Free Republic

There is a giant commodities shortage in America right now thanks to the incompetence of our leadership class (including a Secretary of Transportation taking paternity leave for a baby he didn’t have), but one thing that has been in really short supply for a while is good apples. The shelves are bare; the only apples we see are rotten and wormy. We always hear about how the federal agencies, which are increasingly being used as the personal Stasi of the ruling caste to protect their positions, powers, and prestige against challenges by us peasants, are filled with hard-working professionals upholding...

The debacle in Afghanistan is still unfolding, but it is already one of the signal disasters of American history. It’s usually premature to assess contemporary events in history’s light, so it’s a sign of just how bad things are in Kabul that I — a historian — am ready to put it alongside the Bay of Pigs, the Fall of Saigon, the Black Hawk Down incident, and 9/11 itself in the list of era-defining American humiliations. It’s bad enough that it’s happening - what’s worse is that we chose it. And it’s not an aberration for our unmoored American federal...

There's a fascinating question in a new Fox News poll that suggests the political dynamics at work in 2022 and 2024 will be far different from 2020. If that is the case, it is good news for Republicans. Here is the question: "If you could send just one of the following two messages to the federal government right now, would it be 'lend me a hand,' or would it be 'leave me alone'?" Fox has asked the question in eight different polls since 2011, but 2020 stands out. In most years, a majority of respondents told pollsters the message they...

On a sunny Friday afternoon in July 2014, James King, a 21-year-old college student, was walking to a summer job in Grand Rapids, Michigan, when he was accosted by two unshaven men wearing jeans and baseball caps who asked his name and grabbed his wallet. When King tried to flee, the men tackled him, choked him unconscious, and punched him in the face over and over again. The men, it turned out, were cops, and for six years King has been trying to hold them accountable for their actions that day. Next Monday the U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether...

Politicians shut down businesses because of COVID-19. But the rules don't apply to everyone. In San Francisco, gyms were forced to close, but government gyms stayed open. In my new video, we see a Dallas woman being jailed for keeping her salon open and a New Jersey man getting arrested after working out indoors. Ordinary people who break the rules get punished. But not House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Politicians are special. Now, politicians have allowed more businesses to open. Dallas relaxed its rules for most businesses a few months ago. But not for Dale Davenport's car wash. Dallas won't allow...

Hemp is not marijuana. And yet it is.Last week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced he will introduce legislation to legalize industrial hemp.He is not concerning himself with marijuana, which is what we call the plant Cannabis sativa when cultivated for its Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content, the principal chemical in the plant that makes it ideal for “recreational” (and other) uses. Industrial hemp is Cannabis sativa, too, just with minuscule THC. Actually, he insists that “hemp” and “marijuana” are more than merely distinct: “I think we’ve worked our way through the education process of making sure everybody understands this is really a different...

The hurricane devastation is severe. What should the federal government do? Give us lots of money, say many. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, demanded $150 billion -- just for Texas. So far, Congress has agreed to $15 billion in hurricane relief. But more will come. Few Americans will object. The House vote for the first $7.9 billion was 419-3. But let's take a breath. Why is rebuilding the federal government's responsibility? Clearly, only the feds can send in the military and some other first responders. After Hurricane Irma, 13,000 National Guard soldiers from 22 states helped rescue and evacuate people....

As we prepare to enter into the presidential transition period there is one pressing question on the mind of some government employees: will I stay or will I go? (With all due apologies to The Clash.) For most federal workers the change in management won’t have much effect. They are hired through normal channels and have powerful unions to ensure they stay there for as long as they like. But a second class of government employees consists of those who are appointed by the current administration. They generally don’t enjoy the same level of protection and are often replaced when...

More than three years ago, I wrote that the Department of Transportation should be dismantled for the simple reason that we’ll get better roads at lower cost with the federalist approach of returning responsibility to state and local governments. I echoed those sentiments in this CNBC interview. Dan Mitchell Arguing to Get Washington out of the Transportation SectorSince there’s only an opportunity to exchange soundbites in these interviews, let me elaborate on some of the reasons why transportation should be a state and local responsibility. 1. Washington involvement is a recipe for pork and corruption. Lawmakers in Congress – including...

Trust in nearly every federal government institution has fallen in the last year among young adults, according to a new poll by Harvard's Institute of Politics. The survey of 18-to-29-year-old adults released Tuesday found overall trust in the federal government stands at 20 percent, a 2-point drop since last year....

1 in 20 says it works well and needs no changes. ... 70 percent lack confidence in the government’s ability “to make progress on the important problems and issues facing the country in 2014.

January 1, 2014 is the date Americans must have medical coverage by or pay a penalty under ObamaCare. For a state like California that has an uninsured population of seven million, preparations to spread the word about the exchange are already well under way, including some propaganda planning. Abby Goodnough at the NY Times reports: Realizing that much of the battle will be in the public relations realm, the exchange has poured significant resources into a detailed marketing plan — developed not by state health bureaucrats but by the global marketing powerhouse Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, which has an initial...