Former Secretary of State Colin Powell wants his party stripped of the Reaganite values that won it the presidency for 20 of the last 28 years. Meet the "Grand Obama Party."For many years it has been accepted that Gen. Colin Powell — who became a national icon thanks to appointments by President Ronald Reagan and both President Bushes — was more moderate than many of his colleagues. What was not known until lately is how much animus he has for the governing philosophy of those who gave him the opportunity to achieve fame and millions in book sales. In...

The Republican party must stop "shouting at the world" and start listening to minority groups if it is to win elections in the 21st century, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday. In an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria for Sunday's "GPS" program, President Bush's former secretary of state said his party's attempt "to use polarization for political advantage" backfired last month. "I think the party has to take a hard look at itself," Powell said in the interview, which was taped Wednesday. "There is nothing wrong with being conservative. There is nothing wrong with having socially conservative views...

[RECOMMEND- SEE Full 2 minute video at site. Powell tells future} In an interview with CNN- General Colin Powell said of Gov. Sarah Palin: "Gov. Palin, to some extent, pushed the party more to the right, and I think she had something of a polarizing effect when she talked about how small town values are good. Well, most of us don’t live in small towns. And I was raised in the South Bronx, and there’s nothing wrong with my value system from the South Bronx."

http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20081207/peggy-noonan-lesley-stahl-and-friends-raise-more-money-wThe purse strings haven’t completely closed for start-ups looking to raise money–even niche Web sites that hope to stay afloat by selling advertising. Wowowow.com, a site launched earlier this year, which targets women over 40, has raised a $1.5 million round led by Bob Pittman’s Pilot Group and the Rhime Group. No word on valuation, but I’d guesstimate Wowowow.com’s investors peg its value in the high 9-figure range. The company has now raised $3.1 million in less than a year. The five founders–former publisher Joni Evans, “60 Minutes” reporter Lesley Stahl; New York Post gossip columnist Liz Smith; ad exec...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Nationally syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker made herself the scourge of the pro-life community when she blamed emphasis of pro-life issues for allowing Barack Obama to win the presidential election. In a new article, Parker is backing down slightly from those arguments, but still bungles the facts. Parker drew guffaws originally for blaming the presidential election loss on "oogedy-boogedy" pro-life advocates. In her new column she urges the evangelical and conservative Catholic pro-life advocates to give up their religious-based pro-life arguments and tells them to "take a cue from Nat Hentoff, a self-described Jewish atheist, who has...

As in many other areas, the biggest education debates are happening within the Democratic Party. On the one hand, there are the reformers like Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee, who support merit pay for good teachers, charter schools and tough accountability standards. On the other hand, there are the teachers’ unions and the members of the Ed School establishment, who emphasize greater funding, smaller class sizes and superficial reforms. During the presidential race, Barack Obama straddled the two camps. One campaign adviser, John Schnur, represented the reform view in the internal discussions. Another, Linda Darling-Hammond, was more likely to represent...

Christopher Buckley - whose famous parents, William F. and Pat Buckley, died within months of each other after 57 years of marriage - is coming out with a book about them, "Losing Mom and Pop," in May - and it isn't going to be all sweetness and light. "Writing this book may have been simply a way of spending more time with my parents before finally letting them go," Buckley, 56, tells Vanity Fair's Bob Colacello in the magazine's January issue. "I honestly had no intention of writing about them. But I'm a writer, and when the universe hands you...