Free Republic

Dear Never Trumpers: The Cruise Is Over How a generation of "conservative" intellectuals finally turned into Democrats A lot has happened since my well known essay "The Collapse of the Never Trumpers" appeared in 2018 — and none of it has been good for that tribe of pundits or their garden gnome leader, Bill Kristol. In fact, most of them have seen their careers collapse so spectacularly that only Michael Avenatti could really understand. George Will has semi-retired to a life of boring students to death as a commencement speaker at small colleges. Jonah Goldberg and Steven Hayes used to...

The past and current master of the GOP sees a future threat arising. [cut] “It was a mistake to ever embrace Donald Trump, and now we want to be the party of Adam Kinzinger.” [cut] Would DeSantis be audacious enough to run against Trump in 2024? The case against waiting is that it’s extremely unlikely that the governor can maintain his exalted status in the party until 2028. On the other hand, the case against running in 2024 is that it involves the enormous risk of encountering the business end of the Trump buzz saw, which could change DeSantis’s image...

I have no idea how 2024 will ultimately play out for Republicans, but I believe if anyone is going to eclipse or defeat Trump, it will be someone like DeSantis who has learned from Trump and could critique him from the right. I wrote about this for Politico today. Ron DeSantis Knows the Formula to Defeat Donald Trump

It was only a matter of time before Ron DeSantis’ rising star ran into the unmovable object of Donald Trump’s will to continue to dominate the GOP. A spate of recent news stories has focused on the proto-feud between the past president with future ambitions, and the protégé who rode his endorsement to victory in a Florida GOP gubernatorial primary and has big ambitions of his own. The scale of the clash shouldn’t be exaggerated — so far it mostly consists of muttering from Mar-a-Lago, and speculation that both men could end up throwing their hats in the 2024 ring....

[snip] It is past time for public-health policy to shift to acknowledging that Covid-19 is an endemic disease and, for the most part, a risk for individuals to manage. Fauci stands in the way of executing that shift and communicating it to the public. Fauci’s own behavior has undermined public trust in the response to the pandemic: by sitting for celebrity puff profiles and documentaries, by stifling public debate about the origins of Covid-19 and the proper response to it, by responding in lawyerly and evasive fashion to questions about NIH research dollars supporting work at the Wuhan lab. In...

The White House is writing off an ally to appease an enemy. The situation in Ukraine has become very grave. On December 17, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin sent U.S. president Joe Biden an ultimatum, effectively demanding that NATO abandon Eastern Europe or face military action. Biden agreed to a phone conversation with Putin to talk it over, giving the Kremlin what it sought: The affected countries were now on the table instead of at the table. When the two then talked on December 30, according to the White House, Biden rejected the ultimatum and informed Putin that if he proceeded...

Believers: Steve Bannon, David Horowitz, Peter Navarro, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Mark Levin, MTG, Matt Gaetz, Elise Stefanik Alex Jones Deniers: Pat Buchanan,Fox News, Breitbart, Joel Pollack, National Review, Wall Street Journal, NY Post, Michael Goodwin, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Chip Roy, Mitch McConnell, Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, Bill Barr, Ben Shapiro, Ann Coulter, Matt Drudge, Guy Benson, Jedediah Bila, Karl Rove, Rick Santorum, Chris Christie, Dan Quayle, Alyssa Farah I'm not sure about these people: Sean Hannity,Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson, Dick Morris, Newt Gingrich, Greg Kelly, Michael Savage

It is tough to find a modern presidency that has collapsed as swiftly as Joe Biden’s.

As cable television broadcast the scenes of Trump supporters breaking past police lines and even smashing their way into the Capitol on January 6, the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., texted Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff: “He’s got to condemn this sh** ASAP. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough.” A little later, Don Jr. texted again: “We need an Oval office address. He [then-president Trump] has to lead now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand.” It’s that last statement that reveals the whole truth of January 6 for Trump’s supporters. Donald Trump’s...

The Daily Beast and Business Insider tried to spin the nursing home death of Kristi Noem’s 98-year-old grandmother into a political hitjob, despite the fact that the death was not COVID-related and the nursing home enacted strict protocols for visitors. “Shameful,” was the reaction of Noem’s policy director Maggie Seidel to National Review. Daily Beast special correspondent Michael Daly — who has bashed Noem in five articles since August, but has yet to cover New York’s deadly COVID nursing home policy — tried to juxtapose the death of Aldys Arnold with Noem’s “downplaying of the pandemic and her continued refusal...

