Free Republic

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will formally unveil a statue of former President Reagan in Berlin, 30 years after the Berlin Wall fell in the city. During his visit in Germany, Pompeo will reveal the statue of Reagan at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, according to a Facebook post from the U.S. Mission to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The statue will overlook the location where the president gave his speech calling for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the wall. Pompeo will inaugurate the statue on Friday, the day before the 30th anniversary of the momentous...

My brother Kirk Randolph Elder died suddenly and unexpectedly 16 days before his 70th birthday. He and Tresta, his wife of 41 years, had planned a trip to Hawaii, where they were going to celebrate Kirk’s birthday. Kirk was a retired supervisor at an oil refinery, and we were extremely close. He started coming on my radio show about four years ago, reluctantly at first. We’d discuss politics, culture and sports. A registered Democrat, he and I often disagreed. Yet, week after week, I received letters from listeners who called him their “favorite Democrat.” Kirk always showed respect for Republicans...

WASHINGTON -- David Koch, one of the two celebrated Koch brothers known to millions of Americans who follow the news, passed away last Friday. He was 79. Now there is only one Koch brother to appear in the news. Yet the name Koch will be around for years. One sees the name frequently when business is being discussed, in discussions of the arts, in discussions of politics, particularly libertarian politics. Does anyone stop to wonder why the name Koch appears so frequently in the news? Well, I have had some experience with the Kochs, and I have an insight into...

Most people plod through life, having an impact on their family and friends, but not much on the rest of humanity. Rulers and despots can impact most everyone’s life, as can those who are responsible for great scientific or engineering breakthroughs. Some musicians and athletes bring pleasure to millions. In other fields, such as economics, it is hard to identify individuals who created much in the way of pleasure or pain, or even directly useful knowledge for his or her fellow man. President Trump awarded the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to economist Arthur B. Laffer, the...

In 2013, I commissioned and published an apology to a writer who I felt had been mistreated in the pages of COMMENTARY—and by my father, no less! “How This Magazine Wronged Herman Wouk” was the name of the article by Michael J. Lewis, and the occasion for it was the fact that the then-97-year-old Wouk had just published a new novel called The Lawgiver—a comic epistolary novel, no less, concerning the making of a movie about the life of Moses in which Wouk himself appears as a character. As Lewis wrote, “Wouk adapts the form to the modern world of...

Yes, thanks and honor to the man who demonstrated manly and courteous sacrifice in this sad incident. His courage inspired others to step forward as well and lives were spared. Hail, Mr. Castillo!

Dream comes true for the man who honoured his heroes: Pensioner weeps as thousands join him to watch fly-past to honour WWII airmen whose memorial he tended for decades - and BBC presenter Dan Walker who helped organise event even cries too. Thousands of people at Endcliffe Park in Sheffield to watch planes pay tribute to B-17 Flying Fortress crew Tony Foulds was eight in February 1944 when he witnessed the Mi Amigo crash and explode in the park. Pilot apparently tried to avoid him and his friends - and memorial has now been organised 75 years on. He has...

Michel Legrand died a fortnight ago, of sepsis after contracting a pulmonary infection. He was 86, which is a grand age, but he was very active and had a full concert schedule booked for the spring. So one resents somewhat, as I mentioned re Albert Finney yesterday, the randomness of fatal affliction in otherwise healthy old men. Sometimes with the advancing years a writer starts to sound written out - as if everything he has to say has already been said. Legrand didn't sound like that to me. My pal Jessica Martin was in his last show, Marguerite, in the...

Bre Payton, a writer for The Federalist, was a longtime collaborator with and friend of The Daily Signal. Bre, who died Friday, was in and out of the Daily Signal offices on a near-weekly basis, as the co-host of “Problematic Women” podcast, which she worked on with our Kelsey Harkness, Lauren Evans, and more recently, Ginny Montalbano. I knew it was “Problematic Women” day because I’d often see Kelsey, Bre, and Lauren huddled up in Kelsey’s office, discussing what stories to cover. They had fun, too; when they came out of the podcast studio, they’d often be all smiles. They...

A 50 second video of rolling California LEO memorial procession.

