Free Republic

I came of age when the word “drive-by” entered the American lexicon. By high school graduation, I lost one cousin to gun violence and another was incarcerated for a gun crime. I know many harmed by guns and even more who feared the possibility. I always wonder if, but for the Second Amendment, there would be a more radical commitment to compromise and peacefully working through easy and difficult issues. In writing the Second Amendment, the Framers didn't envision the kind of gun toting that is permitted across this country today.... I am not naïve enough to believe that doing...

In a tough year for Senate campaigns, Democrats will take everything they can get. This year's map of Senate races heavily favors the GOP, which will defend only 10 seats to Democrats' 23. Six Democratic incumbents have declined to run, and Democrats will have to defend seats in 11 competitive races, while Republicans will only defend in five. All of which makes Sen. Dick Lugar's loss welcome news for Democrats, who seem to have figured all along that their candidate, Blue Dog Rep. Joe Donnelly, would fare better against Tea Party-backed, Saran Palin-endorsed state Treasurer Richard Mourdock in November. Now...

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Tussles With Fox & Friends Hosts In Heated Interviewby James Crugnale | 10:40 am, January 20th, 2012 During a relatively heated segment, DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz appeared on Friday’s Fox and Friends and engaged in a tête-à-tête with co-anchors Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade. Doocy began the interview by asking if CNN was over-the-line for starting off the debate with a question about Newt Gingrich’s personal life. “You know, I think it’s over the line to suggest that there is a partisan tilt to — to a question from a network…” Schultz hesitantly began. “Never heard...

The Savage Nation. This is a few years old but is an example of "Classic Savage" at his best.

blah, blah, blah Then there is another kind of motive for doing ethics, more practical in nature. So-called applied ethics seeks to find answers for the pressing moral problems of the day. Can abortion ever be justified? Capital punishment? Euthanasia? War? In my case the plight of nonhuman animals at human hands became the great preoccupation. I could think of no greater atrocity than the confinement and slaughter of untold billions of innocent creatures for sustenance that can be provided through other, more humane diets. blah, blah, blah

This week, Sarah Palin stoked a late, brief flurry of speculation that she might enter the 2012 presidential race. I wont try to predict the former Alaska governor's decision. But I will predict this: If Palin does enter the race, she won't be any kind of factor. Over the past three years, Palin has systematically laid waste to the basis for a presidential campaign. By her own words and actions, she has discredited herself and alienated her one-time supporters. But before Palin vanishes into her hard-earned obscurity, Republicans need an assessment and an accounting. Had John McCain won in 2008,...

Jay Carney, meet Jay Carney.In 2001, the then-Time magazine reporter wrote a snarky piece criticizing President George W. Bush's month-long vacation that was billed as a "Home to the Heartland" tour. But almost exactly 10 years later Carney, now the Obama White House's press secretary, is defending President Barack Obama's Midwest job-creation tour and vacation at Martha's Vineyard."I don't think Americans out there would begrudge that notion that the President would spend some time with his family," claimed Carney at a recent press briefing.But that's exactly what he, as a private citizen working for Time,

I Came across a liberal article today that was steeped in total and utter ignorance "Top ten Reasons why liberals are better than conservatives." HAH! After two years of Obama and the Democrats, you must be blind not to see the fallacy of this statement. Add to this the trashing of our constitutional rights by Democrats for decades. With this in Mind, I decided to refute it with something of my own. Why Liberals are really WORSE than Conservatives. BTW, this guy claims to be centrist. He certainly is not. 10) Liberals prefer to be sensitive to the issues of...

Most Americans are not quite sure what to make of the sprawling right-wing Tea Party, which gradually emerged in 2009 and became a household name after it held nationwide Tea Party rallies on April 15, 2010, to protest paying taxes. Throwing tea overboard, as you may remember, is an important symbolic image of the colonial anger at Britain's policy of "taxation without representation." Many liberals and leftists dismissed the Tea Party as a temporary, knee-jerk response to the recession, high employment, home foreclosures, bankruptcies, and an African American president who had saved American capitalism by expanding the government's subsidies to...