Biden is stumbling, out of touch and weak. Two of his major initiatives, at the border and in Afghanistan, created completely avoidable catastrophes. He has given no sense of being in control of events or even his own party. He is an accidental president who is running smack into his own inadequacies and absurd pretensions. No one in Washington over the last four decades ever said that Joe Biden was the just the man with the foresight, wisdom and deft political touch to lead the free world. No, he was an average senatorial bloviator whose three presidential campaigns flamed out...

As the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse has progressed, Americans who hope for a successful conviction have begun to focus their attentions on the true villain of the piece: the 75-year-old presiding judge, Bruce Schroeder. Among the many accusations that have been leveled at Schroeder this week are that he is “biased,” that he is “prejudiced,” that he is a secret “conservative,” “right-winger,” or “Trumpist,” that he is a “a gun nut,” that he is a “a racist” or wannabe member of the Klan, that he is the “worst judge in town,” and that he is attempting to parlay this trial...

Houthi rebels have stormed the American embassy in Yemen and taken hostages, the Washington Free Beacon reported Thursday. State Department officials told the Free Beacon that “the majority of the detained have been released, but the Houthis continue to detain additional Yemeni employees of the embassy.” Houthi fighters reportedly took the compound on Wednesday, demanding “large quantities of equipment and materials,” per the Middle East Media Research Institute. Yemen has been embroiled in a brutal civil war between the Houthi rebels — who are backed, financed, and armed by the Iranian government —and the standing Yemeni government, which has the...

there are reasons to believe Trump’s dominance is exaggerated and that it is slowly degrading, such that by the time the 2024 Republican primaries roll around, he’ll be challengeable and beatable if he runs. [cut] Trump’s media footprint is much reduced. Data from SocialFlow shows engagement with Trump stories plummeting in March of this year and it took another jag down in August and September. As for Trump’s polling numbers, Republicans might tell pollsters they want him to run again as a way to stick a finger in the eye of the media or as a general statement of warm...

Former President Trump is urging Republicans not to vote in upcoming elections unless the “fraud” of the 2020 elections is uncovered. “If we don’t solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020 (which we have thoroughly and conclusively documented), Republicans will not be voting in ’22 and ’24,” Trump said in a statement released Wednesday. “It is the single most important thing for Republicans to do.” Trump’s claims of a “rigged” election also depressed voter turnout during the Georgia Senate runoff elections on January 5. Georgians elected two Democratic senators as a result, giving the party 50 total Senate seats. Trump...

TUCKER CARLSON: Why did you leave National Review? VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Because there were certain issues that would pop up occasionally, and I could predict what the answer was going to be. The Covington kids. I just sensed that before we knew anything, people would come and condemn them. TUCKER CARLSON: People at NR condemned the Covington kids? VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: I think there were certain people in the Republican movement, or establishment, who felt it is their duty to internally police their own, and that's kind of a virtue signal to the left. We are just part of your...

n the Virginia gubernatorial debate on Tuesday evening, Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe insisted that parents (should have no role0, in directing the education of their children and doubled down in a subsequent media interview.McAuliffe, a former governor of Virginia and longtime Democratic operative, issued this pronouncement after being asked whether “protections for transgender students” should be determined at the state level or in each school district.[SNIP]“You believe school systems should tell children what to do,” Youngkin said to McAuliffe. “I believe parents should be in charge of their kids’ education.”In response, McAuliffe said, “I’m not going to let parents come...

An Australian reporter covering President Biden’s address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday was “startled” by how aggressively the press pool was treated by the White House communications team. The designated pooler, France24’s Washington correspondent Kethevane Gorjestani, reported that she “was asked by a very startled Australian reporter whether WH wranglers were always so strict about ushering the pool out without questions,” after a press conference held by Biden and Australian prime minister Scott Morrison. Biden and his press team have been criticized for a reclusive, question-averse approach. His first press conference as president did not come until...

There were rumors in the summer of 2018 that an audiotape was circulating that would send shockwaves through the think tanks of Washington and the conservative intellectual movement in particular. A top Google executive had been recorded telling his fellow employees that Google generously donated to conservative think tanks and magazines to dampen criticism of their anti-conservative bias. In essence, Google was buying off Conservatism Inc. and the GOP establishment to stay silent while Google monitored, harassed, and excluded Trump supporters. If true, the tape sounded like a smoking gun: incontrovertible evidence of the corruption and double-dealing of Conservatism Inc....

Jeb Bush RetweetedIf you ever wondered, "What would get Trump booed at a Trump rally?," you have your answer. https://t.co/E8u5dXi08m— Jay Nordlinger (@jaynordlinger) August 22, 2021VIDEO: Trump Booed at Alabama Rally for 'Get COVID-19 Vaccine' Remarkhttps://t.co/M0BT87be3e— Mike Walker (@New_Narrative) August 22, 2021