Last month, a Jewish organisation in Argentina launched a petition urging people across the region to boycott Roger Waters concerts and calling the former Pink Floyd leader "one of the great anti-Semites of our time". Three gigs by UK Pink Floyd Experience, a tribute band dedicated to covering the music of the British rockers, have been cancelled after former lead singer of Pink Floyd Roger Waters urged the musicians not to perform in Israel "in the name of everything human". In a message published on his Facebook page, Waters said, in particular, that he is "aghast to see" that UK...

George H.W. Bush "gave the nation its most successful one-term presidency." He "was the best one-term president the country has ever had, and one of the most underrated presidents of all time." So said two not impartial sources -- the late president's vice president, Dan Quayle, and his Houston friend and secretary of state, who was with him at the end, James Baker. But their assessments are entirely defensible. The toughest one-term competitor was President James K. Polk, who achieved all four of his goals -- gaining the Oregon Territory and the Pacific Coast, establishing an independent treasury and lowering...

There are a few movie scenes guaranteed to put a lump in my throat every time. Near the top of the list is the end of "Saving Private Ryan," Steven Spielberg's World War II masterpiece. Earlier, in a climactic battle scene, a dying Capt. Miller (Tom Hanks) tells Pvt. Ryan (Matt Damon) to "earn this, earn it." Translation: Live a life worthy of the sacrifice so many made for you. In the final scene, decades later, an elderly Ryan visits Miller's grave in Normandy, France, and tells the headstone that he's remembered Miller's plea every day since. "I hope that...

Alan Simpson will speak today at George H. Bush’s tribute. His speech will be likely heart felt and perhaps sometimes light-hearted. Here are some of his funnier lines from the past._____________ “I watch Republicans, they give each other the saliva test of purity, and then they lose and they bitch for four years.” — — On the need for a socially tolerant, big tent Republican Party, in a Feb. 2012 interview with CBS’s Bob Schieffer. “[Social Security is] a milk cow with 310 million tits.” — in an August 2010 email, which he later apologized for. “If this had happened...

I first met the man who would become America's 41st president in 1968. He was a Houston congressman and I was a young reporter for a local TV and radio station. My first impression was how kind he was to this "kid," who had just moved to Texas from the Washington, D.C., area and was just starting to learn the "language," like "fixing to go" and "y'all." Everyone who worked for George H.W. Bush, or knew him, has a story to tell. I have several. Mr. Bush was a letter writer like none other. I think I have an almost...

Never forget

Carter also said an additional statement Trump issued under fire is “still not as enthusiastic as it should be.” Jimmy Carter remains unimpressed with President Donald Trump’s belated effort to take note of and honor the late Sen. John McCain’s service to the U.S. In fact, the 93-year-old former president characterized it as “at best adequate.” Carter spoke with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday about Trump’s responses after McCain ― who endured torture as a POW during the Vietnam war, served more than 45 years in Congress and was the 2008 GOP presidential nominee ― died at his home in...

Since the news broke of Sen. John McCain’s passing on Saturday night, tributes to the man, and his full life of public service, have been rolling in from all corners of the political spectrum. In testament to the respect he commanded even from his political opponents, two former rivals in presidential contests—Barack Obama and George W. Bush—will be among those to eulogize the senator at a service in his honor.While those who knew him better and shared the heavy burdens of leadership with him will speak for the country, I feel compelled to add this small token of gratitude for...

America loses its greatest scholar of Russia and communism. The most respected academic authority on the Russian Revolution, 20thcentury communism, and the Cold War has died. He was Richard Pipes, longtime professor of Russian history at Harvard, and a remarkable man. Where to start with an adequate tribute to Professor Pipes? I’ll start with some biographical observations and then finish with personal reflections. Richard Pipes was born in Poland on July 11, 1923. As a 16-year-old Jew at the time of Hitler’s invasion, Pipes mercifully escaped, thanks to a clever and shrewd father. He credited not only his father but...

At long last, have they left no sense of decency? White House official Kelly Sadler, during a meeting Thursday, had this to say about Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for opposing President Trump’s CIA nominee over her failure to condemn torture: “It doesn’t matter, he’s dying anyway.”