Free Republic

Choosing a new Secretary of Veterans Affairs:Well, Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Nicholson has bailed out for the dreaded 'Private Sector'. Did he jump, or was he pushed?I'd like to believe that he was forced to resign by the groundswell of criticism and complaint by veteran service organizations and veterans themselves. Instead, I suspect that he is deserting a sinking ship due to his consistently inept decisions and policies. His performance as Secretary has been so egregiously flawed that 'on his watch' the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) has become an even 'deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American...

Madison, Wisconsin—Since March 2007, Airman Keith Roberts has been imprisoned, serving the first few months of a four-year sentence for five counts of federal wire fraud. Keith Roberts filed for disability benefits in 1999 after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by private and public medical health professionals. Though not nearly as horrific as many, Roberts' Vietnam-era service (1968-74) affected him badly, and includes an incident in which he was assaulted by the Navy Shore Patrol in 1969, and he witnessed a fellow airman killed in a gruesome aircraft accident, also in 1969, at Naples, Italy where he was...

2008: Republicans: Giuliani "The question is this: Can the thrice-married New Yorker — a supporter of abortion rights, gay rights and gun control — win the nomination of a Republican Party that has become increasingly dependent on and influenced by conservative Christians?," poses Susan Page of USA Today in her front page look at the conundrum Giuliani faces in his battle for the White House. Note that Family Research Council's Tony Perkins finds Giuliani "unacceptable," and plans to take him out if he shows strength. Note also Page marshalling data suggesting that Giuliani's liberal views are not well known within...

Where is the outrage that was manufactured to run Rush Limbaugh off the air? Is it absent because Gumbel is allegedly black? So just picture for a moment, if you will, that you're watching SportsCenter tonight and Dan Patrick says, "The lack of whites in the NBA makes it look like a welfare office." Think that would get buried like Gumbel's comments? For what it's worth, maybe Gumbel should do some research on the emerging face of the GOP.

Some cast aside traditional loyalties... Adam Hunter, an ambitious law student with bright eyes, an easy smile, and plenty of charisma, seems practically destined for politics... a first-year law student at Howard University, a historically black campus with a long record of liberal activism. He has political ambitions of his own -- but not with the Democrats. Instead, Hunter, who as an undergraduate headed Howard's chapter of College Republicans, sees himself as part of a younger generation of African-Americans. He is ready to cast aside traditional loyalties to the Democratic Party and forge his own political identity. ''There's a lot...

The legacy of the first Republican president. TO REASSESS ABRAHAM LINCOLN on his 195th birthday is to learn a lost truth: During much of his political career, Lincoln focused not on the moral issue of slavery but on economic policy. Yet slavery and economic policy were tightly linked in his worldview. As Lincoln explained, slavery is grounded in coercion. In commercial terms, involuntary labor is theft. "The ant," he wrote, "who has toiled and dragged a crumb to his nest, will furiously defend the fruit of his labor, against whatever robber assails him. . . . The most dumb and...