I love the World Cup. And I love America — it’s my hometown! But I would not love to see America win the World Cup. Frankly, we don’t need another feather in our already overstuffed cap. And considering soccer is the world’s game — and most of the world is at odds with America at any given moment — I think it might be a nice idea for Uncle Sam, in an effort to promote world harmony, to lie down in South Africa. Now, in all likelihood, the U.S. is not going to be in a position to win...

Bill Maher took another swipe at President Obama when he appeared on Jay Leno’s show on Friday. The comic was appearing on one of the last Primetime shows in current form. From February 12, the show will air at 11.35, not 10pm. Maher said the president’s new populist tone worried him. “He’s not a populist,” Maher told his host, “he’s an elitist, that’s what I like about him – he’s smarter than the rest of us.” Maher criticized Obama’s trip around the country where he is taking on the middle class concerns about jobs. “He’s demanding to see his own...

(If any of you mindless rabble are reading this, stop now. This message is not for you. And reading is really not your thing as you've proven time and again. I will probably use a few big words later and you know how that gives you a headache. So stop reading now. I mean it.) Truth is, the problems this world faces are far more complex and far more difficult to fix than people like Scott Brown can fathom. We know this, don’t we, friends? We understand this, innately. The problems with the banking industry, climate change, energy, healthcare, foreign...

Like any good protest, last week’s complaints came in a variety of shapes and sizes and were expressed at varying levels of volume. At the center of it all, at the Tax Day protests, was the heart of not a political movement as had been advertised, but a political party. Organizers of the Tea Bag protests were quick to point out that the protests themselves were spontaneous, non-partisan demonstrations of taxpayer anger over what they called excessive taxation and reckless government spending. Like all shots taken quickly, they missed, although that was almost certainly intentional. The protesters were almost universally...

Why is it that in descriptions of the words and activities of Rush Limbaugh, it is not pointed out the obvious similarity of Limbaugh and Adolph Hitler. Rush knows exactly what he has started. Do you remember how overbearing, intimidating and feared Sen. Joseph McCarthy became before his crudities and chilling attacks on patriotic citizens was stopped? The rise of Hitler came about through use of the same strident, rancorous and dangerous appeal to a populace who had suffered military defeat and in times of embarrassment for their loss of economic power – how the Germans suffered because of inflation...

The unlicensed pipe fitter known as Joe the Plumber is out with a book this month, just as the last seconds on his 15 minutes are slipping away. I have a question for Joe: Do you want me to fix your leaky toilet? I didn’t think so. (snip) With a résumé full of failure, he now thinks he can join the profession of Mark Twain, George Orwell and Joan Didion. Next up may be Sarah Palin, who is said to be worth nearly $7 million if she can place her thoughts between covers. Publishers: with all the grim news of...

Al Franken couldn't resist spouting anti-war rhetoric during a scheduled USO tour at Camp Victory, Iraq.

Drudge put these photos next to each other. Way to go, Matt. MIDI - THE WAY WE WERE Memories before Brolin went insane He could just not take it any more Oh, such mental pain When it's bedtime and he's turning off the light He was next to something hideous I feel for his plight He could have really made a better choice Perhaps a putrid old rotting skull If only he had listened to my voice Yes, he could have...should have Memories...running naked down the street He was screaming as the neighbors watched The loss of his mind's complete...

Twin towers no loss to architecture, says critic Richard Brooks, Arts Editor ------------------------------------------- THE World Trade Center was an “ugly box” whose loss did no architectural damage to New York, one of the world’s most outspoken art critics has said. “It was a large, scaleless lump, which completely dominated that end of Manhattan,” said Robert Hughes, best known in Britain for The Shock of the New, his 1980s BBC television series and book. “It only became iconic when it was knocked over by a bunch of Arabs.” Hughes, an Australian who has lived in New York for many years, was...

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands that connected them with another, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. The history of the present King George of America is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts about the excesses of King George of America be submitted to a candid world: s He has refused his Assent...

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Michael Berg, whose son Nick was beheaded in Iraq in 2004, said on Thursday he felt no sense of relief at the killing of the al Qaeda leader in Iraq and blamed President Bush for his son's death. Asked what would give him satisfaction, Berg, an anti-war activist and candidate for U.S. Congress, said, "The end of the war and getting rid of George Bush." The United States said its aircraft killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the insurgent leader who masterminded the death of hundreds in suicide bombings and was blamed for the videotaped beheading of Nick Berg,...